Page 17 of Cinderella's Christmas Secret

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she said, equally tightly. ‘I’m not planning on staying any longer than I need to.’

‘You’ll stay until it’s safe to return and that certainly won’t be before nightfall.’

Their eyes met in a silent clash of wills, until eventually she backed down and nodded.

‘Then it seems I have no choice.’

‘That’s right,’ he agreed softly. ‘You don’t. Now come with me.’

Hollie felt chewed up as she trailed behind Maximo up the curving stone staircase which led to the upstairs floor of the chilly castle. She was scared. Scared of the way he made her feel. Scared of wanting to touch him instead of needing to push him away. Because he didn’t want her. He didn’t want her. And that was something she shouldn’t forget. His dismay on discovering she was trapped here might have been almost comical to observe, if it hadn’t been so hurtful. But she guessed that nobody could ever accuse Maximo Diaz of being duplicitous. He was honest to a fault, which had to be a good thing. And since she was here—maybe she just needed to make the best of it. To look on the bright side. She pressed her lips together.

For both their sakes.

He was pushing open the door of one of the bedrooms and as Hollie stepped inside she was aware of a further drop in temperature. The bed was bare and the room largely empty—there was nothing in the way of decorative furnishing to make it seem inviting or attractive. It certainly wasn’t going to be a fairy-tale Christmas Eve, not by any stretch of the imagination.

‘You’ll find linen in the big wooden cupboard just along the corridor,’ he advised, his dark brows knitting together, as if he had just noticed her shiver. ‘You’re cold?’

‘A bit.’

‘Let me see what I can do. I’ve never seen anything quite so archaic as what passes for a heating system here.’

‘Don’t you have any staff with you?’ she questioned curiously.

Black eyebrows were elevated in mocking query. ‘You think I travel around with a retinue of servants?’

She shrugged. ‘You’re a rich man. Apparently, that’s what rich men do. And you do have a chauffeur.’

‘Sí. I do. But the answer is no, I am completely on my own. Because surely a man is not a true man if he cannot fend for himself. If he cannot live independently of his staff.’

‘Christmas is not a time for independence,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s a time for family.’

‘And will your family be missing you, Hollie?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘Is that why you are so eager to get back?’

‘I have no family,’ she said, deciding it wouldn’t be diplomatic or wise to tell him that her desire to get away had been all about his effect on her. Baldly, she gave him the bare facts, the way she always did, just so they could get the inevitable mechanical sympathy out of the way. ‘Both my parents are dead.’

‘Snap,’ he said softly.

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting and Hollie almost wished he hadn’t told her that, because that was the stupid thing about the mind—it took you down false paths, based on very flimsy evidence. If she wasn’t careful it would be easy to start imagining they had something in common, because they were both orphans. When she knew and he knew that they had absolutely nothing in common, other than an inconvenient sexual chemistry and a baby neither of them had planned.

‘At least nobody’s going to miss us!’ she observed brightly, wishing it didn’t please her so much to see him smile in response. But the curve of his lips lasted only a second, as though this man was not comfortable with smiling.

‘I’ll leave you to get settled in,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll be downstairs. Come and find me when you’ve finished. Take as long as you like.’

Settling in seemed a rather over-ambitious term for getting used to such spartan accommodation, but after Maximo had left, Hollie tried to make the bedroom as comfortable as possible. There were no sheets, but she hunted down several mismatched velvet throws and a thick eiderdown, which provided a colourful display against the quiet grey hues of the faded walls. And thankfully she was used to sleeping in a chilly bedroom.

The nearby bathroom was ancient, with a noisy cistern and a vast, old-fashioned bath—but the water was piping hot. She washed her hands with a bar of rock-hard soap then stared into the rather mottled mirror above the sink. She was expecting her appearance to come as a shock, but to her surprise her eyes were shining and her cheeks were pink and glowing. She brushed her hair, tempted to leave it loose because wouldn’t that provide some essential warmth around her neck and shoulders? But something stopped her and it was the memory of Maximo using a single strand of it as a rope, just before he’d kissed her. Because those kinds of memories weren’t helpful. Not helpful at all. Carefully, she wound it into a tight chignon and pinned it into place, before heading downstairs to find Maximo.

He wasn’t in the library, but she could smell the aroma of food cooking and Hollie made her way through a series of maze-like corridors towards the kitchen. She could hear movement but when she walked in, the sight which greeted her was the last thing she had expected. What had she expected? She wasn’t sure—but it certainly wasn’t to see the Spanish tycoon with his back to her, his black sweater rolled up to his elbows as he stirred something.

Did she make a sound? Was that why he

turned around, his olive skin gleaming from the heat of the hob? And Hollie could do nothing about the instant wrench of her heart, as if she were registering his gorgeousness for the very first time. Because Maximo, holding up a wooden spoon as the conductor of an orchestra might hold a baton, looked insanely sexy. Maybe her hormones were making her respond to him this way. Because right then he looked like the carer and provider. The alpha man. The hunter. The father of her baby. Beneath her sweater she felt her breasts tighten and wondered if he’d noticed. Would that account for the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes and the sudden tension which stilled his magnificent body so that he looked almost poised to strike?

‘Gosh,’ she said.

‘Gosh?’ he echoed, his sardonic tone easing a little of the tension in the air. ‘Am I to take that as a very English word of surprise?’

‘I suppose I am a bit surprised,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t have you down as a budding chef.’

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