Carol Marinelli – A Spanish Passion: A Spanish Marriage / A Spanish Engagement / Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse (страница 3)

Bristling at the criticism, Zoe swept out of the room, across the black and white paved hall, banging the front door behind her.

When she’d walked out of school she’d vowed never to wear the despised uniform again, or the dreary skirts and cardigans Grandmother Alice ordered from a fuddy-duddy mail-order catalogue whose only customers, Zoe was sure, were housebound ninety-year-olds.

The monthly allowance paid by the trustees was fairly generous and she’d had little opportunity to spend it. It had mounted up. So, her defiance of stultifying authority had reached new heights one day last week when she’d taken the bus to town and spent the lot. Forbidden make-up, hair dye, lots and lots of cheap and cheerful clothes.

Trying on stuff in the communal changing room of the town’s trendiest store, she’d felt part of the young happy-go-lucky scene for the first time in her life. Really cool. It had been a great feeling.

Grandmother Alice belonged firmly in the Victorian era, she told herself as she settled herself on the front step to wait.

Javier was later than he’d expected. Apart from a couple of urgent business calls he’d found that making arrangements for the care of a teenage girl was more daunting than he’d expected it to be.

The picture-perfect Queen Anne house stood back from the village street. He indicated and turned the Jaguar into the drive and stamped on the brakes as a blur of violent colour exploded from the front step.

Zoe?

His startled gaze took in the wild transformation. Gone were the heavy grey tweed skirts and shapeless twinsets, replaced by black leather boots with six-inch heels, a frilled scarlet miniskirt with a weird asymmetric hem, a lacy gypsy top in vivid orange—and what in heaven’s name had she done to her hair?

It was bright red, looking as if it had been hacked off by a drunk wielding a pair of garden shears, gelled into tortuous spikes!

His movements slow, he unclasped his seat belt and turned off the ignition. Seeing the way she’d chosen to dress, Alice would have thrown a fit, and he didn’t blame her. Had this, coupled with her rebellious granddaughter walking out of school, been the straw that broke the unwilling camel’s back?

She was hopping from one booted foot to the other, her skinny arms clasped around her naked midriff. She had to be freezing. Venting a heavy sigh at what he appeared to be taking on, he swung out of the car and straightened his butter-soft charcoal leather jacket. He had accepted the responsibility of guiding Zoe Rothwell through the next two years and he never went back on his word.

As he approached over the immaculate length of the brick-paved drive a huge grin split Zoe’s inexpertly cosmetically enhanced features. She’s just a kid, a needy kid, he told himself, the warmth of his answering smile instinctive. All teenagers experimented, trying to find out who they were, and he had to be thankful she’d chosen wacky clothes and a violent hairstyle rather than drugs or alcohol! Knowing Alice, he guessed she would have subjected Zoe to tirades of horror and the sort of cold ridicule that would have shattered the girl’s confidence. Best keep his mouth shut right now and introduce the subject gently at a later date.

But his good intentions crumpled when he got close enough to see the butterfly tattoo on her left cheekbone. His black brows drawn into a frown, he touched the offending insect with the tip of a long finger.

‘Did you have to permanently disfigure yourself?’

She had, he noted abstractedly, an exquisitely pretty face beneath that heavy make-up, and her huge golden eyes danced with amusement. Suddenly, Javier’s lungs felt strangely constricted. He stepped back a pace.

‘It’s a transfer, silly! Don’t you know anything?’ she came back pertly as soon as she’d found her breath. Heat throbbed the spot he’d touched and spread through her entire body. Her skin might be covered with goose-bumps but she was glowing inside. Life with this gorgeous man was going to be just wonderful! He hadn’t made scathing comments about her cool new clothes or thrown a fit when her wild hairstyle had hit him in the eye. With him, away from the rigid discipline doled out by her grandmother and her teachers, she would be able to be herself and do exactly as she pleased for once. She’d always known Javier was the greatest, even when she was a small kid, he’d come through for her, and now he’d rescued her. She had never loved him more!

Half an hour into the journey to Gloucestershire Javier’s mouth was getting grimmer. Zoe’s parting from her grandmother had wrenched at his heart. The elderly lady couldn’t have made it plainer that she was glad to wash her hands of the poor kid. But the perfume she’d obviously drenched herself in was really getting to him. He’d open all the car windows to get rid of the overpowering smell but she’d freeze to death. She’d dropped the school gaberdine the ancient housekeeper had handed her and flounced out to the car, her silly skirt swinging, showing an inordinate amount of smooth thigh, tottering on those wicked spiky heels.

And he’d stopped listening to her prattles of gratitude. From what he could gather she believed she was in for the time of her life. And he’d stopped glancing at her. That lace top thing she was wearing ought to be X-rated. And she wasn’t wearing a damn thing underneath. A mixture of anger and concern impacted on his hard features. He could understand why Zoe had so wholeheartedly rebelled against the dreary school uniform and dowdy garments her grandmother had insisted she wear. But she’d gone too far the other way. She might think she looked cool and cutting edge, but in everyone else’s eyes she looked tarty.

Time to spell out a few ground rules, show her he had the upper hand and meant business.

‘There are a couple of things you ought to know before you get too hooked on the idea that your time with me is going to be a bed of roses. Firstly, I contacted your trustees to put them in the picture about the change of guardianship, only to hear that you’ve been pestering them to release large sums of money. It’s not going to happen, Zoe, so it has to stop. You need anything, you tell me, and if it’s reasonable I’ll approach the trustees. Understood?’

Reddening at the memory of the response to her request, Zoe shot Javier a fulminating sideways look. ‘I don’t want a single thing—that was the point. I made a sensible request and got treated like a silly child!’ she bristled.

Javier’s hands relaxed slightly on the steering wheel. She sounded about ten years old! ‘So run the sensible request by me,’ he invited lightly.

Zoe’s painted mouth twisted with suspicion. Was her darling Javier patronising her? Was she about to get more outright derisive rejection of her ideas? Probably. But knowing that Javier was the one person in the world who could criticise her without getting his head bitten off had her pronouncing with prickly defensiveness, ‘There’s a load of money in my name doing nothing. And there are loads of people sleeping in doorways or cardboard boxes, people with no one to care about them. The only difference between them and me is I’ve got a bed to sleep in and obscene amounts of money. I wanted to spread it around to do some good.’ She shot him a ‘so there!’ look and scrunched herself back against the leather seat, waiting for a lecture entitled Immature Profligacy.

‘There’s a third difference between you and the homeless, Zoe,’ Javier said, sympathy for the poor scrap softening his voice. ‘You do have people who care about you. Your grandmother for starters. She may not be much good at showing it, but if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have tried so hard to mould you to her idea of what a young lady should be. She’s simply a throwback to the beginning of the last century.’

Ignoring her snort of disbelief, he swung into the appropriate lane for the exit to Cirencester and said firmly, ‘And I care. If I didn’t I’d have told Alice to take a running jump when she suggested handing you over to me. And getting back to your commendable concern for the homeless, there are better ways of helping than throwing handfuls of cash at every street beggar. If you’re still of the same mind when you come into your inheritance we’ll discuss it further. Agreed?’

Zoe simply nodded. She couldn’t speak without giving herself away. Tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. Javier had said he cared about her. He was the only person in the world who could touch her so deeply she wanted to cry!

But her bout of sentimentality took a nosedive when he announced, ‘And because I care about your future I insist you finish your education.’

Waiting at traffic lights he glanced across at her. Mutiny writ large on her expressive features, she said on a note of triumph, ‘I ran away. They won’t take me back!’

‘You’re enrolled in a sixth-form college in Gloucester. Joe Ramsay will drive you in and collect you daily. You may remember Mrs Ramsay, my housekeeper? Joe’s her husband and looks after the grounds. Mrs Ramsay will look after you when I’m not at the lodge.’