a paradise marred by more than just a guilty secret. In fact, she sometimes thought that the guilty secret was nothing compared to Andreas, who was capable of having the most appalling effect on her even when he was in London hundreds of miles away.
She was expected to report to him by email on a daily basis, which was fine, but in addition to the emails there were the phone calls, during which he would cross examine her like a chief inquisitor on the hunt for blood. He asked her questions that were loaded with hidden traps, into which she could inadvertently fall without warning, and made passing remarks that she interpreted as thinly veiled insults. He never forgot to let her know, directly or indirectly, that he was still suspicious of her motives, even if he had trusted her sufficiently to return to his hectic schedule in London.
Elizabeth frowned and walked towards her bathroom. James would be having his siesta, and this was her down time, during which she would have a long, lazy bath and maybe stroll in the garden, read her book or even catch up with some emails; one of the first things presented to her had been a laptop computer.
‘It’s the fastest method of communication,’ Andreas had informed her in his usual scarily cool way. ‘I’ll expect you to fill me in on my godfather’s progress every day. With your own personal laptop, there’ll be no room for excuses about forgetting.’
She hadn’t cared to think what would happen if she skipped a day, if she forgot. ‘Off with her head’ sprang to mind.
And then there were his visits.
These were frequent and often unannounced and they always, but always, left her a dithering wreck. Andreas was an expert in making his presence felt in a way that was subtle and invasive at the same time. How on earth did he always manage to find just the question that could stick a pin in her conscience and leave her flustered and hunted? She didn’t know, but he excelled at it. Those spectacular dark eyes would lock onto her, she would feel dizzy and faint and then she would babble.
Consequently, she had become adept at avoidance tactics. She would disappear to the town for a spot of shopping, which was something that didn’t interest her in the slightest, and reappear just in time to vanish for a bath. She would join them for dinner and would endeavour to keep as low a profile as possible, cringing when James sang her praises, and breathing a sigh of heartfelt relief when she could reasonably excuse herself for bed.
Once the thought of Andreas got into her head, it lodged there like a burr, and not even the luxury of her deep bath could sweep the disturbing images from her mind. Nor was there any image she could super-impose over his. It was as if her disobedient mind had wilfully decided to commit to memory that striking, dark face, those cool, assessing eyes, that wide, sensuous mouth and, once committed, was determined to hold on to the image with ruthless tenacity.
She emerged, warm and flushed, from the bathroom with just her bathrobe around her—and ran slap-bang into the alarming sight of Andreas lounging indolently in her doorway.
It was such an unexpected sight that she had to blink a couple of times because she was convinced that what she was seeing was just a continuation of what she had been thinking only moments before.
The illusion was well and truly shattered when he spoke.
‘I knocked.’
Elizabeth went bright red and stared at him until he shook his head impatiently. He walked forward into her room, half-closing the bedroom door behind him, which sent her nerves rocketing into even deeper, helter-skelter frenzy.
‘What are you doing here?’ she squeaked, following his every movement with trepidation. He was the last person she had expected to see. In fact, he wasn’t due a visit until the weekend, two days hence.
Andreas wasn’t sure whether to be amused or thoroughly irritated by her obvious dismay. No one could ever accuse the woman of enjoying his company, he thought. In fact, give her a magic wand and he was pretty sure that her first wish would be to make him disappear. But he had knocked, which as far as he was concerned gave him every right to enter when his knock hadn’t been answered.
Anyway, this wasn’t a social call, and he wasn’t about to let her scuttle into hiding until it was safe to emerge, which would be when his godfather came down later for his cup of afternoon tea.
‘I’ve come to see you,’ Andreas said smoothly. ‘I wanted to get hold of you without James, so I timed my visit to coincide with his siesta. Aren’t you flattered?’ He looked round the room curiously. ‘Would you believe, this is the first time I’ve been in this particular bedroom? Nice, if a bit heavy on the pastel shades and chintzy fabric. The four-poster bed has Portia’s touch written all over it. She had a flair for the showy.’ Inspection over, he turned to Elizabeth, devoting every ounce of his attention to her wary, flustered face.
‘What do you want?’ Elizabeth cleared her throat and tried very hard to disengage from the reality of her naked body under the bathrobe.
‘How are you finding it here?’ He walked across to the imposing bay-window and perched on the ledge, his long legs stretched out and loosely crossed at the ankles. ‘I mean, we’ve had innumerable conversations about James and his progress, but surprisingly few about you.’
‘You’ve barged into my bedroom to talk about how I’m enjoying the job?’ Elizabeth felt a rare surge of anger, because this was really too much. Did he imagine that she was undeserving of even a modicum of privacy? Did he think that because he had set himself up as her taskmaster that he could do whatever he wanted?
‘I didn’t barge into your bedroom. I very politely knocked and, when there was no answer, I entered. If you’re that obsessive about your privacy, then I suggest you lock your bedroom door as a matter of course.’
‘I would have, if I’d known you might have been prowling around,’ Elizabeth muttered to the ground.
‘But, as a matter of fact, your job satisfaction is only one of a few things I want to talk to you about.’
‘The others being…?’ She momentarily forgot her embarrassing state of undress, because she couldn’t think of anything Andreas might want to chat to her about that was going to be to her benefit. The fact that he had travelled down especially to catch her when James wasn’t around sent a shiver of apprehension racing up and down her spine.
‘I’m more than happy to have this conversation here,’ he drawled by way of response. ‘But you might want to get changed and join me in James’s office downstairs.’
Which brought Elizabeth right back down to earth at lightning speed. Her fingers tightened on the cord around her waist, threatening to cut off circulation, and she nodded at him tightly.
‘And don’t even consider stretching it out until James wakes up in two hours’ time. Or even gate-crashing his siesta so that he can chaperone you.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. Don’t you think I know how important it is that James has his rest during the day so that he can build his energy back up?’
‘Of course you do,’ Andreas said in a honeyed voice. ‘Although I can’t help but notice how much more visible you are when James is around. Almost as though you don’t like being in my company. But then that’s probably me just being cynical.’
‘You are a very cynical person,’ Elizabeth agreed on a sigh, and Andreas shot her a look of open disbelief.
‘I don’t suppose anyone ever tells you anything like that, because everyone is so desperate to please you, but you are cynical. It’s not a very nice trait.’ Over the course of time, James had told her about Andreas’s girlfriends, or ‘blasted airheads’, as he liked to describe them. Whilst Elizabeth knew that she shouldn’t really indulge in gossip about him behind his back, curiosity had driven her to listen, and what she had learnt had pointed to a guy who played the field with the same ruthless determination as he played the stock markets, always making sure never to stay with one woman long enough for her to get any silly ideas. If that wasn’t cynicism, then what was? Even though she had been deprived of the whole two-parent business,