be any less terrible at running an art gallery than I am running a house?’ Zoe asked bitterly.
‘You are artistic.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Had you not been accepted on a fine arts degree course before your sister and her husband died?’
In the middle of a miserable sniff, Zoe lifted her incredulous glance to his face. ‘How did you know that?’
He shrugged and dropped his gaze. ‘Tom might have mentioned it.’
‘But why would your friend give me this job?’
‘I asked her.’
‘A permanent job?’
‘Very few things in life are permanent, but there would be a very good severance package,’ he told her smoothly. ‘Enough for you to pay your way through art college as you planned and employ childcare in the meantime. I understand they run an excellent foundation fine arts course on an evening basis at the local college.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would this woman pay me a—’ her nose wrinkled; what had he called it? ‘—severance package?’
‘She wouldn’t.’
Zoe shook her head as the confusion deepened.
‘I would.’
‘But I wouldn’t be working for you.’
‘Not as such,’ he conceded. ‘The point is, Zoe, the attraction is not one-sided. I want you in my bed and I am a man in a position to make my fantasies come true. You are my fantasy, Zoe.’
Things fell into place in her head with an almost audible clunk. She shot to her feet—no longer shaking, no longer terrified, just furious.
‘Let me get this straight. This job you’re talking about, it’s as…your mistress?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s an old-fashioned term.’
She stuck out her chin, her blue eyes sparkling with wrathful contempt. ‘I’m an old-fashioned girl.’ He had no idea how old-fashioned. ‘Though I suppose you think I should be flattered. Isn’t it a bit of a risk, though? We’ve never even slept together. How would you know that I’d be…any good in the bedroom?’
‘It takes two, and I think when a woman literally shakes with lust when I look at her I’m willing to take the risk on a sight-unseen basis—’
‘My God!’ she gasped. ‘You really think I’m shallow enough to want to sleep with a man who is obviously deeply in love with himself. A man whose only redeeming feature as far as I can tell is a pretty face and a moderately all right body.’
Fingers crossed, because that was a lie. He had the body of an Adonis. She gave a derisive sniff and arched a brow before laughing.
‘Yes, I do.’ His sloe-dark eyes drifted over her lush sinuous curves shrouded beneath the robe, and his mouth grew dry at the thought of slipping the loose knot of the belt looped around her narrow waist.
It was an uphill struggle to act as though his slow, sexy smile was doing nothing to her. She knew that sex appeal wasn’t just about looks, but the idea that she was any man’s erotic fantasy—let alone a man like Isandro—was shocking. She swallowed and pressed both hands to her stomach, shamefully aware that the deep quivers that rippled low in her pelvis were not caused by shock. What he was suggesting was wrong on more levels than she could count, it went against every principle she held dear, yet she was excited…What does that say about me?
‘Besides, we don’t have to wait. This is the perfect opportunity to find out if it’s as good as I think it will be.’ The sweep of his hand took in the big bed piled with cushions, the open French door against which the light curtains fluttered in the breeze.
In the distance Zoe could hear a flock of geese landing on the water. She went hot, cold, then hot again.
‘I’m not selling my body.’
‘That’s good, because I’ve never paid for sex.’
‘What do you call what you’re suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting we remove the barrier that is preventing us both doing what we want to. If you are no longer on my payroll we can be equal.’
‘I’ll never be equal to you. I’ll always be superior!’
‘Bravo!’ he drawled.
Her lips tightened. ‘Don’t you dare patronise me! And why make up that stupid story about your friend?’
‘That is not invented. It is real. I do have a friend who owns a gallery.’
Zoe felt a stab of something she didn’t immediately recognise as jealousy. ‘A female friend?’
Could you sound more jealous if you tried?
‘Her name is Polly Warrender. She inherited a theatre from her husband.’ Zoe had heard of the Warrender theatre, but then pretty much everyone had. ‘When she diversified and bought into an art gallery she came to me for advice.’
She stifled a theatrical yawn, but the gesture unwittingly drew his eyes to the soft full curve of her rosy lips. ‘So, let me guess, she listened to you and made a fortune,’ she inserted with a roll of her eyes.
‘Actually she ignored my advice and bought it and, yes, made a fortune.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘A smallish one.’
‘So you were wrong?’
He reached out and tangled a wet curl around one long brown finger and drawled, ‘You’ve discovered the chink in my infallible armour. Please do me a favour and keep it to yourself.’
As he released the curl his finger brushed her cheek. It barely made contact, but Zoe, who had been holding her breath, felt an electric tingle pass through her body all the way to her curling toes.
His voice was a soft attractive buzz. She could hear what he was saying, but over and above the words was a louder buzz—a combination of her own heartbeat and the thrum of the deep hunger that was coursing through her veins with each beat of her heart as she stared at the deep V of golden chest dark against the white towelling.
It took every ounce of her self-control to stop herself reaching out and touching him…She curled her hands into fists and tucked them behind her back.
‘I put her onto the decommissioned church that was up for sale in town as a possible site for a new gallery. She has wanted to expand into this area for some time, so she owes me a favour. She is genuinely looking for someone to run it, and you have an art background…So it is perfectly feasible for you to live here and commute to do the foundation course.’
‘And amuse you in bed.’ He acknowledged her bitter addition with a tilt of his head. ‘You have it all worked out.’
He gave a smile. ‘The secret of success is taking control of events and not allowing them to control you.’
Yeah,
