began walking towards the sprawling villa, and after a few seconds of hesitation Sofia followed in his wake.
He didn’t swerve towards the kitchen. Instead, he headed towards the sitting room and then turned, waiting as she entered and then stopped dead in her tracks, hovering just inside the door.
‘What’s going on, Rafael?’
‘Sit.’
‘Thanks, but I’m fine standing right here.’
‘I’m not entirely sure where to begin.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you should just take a look at this.’ He flicked open his wallet and pulled out an article on his godfather that he had printed off before he had left London, knowing that when the story emerged the online entry might explain more than he would be able to. He handed her the paper and then stepped back to watch her face as she scanned it before returning it to him.
‘So?’ she flung challengingly at him.
‘Recognise the name?’
‘I haven’t got a clue who that person is.’
‘You mother never mentioned names when she was talking about your father?’
Colour leeched out of her face as she stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds. ‘No.’
‘The man you’ve just read about is your father.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She stumbled into the room and fell into one of the chairs, then promptly sat forward, horribly conscious of her state of undress. Primly, she draped the towel she had been carrying across her thighs and watched as he drew a chair to sit directly facing her.
Was this some sort of interrogation? Surely he couldn’t be right? She tried frantically to remember what her mother had said about her father aside from, in her last few days, when she had repeatedly told her that he had broken her heart. Had she described the guy at all? No. He’d been much older than her at the time, but she had shied away from details. Sofia had never bothered to pry, because what would have been the use?
‘Why wouldn’t you? What reason would I have to lie?’
‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on but—’
‘Hear me out, Sofia, and you will. David Dunmore is your father. Your mother contacted him shortly before she died. Her conscience, it would seem, got the better of her. She told him that he had a daughter. You. He had people check you out as soon as he received that letter from your mother.’
‘Had people check me out?’
‘These things happen.’ Rafael shrugged.
‘No. Not in my world, they don’t happen.’ She stared at him stonily. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, leaping to her feet. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation. I need to... I need to...’
‘You need to sit and listen to what I have to say. Sofia, I didn’t come over here from London to play at being a gardener.’
‘Then why have you come?’ She sat back down, very slowly, riveted to his beautiful face, chilled by the cold containment of his expression. This was certainly not the warm, teasing guy she had begun losing her head over. This was a stranger on a mission and it was dawning on her that the mission might not be to her liking.
But confusion rendered her speechless while her thoughts buzzed in her head like a swarm of angry wasps.
‘David Dunmore is my godfather and I was tasked with coming over here to personally check you out. Not check out the veracity of your identity, but to check out what sort of person you are.’
Sofia stared at him sickly as pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began meshing together, revealing a picture she didn’t want to acknowledge.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she whispered. ‘And even if there isn’t...even if that man happens to be my father...why would he send someone over here to check and see what I might be like?’
‘That man happens to be an extremely wealthy person,’ Rafael told her flatly. ‘Wealthy people take the necessary precautions.’
‘And you...? If you’re not a gardener, are you wealthy as well?’
‘I am beyond wealthy.’
That statement of fact dimly registered in a part of her brain that was already recognising that this was no joke. This man—the man she’d thought she was getting to know, the one man to have broken through her defences—was not the person she had thought him to be. In short, he was a spy sent over to get the measure of her for reasons he hadn’t fully disclosed, but which he was about to.
‘I should have guessed,’ she said bitterly.
‘How so?’
‘Just the way you were. Arrogant. Dismissive. How did you manage to wangle a job here as a gardener?’
‘David managed that feat and, believe me, I was dubious about the validity of this...fishing expedition but...’ He paused, expression thoughtful as he mulled over the direction the conversation should take.
Sofia watched. What else could she do? Watched, and waited and cursed herself for letting her trusted instinct to keep all men at arm’s length go to pot.
She should have known that all that charm, those sinful good looks, that mesmerising personality came at a price. She was paying the price now as she accepted how far she had been sucked into the magical aura he exuded.
She’d been ready to fall into his arms and sleep with him!
‘But...?’ she questioned coldly.
‘But, firstly, I should explain that he has no other natural children of his own. He’s been married twice, and both marriages ended in divorce, and extremely acrimonious divorce at that. And neither of those marriages yielded any children, although he did inherit a stepson who now owns a substantial amount of shares in his company.’
‘What does that have to do with me?’
‘Ostensibly, it should have nothing to do with you whatsoever, but in point of fact you, by virtue of your blood line, are in line to naturally inherit the rest of the shares held by your father.’
‘I have no idea where you’re going with this.’
‘Surely you’re beginning to join the dots, Sofia?’
‘Why would someone I’ve never met, someone who never knew I existed until a handful of months ago, care one way or another about blood lines?’ She laughed scornfully.
‘David’s stepson,’ Rafael informed her heavily, ‘has been proving to be something of a problem ever since he came of age.’ Rafael lapsed into temporary silence, his dark brows knitted in a frown. Without warning, he vaulted upright and began pacing the room, a vision of such superb grace and elegance that the breath caught in her throat and she had to look away to stop the treacherous pounding of her heart.
He came to rest directly in
