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CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS A total nightmare. In the past five days, she had lied more—by omission, which amounted to the same thing—than she had done in her entire life!

It was that first lie that had kicked it off and started the snowball effect, but the snowball was now the size of an apartment block.

It had seemed so innocent and she had been so desperate to help when poor Chloe, her dead sister’s best friend—Chloe who always put on a brave face—had broken down in tears after inviting Zoe to a coffee morning.

‘Who am I kidding? A coffee morning!’ She shook her head in teary disgust. ‘Do you know how much Hannah’s operation costs?’

Zoe shook her head, guessing that such ground-breaking medical care in the States did not come cheap.

‘And that’s without the cost of travel to America. And time’s running out, Zoe, while I’m organising coffee mornings and treasure. Baking isn’t going to get Hannah to that hospital—it’ll take a miracle!’ she sobbed. ‘In three months’ time the disease might have progressed too far and the treatment might not work…They might not even agree to try and she’ll be stuck in a wheelchair for life!’

Her heart bleeding for the other woman, Zoe hugged her, feeling utterly helpless.

‘This isn’t you, Chloe. You’re a fighter. You’re tired, that’s all.’ And small wonder. God knew when she had had a break; she commuted almost daily for Hannah’s hospital appointments. ‘Everyone’s behind you, so involve us! We all want to help.’

She shook her head, wishing she had more than platitudes to offer the other woman. Then it came—the inspired idea—and she didn’t pause to think it through, just blurted it out.

‘Have your coffee morning at the hall. You know what people are like—they’ll come just to have a nosy. We could put up some trestle tables in the garden and I’m sure Mrs Whittaker would bake some of her scones.’ She knew that the entire community were gagging to see the changes made by the enigmatic new owner of the hall almost as much as they were gagging to see the man himself!

‘Really?’ Chloe had taken the tissue Zoe offered and dried her eyes. ‘Won’t Mr Montero mind? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble. I know when we asked if we could use the cricket pavilion for the charity match we got the thumbs down, though he did provide a nice shiny new cup for the winners,’ she conceded with a sniff.

Wasn’t hindsight grand? Of course it was easy now to recognise that this had been the moment to admit she’d have to run it past him, but she hadn’t and neither had she run it past him afterwards because she knew what the reply would be. Chloe had been right: her new employer did not want to continue any old traditions or start any new ones of his own. He wanted, as Tom had explained, to keep the village the other side of the ten-foot wall.

‘Not that he’s not a great guy,’ the loyal assistant had assured Zoe when he saw her expression. ‘He’s just private and he doesn’t like getting personally involved. He’s very generous, does heaps of stuff you don’t hear about, but any charitable donations he makes are through the Montero Trust.’

The Montero Trust was apparently involved itself in such diverse projects as adult literacy programmes and providing clean water to remote Third World villages. It seemed worthy, but a solution loaded with red tape, and Chloe needed help now; she didn’t have time to be at the bottom of a pile of worthy causes.

‘Let me worry about that.’

And she’d been worrying ever since, but her reward had been Chloe’s smile. She thought about that smile every time she got a fresh attack of guilt, which was often.

What had Tom said at her interview? ‘He’ll expect you to work without supervision, show initiative.’ She suspected that today might be classed as too much initiative, but it wasn’t as if the man would ever know. And his standing in the local community had been massively raised without any effort on his part. It was a win/win…or lose/lose for her if he found out!

No matter how hard she tried to rationalise what she’d done, Zoe knew that she had overstepped her authority big time and, as she was still working her trial period, if her actions were discovered the ‘inspiration’ could well lose her her job!

Her job…which meant her home and a roof over the twins’ heads.

Small wonder she’d not had a decent night’s sleep for the past week. And that was even before it had all got horribly out of hand. For some reason, once she had started saying yes she couldn’t stop! Everyone had been so enthusiastic and generous, contributing their time and talents, that it had seemed churlish to be the one dissenting voice. The tipping point was probably the bouncy castle. After that Zoe had stopped even trying!

The only thing she could do today was stay on top of things and make damned sure that the grounds were returned to pristine condition once the day was over. She had an army of volunteers lined up for the task.

But right now what she had to do was get rid of this man—not as easy as it sounded because he made no effort to move as she stood back to let him pass—then check nobody else had wandered into the house.

‘If you were looking for the toilets, go past the tombola and the refreshment tent and follow your nose.’ In his case the nose, narrow and aquiline, was just as impressive as the rest of him. As she made a conscious effort not to stare their glances connected, only briefly but long enough to make all her deep stomach muscles contract viciously.

Seriously shaken by the extent of her physical response to this man, she huffed out a tiny breath from between her clenched teeth to steady her nerves and focused on a point over his left shoulder.

‘You can’t miss it.’

He still didn’t take the hint. Instead he set his broad shoulders against the panelled wall and looked around the room.

‘You have a beautiful home.’

Zoe folded her arms, hugging tight to hide her involuntary shiver. He had the sexiest voice she had ever heard and the faint accent only added another fascinating layer to it.

‘No, yes…I mean it isn’t mine.’ It crossed her mind that he was being sarcastic. ‘As I’m sure you can tell,’ she murmured, flashing him an ironic grimace before extending a trainer-clad foot and laughing.

His hooded stare made a slow sweeping survey from her extended foot to her face. ‘I try not to judge by appearances,’ he drawled.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not always easy.’

Like now it was hard not to judge this man by the faint sneer and the innate air of superiority he exuded. She supposed arrogance was natural for someone who looked in the mirror each morning and saw that face looking back…and his body, from what she could see, was not exactly going to give the owner any major insecurities! Her gaze moved down the lean, hard length of his long body. Not only did he look fit in every sense of the word, he was supremely elegant in an unstudied, casual sort of way.

Her smooth cheeks highlighted by a rose tinge, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. If there was a time to be caught mentally undressing a stranger, this was not it.

‘Actually I just work here…’ The sweep of her hand encompassed the elegant room with its warm panelled walls and antiques. ‘It is beautiful, though, isn’t it?’ A cross between a museum and a very expensive interior designer’s heaven, the place, in her view, lacked a lived-in-look. There were no discarded newspapers, open books or sweaters draped over the backs of chairs, no sign at all that anyone lived there—it was just too perfect.

But then essentially no one did live here. It amazed her that anyone could own such a beautiful place and barely spend any time here at all.

The staff had been more than happy to fill her in on the many houses owned by their elusive boss, and the many cars and private jets…Isandro Montero obviously liked to buy things whether he needed them or not. Zoe had always suspected that people who needed status symbols were secretly insecure. Mind you, having a bank account that hovered constantly just above the red made a person feel insecure too. Zoe knew all about that sort of insecurity!

His mobile ebony brows lifted in response to the information. ‘So the owner has allowed his home to be used for this…event?’

Zoe felt her cheeks heat.

‘How generous and trusting.’

If he had been trying he couldn’t have said anything that made her feel more terribly guilty. Her eyes fell. ‘He’s very community minded.’

If he could hear me now, she thought, swallowing a bubble of hysteria as she imagined the expression on the face of the billionaire who didn’t want to rub shoulders with the locals.

Her blue eyes slid to the wall lined with valuable books. Did he spend his time here reading the first editions on the shelves or were they, like the cricket pavilion, just for show…part of the entire perfect English Country Home?

What was the point in restoring a cricket pavilion if you never intended to use it? What was the point in buying books you were never going to read?

‘The house is out of bounds today.’

He did not comment on the information. He was staring with what seemed to her far too much interest at a painting on the wall.

She went pale as for the first time she realised how vulnerable the house was. If he could just walk in here, how easy it would have been for someone to wander in—still was, and…not just someone! Her blue eyes suspicious, she turned to look at the tall stranger who continued to stare at the painting. God, she had been so sidetracked by physical awareness of him that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that his presence here might not be accidental!

‘There is an excellent security system in place, and security guards.’

He heard the nervousness in her voice, saw the sudden alarmed dilation of her pupils and smiled slowly, without feeling any sympathy. Well might she be worried, he thought grimly. The odds were that some of his valuables were even now in the pockets of light-fingered visitors. His security team would be lucky to come out of this with jobs.

‘So I couldn’t just pick up…’ He made a show of looking around the room, then reached out and picked up a gilt-framed miniature from its stand. It was one of a pair he had outbid a Russian oligarch for six months earlier. He did not begrudge the inflated price, as he liked the sense of continuity—the miniatures were coming back to where they had been painted. ‘This?’

The casual action made her tummy muscles flip. When she had first arrived she had literally tiptoed around the place, seriously intimidated by the value of the treasures it housed and scared witless of damaging anything. Though she had relaxed a bit now, seeing this valuable item treated so casually was alarming.

She gave a nervous laugh and thought, Calm down—no genuine thief would be this obvious…would they?

‘No, you couldn’t…’ She sucked in an alarmed breath and fought the impractical urge to rush forward and snatch it from him. She didn’t have a hope in hell of taking anything away from six feet five inches of solid muscle. She looked at his chest and swallowed, her tummy giving a nervous quiver as she pressed a hand to her middle where butterflies continued to flutter wildly.

‘Is it genuine?’ he asked, holding the delicate gilt frame between his thumb and forefinger.

‘A clever copy,’ she lied, nervousness making her voice high pitched. ‘All the valuable stuff is locked away in the bank.’ I wish!

‘So that’s why you’re not concerned about stray visitors putting a souvenir in their pocket and walking out.’

Zoe swallowed as she watched the miniature vanish into the pocket of his well-cut jeans, but was able to maintain an air of amused calm as she returned his wolfish grin with a shaky smile of bravado and shook her head. What did it say about her that even at a moment like this she had noticed how rather incredible his muscular thighs were?

‘We’re not actively encouraging it, but if anyone’s tempted we have a very strong security presence.’ She saw no need to explain that this presence was at the moment helping out with directing people in and out of the parking areas. She felt extra bad about that because she had pretty shamelessly taken advantage of the absence of the head of the security team to persuade his deputy to relax the rules. She had used every weapon, including moral blackmail and some mild but effective eyelash fluttering.

‘So I would be stopped before I left the building…?’

Even though she positioned herself strategically in the doorway, Zoe was well aware that he would find her no obstacle to escape if he wanted. Though she was not sure he wanted to—he seemed just as happy taunting her as making good his escape.

Zoe placed her hands on her hips, lifted her chin to a don’t-mess-with-me angle and resisted the temptation to return an ‘over my dead body’ response. He might decide to take it too literally. Instead she said calmly, ‘Definitely not. I’ll have to ask you to return the miniature. It’s very valuable.’

‘Yes, it was quite a find.’ The blue eyes he held blinked and a small furrow appeared between her dark feathery brows. He experienced a stab of guilt. She was obviously scared stiff and he did not enjoy scaring women even if on this occasion she deserved it.

‘Find?’

He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her bewildered echo. ‘The lady here was considered a great beauty of the day, but she was trade—the daughter of a wealthy mill owner. The marriage caused quite a scandal when Percy there brought her home.’ He glanced at the twin of the portrait he held still sitting in its stand. ‘It turns out that old Percy started a trend in the family, though I’m afraid the other heiresses that subsequent male heirs married were not always so easy on the eye as Henrietta here.’ He studied the painting, taking a moment’s pleasure from the masterful brush strokes and eye for detail shown by the artist. ‘He really caught her…Such a sensual mouth, don’t you think? Personally I think this is better than the Reynolds on the staircase.’

His eyes were trained, not on the portrait in his hand as he spoke, but her own mouth. The effect of the dark-eyed stare was mesmerising. Zoe didn’t respond, mainly because she could barely breathe past the hammering of her heart against her ribcage, let alone speculate on how he knew so much about the history of the house and family.

‘Maybe they were in love?’ Her voice sounded as though it were coming from a long way away.

He laughed. The throaty sound shivered across the surface of her skin, raising a rash of goosebumps. ‘A romantic.’

The amused mockery in his voice made Zoe prickle with antagonism. What was she doing discussing love with a possible art thief? Was he? He certainly seemed to know more than she did about the artwork in the house.

‘Actually, no, I’m not.’ Her chin lifted. ‘But if I was I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. Now, Mr…I have things I need to attend to. If I could ask you to—’

‘Shame is a very personal thing,’ he mused, cutting across her. ‘I wonder if Percy was ashamed of his heiress? You call it love, but I call it symbiosis.’

She compressed her lips. ‘I wasn’t calling it anything. I was simply not discounting the possibility.’

He tilted his dark head in acknowledgement of her interruption. ‘Well, there is no doubt that she had money and he had social position, the ability to guarantee her acceptance into society, though maybe looking at that mouth there might have been other factors involved?’

He levelled his obsidian gaze on Zoe.

‘Do you not think she has a sensual mouth?’

Now there was a case of pot calling kettle, she thought, dragging her gaze from the firm sculpted outline of his own mouth.

‘I’m no expert on sensuality.’

‘I’m sure you are being modest.’ He arched a satiric brow and the speculation in his smoky stare sent a rush of embarrassed heat over her body. ‘Well, I shall continue to think that our Henrietta was a woman of passions…and that perhaps Percy was a lucky man? We will, I suppose, never know. What we do know is that when there were no more rich social-climbing heiresses, the family sold off treasures and land until finally there was nothing left. There is a certain sense of continuity in seeing this pair back where they started.’

‘That’s very interesting but…’ She stopped, the colour fading from her face. His manner, his accent, the fact he displayed no sign of discomfort being caught in the house…Of course he had acted as though he owned the place, because he did!

How could she have been so stupid? Because he wasn’t what she had been expecting, of course—if she’d walked into a room and found a short, balding man using expensive tailoring to hide an affluent middle-aged spread she would immediately have considered the possibility that she was looking at her employer.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Small wonder the stable girl who had shown the double-page spread to her in the society magazine had looked at her oddly when she’d responded to the Welsh girl’s enthusiastic, ‘Isn’t he utterly unbelievably lush?’ with a polite but surprised response that he wasn’t really her type. He hadn’t been the man in the photo handing out the cup at the polo tournament—he’d been the one receiving it!

She had left the stables that morning reflecting sadly on the number of people who saw a man’s bank balance before anything else. If the stout, balding man handing over the cup to the Latin-looking polo captain had not had the odd billion in the bank pretty Nia wouldn’t have looked twice, and there she was acting as if he were some sort of centrefold pin-up.

My God, he was the centrefold!

Struggling to accept the evidence of her own eyes and lose the invented image in her head, she watched the polo-playing captain put the portrait back in its place.

I just knew this job was too good to be true.