LITMIR.BIZ

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dismissively. ‘That aside, her husband had died the year before, she’d lost her son and was landed with a granddaughter she found impossible to handle. She is constitutionally lacking the warmth and sensitivity required for the care of a needy child. I knew that and made a point of keeping in touch over the years. So I guess you could say that Alice sees me as the likeliest person to take over.’

      Moral issues aside, ignoring the implication that she and Lionel should have offered practical help for an ex-business partner’s orphaned child, Isabella Maria’s mind was walking an entirely different path. ‘Zoe Rothwell was such a pretty child, as I remember. Such a happy little thing. She and her parents spent that Christmas with us at Wakeham Lodge. You remember, Lionel—you and her father spent most of the time finalising the details about buying him out of the business. Weeks later both her parents were dead, so there must be a mass of money sloshing about. Little Zoe might have turned into a handful but she must be worth a great deal. Surely that’s right, Javier?’

      ‘So?’ Javier bit back his impatience. ‘Zoe will inherit a considerable amount when she reaches twenty-one. In the meantime the money’s in trust.’ He answered the question, even though it had no relevance to the present situation, only to receive another from the same off-beat direction.

      ‘Is she still pretty? I recall she had the loveliest long pale blonde hair—and such huge golden eyes!’

      As he expelled an I-don’t-believe-this hiss Javier’s dark brows met. What had Zoe’s looks got to do with the problem he was faced with? Tips on how to persuade a reluctant teenager to finish her education would have been more to the point! ‘How should I know?’ he grouched. ‘I visit a couple of times a year to make sure things are ticking over as well as can be expected, only to be regaled with tales of temper tantrums, nannies disappearing at the speed of light.’

      In those days Zoe had been clingy around him on his visits, he recalled. Still at university himself, he’d found fun things to do with the orphaned scrap, given her a few hours of the type of childish fun not permitted by her starchy grandmother or her ancient housekeeper, both of whom repeatedly spouted the principle that children should be seen but not heard.

      Later, when Zoe had been packed off to boarding-school, she’d become sulky, her mouth in a perpetual pout, her hair plaited in a tight braid that fell down her back to her waist.

      It must have been almost a year since he’d seen her. Pressure of work had kept him out of England. His frown deepened to a scowl. She’d spent the whole of his two-hour visit staring at him, he recalled, remembering how oddly uncomfortable she’d made him feel.

      ‘You should marry her. She has her own fortune so she wouldn’t be spending yours—which is a huge consideration when one never knows if a woman thinks more of the size of a man’s wallet than the extent of his happiness,’ Isabella Maria pronounced lightly. ‘In two years, when she’s eighteen. Provided she has child-bearing hips, of course. What could be more convenient? And if anyone could cure her of her apparent habit of bad behaviour then it would be my handsome, strong-minded son!’

      ‘Dream on, Mama!’ His mocking laughter was a release for his irritation. He could never stay annoyed with his outrageous, adored parent for more than two minutes at a time. And as for the state of Zoe’s hips, he had no idea whether they were as wide as a barn door or as narrow as a snake’s.

      Zoe’s heart was beating so rapidly she felt sick. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked the interminably slow waiting minutes. Javier was coming for her! Her head was spinning; her whole body felt out of control.

      She shifted restlessly on the upright chair in the window enclosure, staring out over the dull November garden, over the top of the low neatly clipped privet hedge where she would see his car as it turned off the village main street and onto the driveway, her eyes stinging with the effort of not allowing herself the smallest blink in case she missed his arrival.

      For the first time in her sixteen and a half years she actually believed in her own guardian angel, something or someone who did care about her, nudge her in the right direction. What else could explain her sudden decision to walk out of school, hitch a lift back here and state she was never going back?

      She’d hated that school ever since she’d been sent there at the age of eleven. Surrounded by strangers who hadn’t known her from Adam and hadn’t wanted to—because by that time Zoe had learned that the only way to dull the pain of not being loved by a single living soul was to act as if she didn’t care.

      The other sixty-odd pupils were meek little swots and Zoe soon discovered why. The guiding principle of The Blenchley Private Academy For Girls was strict discipline. Severe punishments were handed out for anyone who stepped out of line, no mitigating circumstances considered.

      The threat of punishment meant nothing to Zoe. Whatever the grim-eyed tutors dealt out—for answering back, bad attitude, inattention, whatever—meant next to nothing because it was a pale shadow of the punishment she’d been dealt on the night she’d lost both her loving parents, her home, everything. The only survivor from her happy past had been Misty, her darling Shetland pony, safe in his stable. But Grandmother Alice had flatly refused to allow her to keep him. Misty had been sold.

      So she’d loathed Grandmother Alice, too. Truth to tell, when the grandmother she’d seen only rarely had taken her in she’d been scared by the way the old lady had recoiled and pushed her away whenever she’d tried to climb on her knee for a cuddle. Zoe had never before encountered an emotional rebuff or been treated as if she were an inconsiderate nuisance. She hadn’t liked being scared so she’d turned that fear and bewilderment into anger, a stubborn refusal to do as she was told, ever.

      When she’d woken that morning, just over a week ago, and decided she wouldn’t stay at school one moment longer, she’d had no idea how events would unfold. Twenty-four hours ago Grandmother Alice had announced, ‘Javier Masters has agreed to take you into his care for the remainder of your minority.’ Her thin mouth had pursed. ‘I have performed my duty thus far, but am unwilling to continue. My only hope is that Javier can instil some common sense into you and exact at least some good behaviour. He will collect you tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you are packed and ready.’

      Since then she’d been in a state bordering on delirium. Her guardian angel had been working overtime! She’d always adored Javier.

      In the beginning he had given her treats every time he’d visited. Trips to the zoo, ice creams and burgers, a day at the seaside where they’d built the biggest sandcastle known to mankind, a magical few hours watching a pantomime, lots of fun but, more importantly, his time and attention. All that had more or less stopped once she’d been packed away to boarding-school. He’d still visited a couple of times a year when she’d been back on holiday but Grandmother Alice had vetoed any outings, telling Javier that, because of consistently bad reports from school, treats of any kind were out of the question.

      The visits she’d so much looked forward to had become torture. The three of them taking tea, served by the grumpy old housekeeper, Grandmother Alice’s strictures to ‘Sit up straight’, ‘Don’t fidget so’, ‘Answer the question.’

      Javier’s gentle questions about school, the friends she’d made, nothing she’d wanted to answer because nobody must know how unhappy she was. It would have made her seem weak and she wasn’t, she was tough!

      But his smile had always been kind even though she’d known she was behaving like a sulky brat. And when he’d left he’d always given her a big hug and that had always made her want to cry because he’d seemed the only person in the world able to like her, and she’d known it would be months before she would see him again.

      Then, around a year ago, on his last visit, something amazing had happened. She’d fallen for him with a resounding crash. Not only because of his fantastic looks—that soft black hair, sexy, black-fringed smoky eyes, the hard slash of his high cheekbones, tough jawline and wide, beautiful male mouth—but because of that intrinsic kindness, coupled with the aura of supreme self-assurance that told her that he was a man who would fight to the death for anything or anyone he cared about.

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