a sharp, impressed exhalation.
Wow.
A sweep of jewel-green lawn led up to a villa that seemed more like a palace—a palazzo—than the villa Zoe had been imagining.
This place was a castle.
And she was supposed to clean it all?
She counted twenty-two multi-paned windows glinting in the sunlight before she stopped.
The car pulled round the circular drive to the front of the villa. A pair of solid oak doors, looking as if they’d survived the Dark Ages, remained ominously shut.
Zoe climbed out of the car before the driver could come round, earning his continued disapproval. He took her suitcase from the boot and deposited it on the crumbling portico.
‘Here you are, signorina.’
It took Zoe a moment to realise he was leaving.
‘Wait—you’re going?’ she demanded, hearing an annoying edge of panic creep into her voice. ‘Don’t you work here?’
‘I am hired only,’ the driver replied, his voice stiff with disdain, before he slammed the door and drove away.
As the sound of his motor faded into the distance, Zoe was conscious of how surprisingly silent it was. A bird twittered nearby, and the breeze, cool and fresh from the lake, rustled the leaves of the palm trees that fringed the great lawn.
The owner of the villa—her employer, Leandro Filametti—obviously knew she was here. Someone had answered the intercom and opened the gates. So why the silent treatment now?
Squaring her shoulders, Zoe marched up to the front door, lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it drop. A deep, melancholy boom reverberated through her bones—and hopefully through the house—and then there was silence.
Zoe waited. The bird twittered again, fretfully this time, its tranquillity disturbed. Zoe raised her hand to the knocker once more, her fingers curling around the sun-warmed metal, but before she could drop it to sound the boom again the door opened, pulling her with it.
‘Argh!’ With a surprised yelp she tried to disentangle her fingers from the knocker, and in the process nearly fell headlong into the man who had opened the door.
Firm hands curled around her shoulders and righted her once more. Zoe was conscious of a sudden sense of strength and power, although she couldn’t really see the man in front of her. Once she was steady, she looked up, and found her breath coming out in a rush once more.
The man was beautiful. Zoe didn’t know if he was her employer or a gardener, but she certainly liked looking at him. His hair was light brown and a bit ragged, touching the back of his collar. Eyes the same colour as the lake—a deep blue-green—were narrowed against the sunlight, or perhaps in disapproval. He didn’t look very friendly.
Zoe straightened, unable to keep her gaze from wandering down the length of him. He was tall, a few inches over six feet, dressed in a faded grey tee shirt and worn jeans that hugged his long powerful legs. His feet were tanned and bare.
Zoe swallowed. ‘Hello … um … Ciao. Il mi …’ Her few words of Italian, snatched on the plane from a battered phrasebook, seemed to have leaked out of her brain. She smiled with bright determination. ‘I’m Zoe Clark.’
‘The housekeeper.’ He spoke with little accent, his voice cutting and precise. He stepped back, opening the door wider, yet somehow the gesture still seemed unfriendly. ‘Come in.’
Zoe stepped into a foyer, the black and white marble cool even through her flip-flops. The light was dim, and as her eyes adjusted she saw a sweeping spiral staircase in front of her, ornate and yet also clearly in disrepair. Her glance took in sheet-shrouded tables, and a bronze statue of a cupid that looked in need of some serious polish.
The man cleared his throat and her gaze snapped back to him. ‘Are you Leandro Filametti?’
‘Yes.’
The one word was spoken with a brusque flatness that made Zoe want to recoil. Instead, she jutted her chin and thrust out her hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’
Leandro Filametti regarded her hand silently for a moment before he shook it. His touch was light, yet firm, and all too brief. He dropped her hand without ceremony and turned to walk out of the foyer, clearly expecting Zoe to follow—which, with some resentment, she did.
Leandro led her down a narrow passageway to the back of the palazzo. From the peeling paint and chipped woodwork, Zoe could tell the palace needed a good deal of TLC. More, she suspected, than her limited capabilities allowed.
Leandro stopped on the threshold of an enormous ancient kitchen. Zoe regarded the huge blackened range and the scarred oak table with both awe and dismay. A single plate and glass, she noticed, had been washed and placed on the drainer by the sink. In the huge space, clearly meant for cooking meals for twenty or more, they looked incongruous and lonely.
‘You can start here,’ Leandro informed her.
‘Start …?’ Zoe stared around. She couldn’t even see so much as a broom—and, frankly, she wouldn’t know where to begin. How did you scrub away years of grime and dust? Did you start with the cobwebs or the mouse nests?
‘Yes,’ Leandro replied, his tone sharp with impatience. ‘You do know what housekeeping entails, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Zoe replied, her tone matching his. ‘But I also know that my suitcase is still on your front steps, I’ve been travelling all night and I haven’t even washed my face or had a drink of water.’ Juice, perhaps, but not water.
Leandro did not even look abashed. ‘If you’d like a few moments to freshen up, by all means take them,’ he said, with just a trace of sarcasm.
‘Could you show me my room?’
‘Top floor. Take any room you like,’ he replied. ‘And you can get acquainted with the house as well as with your responsibilities.’
With that he turned on his heel and disappeared down another passageway, leaving Zoe open-mouthed and fuming.
She wasn’t what he’d expected. Back in the sanctuary of his private study, Leandro ran his hands through his hair before dropping them with ill-concealed impatience. In truth, he hadn’t known what to expect; he hadn’t thought to expect anything at all. He hadn’t considered the housekeeper he’d hired beyond her ignorance of Italian society and, most importantly, the Filametti family. He wanted someone anonymous; someone to whom he could be anonymous.
Yet when he’d surveyed Zoe Clark on his front steps, anonymous had not been the first word that came to mind. She was, in fact, all too familiar—all too similar to the women of his past. His father’s past.
Fast and flighty. Cheap and easy. Unprincipled.
Even now his mind conjured the image of her standing there, dressed in a skinny-strapped top and shorts that showed far too great an expanse of smooth, tanned leg. Her hair, silky and dark, framed her face in choppy waves, and her eyes were a warm honeyed brown, almond-shaped and luxuriously fringed. Everything about her, Leandro thought, reeked
