Melanie Milburne - Rumours - The Ruthless Ravensdales

Holly rolled her lips together for a moment. ‘I’ve not been the easiest house guest.’

A host of emotions flickered over his face. Emotions she suspected he wasn’t used to feeling. It was there in the dark blue of his eyes. It was in the thinned-out line of his sculptured mouth. ‘You don’t have to be anything but yourself,’ he said in a husky tone. ‘You’re fine just the way you are.’

No one had ever accepted her for who she was. Why would they? She wasn’t the sort of person people found acceptable. If it wasn’t her background, then it was her behaviour. She rubbed people up the wrong way. How could he say she was fine the way she was? She wasn’t fine with the way she was.

‘So, how are things with your family?’ Holly said to fill the heavy silence.

He turned away as he pushed a hand through his hair. ‘I haven’t been able to contact my sister. The legitimate one, I mean.’

‘You’re worried about her?’

‘A little.’

Holly couldn’t help feeling a little envious of Miranda Ravensdale. How wonderful to have a big brother to watch out for you. Two, in fact. Not that she knew if Julius’s twin brother, Jake, had the same protective qualities as Julius. She got the impression Jake was a bit of a lad about town.

‘Maybe her phone is flat, or she’s turned it off or something,’ she said.

‘Maybe.’

Another silence ticked past.

‘Oh, well, then,’ Holly said, making a step towards the door. ‘I’d better let you get on with it.’

‘Holly.’

She turned and looked at him. ‘Would you like me to get you a coffee? A night cap or something? Since Sophia’s off-duty you’ll have to put up with me doing the housekeeper stuff.’

His dark eyes moved over her face, centred on her mouth and then came back to her gaze. ‘Only if you’ll have one with me.’

Holly chewed the inside of her mouth. She didn’t trust herself around him. He was dangerous in this gentle and reflective mood. Keeping her game face on was easy when he was being sarcastic and cynical towards her. But this was different. ‘It’s a bit late at night for me to drink coffee, and since I don’t drink alcohol I’d be pretty boring company...’

His mouth twisted ruefully. ‘I suppose I deserve that brush off, don’t I?’

‘I’m not brushing you off. If I were brushing you off then you’d know about it, let me tell you,’ she said. ‘I’m not the sort of person to hand out a parachute for anyone’s ego.’

He gave a soft laugh, the low, deep sound doing something odd and ticklish to the base of Holly’s spine. ‘That I can believe.’

There was another beat of silence.

‘What would you do if you found out you had a half-sibling?’ he asked.

Holly shifted her lips from side to side as she thought about it. ‘I would definitely want to meet him or her. I’ve always wanted a sister or brother. It would’ve come in handy to have someone to stick up for me.’

He studied her for a long moment. The low light didn’t take anything away from his handsome features. If anything, it highlighted them. The aristocratic landscape of his face reminded her of a hero out of a nineteenth-century novel. Dark and brooding; aloof and unknowable.

‘Things were pretty tough for you as a kid, weren’t they?’

Holly moved her gaze out of reach of his. ‘I don’t like talking about it.’

‘Talking sometimes helps people to understand you a little better.’

‘Yeah, well, if people don’t like me at “hello” then how is telling them all about my messed-up childhood going to change their opinion?’

‘Perhaps if you worked on your first impressions you might win a few friends on your side.’

Holly thought of how she’d stomped into his office that morning—had it really only been a day?—with her verbal artillery blazing. She’d put him on the back foot at the outset. But she’d been angry and churned up over everything. Her forthrightness had been automatic. She liked to get in first before people took advantage. ‘I could’ve come in and been polite as anything but you’d already made up your mind about me. You’d heard about my criminal behaviour. Nothing I could’ve said or done would’ve changed your opinion.’

Julius took a step that brought him close to where she was standing. Holly held her breath as he sent a fingertip down the length of her arm, from the top of her shoulder to her wrist. The nerves fluttered like moths beneath her skin. Her heart skipped a beat. Her stomach tilted. ‘Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?’ His voice was low, a deep burr of sound that made the base of her spine fizz.

‘I’m sure.’

He sent the same fingertip down the curve of her cheek, outlining her face from just behind her ear to the base of her chin. ‘I think underneath that brash exterior is a very frightened little girl.’

Holly quickly disguised a knotty swallow. ‘Keep your day job, Julius. You’d make a rubbish therapist.’

His eyes held hers for another long moment. ‘I’ll see to the rest of the windows,’ he said. ‘You go on up to bed. Sleep well.’

Like that’s going to happen , Holly thought as she turned and slipped out of the room.

* * *

Holly didn’t see Julius for over a week. He hadn’t informed her he was leaving at all. She heard it from Sophia, who told her he was working on some important software and had to attend meetings in Buenos Aires, as well as flying to Santiago in Chile. It annoyed Holly he hadn’t bothered to tell her what his schedule was. He could have done so that night in the library, especially as she’d heard him leave the very next morning. But then, she reminded herself, she was just a temporary hindrance for him. The more time away from the villa— away from her —the better. The bruises on her arms had faded but the bruise to her ego had not. Why couldn’t he have talked to her in person? Told her his plans?

The fact was, it was dead boring without him. Sophia was kind and sweet and did her best to make sure Holly had plenty to do without exploiting her. But spending hours with a middle-aged woman who reminded her too much of the mother she no longer had was not Holly’s idea of fun. The more time she spent with the gentle and kind housekeeper, the more she ached for what she had lost. Sophia had a tendency to mother her, to treat her like a surrogate daughter. Holly appreciated the gesture on one level but on another it made her feel unutterably sad.

Which was all the more reason she missed the verbal sparring she’d done with Julius. She missed his tall figure striding down the corridors with a dark frown on his handsome face. She missed the sound of his cultured accent in that mellifluous baritone that did such strange things to her spine. She missed the excitement in her body, the buzzing, thrilling sensation of female desire he triggered every time he looked at her. Her body felt flat and listless without him around to charge it up with energy.

The days dragged with an interminable slowness that made Holly’s restlessness close to unbearable. Although she enjoyed the tasks Sophia set her, as the villa was beautiful and full of exquisite works of art and priceless collector’s pieces, it just wasn’t the same without Julius there. The nights were even worse. Sophia usually went to bed early, which meant there was no one to talk to. The rest of the villa staff—the gardener and the man who looked after the horses on the property—lived in accommodation separate from the villa. There was only so much television Holly could watch and, even though she enjoyed reading, the evenings were particularly tiresome.

The one thing Julius had done for her since he’d gone away, however, was have some clothes delivered to the villa for her. They were mostly smart-casual separates, as well as a couple of dresses, including a long, slinky formal one made of navy blue silk. There were shoes and underwear the likes of which she had never seen before: cobweb-fine lace, some with fancy little bows and embroidered rosebuds or daisies. There were bathing suits as well, a one-piece black one and a fuchsia-pink bikini.