LITMIR.BIZ

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She sighed loudly. What a relief. She wasn’t going round the bend after all. Her body was going a bit haywire, admittedly, but she could control that. She wasn’t a nymphomaniac, far from it. She dared to bet there weren’t too many twenty-eight-year-old virgins around these days.

      A whine at her feet brought her eyes down to Humphrey, who clearly thought he was due a bit of attention. She smiled, kneeling down and fussing the little animal, who promptly rolled over on his back in submissive adoration. ‘You’re more lucky than you know,’ she murmured, rubbing the jumbo size ears which felt like velvet. ‘No complicated relationships or muddled thoughts for you. You see, you like, you conquer. If the lady is willing, of course. If not, you sail off looking for the next lucky female. No broken heart or hurt feelings. Totally sensible.’

      Humphrey seemed to laugh at her, tongue lolling and eyes bright. She fussed him a little more and then stood up and together, the rest of the dogs following, they walked back towards the house.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      THE following day was a peaceful one. Maisie mucked out the stables and, once they were fresh and sweet-smelling, exercised Iorwerth, the stallion. Before she had left, Jenny had told her the name was Welsh and meant Lord of worth; Iola, the mare’s name, being the feminine diminutive. ‘My father was Welsh,’ Jenny had explained when Maisie had asked how the names had come to be chosen. ‘Although his parents immigrated to America when he was only four years old, he was careful not to lose knowledge of the language, and all the horses on our ranch had Welsh names. I suppose I just carried on the tradition here.’

      Italian, American, Welsh—Blaine certainly had a cocktail of blood flowing in his veins, Maisie thought as she walked back to the house after taking the dogs for another long walk in the afternoon. Perhaps that was why he was so … unusual? The word mocked her with its meekness.

      She felt sticky and hot as she ladled out the dog and cat food into the respective bowls, which she then placed on the veranda at the back of the house. It was the only place in the whole of the villa that Liliana allowed the animals to eat and drink, but as Maisie stood watching the rows of dishes—red ones for the dogs and white for the cats, with Leonardo, the Labrador, having his own special black one because he was on a prescribed diet for diabetes—and the little heads all avidly eating, she reflected that they didn’t do too badly. Plenty of good food, canine and feline company, lovely surroundings, all their needs catered for—if she came back as an animal she’d love it to be a cat or a dog under Jenny’s care!

      After washing the bowls thoroughly she put them away and went upstairs to her room to shower and change before dinner. Dumping her jeans and shirt—which still smelt vaguely of horse—in the linen basket in a corner of her bathroom, she stepped under the cool cleansing flow of water in the shower. It was heavenly. Although she had used lashings of sun-lotion and had been careful not to burn, her skin had felt hot and irritated by the end of the day. The velvet-soft water was just what she needed. After standing for some minutes just letting the water take all the aches and pains of a physically tiring day out of her limbs, she washed her hair before wrapping a bath sheet round her and walking through to the bedroom.

      She creamed her face and body, noticing the slight golden tint to her skin with some delight, and then dried her hair, letting it fall in soft waves about her shoulders. She had insisted she wanted to eat with Liliana in the kitchen while Jenny was away and now she slipped on a light linen shift dress without bothering with any make-up or jewellery. No need to dress up, she told herself as she yawned at her reflection in the mirror. She was so tired that she doubted she’d last till pudding anyway.

      As she walked downstairs she noticed Liliana exiting the formal dining room, however. ‘Liliana?’ She frowned at the housekeeper. ‘I thought I was eating in the kitchen with you?’

      ‘My fault, I’m afraid.’ As Blaine appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, a glass of wine in his hand, Maisie felt her heart actually jump. ‘I said we’d all sit in the kitchen but Liliana wouldn’t have it, neither will she join us. Stubborn.’ His eyes left Maisie as he smiled at the little housekeeper, and Maisie used the time to compose herself and catch her breath. By the time she joined him in the hall she hoped the hot flood of colour she knew had stained her cheeks bright red had died down somewhat.

      ‘I didn’t know you were eating here tonight,’ she managed quite casually as she followed him into the sitting room, accepting the glass of red wine he handed her in the next moment with a nod of thanks.

      ‘Neither did I.’ He smiled and her heart did that funny little hop thing again. ‘I came by mainly to reassure Liliana that my father is definitely holding his own and she insisted I stay for dinner. I think she feels I don’t cook for myself well enough.’

      He came by to reassure Liliana. Maisie took a big sip of wine, hoping it would begin to soothe her frazzled nerve-endings by the time she had to sit facing him over the dining table. The two of them. By themselves. ‘And do you?’ she said as the wine warmed the little cold bit in her stomach his words about Liliana had caused. ‘Cook for yourself, I mean?’

      ‘Of course; I’m Italian.’ He sat down on one of the sofas, one knee over the other and one arm along the back of the seat as he surveyed her with laughing eyes. ‘We’re all wonderful chefs from birth; didn’t you know?’

      She tried to enter into the spirit of the thing but it was hard because he looked so darn fanciable. Now she had acknowledged this strange effect he had on her, it seemed to have multiplied alarmingly and she had goose-pimples on her goose-pimples. ‘Do you even do barbecues?’ she asked, smiling back. And then hoped he didn’t think she was poking fun at poor Roberto.

      ‘Now and again, but I prefer to think of them as meals eaten alfresco rather than your English version of taking a piece of unprepared meat and cooking it until it resembles coal.’

      ‘Excuse me!’ She couldn’t work out if he was teasing her or not but she wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘I know loads of English people who marinate their meat beforehand and produce wonderful results.’

      ‘This is good.’ He nodded gravely. ‘You are restoring my faith in the nation’s culinary expertise after my experience at Roberto’s.’

      ‘Ah, but Roberto is Italian,’ Maisie pointed out triumphantly. ‘So, if you’re basing your judgement of our barbecues on him, that’s flawed reasoning. It should be me that’s saying I have my doubts about Italian barbecues, surely? Not that I think Jackie’s father is a bad cook, far from it,’ she added hastily. ‘He’s great, as it happens.’

      ‘But not at the English barbecue.’ His face was unsmiling but the greeny-blue eyes were wicked.

      ‘Not at any barbecue,’ she corrected severely, trying to ignore how sexy he looked and how the fluttering action in the pit of her stomach was gathering steam.

      ‘Right. Point taken.’

      ‘Anyway, how is your father, exactly?’ said Maisie. ‘You mentioned it was a bigger operation than expected.’

      Blaine nodded. ‘He was lucky they brought the operation forward,’ he said quietly. ‘Too many years of rich eating and no exercise had clogged up his veins, arteries, valves.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d been telling him for years to get checked out. Hell, he has enough money to get the best medical care for the rest of his life and not worry about it. To cut a long story short, the blood circulation to and from the heart had clogged up to the point where it had almost stopped. He could have had a major heart attack at any moment. But perhaps this was meant to reunite my father and Roberto? Who knows? Certainly, hearing them talk before the operation, I realised for the first time my father was as much to blame for the quarrel as Roberto. More so, probably.’

      Maisie nodded, relieved he had come to that conclusion.

      ‘And you? Can you manage the animals without assistance?’

      ‘There’s not really anything to manage. To be honest, I feel an absolute fraud that I’m being paid for this. I would much

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