LITMIR.BIZ

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minutes later, wearing a crisp white blouse, a pair of narrow-legged tailored black trousers and with her hair in a fat plait down her back, she slid her feet into a pair of sensible black leather loafers. She gave herself a critical once-over, bending at the knee to see the top of her head in the angled mirror. Resisting the temptation to jazz up the sombre outfit with a pink scarf dotted with orange roses, she slid a pair of gold hoops into her ears. The sound of them jingling brought a smile to her lips as she lifted her head, more confidence in her stride as she headed across the courtyard. She was determined to make up for the disastrous first impression she had made; she could do it.

      She had to do it.

      Her smile faded slightly as she approached the building, tensing as she heard a car in the distance, but the vehicle that drove through the arch was a delivery van from the local butcher’s. She started breathing again, delivering the silent advice, Cool it, Zoe, before she paused to thank one of the gardeners for donating a box full of the vegetables from the kitchen garden to the raffle the previous day, and admiring the magnificent lavender tumbling from a group of barrels.

      ‘The smell always makes me think of summer and at night it fills the flat,’ she told him, adding warmly, ‘The flowers you cut for the house were marvellous.’ She had spent a pleasant half-hour filling bowls in several of the rooms with the fragrant summer blooms.

      He tilted his head in acknowledgement and looked pleased with the compliment. ‘The other one here before you sent up to London for fancy arrangements every week. I told her it was a criminal waste.’

      ‘I’m sure they were very beautiful.’ The gardener might approve, but Zoe suddenly felt less secure about her amateur attempts to add a touch of colour to the house; they were hardly professional.

      Resisting the impulse to run back to the house and remove all the flowers, which in her mind were fast becoming tasteless and ugly displays of amateurism, she chatted a little longer to the man before she finally excused herself.

      In the end she couldn’t bring herself to dump the freshly cut flowers, deciding as a compromise not to volunteer the information she was responsible—unless directly asked, which seemed unlikely. She walked around the place a final time to double-check everything, leaving it until the last possible moment before she jumped in her car and set off to pick up the twins from school.

      For all she knew Isandro Montero might not arrive until midnight; he might be a total no-show—if she was very lucky.

      The narrow country lane that led to the village was in theory a short cut, but Zoe got stuck behind a tractor, and the children were already waiting at the gate when she arrived, chatting to Chloe and Hannah.

      ‘I’m sorry I’m late!’ she exclaimed.

      ‘You’re not late,’ Chloe soothed. ‘They only just got out.’ She took in Zoe’s outfit and her brows lifted. ‘Wow, you look very…’

      ‘Weird,’ supplied Georgie bluntly.

      ‘Very sexy librarian,’ Chloe corrected.

      ‘Are librarians sexy?’ Harry asked.

      Chloe exchanged a look with Zoe, who suppressed a smile and said, ‘In the car, you two.’ Adding, ‘Do you want a lift, Chloe?’

      The older woman shook her head. ‘No, I’m picking up some glasses for tonight from Sara on my way back.’

      ‘I hope you all have a great night, I wish I could come but…’ She lifted her slender shoulders in a regretful shrug; her babysitting arrangements had fallen through that morning.

      ‘You can…I know, just call me fairy godmother. You know how John’s mum is having Hannah? Well, she’s offered to have your two as well. John will pick up the twins on his way home and he’ll fetch them back in the morning.’

      ‘Oh, Chloe, that’s really kind but I couldn’t impose…’

      ‘It’s not imposing. Maud offered and they’ll have a great time, you know they will.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘Yes but nothing, Cinders, you’re going to the ball and don’t forget the invite includes your utterly gorgeous boss…I tell you, if I was a few years younger I’d give you a bit of competition there.’

      Zoe struggled to smile at the joke. ‘He’s not here, I’m afraid.’ She felt a guilty tug as her friend’s face fell.

      ‘I thought he was due back today. John’s going to be so disappointed—he wanted to thank him personally and return his hospitality. Half the people there only came because they wanted to take a look at the hall.’

      Zoe’s unease increased. Short of admitting that the hospitality they wanted to return had not been given freely, she had no way of preventing the decision to treat the new lord of the manor as a community-minded philanthropist.

      ‘He was…is…due today,’ she admitted. ‘But when I left he hadn’t arrived.’

      ‘But he might do.’

      ‘Anything’s possible,’ Zoe admitted, but the thought of Isandro coming to a party where the glasses were borrowed and the food was provided by guests! Possible but not very likely, thank goodness!

      ‘Well, promise you’ll remind him if he does turn up? Tell him that we’d love to see him and he seemed very keen to come. He’s obviously making an effort to be part of the community.’

      Zoe didn’t have the heart to shatter this illusion and explain that the man had only said yes to cut the scene short and get rid of them as quickly as possible.

      ‘If he does I will,’ Zoe promised, imagining with horror the admittedly unlikely scenario of Isandro putting in an appearance at the party. Him spending the entire evening with his lips curled contemptuously would suck the joy out of any occasion and Zoe wanted to save her friends that. On a less unselfish note she wanted to save herself from spending her precious off-duty time with a man who made her skin prickle with antagonism even before he opened his mouth and said something vile and unpleasant. The fact that half the vile things he said were actually the truth was neither here nor…Losing track of her train of thought, she shook her head slightly to banish the image of the lips that combined overt sensuality with an underlying hint of cruelty.

      She was getting fixated on the man’s mouth when it was the things that came out if it that she ought to worry about.

      ‘John will be by around six to pick up the twins.’

      Isandro did not get involved in other people’s lives. His charitable donations to selected good causes were made anonymously, and he never responded to any form of moral blackmail or sentimental sob stories, but the story of the little girl and her ‘last chance to walk’ trip to America continued to play in his mind.

      Admit it, Isandro, the kid got to you.

      This perceived weakness was responsible for putting the indent between his sable brows. His father had been a sentimental man, a kind, trusting man who was moved by the suffering of others. A man who taught his son the importance of charity, and led by example.

      And where had that got him?

      Universally liked and admired certainly—but at the end he had been a broken and disillusioned man.

      Isandro had been forced to stand by helplessly and watch while the woman his father had married and her daughter had systematically robbed the family business, stealing not just from his father but from major clients. He had no intention of emulating his parent, had no room for sentimentality in his life, expected the worst from others and was rarely disappointed.

      Experience had taught him that everyone had an angle and the most innocent of faces could hide a devious heart, like his stepmother and her daughter. Forced to brake hard to avoid a cat that shot across the road out of nowhere, he shook his head, banishing the thoughts of the pair of con artists who had with clinical efficiency isolated his father, alienating him not just from trusted friends

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