‘You got off lightly considering your rap sheet. I know a few people who’d happily swap places with you.’
Holly grunted. Folded her arms across her breasts. Crossed her right leg over her left. Jerked her ankle up and down. Pouted. Why should she look happy? Why should she act grateful that she was being sent to live with some man she’d never heard of in his big, old fancy villa?
A month.
Thirty-one days of living with some stranger who had magnanimously volunteered to ‘reform’ her. Ha-ha. Like that was going to work. Who was this guy anyway? All she’d been told was he was some hotshot techie nerd from England who had made the big time in Argentina designing software for space telescopes used in the Atacama Desert in neighbouring Chile. Oh, and he was apparently single. Holly rolled her eyes. He’d agreed to take on a troubled young woman for altruistic reasons? And the correctional authorities had actually fallen for that?
Yeah, right. She knew all about men and their dodgy motivations.
After being given the all clear from the security intercom device, Natalia drove through the gates before they whispered shut behind the car. ‘Julius Ravensdale is doing you a big favour,’ she said. ‘He’s only agreed to this—and very reluctantly at that—because his housekeeper has tendonitis in her wrist. You’ll be her right-hand helper. It’s an amazing opportunity. This place is like a five-star resort. It’ll be great vocational training for you. I hope you’ll make the most of it.’
Vocational training for what? Holly thought with a cynical curl of her lip. No one was going to make a housekeeper out of her just because she’d made a few mistakes, which weren’t even really mistakes, because her pond-scum stepfather had seriously had it coming to him. It was just a dumb old sports car, for pity’s sake. So what if he had to have it re-sprayed and his precious lawn re-sown after the weedkiller incident?
Holly was not going to be some rich man’s lowly slave scrubbing floors until her knees grew callouses as big as cabbages. Her days of being pushed around were long over. Julius Ravens-whatever-his-name-was would be in for a big shock if he thought he could exploit her to suit his nefarious needs.
What if it wasn’t the kitchen he planned to have her slaving in? What if he had more salacious plans? In her experience, men with money thought they could have anything and anyone they wanted. All that nonsense about him ‘reluctantly’ agreeing to take her on was just a ruse. Of course he would say that. He wouldn’t want to look too eager to take in a prison statistic waiting to happen. He would be ‘doing his bit for society’ by trying to do her.
Bring it on, she thought. Let’s see how far you get.
‘Oh, I’ll make the most of it, all right,’ Holly said as she sent the caseworker a guileless smile. ‘You can be sure of that.’
Natalia let out a world-weary sigh as she put her foot back on the accelerator. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.’
* * *
The housekeeper whom she had met a few days before greeted Holly at the door of the villa while Natalia took an urgent call from one of her other charges.
‘It’s lovely to have you here, Holly,’ Sophia said. ‘Come in. Señor Ravensdale is busy just now so I’ll show you to your suite so you can settle in.’
Holly wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee with banners and balloons and a brass band or anything but surely the very least her host could do was make an appearance? If he’d agreed to have her here then he could at least do the polite thing and greet her face to face. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.
‘He’s not to be disturbed,’ Sofia said. ‘I’ll show you to the suite I’ve pre—’
‘Disturb him, please,’ Holly said. ‘Now.’
Sophia looked a little taken aback. ‘He doesn’t like to be interrupted while he’s working. He doesn’t allow anyone into his office unless it’s an emergency.’
Holly gently elbowed her way past to the door she took to be the study. It was the only door that was closed along the long, wide corridor. She didn’t knock. She turned the handle and barged in.
A man looked up from behind a desk where he was tapping at a computer keyboard. His fingers stalled as she came in, the last click echoing in the silence as his gaze met with hers.
Holly drew in a breath to speak but for some reason her voice wasn’t on active duty. It had locked behind her shock at how different he was from her expectations. He was nothing like she had envisaged. He wasn’t old or even middle-aged. He was in his early thirties and movie-star handsome, athletically lean and tanned. His hair was a rich dark brown with light waves running through it. It looked as if it had been recently styled with his fingers, for she could see the roughly spaced plough marks that gave him a sexily tousled look, as if he’d just tumbled out of bed after vigorous sex. He had a determined looking jaw, a straight nose and a firm but sensually sculptured mouth that for some reason made the ligaments at the backs of her knees weaken alarmingly.
He pushed back his chair, and the room instantly shrank as he stood. ‘Can I help you?’ he said with the sort of tone that suggested he was not in the least motivated to do so.
Holly had never been one to beat about the bush. Her tactic was to get in there with a verbal weed-whacker. ‘Don’t you know it’s impolite to ignore your guests when they arrive?’
His eyes held hers with steely focus. ‘Strictly speaking, you’re not my guest. You’re Sophia’s.’
Holly hitched up her chin, flashing him an I-know-what-you’re-up-to glare. ‘I want to let you know straight from the outset I’m not here to be your sex toy.’
His dark brows rose in twin arcs over his impossibly dark blue eyes. With his black hair and olive-skinned complexion, she had been expecting them to be brown. But they were an astonishing sapphire-blue fringed with thick black lashes. He seemed to measure her for a moment; his gaze taking in the tiny diamond nose piercing and the pink streaks in her hair with a tilt of his mouth that was unmistakably mocking.
A knot of bitterness inside Holly tightened. If there was one thing she loathed, it was being made fun of. Belittled. Mocked.
‘How do you do, Miss, er...?’ He glanced at his housekeeper, who had come in behind Holly, for a prompt.
‘Miss Perez,’ Sophia said. ‘Hollyanne.’
‘Holly,’ Holly said with a black look.
Julius offered his hand. ‘How do you do, Holly?’
She glared at his hand as if he’d just offered her a viper. ‘Keep your hands to yourself.’
Natalia entered his office sounding a little flustered. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Dr Ravensdale, but I had to take an urgent call about another client—’
Holly swung around and frowned at Natalia. ‘Doctor? You didn’t tell me he was a doctor. You said he was a computer geek.’
The caseworker gave Julius a pained smile before addressing Holly. ‘Dr Ravensdale has a PhD in astrophysics. It’s polite to call him by his correct title, if that’s what he prefers.’
Holly
