He was tall, several inches above six feet, and muscular but not in a bulky way. Lean and hard. He had Mediterranean colouring, and his hair was black. It curled low on his neck and fell across his high forehead. The bones of his face were strongly carved, with razor-sharp cheekbones, a masterful aquiline nose, and the piratical shadow on his firm jaw failing to disguise the fact it was uncompromisingly male.
In fact the only things that weren’t uncompromisingly male about him were the extravagant length of his lashes and the full curve of his lower lip that was then compensated by the firmness of the upper, the effect so overtly sensual it made her stomach muscles quiver.
In a bid to stop looking, Sam found herself gazing directly into his eyes instead. She fought to draw a shaky breath. They were so dark they were almost black. Looking into them made her feel as though she were falling.
She quickly reminded herself of the mess in the kitchen. ‘You should be grateful,’ she choked, dragging her violet-blue eyes away from his face. Breathing fast and shallow to carry some much needed oxygen to her brain, she allowed her glance to dwell significantly on the hands curved over her upper arms, before tilting her head and risking a second peek at his face.
He didn’t take the hint and it wasn’t gratitude that was etched on the sculpted angles and planes of his sternly beautiful face, but anger. She could almost see the ripples in the air as it oozed from him.
Suspicion and hostility were being aimed at her, and the air between them almost visibly crackled with it.
‘Would you mind letting me go?’ Sam asked as she lifted her chin and thought how she couldn’t let him see that he was scaring her. That was what he’d want.
A frown flickered across his features and a second later the grip on her shoulders loosened, though still didn’t drop away.
A sigh of premature relief snagged in her throat as her glance drifted to his mouth and she felt things shift low in her stomach.
‘Who are you?’ he questioned.
Sam swallowed. She knew who she wasn’t.
She wasn’t a woman who became wide-eyed and inarticulate because she saw a beautiful man.
She was definitely not a woman who was attracted to danger, and if any man had ever spelt danger she was looking at him. Looking at him and feeling a lot of things she’d have been happier not to. Never in her life had any man elicited such a strong reaction from her.
He frightened and repelled her, but at the same time the flip side to this was a shameful excitement that was seductive as it coursed through her veins like wine. Sam felt intoxicated. She had never in her twenty-four years experienced any feeling so primal and raw.
‘Speak up or I will…’
The threat in his deep voice broke her free of the thrall that had held her motionless. The isolation of the castle and the vulnerability of her situation hit her… What would he do…?
‘Let me go!’ Fear made her voice shrill as she began to struggle frantically against his restraining hands.
‘Dio mio!’ he gritted as she hit out wildly, one of her flailing fists making contact with his jaw. ‘Will you be still, woman?’
Sam was still, but only because the energy had drained abruptly from her body, leaving her shaking and weak-kneed.
‘You’re Italian,’ she stated. His lightly accented voice was deep and vibrant.
‘You’re trespassing.’
‘No, I’m only the cleaner, I just came to change the sheets.’
‘The cleaner…?’ He didn’t sound convinced, but she was relieved to see that, though he still regarded her with suspicion, some of the aggressive hostility had seeped from his manner.
He straightened up to his full and intimidating height and Sam exhaled a shaky breath as his hands fell from her shoulders. Her step backwards brought the back of her legs in contact with the big rustic table in the middle of the room. She leaned into it and pushed her hands in a smoothing motion over her hair. They were still shaking, as was her voice as she retorted sarcastically, ‘No, I’m an international jewel thief and my calling card is washing the dirty dishes…’
She was glad several feet now separated them. Up close and distractingly personal he really was too overwhelming. She no longer imagined she was in any physical danger from this man, but her mental safety was another matter. Whatever it was he projected she was susceptible to it. Every time she looked at him her mind went to mush, and the stuff happening to the rest of her body did not bear close examination.
She was deeply ashamed of her initial reaction to this brooding, bad-tempered Italian with his sinfully sexy mouth and chiselled cheekbones. She lowered her eyes from his face, conscious that she was close to drooling. For God’s sake, woman, show a bit of pride, she chided herself angrily.
‘Of course I’m the cleaner.’ She moved her hand in a sweeping motion from her tousled head down to her sensible shoes. ‘What do I look like?’
He could say she resembled a total wreck and he wouldn’t be wrong, she reflected, thinking how silly and shallow it was to care what he thought of her appearance. Especially as she would not have secured a second glance from him under any other circumstances, even if she had been wearing her most alluring outfit.
But he did not take her invitation to look at her. Instead his unblinking heavy-lidded regard stayed trained on her face as he observed, ‘You do not smell like a cleaner.’
‘What do cleaners smell like?’
A dark brow arched sardonically. ‘You, presumably. I have never held one as close as a lover before.’
The comment made the blush under her skin deepen. ‘You’ve never lived,’ she replied, trying not to think about lovers and this man in the same sentence.
‘A tempting thought,’ he said, not looking tempted.
Which was rude.
‘That wasn’t an invitation.’ As if she would hand out invitations to a man who looked like a dark fallen angel.
He angled a brow and looked even more as though he knew far too much about kissing.
‘So that is not part of the service…?’
‘I don’t charge for kisses, just for mopping, and I only kiss people I like.’
His attention drifted to the window as he appeared to lose interest in the conversation. Without looking at her, he dragged a hand through his dark hair. Sam was used to men not noticing her in a sexual way, but most didn’t act as though she were invisible.
The silence lengthened. When he did speak she jumped. ‘You raise a man’s expectations and then you dash them down. So, Mrs Cleaner, you can take your mop and go home. The estate were informed prior to my arrival that I do not require housekeeping services.’
Sam was tempted to pass the buck and say she was just the hired help, but Clare had more than enough to cope with without complaints from rich guests. Instead she said, ‘They
