Page 27 of The Housekeeper and the Brooding Billionaire

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. It was an accident, and if anything, my fault. I’ll have the ladder fixed straight away.’

He was deliberately misunderstanding, letting her save face by pretending to think she was talking about the trouble on the ladder instead of how she’d grabbed him.

Charlotte was grateful, of course she was, but the idea of him pitying her futile attraction ripped a hole through her self-possession. Fortunately years of practice at appearing unmoved in the face of her father’s tirades and putdowns came to her rescue.

She rose, only slightly unsteady, and pinned on her professional smile. ‘Thank you, Alessio.’ Her throat constricted on his name. ‘I’ll leave you to check the book. You know far more about it and what repairs might be necessary. I need to go and see about lunch.’

‘Charlotte...’

Already she was walking to the door. ‘But Iwillpay for any damage.’ Then, mercifully, she was out in the corridor and hurrying back to the staff section of thecastellowhere she belonged.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALESSIOSWOREUNDERhis breath. Then swore aloud.

It was no good. He couldn’t settle. For the last three days, since that incident in the library, he and Charlotte had both kept their distance, yet his concentration was shot.

A chill frosted his bones. Thatincidentcould have ended in serious injury if she’d fallen onto unforgiving marble.

It would have been his fault. Anna had mentioned a problem with the antique ladder, and Alessio had said he’d inspect it himself. Then forgotten.

What if Charlotte had fallen and cracked her skull?

Another woman’s life on his conscience.

Though it hadn’t come to that, he’d still hurt her. The pain in her dazed eyes when he’d pulled back from her...

She’d needed comfort and reassurance, and he’d been too scared of the need roaring within him to give it to her. Scared that instead of offering comfort, he’d take what he needed so badly.

Each night he was haunted, no longer by thoughts of his drowned wife, but his housekeeper. That felt like a betrayal of Antonia’s memory.

In his dreams, Charlotte’s earnest eyes fixed on him as she reached out, and he didn’t hold back. In those fevered imaginings, gentle caresses turned to animal lust, fervent demands and desperate orgasms.

Alessio scrubbed a hand around the back of his neck, feeling the tension that grew daily.

It was unreasonable to blame Charlotte. The problem was his obsession. Yet right now, Alessio would happily dump some of the guilt on her slim shoulders.

What the hell was she doing downstairs? Muffled sounds distracted him from important business. No matter that he kept his study door ajar hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He’d heard voices. A male voice too, not just the maids chatting as they worked.

She must have brought someone in to assist with a specialist job. Not the library ladder. He’d fixed that personally the night of her almost-fall.

Alessio shoved the chair back from his desk and stalked to the door. There it was again, a male voice. Then, unmistakeably, Charlotte’s laugh.

Suddenly it felt like a savage, sharp-toothed animal gnawed on his gut.

If he didn’t know better, he’d put it down to dog-in-the-manger possessiveness. Jealousy that Charlotte shared her carefree laugh with another man instead of him.

That was impossible. Alessio had never been jealous about a woman. He’d had his share of lovers, and his relationships had been easy, never fraught with emotion. Even with his beautiful wife, there’d been no question of jealousy. They’d shared complete trust.

What he felt now couldn’t be possessiveness. Yet he couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Alessio took the stairs two at a time.

He found them in the vast gilded ballroom. One of the enormous antique Venetian glass chandeliers that lined the centre of the room had been lowered to just above the parquet floor. A vast trestle table had been set up nearby, where three maids were carefully cleaning individual glass drops. Ennio, the specialist who cared for thecastello’s many antique clocks and was an expert in the mechanism that lowered the priceless chandeliers, was at the other end of the room, intent on a control panel hidden in the wall.

And Charlotte, looking far too seductive in a grey skirt that sculpted her buttocks as she leaned forward, was up a ladder, reaching for a cluster of crystal drops.

His pulse quickened and his mouth dried.

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