Housekeeper at His Command: The Spaniard's Virgin Housekeeper / His Pregnant Housekeeper / The Maid and the Millionaire. Caroline Anderson
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to no good.
An impression she must have confirmed with her demand for billions of pounds! Letting him think that a mere pay-off wouldn’t satisfy her—that she was intent on getting her hands on his uncle’s fortune!
Apart from being fond of his elderly relative, and not wanting to see him falling into the clutches of a woman he saw as a mercenary gold-digger, he wouldn’t want to lose his inheritance.
Enough motive to explain his chilling threat that he’d make her regret the day she’d been born if she didn’t remove herself from his uncle’s vicinity. It came back to haunt her. He’d meant it! She was going to have to confront him with the facts—make him understand that she had believed all along that his eccentric uncle had nothing more substantial to live on than some measly pension or other. It was imperative she make him believe that in agreeing to work for the old gentleman she hadn’t had designs on a fortune she hadn’t even known existed.
‘We are arriving.’
The volume at which Miguel’s statement was delivered alerted her to the possibility that it wasn’t the first time he’d given that snippet of information. Izzy blinked and refocused her eyes. A high stone wall snaked down the mountainside, and they were entering a curving driveway that wound its way to a magnificent fortified palace—a statement of power and wealth if ever she saw one. Her stomach wriggled with a flock of hyperactive butterflies.
How was she going to convince the cynical owner of this lot that she was innocent of all accusations? Convince him so thoroughly that he’d rethink whatever devious plans he’d made in order to carry out his earlier threat when she’d already dug her grave with her too-ready tongue?
CHAPTER FIVE
AS THE stately car passed through a massive stone arch and drew to a well-bred halt in the inner courtyard, Cayo got to his feet and left the arbour-shaded carved stone bench, emerging into dazzling sunlight.
Phase one completed. The grim line of his mouth softened. His beloved mule-headed uncle was finally safely back where he belonged, to be surrounded by the comfort and luxury that was his birthright. His conscience could rest easily in that respect.
Phase two was yet to be started. The successful removal of one money-grabbing blonde. His thickly fringed dark eyes sharpened with steely intent, boding ill for anyone with the temerity to cross him.
Advancing, he forced a welcoming smile and watched his chauffeur step round to open a rear door. He handed the little gold-digger out before moving round to perform the same courtesy for his uncle.
Waiting in cynical expectation for her to trip eagerly to Miguel’s side, tuck her arm solicitously through his and simper up at him from her diminutive height, Cayo narrowed his eyes as instead of acting out the part he’d mentally assigned her she made a beeline across the courtyard to where he was standing.
Her silvery blond hair was, as usual, artfully tousled in a naturally sexy style that many women would gladly pay top dollar to achieve. She was dressed in a faded top that lovingly cleaved to her bountiful breasts, and cotton trousers that tantalisingly moulded her thighs and ended just below her knees. As his body reacted in a despised surge of lust, he wondered, at a tangent, how such bog-standard clothes could make her look so provocatively sensual, when the groomed and expertly painted women who circled like hopeful sharks on the periphery of his life could spend thousands on designer exclusives and leave his libido stone-cold.
He shouldn’t knock his primitive response to what Augustin del Amo had lip-lickingly described as ‘a lush little package’, he supposed acidly, given the task ahead of him.
She had refused to accept a financial inducement to leave his uncle alone, therefore it was up to him to seduce her away from any thought of getting her claws into the older man. A task that sat ill with his ingrained sense of chivalry and honour, honed by centuries of ancestral Spanish pride.
He kept his smile in place with difficulty, hiding the grim, distasteful thoughts that occupied his mind as she pattered up to him. Her delicate cheekbones flushed a soft rose colour as she came to a halt and planted her hands on her curvaceous hips, and her neat chin tilted upwards as she demanded breathily, ‘I need to talk to you. Now. In private.’
The smile vanished. His black eyes were cool and distant. She was in no position to make demands of him. ‘If you will excuse me, it is my custom to see my guests settled.’
Ignoring her agitated, ‘Oh—but listen—’ he strode past her, and Izzy swung round to watch him greet his uncle, one arm around the older, shorter man’s shoulders. For some reason she wished he could have greeted her that way, with obvious affection and warmth, and then she wished she hadn’t wished that at all—because it showed her up as being really stupid.
And maybe she shouldn’t have demanded they talk just like that, she decided, feeling flattened. He was obviously adding a total lack of manners to his tally of her sins, branding her as not fit for polite company. But she’d been so anxious to put him straight about her ignorance of Miguel’s true financial situation that she had been able to think of nothing else since the shattering revelation that, far from living a hand-to-mouth existence out of financial necessity, Miguel had no idea, and no interest in, how much he was worth.
Just like her to open her big mouth and put her foot in it!
Embarrassment painted her heart-shaped face with a hot flood of fiery colour as the two men joined her. Miguel flung an arm wide, encompassing the courtyard, the magnificent central fountain, the tubs of exotic flowering shrubs and the white doves fluttering from the shady stone arcades that led through to the no-doubt sumptuous living quarters, and asked, ‘You approve, Izzy?’
‘I’m sure your companion is most suitably impressed,’ Cayo said drily, before she could respond, and immediately cursed himself for the sarcastic tone. He was going to have to try harder—to act in a duplicitous manner completely foreign to his straightforward nature if he was to have a hope in hell of persuading her that of the two vast fortunes she could see dangling in front of her greedy eyes his was the one to aim for.
‘Ramona—my housekeeper—will show you to the rooms that have been readied for you, Tio,’ Cayo imparted. Izzy trailed after them as they entered a vast marble-paved hall. ‘They are on the ground floor, close to the library. You will have no need to use stairs or find your way about the warren of passages—unless you wish to reacquaint yourself with your childhood home.’ His austere features softened in a smile that made him seem human and just impossibly handsome, Izzy thought, deploring the toe-curling effect it had on her as he went on, ‘And don’t worry. Your books and papers have not been unpacked. No one will touch or muddle them,’ he assured the older man gently. ‘You may arrange them in the library at your leisure.’
He really cared about his uncle, Izzy granted as introductions were made to the housekeeper and a handful of wide-eyed maids. Cayo gave instructions in rapid Spanish which sent the super-efficient-looking housekeeper leading Miguel to an arched doorway at the far side of the great hall and the maids scurrying to do his bidding. He spoke and things happened.
He firmly believed that she was up to no good—had attached herself to his uncle for mercenary reasons—and he cared enough for the old gentleman to make sure she took herself off with her tail between her legs. Now that she knew that her impoverished and neglected old gentleman was nothing of the sort, she could understand where he was coming from. Especially since he’d heard the del Amos’ lies.
She shivered, and nearly leapt out of her skin when he touched the bare flesh of her arm, making her feel as if she’d been prodded by an electrically charged pin. It fuzzed up her brain to such an extent that she couldn’t take in what he was saying until the pressure of those lean bronzed fingers around her arm increased and he repeated, ‘I will show you to your suite of rooms and see you settled.’
‘What? Oh, right—’ She attempted to claim back her arm, but the pressure of his fingers simply increased as he led her to an enormous stone staircase. Mounting it, she felt like a prisoner being led to