Any hint of scandal now would make the old family firm walk away from the table.
‘What I care about is the man conducting his sex life on my doorstep!’
She stared, her blue eyes widening to their widest before narrowing into angry sparkling slits. He made it sound as if he’d discovered her having an orgy! What she couldn’t understand was how could anyone have seen anything sordid in a perfectly innocent hug?
He was madder than he had been when she had given him cause. His reaction to her using his house to raise funds without his permission had been clinical, but there was nothing at all clinical about his reaction to her imagined sin now.
‘The next time get a room.’ The snarled suggestion triggered a free-fall avalanche of images that made him lose his thread.
‘Get a room? John is married!’
His nostrils flared. ‘All the more reason, I would have thought, to show a little more circumspection,’ he declared austerely.
‘I would not have an affair with a married man!’ She took a deep breath. It really hurt to have to explain herself to this man but what choice did she have? ‘What you witnessed, Mr Montero, was simply a goodbye hug between friends,’ she told him stiffly. ‘That was John, Chloe’s husband. You remember Chloe?’
Taking his silence to be a yes, she explained further. ‘He was picking up the twins. They’re staying with his mother tonight. She’s babysitting, because John and Chloe are having a party…you remember?’
He remembered.
‘I saw—’
‘You saw nothing, because there was nothing to see.’
His mind replayed the image that had caused him to jump to conclusions and he realised he had not seen anything beyond two people close. His expression froze, his discomfiture revealing itself in the faintest deepening of colour along the slashing angles of his sybaritic cheekbones. Isandro cleared his throat. Embarrassment was a foreign sensation and one he did not enjoy.
He stopped his jaw tightening. ‘I apologise. I made a mistake.’
Zoe fought a smile. Clearly every syllable of his apology had hurt. ‘Apology accepted. I left your mail on your desk. I wasn’t sure if you wanted it forwarded. If you let me know what time is convenient I’ll let the maid know when she can clean your study. Oh, and shall I let your chef know what time you’ll want dinner, sir?’ She took a breath and thought, Wow, I’m good.
His brows lifted. ‘I assumed that we would be dining out.’
Zoe shook her head, losing control of her ‘perfect housekeeper’ smile. ‘Dining?’
‘What time did your friend say—seven?’
She gave a little laugh, her face clearing. ‘The party! Oh, goodness, you don’t have to come.’
‘Then the invitation is not genuine?’
‘Yes, it’s genuine—Chloe and John are very genuine people. I just thought that under the circumstances…’
He arched a questioning brow. ‘Circumstances?’
This deliberate display of obtuseness brought her full lips together in a pursing line of annoyance. ‘They are going to want to thank you, and I’d assumed that you’d find that embarrassing.’
Of course her analysis was dead on, but it turned out his reluctance to attend this party was not as strong as his enthusiasm to not follow the script she clearly wanted him to.
Where women were concerned Isandro did not consider himself complacent, but neither did he anticipate rejection. It was his male pride responding, rather than common sense, as he bared his white teeth in a smile that did not reach his dark eyes and framed his silky response.
‘It is always pleasant when people are grateful.’ Some women would be grateful to be offered the chance of sharing an evening with him. ‘You will find I’m not easily embarrassed.’
Zoe struggled to hide her dismay. ‘Does that mean you want to come?’
While he knew it was illogical to put himself through what would be an uncomfortable and almost certainly boring evening, the dismay in her voice that she didn’t have either the skill or the good manners to disguise hardened his stubborn resolve to attend the damned party with her at his side—and she’d damned well enjoy it! he thought.
‘It’s not a matter of want. I gave my word.’
She struggled to read the expression on his lean sardonic face and faltered. ‘They’d understand if you…’
‘What time will you pick me up?’
Zoe’s heart sank to her boots and she shook her head, feigning incomprehension.
Isandro smiled. She was a very bad actress—an actress with the most incredible mouth he had ever seen.
‘Was that not the arrangement—you take me…?’ he asked, utilising his much more polished acting skills. ‘Of course, I can arrange a driver if you have other plans.’
Her only plan at that moment was to retreat to her little flat and bang her head on a brick wall! Inevitably he would be a back-seat driver. The sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach as she thought of being forced to share such a small space with him raised goosebumps over her body, but she cheered herself with the mental image of his elegant length folded into the not at all elegant confines of her Beetle that had seen better days. She squared her slender shoulders and ran her tongue across the surface of her dry lips.
Time to accept the inevitable and make the best of the situation. She was still mystified why he would want to come. Perhaps he just enjoyed having people tell him what a great guy he was, she thought scornfully, but the reality was it was going to happen so she’d better stop fighting it and make the best of the situation. It was one evening of her life, and she was probably worrying unnecessarily—his social skills were probably not nearly as bad as she feared.
‘No, that’s fine. I thought I’d leave around seven, if that suits you?’
He lifted his shoulders in a fluid shrug. ‘I will be waiting.’
Her brave smile tipped his emotions over into amusement tinged with determination. He had always found it hard to resist a challenge. By the time this evening was over he would have Miss Zoe Grace eating out of his hand.
GIVEN THE LIMITED storage space in the flat it was lucky Zoe didn’t have a lot of clothes. Those that didn’t fit into the cupboard in the hallway she kept in a case under the twins’ bed.
On her knees she dragged it into the middle of the room, then sat back on her heels and went through the contents. The choice did not take long as she only possessed two half-decent summer dresses. After a few moments of narrow-eyed contemplation, she chose the maxi, mainly because it had fewer creases. Putting it on a hanger she hung it over the bathroom door and turned on the shower, hoping the steam from it would smooth out the few there were in the light chiffon fabric that she was a bit nervous about pressing because she still hadn’t got around to replacing her iron with its dodgy thermostat.
Fifteen minutes later, some light make-up applied, her hair loosened from the plait and brushed into silky submission in waves that almost reached her waist, she switched off the water in the bathroom and was pleased to see that it had worked—the creases had virtually all fallen out of the misty blue fabric.
Slipping it over her head, she adjusted the shoe spaghetti straps and stooped down to get a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She hardly recognised the grave young woman who looked back at her, and allowed herself a complacent smile. When was the last time she’d dressed up? So long ago she couldn’t remember. It was a shame that on this occasion