Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,9
sodden clothes, bundling her damp tights into the laundry basket and searching around for something suitable to wear. As her fingertips halted on her best woollen dress, she thought how weird it was to think of Maximo Diaz downstairs, because the only men who ever stepped over the threshold were tradespeople commissioned by her landlord to repair the aging and rather dodgy appliances.
She knew her self-contained behaviour meant she was often regarded as something of an oddity and there were a million reasons she gave to herself and others when asked why she didn’t socialise much. She didn’t have a lot of spare cash, because she was saving up to start her own business. She hadn’t lived here very long, so she didn’t know many people. These things were true, but weren’t the whole story. The real reason was that her solitary life made her feel safe and protected. It didn’t leave her open to pain or deception, or having her life messed up by somebody else.
Yet she had broken the habit of a lifetime and invited Maximo Diaz into her home, hadn’t she? A world-famous billionaire financier. She was surprised she’d had the nerve and even more surprised when he’d accepted. And now she had to go down and face him and say...what? What on earth did she have in common with the Spanish billionaire?
Yet even though part of her was regretting her impulsiveness, she couldn’t deny the slow curl of excitement which was unfurling somewhere low in her stomach. Was it wrong to feel this way about someone she barely knew? She stared in the mirror, her hand automatically reaching for something to tie her hair up, but at the last minute her hand fell back and she left it loose and streaming down her back as she closed her bedroom door behind her.
The creak of the stairs should have warned him she was on her way back down but Maximo didn’t appear to have heard her and for a moment Hollie stood immobile on the foot of the stairs. And suddenly it was as though someone had waved a magic wand and filled her ordinary little sitting room with unexpected life and colour, and Maximo Diaz was at the blazing heart of it.
He had lit the fire. Removed his smart suit jacket and put it on the sofa to coax a blaze from the sometimes stubborn little wood-burning stove. Behind the small glass doors, orange flames were licking upwards from the applewood logs and already a blanket of heat was beginning to seep out into the room. Had she thought that a man so rich and so privileged would be unwilling to get his hands dirty? Yes, she had. But it was his stance which surprised her most, for he was sitting back on his heels on the old hearthrug as if he were perfectly comfortable to find himself there. He seemed lost in thought as the flames flickered shadows over his aristocratic profile.
Hollie felt another ripple of excitement whispering over her skin—a sensation as unsettling as that low clench of heat unfurling inside her. She knew she ought to say something but she didn’t want to break the spell. At least, not yet. Because surely any minute now he would come to his senses. He would suddenly realise that his driver was waiting in the car outside and it was time to excuse himself.
Silently, she went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, which she carried back into the sitting room, and when he glanced up and saw her, something unrecognisable gleamed in the ebony abyss of his eyes. Something which made her feel as shivery as before, as if she were standing outside in the rain again.
Was she imagining it?
Was she imagining the glint of approval as he ran his narrow-eyed gaze over her?
‘Come and sit by the fire,’ he said.
His rich voice washed over her like dark silk, as Hollie acknowledged what sounded like a direct order. Did he always assume such an air of rightful dominance, she wondered—and was it wrong to find that more than a little exciting? She put the tray down and sank onto the floor beside him and wondered if she was getting herself into something outside her experience, which a sensible person should steer clear of. But she was cold, the fire was hot and the coffee smelt unbearably good. And surely she wasn’t misguided enough to think that Maximo Diaz was actually going to make