Her Mediterranean Playboy (9 page)

Kate Hewitt

Z
OE
C
LARK
slipped the sunglasses off her nose to survey the discreet grey limousine idling at the kerb.

‘Nice,’ she murmured as the uniformed driver opened the door with a flourish. He’d already taken her one beaten up suitcase and stowed it in the boot.

Now she slipped into the cool leather interior of the luxury car and leaned her head back against the plush seat.

This was going to be a
fantastic
summer.

A smile bloomed and grew across her face as she leaned forward and flipped open the mini-fridge.

‘Is this complimentary?’ she called to the driver.

He stiffened before answering in heavily accented English, ‘Of course.’

Zoe grinned and plucked a bottle of orange juice from the fridge. She’d rather have had the little bottle of cognac, but she didn’t think it would be prudent to meet her future employer with brandy on her breath.

She took a swig of juice as the limousine pulled away from Milan’s Malpensa Airport and into the teeming traffic.

The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun glinting brightly off the cars that zipped and zoomed their way across half a dozen motorway lanes.

Zoe sipped her drink, feeling the first familiar wave of fatigue crash over her. She hadn’t slept much on the plane, and now a bit grimly she wondered if her employer would expect her to start work that morning.

For a moment she imagined him greeting her at the door of his villa, a feather duster and frilly apron in hand. What exactly did the temporary housekeeper of an Italian villa in the lakes do?

The job description had been surprisingly pithy—a scant two lines of tiny print in the back of the
New York Times
. Blink and you’d miss it. But Zoe had had a lifetime’s experience of looking at such ads, circling them in red ink—usually with a pen that was sputtering or leaking or had lost its life altogether—before handing them hopefully to her mother.

What about this one?

There was always something better, something great right around the corner. There had to be.

The driver turned off the motorway, leaving behind the rolling hills of Lombardy as well as the endless traffic of the capital’s outskirts for a smaller road lined with plane trees. Zoe glanced at the small road sign that read ‘Como: 25 kilometres’ before leaning her head once more against the soft leather seat and closing her eyes.

She must have dozed—she could sleep anywhere, except perhaps on planes—for when she woke the car was climbing higher into the hills, the dark green, densely forested peaks of the mountains providing a stunning backdrop.

She rapped on the dividing window, and with a long-suffering air the driver pressed a button so the glass slid smoothly away.

‘Are we almost there?’

‘Sì, signorina.’

Zoe sat back, taking in the ancient winding road, and the wrought-iron gates that presented themselves at intervals, guarding the wealthy residents within, whose villas could barely be glimpsed through the heavy foliage of rhododendrons and bougainvillea. As the car continued up the twisting road the lake shimmered enticingly at each bend, before disappearing again, and Zoe found herself turning around to look at it, to find its brilliant blue promise winking at her from between the trees.

‘This is beautiful,’ she said to the driver, before realising belatedly that he’d already pressed a button to return the dividing glass to its original place.

Then the car was turning smoothly into a narrow lane, and the
driver spoke into an intercom affixed to an ancient crumbling wall. Zoe couldn’t hear what was spoken, but after a moment the iron gates swung inwards, and the car proceeded up the lane.

Foliage crowded the car densely on both sides of the drive, so that when it finally fell away to reveal the villa Zoe let her breath out in a sharp, impressed exhalation.

Wow.

A sweep of jewel-green lawn led up to a villa that seemed more like a palace—a
palazzo
—than the villa Zoe had been imagining.

This place was a
castle
.

And she was supposed to clean it all?

She counted twenty-two multi-paned windows glinting in the sunlight before she stopped.

The car pulled round the circular drive to the front of the villa. A pair of solid oak doors, looking as if they’d survived the Dark Ages, remained ominously shut.

Zoe climbed out of the car before the driver could come round, earning his continued disapproval. He took her suitcase from the boot and deposited it on the crumbling portico.

‘Here you are,
signorina
.’

It took Zoe a moment to realise he was leaving.

‘Wait—you’re going?’ she demanded, hearing an annoying edge of panic creep into her voice. ‘Don’t you work here?’

‘I am hired only,’ the driver replied, his voice stiff with disdain, before he slammed the door and drove away.

As the sound of his motor faded into the distance, Zoe was conscious of how surprisingly silent it was. A bird twittered nearby, and the breeze, cool and fresh from the lake, rustled the leaves of the palm trees that fringed the great lawn.

The owner of the villa—her employer, Leandro Filametti—obviously knew she was here. Someone had answered the intercom and opened the gates. So why the silent treatment now?

Squaring her shoulders, Zoe marched up to the front door, lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it drop. A deep, melancholy boom reverberated through her bones—and hopefully through the house—and then there was silence.

Zoe waited. The bird twittered again, fretfully this time, its
tranquillity disturbed. Zoe raised her hand to the knocker once more, her fingers curling around the sun-warmed metal, but before she could drop it to sound the boom again the door opened, pulling her with it.

‘Argh!’ With a surprised yelp she tried to disentangle her fingers from the knocker, and in the process nearly fell headlong into the man who had opened the door.

Firm hands curled around her shoulders and righted her once more. Zoe was conscious of a sudden sense of strength and power, although she couldn’t really see the man in front of her. Once she was steady, she looked up, and found her breath coming out in a rush once more.

The man was beautiful. Zoe didn’t know if he was her employer or a gardener, but she certainly liked looking at him. His hair was light brown and a bit ragged, touching the back of his collar. Eyes the same colour as the lake—a deep blue-green—were narrowed against the sunlight, or perhaps in disapproval. He didn’t look very friendly.

Zoe straightened, unable to keep her gaze from wandering down the length of him. He was tall, a few inches over six feet, dressed in a faded grey tee shirt and worn jeans that hugged his long powerful legs. His feet were tanned and bare.

Zoe swallowed. ‘Hello…um…
Ciao. Il mi…
’ Her few words of Italian, snatched on the plane from a battered phrasebook, seemed to have leaked out of her brain. She smiled with bright determination. ‘I’m Zoe Clark.’

‘The housekeeper.’ He spoke with little accent, his voice cutting and precise. He stepped back, opening the door wider, yet somehow the gesture still seemed unfriendly. ‘Come in.’

Zoe stepped into a foyer, the black and white marble cool even through her flip-flops. The light was dim, and as her eyes adjusted she saw a sweeping spiral staircase in front of her, ornate and yet also clearly in disrepair. Her glance took in sheet-shrouded tables, and a bronze statue of a cupid that looked in need of some serious polish.

The man cleared his throat and her gaze snapped back to him. ‘Are you Leandro Filametti?’

‘Yes.’

The one word was spoken with a brusque flatness that made Zoe want to recoil. Instead, she jutted her chin and thrust out her hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Leandro Filametti regarded her hand silently for a moment before he shook it. His touch was light, yet firm, and all too brief. He dropped her hand without ceremony and turned to walk out of the foyer, clearly expecting Zoe to follow—which, with some resentment, she did.

Leandro led her down a narrow passageway to the back of the
palazzo
. From the peeling paint and chipped woodwork, Zoe could tell the palace needed a good deal of TLC. More, she suspected, than her limited capabilities allowed.

Leandro stopped on the threshold of an enormous ancient kitchen. Zoe regarded the huge blackened range and the scarred oak table with both awe and dismay. A single plate and glass, she noticed, had been washed and placed on the drainer by the sink. In the huge space, clearly meant for cooking meals for twenty or more, they looked incongruous and lonely.

‘You can start here,’ Leandro informed her.

‘Start…?’ Zoe stared around. She couldn’t even see so much as a broom—and, frankly, she wouldn’t know where to begin. How did you scrub away years of grime and dust? Did you start with the cobwebs or the mouse nests?

‘Yes,’ Leandro replied, his tone sharp with impatience. ‘You do know what housekeeping entails, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ Zoe replied, her tone matching his. ‘But I also know that my suitcase is still on your front steps, I’ve been travelling all night and I haven’t even washed my face or had a drink of water.’ Juice, perhaps, but not water.

Leandro did not even look abashed. ‘If you’d like a few moments to freshen up, by all means take them,’ he said, with just a trace of sarcasm.

‘Could you show me my room?’

‘Top floor. Take any room you like,’ he replied. ‘And you can get acquainted with the house as well as with your responsibilities.’

With that he turned on his heel and disappeared down another passageway, leaving Zoe open-mouthed and fuming.

She wasn’t what he’d expected. Back in the sanctuary of his private study, Leandro ran his hands through his hair before dropping them with ill-concealed impatience. In truth, he hadn’t known
what
to expect; he hadn’t thought to expect anything at all. He hadn’t considered the housekeeper he’d hired beyond her ignorance of Italian society and, most importantly, the Filametti family. He wanted someone anonymous; someone to whom
he
could be anonymous.

Yet when he’d surveyed Zoe Clark on his front steps, anonymous had not been the first word that came to mind. She was, in fact, all too familiar—all too similar to the women of his past. His father’s past.

Fast and flighty. Cheap and easy. Unprincipled.

Even now his mind conjured the image of her standing there, dressed in a skinny-strapped top and shorts that showed far too great an expanse of smooth, tanned leg. Her hair, silky and dark, framed her face in choppy waves, and her eyes were a warm honeyed brown, almond-shaped and luxuriously fringed. Everything about her, Leandro thought, reeked of sensuality—a confident sexuality that he recognised, remembered. How he loathed that knowing feline smile, the glint in the eyes of a woman so arrogantly confident of her own paltry charms. And yet his father had fallen prey to those charms time and time again.

He would not be the same.

Yet even as that resolution fired his soul, another part of his body already recognised there was something about Zoe Clark that he both resented and wanted. She was sexy, and he was man enough to respond to it. That didn’t mean he would act upon it. Ever. The world—
his
world—was waiting for him to make the same mistake his father had. To fall. To humiliate himself, his family, the ancient Filametti name. He knew it, had always known it, and even in the lonely solitude of the villa he recognised the dangers within himself.

He didn’t need the complication of a sexy housekeeper; he didn’t want it.

Except even as his fingers had wrapped around hers for that brief, tantalising moment, he had.

Leandro muttered an oath under his breath and sat down at the huge mahogany desk that had once belonged to his father. He hated that desk, its connotations and memories, yet some perverse part of his psyche insisted on using it. Redeeming it—or perhaps avenging it was the better term. He gazed sightlessly at the pages in front of him, with their endless equations, numbers and squiggles that represented a lifetime of research and achievement, and yet right now they signified nothing. He swore again.

The less he saw of Zoe Clark, the better, he decided. She could sweep and mop and dust and stay completely out of his way.

He didn’t need distractions—and ill-timed, inappropriate desire was just one of many he’d have to push resolutely away.

Zoe found the servants’ staircase—a steep, narrow, dismal set of steps—and cautiously made her way up. The gloom was intensified by a gossamer net of cobwebs suspended from the ceiling, and the only sound besides her own breathing was the resentful squeak of the steps as she made her way upwards.

She passed a dark, silent floor of closed doors and more shrouded furniture and then went up to the top floor, gazing in dismay at the four rooms available there. Each one was small and depressing, containing only a chest of drawers and a narrow bed whose mattress was questionable in both comfort and hygiene.

It was also stiflingly hot.

‘At least the view is good,’ she muttered, as she forced open a pair of peeling shutters and gazed out at the terraced gardens that ran down directly to the lake. The gardens were in as much disrepair as the villa, but they showed it less. Bougainvillea run rampant, Zoe decided, was pretty. Dust run rampant was not.

With a sigh she turned back to survey the room. Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts, and with sudden clarity and determination Zoe decided she was not going to suffer up here while a dozen bedrooms below went unused.

Leandro Filametti be damned. She deserved a little comfort if he expected her to tackle this lot.

Twenty minutes later Zoe had settled on one of the more modest bedrooms on the second floor. Painted in a faded lemony yellow, it was a smaller room, whose shuttered windows afforded a stunning view of Lake Como. After locating a dented bucket and an old mop in one of the kitchen’s many cupboards, Zoe spent most of the afternoon cleaning her own bedroom, airing the mattress and scrubbing and dusting what looked like a dozen years’ worth of dust and dirt.