Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,5

shrill voice crashed into their conversation and Maximo looked up to see Janette James bearing down on them, her body language managing to be both sinuous yet determined at the same time. She wore a look on her face which he’d seen the first time he’d walked into her estate agency and every time since. It was an expression he’d encountered many times during his life, but especially from middle-aged divorcees.

‘I do hope Hollie has been looking after you?’ she was saying. ‘I’m sure she has, judging by the amount of time she’s been standing here.’ She fluttered him another predatory smile before turning to the hapless waitress by his side. ‘But there are other people in the room, Hollie dear, tempting as it must be to monopolise Señor Diaz. People who are very hungry. So run along, will you? The mayor keeps glancing in your direction and he looks as if he could murder a sausage roll.’

Hollie nodded, aware of Maximo Diaz’s burning black gaze on her as she moved away and that the high heels were making her hips sway in a way she hoped wasn’t drawing attention to her bottom. Finding the mayor waiting, she kept her smile intact as he popped an entire sausage roll into his mouth, and thought about what her boss had said. Had she been guilty of monopolising the Spaniard? Maybe she had. She’d certainly been transfixed by him. Lulled by the timbre of his richly accented voice, she had been unable to tear her eyes away from his darkly beautiful face. But for once it had been a two-way street, because tonight she sensed that she had captured his complete attention. Instead of flicking her his usual dismissive glance, he had been openly staring at her and talking to her and listening to her as if her opinion actually mattered.

Had she been gaping at him like a stranded fish in response to that and drinking in all that powerful mastery instead of ‘working the room’ as Janette had told her to? She turned her head and watched other people moving towards him, as if they too were being magnetised by all that unashamed masculinity.

‘Good-looking fellow, isn’t he?’ observed the mayor wryly, noting the direction of her gaze as he reached for a second sausage roll. ‘I’ve noticed every woman in the room can’t seem to stop staring at him.’

Hollie winced. And she had been as guilty as the rest! She had drooled over him like some teenager at a pop concert.

‘I guess everyone’s interested because he’s about to become a local landowner.’

‘You think so? Wouldn’t have anything to do with the size of his wallet or the fact that he looks like an old-fashioned matinee idol, would it?’

‘Of course not,’ she said primly, quickly excusing herself to continue her elfish duties with renewed fervour, in an attempt to redeem herself in her boss’s eyes. She dispensed the gradually wilting selection left on her tray, topped up glasses and tried to keep busy, but, irritatingly, her thoughts kept flitting back to the man with the black eyes who was currently being monopolised by the local member of parliament. Maximo Diaz had unsettled her and made her feel distinctly disorientated because when he’d looked at her that way, she’d felt...

It was difficult to describe but she’d felt different. As if she weren’t Hollie Walker at all, but as if another woman had taken over her body. During a brief conversation about the wisdom of serving throwback cocktail snacks, an entirely different narrative had been running through her head. Hadn’t she found her gaze straying to the Spaniard’s sensual lips, which looked like an invitation to sin, and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him? Hadn’t her curiosity been piqued about how it would feel to be held in the arms of someone who looked so unbelievably strong?

Which was crazy. A man like Maximo Diaz was about as far out of her reach as the cold stars in the heavens. He was an international playboy with girlfriends who featured regularly on the covers of glossy magazines, while she was a twenty-six-year-old virgin. In fact, sometimes Hollie thought she could be defined by all the things she hadn’t done. Yes, she’d gone to live in London—and just look how that had ended—but she’d never been intimate with a man. She’d never lain naked in someone’s arms, or shared a giggling breakfast with them next morning, or gone on a mini-break, or