back to him. ‘You must call me Wynne.’
His lips thinned. ‘I have a very attractive...?’
She choked back a laugh. Nothing like leaving a sentence hanging! ‘Accent.’ It was even better in person than on the phone.
One eyebrow lifted with devastating irony. ‘Really?’
She stared up at him and the derision in his eyes made heat rush into her face. Oh, he couldn’t think that she...
No way! He was attractive, but...
Suddenly the images flashing through Wynne’s mind became just a little too vivid.
She shook her head to dispel them, to try and get back on track. ‘Xavier, I’d like to welcome you to Aggie’s Retreat.’
He didn’t answer, just continued to stare at her with those pitiless eyes.
She lifted her chin, pushed her shoulders back. ‘I sincerely hope the motel brings you as much joy and pleasure as it has over the years to my grandmother and myself.’
Those lips cracked open into a ruthless smile that had her suppressing a shiver.
‘Don’t worry, Wynne, it already has.’
* * *
Wynne glanced past him and some of the tension in Xavier’s jaw eased. The wholeheartedness of her smile, its warmth, had taken him completely off-guard. He’d not expected her to be so...generous.
She’d not wanted to sell the motel—her reluctance had threaded through their every email and telephone exchange. It was no doubt why she’d made being manager one of the stipulations of the sale. His fists clenched. That still angered him, but it could be dealt with easily enough over the coming weeks. And it would be.
He’d arrived here today expecting tears...had readied himself for hostility. Instead...
He fought back a frown. Instead he’d been welcomed with a warmth that had made him want to turn around and return to Spain. She made him feel... He swallowed. For a moment she’d made him feel the same way his grandfather had always made him feel—truly welcome.
A dark weariness threatened to descend over him—an all too familiar grief that he’d wrestled with for the past four weeks and two days. It would be weak to give in to it, but it rose up within him now with renewed force as he glanced into Wynne Stephens’s face. He wanted to accept the welcome she offered. He wanted to embrace it and hold it tight.
It was a lie, though. She didn’t know him. She didn’t care for him. But that didn’t make the need gaping through him go away.
Dios! His hand clenched into a fist. He’d readied himself for a fight—a dirty fight—and she’d pulled the carpet out from under him. She’d welcomed him to Aggie’s Retreat as if she’d meant it. The woman was a witch! Just like her grandmother.
He stiffened, forcing up a wall between himself and his new manager. He always built a wall between himself and bewitching women. It kept things simple.
With a Herculean effort he kept the frown from his face, refusing to reveal his surprise, refusing to reveal how she’d thrown him. He’d seen her photograph. He’d known that she was attractive. But attractive women were everywhere. In his world beautiful women were everywhere. What Wynne Stephens’s photograph hadn’t revealed was the life and animation that filled the woman, threaded through her with a vibrancy that made what she looked like a secondary consideration. He hadn’t expected that.
If she wasn’t a Stephens...
He pushed the thought aside. He had no intention of punishing Wynne for her grandmother’s crimes, but a part of him couldn’t resist glorying in the knowledge that the world had come full circle—that a Ramos now had a Stephens under his thumb.
He hoped his grandfather was looking down and laughing with the pleasure of it. He hoped it would allow his grandfather finally to find peace.
Don’t make the same mistakes I made.
I won’t, he swore silently.
He realised the silence in the foyer had grown too long and uncomfortable. Not that he cared too much about that. It suited him to make others uncomfortable. It made them pause for thought before lying or double-crossing him.
He gestured behind him. ‘This is Reyes, my driver.’
Wynne welcomed him to Australia too, her words accompanied with one of those big smiles. Xavier made sure to survey it only from the corner of his eyes. He had to meet her gaze head-on, though, when she turned it back to him.
‘I thought from your correspondence that your son and his nanny would be accompanying you too.’
‘They will be arriving later.’
She stared at him as if waiting for more. ‘Later...today?’
‘No.’
She stared some more, as if waiting for him to continue, but he refused to gratify her curiosity. He’d left Luis in Sydney, under the eagle eye of his nanny Paula. He’d given them free rein to sightsee for the next few days. He hadn’t wanted to bring Luis here to witness any potential unpleasantness. And, while the welcome hadn’t been unpleasant, he had no doubt that the next few days would be.
‘Right. Well...make sure to let us know when to expect them.’
‘Why?’
She blinked. ‘So that we can have their room ready, of course.’
One of those megawatt smiles slammed into him.
‘And so we can make a fuss.’
Her laugh! It could wrap around a man and make him want—Nonsense!
‘No fuss will be necessary.’
Her smile only widened. ‘That’s what you think.’ Her blonde hair bounced about her shoulders and down her back, crackling with life and energy, as she gestured to the woman behind the counter. ‘This is Tina, and we’re both determined to make your stay here as enjoyable as we can.’
He nodded at the other woman.
‘Now, tell me what you would most like? We’ve organised afternoon tea in the Drawing Room if you’d like refreshments. Tea, coffee, lamingtons—which are an Australian speciality—and chocolate chip cookies because...’ She shrugged. ‘We were expecting Luis, and what little boy can resist those, right?’
Xavier stared at the woman, dumbfounded. He’d just bought her motel. He wasn’t dropping in for tea!
She must have misread his expression, because he received another blast of warmth from that spectacular smile of hers. ‘We knew you’d probably be exhausted, and thought you might want a little pick-me-up before you took a tour of the place.’
‘We would prefer it if you simply showed us to our rooms.’
Her smile slipped, but only for a second. For that second, though, he felt like
