Buch lesen: «A Diamond For Del Rio's Housekeeper»

CHAPTER ONE

‘THIS IS A private beach...’

Rosie had to raise her voice to reach the big, brutal-looking man lowering the anchor on his sleek black launch off shore. He’d stilled, so she was sure he’d heard her, but for some reason he’d chosen to ignore her. Waving her arms made no impact at all.

‘Damned invaders,’ Rosie’s late elderly employer, Doña Anna, would have said as she waved her walking stick at any sailors bold enough to drop anchor near her private island. ‘You can’t swim here! This is my island!’ Standing belligerently, with her crab-like hands planted firmly on her bony hips, Doña Anna would continue to berate visitors—whom Rosie had always thought couldn’t do much harm if all they wanted to do was enjoy the crystalline waters and sugar-sand beach for an hour or so—until they took the hint that they weren’t welcome and left for kinder waters.

Rosie tensed as the man stared straight at her. With maybe fifty yards between them, his penetrating assessment stabbed her like an arrow.

Her body reacted in the craziest way, softening and yearning as the force of his personality washed over her. The effect was as powerful as if they were standing toe to toe.

She was instantly in ‘fight or flight’ mode. Her brain sharpened to make that call. Only what they’d called her pure, damned stubbornness at the orphanage was keeping her rooted to the spot. She might not have had the best of starts in life, but she wasn’t a victim and never would be.

And a promise was a promise, Rosie vowed. Her promise to Doña Anna, that she would keep the island safe, was sacrosanct. However intimidating the man seemed, until she knew what he wanted, he wasn’t getting any further than the shore.

The man had other ideas.

Her heart thundered as he sprang lightly onto the bow rail, preparing to dive into the sea. Keeping the island safe would take more than good intentions, she suspected. He was twice her size and built like a gladiator.

His dive made barely a ripple in the water. Surfacing, he powered towards the shore. There was something hard and ruthless about him that stole away her earlier confidence, replacing it with apprehension. Crew of a mother yacht generally wore some sort of uniform with the name of their boat emblazoned on it. He wore no identifying clothing. Stripped to the waist in cut-off shorts, he was maybe thirty...older than she was, anyway.

Rosie was in her early twenties. She couldn’t even be sure of her date of birth. There was no record of it. A fire at the orphanage had destroyed all evidence of her history shortly after she arrived. Her life experience was limited to the strange, isolated world inside an institution, and now a small island off the southern tip of Spain.

She’d been lucky enough to be offered a job on Isla Del Rey by a charity that ran a scheme for disadvantaged young people. The post involved working on a trial basis as a companion/housekeeper for an elderly lady who had driven six previous companion/housekeepers away. On the face of it, not the most promising opportunity, but Rosie would have jumped at anything to escape the oppressive surroundings of the institution, and the island had seemed to offer sanctuary from the harsh realities of the outside world.

That world was back with a vengeance now, she thought as the man drew close to shore.

She took up position, ready to send him on his way. Doña Anna had given her so much more than a roof over her head, and she owed it to the old lady to keep her island safe.

Against all the odds, Rosie had become close to her employer, but in her wildest dreams she could never have predicted that in one last act of quite astonishing generosity Doña Anna would leave orphan Rosie Clifton half of Isla Del Rey in her will.

Rosie’s inheritance became an international scandal. She hadn’t been exactly welcomed into the land-owning classes, more shunned by them. Even Doña Anna’s lawyer had made some excuse not to meet her. His formal letter had seemed impregnated with his scorn. How could she, a lowly housekeeper and an orphan to boot, step into the shoes of generations of Spanish aristocracy? No one had seemed to understand that what Rosie had inherited was an old lady’s trust, and her love.

Doña Anna’s generous bequest had turned out to be a double-edged sword. Rosie had come to love the island, but without a penny to her name, and no wage coming in, she could barely afford to support herself, let alone help the islanders to market their organic produce on the mainland, as she had promised them she would.

The man had reached the shallows, and was wading to the shore. Naked to the waist and muscular, his deeply tanned frame dripping with seawater, he was a spectacular sight. She couldn’t imagine a man like that going cap in hand for a loan.

Rosie had failed spectacularly in that direction. Every letter she’d sent to possible investors for the island had been met with silence, or scorn: Who was she but a lowly housekeeper whose life experience was confined to an orphanage? She couldn’t even argue with that view, when it was right.

He speared her with a glance. She guessed he could open any door. But not this door. She would keep her deathbed promise to Doña Anna, and continue the fight to keep the island unspoiled. Which, in Doña Anna’s language, meant no visitors—especially not a man who was looking at Rosie as if she were a piece of flotsam that had washed up on the beach. She would despatch him exactly as Doña Anna would have done, Rosie determined, standing her ground. Well, perhaps not quite the same way. She was more of a firm persuader than a shouter.

Her heart pounded with uneasiness as he strode towards her across the sand. She was alone and vulnerable. He’d chosen the best time of day to spring his surprise. Rosie had never made any secret of the fact that she liked to swim early in the morning before anyone was up. When she was alive, Doña Anna had encouraged this habit, saying Rosie should get some fresh air before spending all day in the house.

Snatching up her towel from the rock where she’d spread it out to dry, she covered herself modestly. Even so, she was hardly dressed for receiving visitors. The house was half a mile away up a steep cliff path, and no one would hear her cry for help—

She wouldn’t be calling for help. She owned fifty per cent of this island, with the other fifty per cent belonging to some absentee Spanish Grandee.

Don Xavier Del Rio was Doña Anna’s nephew, but as he hadn’t troubled to visit his aunt during Rosie’s time on the island, not even attending her funeral, Rosie doubted he would inconvenience himself now. According to Doña Anna, he was a playboy who lived life on the edge. As far as Rosie was concerned, he was a hard-hearted brute, who didn’t deserve such a lovely aunt.

Admittedly, when it came to his business, he seemed to be successful. But, billionaire or not, in Rosie’s view, he should have made some effort to visit Doña Anna—or perhaps he was just too important to care.

* * *

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The girl had set herself up on the beach as if he were the intruder. ‘You’re right,’ he barked at her. ‘This is a private beach. So what the hell are you doing here?’

‘I own—I mean, I live on the island,’ she said, tipping her chin a little higher in what he supposed was an attempt to stare him in the eyes.

He towered over her. She was small and young and lithe, with long, striking red hair, and an expression that appeared candid, but was most definitely defiant and determined. She was pale, but outwardly composed. He knew who she was. The lawyer had warned him she might be difficult and not to be deceived by her innocent looks.

‘Did the lawyer send you?’ she challenged, seeming to have no guard on her tongue.

‘No one sent me,’ he replied, all the time assessing her keenly.

‘Then why are you here?’

Her clenched fists were the only sign that she was nervous. She had courage to stand up to him, but he wasn’t a bully and she was a young girl alone on the beach. He ordered his muscles to stand down. ‘I’m here to see you.’

‘Me?’

She put one small hand on the swell of plump breasts peeping above the towel. And then a stiff breeze caught hold of her hair and lifted it, tossing it about. The urge to fist a hank of it, so he could ease her head back and kiss her throat, was overwhelming.

She might hold appeal, but anyone who could persuade his crotchety aunt to leave them such a sizeable bequest had to be more conniving than she looked.

‘We have business to discuss.’ He glanced up the cliff towards the house.

‘You can only be one person,’ she said, levelling her cool amethyst gaze on him. ‘The lawyers have shown no interest in me, or in the island. They’re happy to let Isla Del Rey go to hell, and me with it. Every door in the city’s been slammed in my face. But I suppose you already know that...Don Xavier.’

He remained impassive. The day the contents of his aunt’s will had become known her lawyers had been in touch with him to profess their undying loyalty. The firm had worked for the Del Rio family for years, the head of the firm was at pains to remind him, and every associate was squarely behind Don Xavier in this most regrettable situation. There was a good case to challenge the will, the lawyer had assured him, no doubt rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of more fees to come. Xavier had dismissed the man’s suggestion out of hand. He would deal with the situation, as he would deal with this girl.

‘Are you responsible for me being ignored in the city?’ the girl now challenged him, firming her jaw with affront.

‘No,’ he said honestly. His aunt had always been mischievous, and never more so than when she had drawn up her will. Now he’d met the girl with whom he shared the bequest, he suspected Doña Anna must have taken much pleasure in putting as many obstacles in his way as she could before he could lay claim to an island that was rightfully his. ‘No doubt the money men think as I do, that the responsibility of Isla Del Rey cannot rest in the hands of one young girl.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose you’re interested in my opinion,’ she flashed back.

She was going to give it to him anyway, he suspected.

She proved him right. ‘Anyone lucky enough to have relatives should cherish them, not abandon them, however difficult they might be.’

‘Was that a dig at me?’ he asked with mild amusement. ‘Are you suggesting that I have as little claim to the island as you?’

‘You have the name,’ she conceded. ‘You also have the reputation. Why would your aunt leave the island she loved above all things to a man as notorious as you?’

The bluntness of this statement silenced him for a moment, and he had to admit to some grudging respect. Her boldness was shocking, but it was also refreshing. He guessed her blunt character had been forged on the anvil of a difficult childhood. She’d had to find ways to survive, and had chosen logic and stubbornness over compliance and self-pity. She was brave. He’d give her that. Not many people would take him on.

‘No argument, Don Xavier?’

He raised a brow, but what she’d said was true. His reputation hung by a thread. He lived hard and fast, funded by the lifestyle his highly successful business ventures provided. He wasn’t interested in love and caring. They had only brought him disappointment in the past. He had no time for such things now. That was why he had avoided both the island and his aunt. He wasn’t proud to admit that the thought of rekindling the feelings he’d had for the old lady when he was a boy had made it easier for him to stay away. His parents had knocked all thoughts of love out of him. More grief? More regret? Why would he invite them in? He’d done what Doña Anna had asked him to do, which was to make more money to fund those schemes she would have been proud of, and that had to be enough.

But his mischievous aunt was asking more of him in her will. He could only imagine she had been playing games with him when she had added a particular caveat that stood in the way of him claiming his inheritance.

‘I imagine it’s the terms of your aunt’s will that brought you here,’ the girl commented forthrightly.

What business was it of hers?

Against his better judgement, his senses stirred as she continued to interrogate him with her astonishingly beautiful amethyst eyes.

‘We’re both here for the same reason, I imagine,’ he countered evenly. ‘To sort out the terms of the bequest.’

‘I live here, you don’t,’ she said, smiling a faint challenge at him.

Was she staking her claim? If she’d read the will, and he presumed she had, she would know he could forfeit his half of the island if he didn’t provide the estate with an heir within two years. It must have amused his aunt to put his infamous reputation to the test.

‘You’re under some pressure, I imagine,’ the girl said.

Seeing the glint of amusement in her eyes, he guessed she was enjoying this as much as his aunt must have done. He could imagine them getting on together. And of course the girl could afford to laugh, as her fifty per cent of the island was safe. All she had to do was wait him out, hope he didn’t produce an heir, and she would own the island outright. His trump card was the fact that she didn’t have any money to support herself, so nothing was certain. Not yet.

‘So you’re familiar with the terms of my aunt’s will?’ he confirmed as they stood facing each other, weighing each other up.

‘Yes,’ she said frankly. ‘Your aunt’s lawyer was difficult to begin with. He didn’t want to show me anything, but I insisted.’

I bet you did, he thought.

‘He couldn’t deny my request,’ she explained. ‘To be honest, I just wanted to see your aunt’s will with my own eyes to confirm that I really had inherited half of Isla Del Rey, but then...’ Biting down on her lip, she looked away.

‘Yes?’ he prompted, sensing serious thoughts beneath her calm exterior. The worst mistake he could make would be to take this woman lightly.

‘But then I read that bit about you,’ she said, refocusing her luminous stare on his face. ‘So I understand the pressure you’re under.’ She couldn’t resist a little smile as she added, ‘I always knew Doña Anna had a strange sense of humour, but I have to admit she excelled herself this time. Maybe if you hadn’t ignored her for so long—’

‘I stand reprimanded,’ he said curtly. He didn’t want to discuss his aunt with anyone, let alone this young woman.

‘The thing I find confusing,’ she said, ‘is this. I always thought Doña Anna believed in family. At least, that was the impression she gave me, but now it seems she was hell-bent on punishment.’ She screwed her eyes up as she thought about it.

And they were still beautiful.

‘Punishing me, not you,’ he said.

‘But still...’ She stared at him with interest for a good few moments. ‘You must have really rattled her cage. But you did, by staying away so long.’

She wasn’t frightened of speaking her mind. The more he saw of her, the more she intrigued him. His original intention had been to send her sailing away from the island on a raft made of money. He doubted now he’d met her that she’d stand for that. She was intelligent and defiant, and also extremely attractive.

That sort of interest could get in his way. He couldn’t allow distractions like this girl to knock him off course. She was right about the will throwing everything into chaos. Doña Anna, of all people, should have known his limitations. He could make money hand over fist, but he’d make a lousy parent. Why try to saddle some poor child with a father who was incapable of feeling?

‘We’d better go to the house,’ he said, turning to the main point of his visit.

‘What? No,’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ He swung around to see her digging her little toes into the sand.

‘You should have contacted me in the usual way—to arrange a meeting that didn’t involve a confrontation on the beach at dawn,’ she explained, frowning at him.

He dipped his head to hide a smile. People had been known to try and bribe his PA to secure a few minutes of his time. Rosie Clifton, on the other hand, was only short of his aunt’s walking stick to wave in his face as she did her best to drive him away. But her time was up now. However appealing he might find her, he was a busy man.

‘I said, no!’

He gazed at her with incredulity as she took the few steps necessary to dodge in front of him and block his way. ‘It’s not convenient,’ she explained, holding her ground.

Not convenient for him to tour his house, his island? An astonishing number of doors might have opened in the recent past for orphaned Rosie Clifton, but no door had ever closed in his face. He would visit his house, and he would tour his island. And then he would decide what to do about the girl.

‘Perhaps another time?’ she tempered, reacting to his thunderous expression no doubt. ‘Some time soon?’ she offered with the hint of a smile.

Her charm was wasted on him. ‘Some time now,’ he insisted, moving past her.