give us a moment, please, Mary?’
‘Of course I can. I’ll...I’ll talk to you when you’ve finished in here, Carly.’ There was a pause, before Mary held her hand out. ‘Goodbye, Luis. It’s been...well, it’s been great.’
He nodded, but Carly thought how cold his face looked as he propped himself up on one elbow, before shaking the physiotherapist’s hand. Whatever Mary had said or done had not pleased him.
‘Goodbye, Mary,’ he said.
There was silence as she left the room and Luis sat up—impatiently gesturing for Carly to hand him the robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
She did as he wanted—quickly averting her eyes until he’d covered up with the black towelling robe, but when he spoke, he still sounded irritated.
‘Why are you so reluctant to do what I ask?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you being so damned stubborn?’
For a moment Carly didn’t answer. Would he scoff if he knew that his proposed intimacy scared her? Or would he just be shocked to learn that she had allowed one horrendous experience to colour her judgement—and she’d spent her life running away from the kind of personal contact which most women of her age considered perfectly natural? Someone like Luis would probably tell her to ‘move on’, in the way that people did—as if it were that easy.
And this was about more than what had happened to her, wasn’t it? She could see nothing but trouble if she agreed, because rich and powerful men like Luis were trouble. Hadn’t her own sister been chasing that kind of man ever since she’d first sprouted breasts, and didn’t she keep on going back for more—despite getting knocked back, time after time?
Thoughts of Bella’s inglorious escapades flitted through her mind as she met Luis’s luminous gaze. ‘I don’t want to neglect my housekeeping duties,’ she said.
‘Then get somebody else to do the cooking and the cleaning instead of you. How difficult can it be?’
Carly flushed. She knew that housekeeping wasn’t up there with being a lawyer or a doctor, but she still found it faintly humiliating to hear Luis dismiss her job quite so flippantly.
‘Or get in a professional masseuse who could do it better than I ever could?’ she suggested again.
‘No,’ he said, almost viciously. ‘I’m sick of strangers. Sick of people with different agendas, coming into my house and telling me what I must and mustn’t do.’ His mouth hardened into a forbidding line. ‘What’s the matter, Carly? Are you objecting on the basis that providing massage for your recuperating boss isn’t written into your contract?’
‘I haven’t got a contract,’ she said bluntly.
‘You haven’t?’
‘No. You told me when I interviewed for the job that if I didn’t trust you to give me your word, then you weren’t the kind of person you wanted working for you.’
An arrogant smile spread over his lips. ‘Did I really say that?’
‘Yes. You did.’ And she had accepted his terms, hadn’t she, even if the logical side of her brain had told her that she’d been a fool to do so? In fact, she’d practically bitten his hand off, because she had recognised that Luis Martinez was offering her the kind of opportunity which wasn’t going to come her way again. A place to live and a salary big enough to make substantial savings for her future.
The smile had now left his lips.
‘I am growing bored with this discussion,’ he snapped. ‘Are you prepared to help me out or not?’
She recognised the implicit threat behind his words. Help me out or else.
Or else what?
Go out and find a new job? One which wouldn’t leave her with so much free time to study for her exams? She frowned as she thought about the champagne bill from his last party and a new resolve filled her.
‘I’d be prepared to do it, if you were prepared to give me some sort of bonus,’ she said suddenly.
‘Danger money, you mean?’ he mocked. With a grimace he swung his long legs over the side of the massage bed, but not before Carly had seen a peek of hair-roughened thigh as the robe flapped open.
‘Yes, that’s right. Danger money,’ she croaked, quickly averting her gaze once more. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Funny. I never really had you down as a negotiator, Carly.’
‘Oh? And why’s that?’
Luis didn’t answer immediately, just concentrated on stretching his hips, the way that Mary had shown him. He wouldn’t bother telling his plain little housekeeper that she had merely confirmed his belief that everyone had a price, because that might upset her, and there was no point in upsetting a woman if it could possibly be avoided. Often, of course, it couldn’t. Usually because they weren’t listening to what you were saying, or they thought they could change your mind for you.
Or they started falling in love with you, even though you hadn’t given them the slightest encouragement to do so. His mouth hardened. That had been Mary Houghton’s mistake. He’d seen it growing day by day, until in the end she could barely look at him without blushing. She’d made it clear that she was keen for a...liaison and, yes, he’d been tempted. Of course he had. She was a good-looking woman and hadn’t he read somewhere that physiotherapists made great lovers because they knew how the body worked? But it had been highly unprofessional of her, and some deep-rooted and rather old-fashioned prejudice against such things had appalled him.
He turned his attention back to Carly. At least in her he had nothing to fear because sexual attraction was unlikely to rear its head. He found himself wondering if she bothered keeping a mirror in her bedroom, or whether she just didn’t see what the rest of the world saw.
Her thick brown hair was tugged back from her face in a ponytail and she wore no make-up. He’d never seen mascara on those pale lashes which framed eyes the colour of iced tea, nor lipstick on her sometimes disapproving lips. A little blusher would have added some much-needed colour to her pale skin, and he’d often wondered why she insisted on wearing a plain blue overall during working hours. To protect her clothes, she said—though, from the glimpses he’d caught of them, hers were not the kind of clothes which looked as if they needed much in the way of protection. Weren’t man-made fabrics notoriously hard-wearing? They were also very unflattering when stretched tightly over unfashionably curvy bodies like hers.
Luis was used to women who turned femininity into an art form. Who invested vast amounts of time and money making themselves look beautiful, then spent the rest of their lives trying to preserve that state of being. But not this one. Oh, no. Definitely not this one.
His lips flattened into a wry smile. What was it that the English said? Never to judge a book by its cover. And the old adage did have some truth in it—because despite her plainness and total lack of adornment, nobody could deny that Carly Conner had spirit. He could think of no other woman who would have hesitated for more than a second at the thought of—literally—getting their hands on him. Which of course was precisely the reason why he wanted her for the job. He needed to get fit, and he needed to do it as quickly as possible—because this inactivity was driving him crazy.
All he wanted was to feel normal again. He loathed the world passing him by, so that all he could do was watch it. Because inactivity left you with time to think. It left you feeling as if something was missing. He wanted to get back on the ski slopes. He wanted to pilot a plane again. He wanted the challenge of dangerous sports to fill him with adrenaline and make him feel alive again.
His mouth twisted as he levered himself off the bed.
‘Hand me my crutches, will you, Carly?’
She raised her eyebrows.
He gave a small growl. ‘Please.’
Silently,