connected to the monarchy, not even at the palace in Del Sol where some of the original riches of the royal estate were housed. But the quieter treasures of the farmhouse struck her differently.
She picked up a filthy urn resting on a side table. White, or at least it was under the grime. She rubbed at it ineffectually with her palm and managed to get a small bit of the white showing. The eggshell-like surface was pretty.
Maybe it wasn’t priceless like the Qing Dynasty porcelain vase sitting in an art niche at the Coral Gables house. But worth something. Maybe it was actually worth more than the million-dollar piece of pottery back in Miami because it had been used by someone.
She’d never thought about worth being tied to something’s usefulness. But she liked the idea of having a purpose. She’d had one in Miami—wildlife conservation. What had happened to that passion? It was as if she’d come to Alma and forgotten how great it made her feel to do something worthwhile.
With renewed fervor, she dove into cleaning what she could with the meager supplies at hand, and revised her earlier thoughts. It would be fun to put some elbow grease of her own into this house. Whom else could she trust with her family’s property?
When the purr of James’s car finally reverberated through the open door, she glanced at her dirty arms and her lip curled. Some princess she looked like. A Cinderella in reverse—she’d gone from the royal palace to being a slave to the dust. A shower sounded like heaven about now.
The look in James’s eye when he walked in holding a bag stenciled with the logo of the only chain restaurant in Alma had her laughing. “There is no way you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. I’m filthy.”
“Yes, way.” He hummed in approval. “I’ve never seen a sexier woman than you, Bella Montoro. Layer of dirt or not.”
There he went again making her insides all melty and that much more raw. She always got the distinct feeling he saw the real her, past all the outside stuff and into her core. The outside, inconsequential stuff was invisible to him. Coupled with the hard twist of pure lust she got pretty much any time she laid eyes on him, she could hardly think around it.
She shook it off. This fierce attraction was nothing more than the product of their secret love affair. Anticipation of the moment they’d finally connect, laced with a hint of the forbidden. It had colored everything and she refused to fall prey to manufactured expectations about what was happening between them.
Get a grip. “Smells like ham and biscuits,” she said brightly.
He handed her the bag. “I hope you like them. I had to drive two towns over to find them.”
The first bite of biscuit hit her tongue and she moaned. “I would have paid three hundred euros for this.”
He laughed. “On the house. You can pay next time.”
“Oh?” She arched a brow, relieved they’d settled back into the teasing, fun vibe she’d liked about them from the beginning. “Are you under some mistaken impression that I’m a liberated woman who insists on opening her own doors and paying her own way? ’Cause that is so not happening.”
“My mistake,” he allowed smoothly with a nod and munched on his own biscuit. “You want a manly bloke to treat you like a delicate hothouse flower. I get it. I’d be chuffed to climb all the ladders around here and wield the power tools in order to create a luxury hideaway, as ordered. You know what that means I get at the end of the day in return, right?”
“A full body massage,” she guessed, already planning exactly how such a reward might play out. “And then some inventive foreplay afterward.”
That was even more fun to imagine than the massage part of the evening’s agenda.
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” He leaned in and tipped her chin up to capture her gaze, and the wicked intent written all over his face made her shiver. “It means I get the loo first.”
The farmhouse’s great room looked brand-new and James couldn’t take all of the credit. It was because the house had good bones and old-world charm—qualities he’d never appreciated in anything before.
Hell, maybe he’d never even noticed them before.
Bella finished polishing the last silver candlestick and stuck it back on the mantel of the humongous fireplace, humming a nameless tune that he’d grown a bit fond of over the past day as they’d worked side by side to get their lover’s retreat set to rights.
“Did you hear that?” she asked with a cocked head.
“Uh, no.” He’d been too busy soaking in the sight of a beautiful woman against the backdrop of the deep maroon walls and dark furniture. “What was it?”
“The sound of success.”
She smiled and that heavy feeling in his chest expanded a tad more, which had been happening with alarming frequency all day. Unfortunately, the coping mechanism he’d used last night—grabbing Bella and sinking into her as fast as possible so his mind went blessedly blank—wasn’t available to him at this moment because a workman from the municipality was on his way to restore the water connection.
It was a minor miracle the workman had come out on short notice, given the typical local bureaucracy, but once James had mentioned that he was a representative for the Montoros, everything had fallen into place.
He’d have to make himself—and his distinctive green car—scarce. Just as he’d done this morning when the bloke from the electric company had come. But it was fine. The time away had given him an opportunity to talk through strategy with his sports agent, who mentioned a possible opportunity with Liverpool. No guarantees, but some shifting had occurred in the roster and the club needed a strong foot. Brilliant news at an even better time—the sooner James could escape Alma, the better.
“Yep,” he said and cleared a catch from his throat. “Only twenty-seven rooms to go.”
They’d started on the downstairs, focusing on the kitchen and great room, plus the servant’s quarters past the kitchen, where they intended to sleep tonight if the bed they’d ordered arrived on time, as promised. A lot had been accomplished in one day but not nearly enough.
Once they got the master bedroom upstairs cleaned up, James planned a whole silk-sheets-and-rose-petals-type seduction scene. He owed it to Bella since she’d been such a good sport about sleeping in the room designated for the help.
One thing he immensely appreciated about Bella: she joked around a lot about being high maintenance but she was the furthest thing from it. And he knew a difficult, demanding woman when he saw one, like his last semipermanent girlfriend, Chelsea. She’d cured him of ever wanting to be around a female for more than a one-night stand, a rule which he’d stuck to for nearly two years.
Until Bella.
Since he couldn’t lose his mind in her fragrant skin for...he glanced at his watch and groaned...hours, he settled for a way-too-short kiss.
She wiggled away and stuck her tongue out at him. “Yes, we have a lot of work left. But not as much as we would have if you hadn’t made all those
