Page 4 of The Housekeeper and the Brooding Billionaire

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Charlotte stood taller, telling herself it didn’t matter she was in a swimsuit instead of work clothes. ‘I work here. I’m your temporary housekeeper.’

He didn’t so much as blink. The scowl stayed firmly in place. The only change was the lift of one coal-black eyebrow in haughty disbelief.

Charlotte’s lungs tightened. But she was used to sneers. Her father was an expert, though in his case it was closely followed by a barrage of furious bluster as he browbeat whoever had dared stand up to him.

She’d long ago refused to be cowed by her father’s threats. Her new employer would learn that a mere raised eyebrow wouldn’t deter her. She might be an employee, but she wouldn’t be bullied.

‘I arrived late yesterday. Anna was going to introduce me personally when you were available.’ Because the Count was not, under any circumstances, to be bothered while working. ‘But a call came from Rome in the middle of the night. She had to leave suddenly.’

His folded arms fell to his sides. ‘Her daughter?’

She nodded. ‘There’s a complication with the pregnancy. She’s in hospital.’

Charlotte searched for some softening in his expression, but his features seemed to draw even tighter while his large hands flexed at his sides.

Yet she could have sworn she saw a shadow cross his face, as if from pain.

Perhaps he wasn’t as unfeeling as rumour had it.

Or maybe you’re imagining things.

She’d always tried to see the best in people, despite close acquaintance with her father’s nasty ways.

He pulled a phone from his pocket, scowling, then turned on his heel, lifting the phone to his ear, striding away on long legs. Charlotte heard him say ‘Anna,’ and then a stream of words that was beyond her nascent understanding of Italian. Moments later he’d put the phone away, presumably having left a message for his housekeeper.

Demanding she return?

Or enquiring about her and her daughter?

Charlotte had no way of knowing. His expression was just the same, hard and forbidding.

The stories she’d read about Alessio, Conte Dal Lago, crowded her mind. He was head of one of Italy’s oldest aristocratic families. Descended from robber barons and warriors who’d carved a fiefdom for themselves in the lakes and mountains of northern Italy, who had prospered and finally turned genteel. Yet their reputation for ferocity continued. According to one site, the Counts from the Lake, as their title translated, were renowned as being the most loyal friends and the most savage enemies.

She shivered and rubbed her hands up goose-pimpled arms.

When she’d read about his family, she’d been snug in her cosy suite in Switzerland. It had been easy to assume the reports were exaggerated as folklore always was.

But as the Count, or Contein Italian, turned and fixed her with eyes the colour of the cold lake behind her, Charlotte recalled more recent stories. About this man. The recluse. The unfeeling, brutish Bluebeard. The cruel tyrant with blood on his hands. Speculation was rife about how he’d sequestered his beautiful socialite wife here, hinting she’d died of a broken heart, married to a pitiless tyrant.

Charlotte had dismissed that as media hype.

Had she been too hasty?

His eyes narrowed, almost as if he read her thoughts. Then his mouth lifted up at one corner. She couldn’t call it a smile. There was nothing warm or carefree about it. Nevertheless, she couldn’t drag her gaze away from that hint of dark amusement, if that’s what it was.

She stood transfixed, wondering how sensible her plan to work here for three months really was.

‘My temporary housekeeper?’ he mused.

Gone was the gruff challenge. His voice was soft as velvet and dark with something she didn’t recognise, an undercurrent that eddied around her suddenly wobbly knees. Whatever it was, it made her wish, again, that she wore her housekeeping clothes, instead of a wet swimsuit.

Not that he leered as some men did, who thought hotel staff might provide extrapersonalservices. The Conte kept his eyes on hers.

But for the first time in years, Charlotte felt out of her depth. Unsettled by the unfamiliar coiling heat low in her pelvis.

And the uncanny suspicion he knew it.

‘I’ll see you in my study in thirty minutes.’

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