And a presence could only mean one thing. A party-goer, in the heat of the moment and with the wine flowing like a fountain, had failed to realise that he had strayed out of bounds.
Rafael carefully put his glass down and turned towards the direction of the rustling. The light might be fading, but he wasn’t blind and the bimbo trying to tiptoe away from the scene of the crime must have had all of one brain cell to imagine that he couldn’t see her. And he could. Blonde hair, of course. Faded cut-off jeans worn very tight. Naturally. Cropped top with obligatory slither of stomach exposed. In other words, just the sort of woman Rafael found deeply unappealing.
‘Hey, you!’
Lord, his voice ricocheted around Amy and she gave a little startled yelp as she turned tail to flee. One glance at the man, all shadow and substance at the same time, was enough to warn her that, whoever the hell he was, he wasn’t the sort to chuckle over the fact that she was probably trespassing on his property.
Not that it was easy to tell where James Lee’s property began and ended.
The place was just so big! Even with a severe case of jet lag kicking in, it was still impossible to miss the fact that ‘the family house’ stopped only a few polite centimetres short of being a hotel. And the grounds! Succulently tempting. Even with her body clock warning her that it might be time to head for her bedroom, the verdant lawns with their masterfully landscaped grounds had egged her on, tempting her to explore just for a little while.
Hence the fact that she was now trying to dodge a giant of a man who seemed to be rapidly closing ground between them.
She was barely aware of his stealthy movement towards her and was, in fact, breathing a sigh of relief that she had escaped, when a hand closed over her shoulder, yanking her to a sudden, painful halt, before swinging her around so that she was forced to look up…and up…until she was staring into the most forbidding face she had ever seen in her life. Black eyes glared down at her from a face that was all disturbing angles and shadows. His mouth was a thinly drawn line of suppressed anger. Amy’s breath caught in her throat as she stared up at him, her eyes widening as her brain rapidly went through the various possibilities for danger that were confronting her.
Fortunately for Amy, danger, the unknown and certainly threatening oversized strangers were not things that could keep her exuberant nature suppressed for too long.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’
They spoke at the same time, glaring at each other with equal ferocity, until Amy slapped his hand off her shoulders and stepped back, her blue eyes spitting fire.
‘I asked you first!’ Amy decided to go on the immediate attack because, for once, her vocabulary was threatening to let her down when she needed it most. She rubbed her shoulder meaningfully, every inch of her five-foot-three frame emanating anger.
Rafael took a deep breath and summoned up the formidable self control that had made him such a powerful contender in the world of high finance. He turned his back and began walking away, towards the house, leaving the wretched blonde to stew in her own pathetic discomfort, even though every fibre in his being wanted to prolong the confrontation so that he could put her soundly in her place.
‘Hey! Where do you think you’re going, mister?’
Rafael turned around and stared at the diminutive figure that hadn’t budged from where he had left her. This time, her hands were planted firmly on her hips. The breeze, he could see, was wreaking havoc with the curly fair hair, blowing it this way and that. The cropped top had ridden up a little higher and there was slightly more of that slither of stomach visible.
In every way, shape and form, this woman conformed to his brother’s idea of the perfect woman, from the obvious clothing to the flyaway blonde hair. The only variation on the theme seemed to be that this particular model didn’t have the requisite big breasts.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Rafael said with icy politeness, hardly believing his ears.
‘You heard me!’ Amy took a couple of steps forward. ‘Who the heck are you and what do you think you’re doing on James Lee’s property?’
‘Oh, good God. A madwoman. I suppose you’re a member of his guest list up at the big house and you’re a little worse for wear.’ Rafael checked his watch. ‘Pretty good going considering you really haven’t been here that long.’ He gave a short, sarcastic little laugh that made the blood rush to Amy’s head.
‘How dare you?’
She had taken a few steps closer to him. Now, with the light from the porch spilling onto her, Rafael could see that the cute little figure, minus the large breasts, was accompanied by a face that might have passed for just another pretty one were it not for the lively expression on it. He had an idea that this woman was not backward when it came to self-expression. Loud mouthed and brash, he assumed, with distaste.
As if to cement the unfortunate impression, Amy glared at him. ‘Does James know that you’re here? Ha! I’ll bet he doesn’t! I know for a fact that he doesn’t use this place very often so I’m sure he’d be overjoyed to know that there’s a squatter on the grounds!’
‘Squatter?’ Rafael gave a roar of laughter.
‘You heard me. A squatter!’ Well, he didn’t exactly look like one, but, then again, he certainly didn’t look like one of the people James would normally mix with. Of which she was not exactly one, but she sure as heck knew what they were like because she saw them often enough in the director’s restaurant, where she worked behind the lines, providing high-quality food for the high-quality executives, and, sometimes after hours, for James’s personal entourage, glamorous women and playboy men who occasionally had a bite to eat in the boardroom before heading out to some trendy London night spot.
Of course, none of the directors knew that James was the unofficial recipient of Amy’s catering skills. For the past year and a half that had been their little secret and one that was so James with his winning, risqué ways, his charming disregard for convention except when it suited him.
Wasn’t that why she had taken to daydreaming shamelessly about him over time? Oh, he was so much more than just a good-looking face and a moneyed background!
Amy surfaced from her distracting thoughts to find the man, now recovered from his laughing fit, eyeing her coldly.
‘I am not a squatter. In fact, I’ve never heard such a ridiculous suggestion in my life.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘Someone who isn’t about to stand around here and have a pointless discussion with some woman who’s the worse for wear.’
‘I am not the worse for wear!’
‘Well, you’re certainly behaving like you are.’ Rafael’s voice dripped contempt. Some men liked shrieking women, but he wasn’t one of them. He liked them refined, elegant, composed. His expression hardened. ‘And I have no desire to conduct a conversation with a fishwife.’
Amy gasped. His lack of common courtesy was somehow shocking, especially, she thought belatedly, considering he was talking to a guest of the man on whose grounds he had apparently set up camp. Legally or illegally, she had yet to find out.
Yet again he had turned his back on her and was striding towards the house. He couldn’t possibly be oblivious to her presence because she was hardly trying to be silent, but he certainly wasn’t spinning round to continue the sparring match.
In fact, she hopped onto the covered wooden porch at roughly the same time as he swung through the front door and without a backward glance slammed it firmly in her face.
As expected, it wasn’t long before Rafael heard the woman banging on the door. At this rate, between her uncontrolled shrieking and the unholy racket she was now making, the neighbours would be reporting him!
He went very close to the door, close