Caroline Anderson – Housekeeper at His Command: The Spaniard's Virgin Housekeeper / His Pregnant Housekeeper / The Maid and the Millionaire (страница 15)

Madre de Dios! All he’d wanted to do, burned to do, was to sweep her into his arms and strip away the silky robe, revealing himself to be as excited as a kid tearing the wrappings from a wickedly tempting package on Christmas morning!

Recognising danger came instinctively to him. He’d made some brusque remark and left her. Likewise, earlier, when he’d escorted her back to her suite, he’d been drawn into the sudden sultry mystery of her eyes and felt himself to be drowning, wanting to explore the mystery, draw her to him, taste her, know her.

Thankfully he’d had the strength of mind to distance himself smartly from temptation, because on the one hand he didn’t make love to greedy tramps and on the other he didn’t seduce an innocent—especially an innocent he’d already wronged.

Either way, Izzy Makepeace was strictly out of bounds! And this morning they had things to discuss. She knew that. He’d made it plain. He vented an expletive beneath his breath. When he made arrangements he expected them to be adhered to—to the letter!

That had to be why this almost frantic sense of frustration was claiming him after a search of the entire suite revealed nothing. Apart from the empty dog bed, and the neatly stacked Fornier boxes that had the air of rejection about them, Izzy might never have been anywhere near these rooms.

He ran lean fingers through his midnight hair, his scowl deepening as he reached for the phone and dialed down to the manager—to learn that the Señorita had been seen walking the small dog in the grounds of the hotel. Early. About an hour ago, or maybe longer.

An hour!

The hotel grounds were beautifully tended, tranquil, but nowhere near extensive enough to hold her interest for an hour or possibly more. Had she grown bored and set off into the city with that ridiculous puppy? Totally forgetting that he would be expecting her to be in her suite, waiting for him to join her?

Just another aspect of her thoughtless behaviour.

His features set in grim lines. On the whole, Madrid was a relatively safe place, but there were areas of the city where it was definitely unsafe for a lone female to venture. And this lone, sexy female wouldn’t have a clue as to where she was going. She barely spoke half a dozen words of the language, and those in an accent so excruciating as to be unintelligible.

His heart was pumping fit to burst out of his chest as he brushed past a startled waiter and bounded through the wide French windows onto the terrace a scant four minutes later.

Nothing. A couple of early risers drinking coffee at one of the terrace tables. The sweep of emerald-green lawn beyond, empty of any strolling, lush little lady with a ragged, stumpy-legged dog on a lead.

Unless …

His long, loose-limbed stride took him over the immaculate grass in double-quick time, past a stand of oleanders towards the walled perimeter, where a deep belt of parasol pines cast welcome shade and filtered out the noise of traffic.

If she wasn’t down here he would have to scour the city streets, and when he found her he would take a great deal of pleasure in wringing her little neck for doling out such unacceptable measures of anxiety!

After the glare of the sunlight the shade was dark as Hades, and he allowed his eyes a few moments to adjust before he strode deeper, calling her name with growing irritation. He swallowed a full-throated, anger-filled roar as a small, sparsely-haired missile hurled itself at him, stubby legs working overtime, lead trailing, and fixed him with bright beady eyes, the tail wagging the body.

Gritting his teeth, Cayo bent to grab the lead. Where the mutt was, its owner wouldn’t be far away. Doing what? Wasting his time!

‘Find!’ he commanded, without much hope. Without any, actually. In his estimation the animal’s intelligence would be on a par with its looks. Zilch!

Hanging on to the lead for grim life as the little dog shot off like a greyhound out of a trap, Cayo wondered if once again he’d been mistaken. Did the animal have enough intelligence to be heading for his mistress, or was it careening off in any direction just for the heck of it? And then he saw her.

Sitting on the bone-dry earth, one leg tucked beneath her, rubbing the ankle of the other. Her washed-out denim skirt was rucked up to thigh level. She had lovely legs, firm rounded thighs—the sort of thighs a man could dream of moving between.

Anger at his entirely inappropriate line of thought made his voice sharp as he lashed out. ‘What do you think you’re doing? We had things to discuss this morning. Did you forget? Or were you born lacking in common courtesy? And what’s wrong with your ankle?’ he added after a beat of breath. Eyes narrowing, he moderated his tone—because he recognised that his harsh verbal onslaught stood in the stead of the more physical and metaphorical promised pleasure of wringing her dainty little neck!

He’d been worried about her—anxious on her behalf. The thought that she might have taken herself out of the hotel grounds and got herself lost in a city that could present danger to a solitary and unwary female had she wandered into one of the more unsavoury areas had made him taste fear for the first time in his life.

Over the top, he recognised with shaming hindsight. Totally. He didn’t feel that protective of her!

Did he?

Madre de Dios, he was losing his marbles! Ever since she’d been around he’d been losing his fabled cool! And now she was just sitting there, cuddling the ugly pup who was frantically licking her face, ignoring him!

Planting his feet apart, he bit out in his best boardroom-silencing tones, ‘I asked you a question. What is wrong with your ankle?’

Emerging from the excess of doggy devotion that had gone some way to compensate for His Lordship’s yelling at her, Izzy tossed back her head, setting the wild silky exuberance of her long hair flying, and answered as coolly as her crossness at being unfairly bawled out would permit.

‘Nothing much. I tripped, and twisted it a bit. But it’s much better now. Thank you for asking,’ she added with an injection of sharp sarcasm, setting Benji back on the ground and hoping she could get to her feet without any real lack of dignity. She paused to lob at him, ‘I thought it was more than early enough to get a walk in before you surfaced. I didn’t twist my ankle on purpose, and I didn’t ask you to inconvenience yourself and come to look for me. So don’t snap and snarl at me! I can’t think what we have to discuss anyway, although I hadn’t forgotten. But might I suggest you make a proper appointment in future? You know—state a time and place, for example!’

She glared up into his lean, darkly handsome face and immediately wished she hadn’t. He did things to her that should be prohibited by law. And he was trying not to smile. That made it worse—made hot tears of anger well into her eyes. She was telling him off, being serious, and he thought she was funny!

Desperate to hide her reaction—the pulse-racing physical desire that flooded her whenever she was around him, or even thought about him, come to that—she scrabbled awkwardly to her feet, biting her lip and clumsily hopping on one foot. Because her wretched ankle did still hurt. She hoped he didn’t see the way her colour came and went. She couldn’t control the way heat exploded deep in her pelvis and made her feel weak and fluttery all over. It was a source of shame to her and she’d just die if he guessed what he did to her.

‘Here—’ Strong hands reached out to steady her, spanning her small waist. Her head was lowered, the silvery blond curls all over the place. He had the finger-itching impulse to run his hands through the shimmering strands, to lift swathes of it to his face and breathe in the faint flowery perfume of it. Instead he asked with commendable, drawling cool, ‘Can you put all your weight on that foot?’

Beast! Izzy’s head shot up, angry tears once more flooding her eyes. Did he have to state the obvious? That she was overweight! She’d never be a size zero, but did he have to rub her nose in it?

‘It really hurts?’ Cayo supplied softly. The sight of her tears was making his heart clench, and he surprised himself with a genuine wish that he could take whatever pain she was feeling away from her and bear it himself.

Suddenly his heart felt like marshmallow. Just because there were genuine tears sparkling in her beautiful eyes? Could a man of his age go senile?

‘Don’t cry.’ Where had that husky note come from? A frown darkened his brow. Stamping hard on the pressing urge to drop his head, close her eyelids with his lips, kiss the tears away, then trail a route down to her lush pink mouth, feel her lips parting for him, inviting him, to touch her with his hands, all of her, he gritted his teeth. He ignored the insistent ache in his groin and lifted her into his arms, striding back through the trees, the little dog trotting in his wake.

Izzy gasped as her whole body melted into his strong arms, her breathing shallow and erratic. The huffy disclaimer that her angry tears had nothing to do with the discomfort in her ankle and everything to do with his obliquely pointing out that she was a stranger to any regime of dieting and strenuous work-outs had disappeared at the speed of light.