with that she turned away to pick off dead flower heads from the cascades of stunning blossoms billowing from two giant stone urns that stood either side of the main door, giving Seb a chance to put together a sensible reply.
‘Er, no. Not much. I noticed the gates are down—’ he sniffed ‘—but the house itself looks pretty much the same.’ He raised one hand toward the shutters with a nod. ‘The colour scheme is different. Not sure it works.’
There was an exasperated sigh from Ella who twirled around to face him and planted a fist firmly on each hip.
‘Thank you! Nicole hired an “interior designer”—’ at this point she lifted her hands and made quotation marks with her fingers ‘—to remodel the old place in the spring.’
Ella nodded towards the shutters and shuddered with her shoulders. ‘He was a lovely charming man who had a wonderful eye for textiles but had no clue about the local style. I mean none. Zip. De nada. Zero.’
She bent towards Seb as though confiding in him. ‘I may be from London but I have lived here long enough to know that this house does not need navy-blue shutters!’
Then she stepped back to the flowers and expertly snipped off a perfect half-open pink rose bud with a few glossy green leaves with a fingernail.
Before Seb could reply she skipped up, stood on tiptoe and slipped the rose into the buttonhole of his made-to-measure suit jacket, smoothing it into place on his soft cashmere collar with the fingertips of one hand.
‘There. That’s better. No thorns, you see. I planted a rose without thorns. Do you like it?’
Ella raised her brows and looked Seb straight in the eye with an intense look and suddenly her mouth twitched as if she was only too aware that as he looked down to admire the new addition to his wardrobe he had a delightful view down the front of her yellow and white sundress.
For a few moments he completely forgot his troubles as he admired the tanned skin and soft curves under the thin yellow and white cotton. A white lacy bra peeked out either side of the dress, which had slipped down over one shoulder, and he felt the sudden urge to lift the strap of her sundress back into position. But that would have meant touching her skin and finding out if it was truly as soft and smooth as it looked.
It was very tempting but also totally prohibited.
Oh, no. Not going there. Bad idea! He liked city-smart women who knew how to run multimedia servers and could make orbiting satellites obey his commands. Not elves in green pants. Especially when she released her hand from his jacket and he saw a diamond and sapphire wedding band on her left ring finger.
Mrs Martinez! A married housekeeper. Okay. Very prohibited! That made sense. He vaguely recalled that she mentioned a little boy. A married woman with a family. The perfect housekeeper and gardener and maintenance man team to look after the house when Nicole was away.
Mr Martinez was a very lucky man.
He brought his attention back onto the trellis of roses above her head before croaking out a reply. ‘I do like it. It’s a stunning display. Thank you, Mrs Martinez.’
She gave his jacket a small final pat and smiled back at him before dropping back onto her heels.
‘You are most welcome. The main rose garden is still at the back of the house.’ She paused for a second, then gestured to the car and flashed him a half-smile. Then it was back to business. ‘Even in that mobile sofa you call a car, you must be tired after your long drive. Ready to see what he did to your old bedroom?’
This had been his room. The ancient bathroom with the cracked enamel basin had been in the room next door. The wall must have been knocked through to create this stylish tiled ensuite. But the room itself had not changed that much and the floorboards certainly creaked in the same places.
The rush of memories threatened to overwhelm him again as he looked out from the square window onto the walled garden at the back of the house where he had played and learnt to love life.
And then it hit him.
Ella Martinez had made up this room for him. Not the spare room his grandmother had used when his mother was terminally ill, but his old room. How had she known that this had been his room?
He turned back towards the door. Ella was standing at the top of the stairs simply watching him and her smile was like sunshine inside the dark cool shade of the corridor.
Seeing the look on his face, she said, ‘I worked it out,’ then pointed to the wall behind his back. ‘From the wallpaper.’
Then she grinned and took pity on his confusion. ‘Relax. I’m not psychic. When the decorators stripped off the layers of wallpaper they found some interesting blasts from the past.’
Ella glanced back over each shoulder, and then peeked down the staircase, as though checking that they were not being overhead, before leaning closer.
‘I’m sure lots of teenagers back then plastered their bedroom walls with posters of their favourite pop groups. In fact—’ and at this she leant back, pursed her lips, and nodded before going on ‘—I’m willing to bet that you would sing along to your favourite records holding a hairbrush as a pretend microphone. Am I right?’
Seb felt the back of his neck flare with heat and embarrassment, only then he looked at Ella and the laughter that had been teasing the corner of her mouth bubbled through into a full warm giggle.
Nobody had dared giggle at Sebastien Castellano for a very long time, only there was something in Ella’s voice that told him that her comments were not insulting or meant to embarrass him. She was simply sharing a joke.
And suddenly the irony of his old posters being found almost twenty years later hit him hard and he made the mistake of looking back at Ella. He started to laugh, really laugh, the sound so unfamiliar to him that he realised with a rush that he had not laughed like this for a long time.
‘Quite wrong,’ he eventually managed to reply, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘It wasn’t a hairbrush. It was a can of my grandmother’s hairspray. And the old wardrobe had a full-length mirror so I could admire my new denim outfit in its full glory.’
‘In that case consider yourself lucky. My parents are full-time musicians and I was actually born above their jazz club in London. Can you imagine what the noise was like every evening?’ Ella paused and looked up at the ceiling before sighing out loud. ‘Actually it was amazing and I adored it.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Hey ho. On with the show. I’ll leave you to get settled. If you need anything I’ll be in the same place as the coffee and cookies.’
Seb nodded. ‘On with the show? Okay, that sounds good. One question. What time are you expecting Nicole today? I need to catch up with her as soon as she gets back.’
Ella’s brows came together and her mouth twisted in surprise. ‘Nicole? Nicole isn’t here. Didn’t she tell you?’
Seb’s frown deepened as he looked up at Ella.
‘Not here? I don’t understand. She emailed me a few weeks ago to make sure that my plans had not changed. Has something happened? Is she okay?’
Ella raised and lowered both hands. ‘Fine. As of this morning she is just fine. A little wet maybe, but fine. What is not so fine is the weather in Nepal. The monsoon rains have come early and she is finding it slow going walking back from Everest Base Camp. They’ve already missed their original flight. So, you see, Nicole won’t be back for at least another few days.’
Then she added with a small shoulder shrug, ‘Until then you are stuck with me.’
CHAPTER THREE
ELLA peeped out of the kitchen window to see if Seb had woken from his nap yet.
She had hoped that he would be awake in time to move the very fine example of Italian design he called a motor vehicle that was still