Книга - The Return of Her Past

The Return of Her Past
Lindsay Armstrong


Once is a mistake – twice is a habit! Housekeeper’s daughter Mia Gardiner knew her feelings for multi-millionaire Carlos O’Connor were foolish – until the day she caught the ruthless playboy’s eye. Now she is an older and wiser Mia, but she has never forgotten the feel of his touch. And then, like a whirlwind, Carlos returns…The girl he once knew is now a poised and sophisticated woman. Carlos is determined to rekindle their passionate past, and Mia’s reluctance fires his blood. Refusing to be denied, he has one last trick up his sleeve: he’ll save her ailing business in exchange for endless nights in his bed!‘If only it were possible to meet Lindsay’s characters!’ – Ginny, 61, Tewkesbury










‘Surely I can do this,’ Mia whispered. ‘I’ve come so far since those days—surely I can do this?’

She closed her eyes, but nothing could stop those memories as she allowed herself the luxury of picturing Carlos O’Connor in her mind’s eye. Luxury? Or was it a torment?

How could she forget the satanic edge to his looks that was so intriguing—irresistible, but at the same time capable of making you feel you were playing with fire?

Or not remember the way he laughed sometimes and that wicked sense of humour?

Or those times when no one would have suspected he was at the helm of a multinational construction company? Times when he’d exchanged his suits for jeans and a T-shirt and indulged his favourite pastimes: sailing, riding, flying. In fact he was rarely formal, when she thought about it.

But, above all, how could she ever forget lying in Carlos O’Connor’s arms?




About the Author


LINDSAY ARMSTRONG was born in South Africa, but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia, and have tried their hand at some unusual—for them—occupations, such as farming and horse-training: all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when their youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

Recent titles by the same author:

WHEN ONLY DIAMONDS WILL DO

THE GIRL HE NEVER NOTICED

THE SOCIALITE AND THE CATTLE KING

ONE-NIGHT PREGNANCY

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk




The Return of Her Past


Lindsay Armstrong






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




PROLOGUE


MIA GARDINER WAS home alone and preparing dinner for her mother when the storm hit with very little warning.

One minute she was rolling pastry, the next she was racing around the big old house known as West Windward and home to the wealthy O’Connor family, closing windows and doors as raindrops hammered down on the roof like bullets.

It was when she came to close the front door that a dark, damp figure loomed through the outside gloom and staggered towards her.

For a moment her heart leapt into her throat in fright, then she recognised the figure.

‘Carlos! It’s you. What are you doing—Carlos, are you all right?’ She stared up at him, taking in the fact that he had blood pouring down his temple from a nasty-looking cut. ‘What happened?’ she breathed and clutched him as he swayed where he stood.

‘A branch came down as I was crossing from the garage to the house. Hit me on the head,’ he said indistinctly. ‘That’s quite a storm,’ he added.

‘You’re not wrong.’ Mia put her hand on his arm. ‘Come with me. I’ll fix your head.’

‘What I need is a strong drink!’ But he swayed again as he said it.

‘Come,’ she said, and led him through the house to the housekeeper’s sitting room. It opened off the kitchen and was small but comfortable.

Mia cleared her mother’s knitting off the settee and Carlos O’Connor collapsed gratefully onto it. In fact he lay down and groaned and closed his eyes.

Mia was galvanised into action. Half an hour later she had cleaned and dressed the cut on his head whilst not only rain but hail teemed down outside.

Then the lights went off and she clicked her tongue, mainly because she should have expected it. They had frequent power failures in the district when the weather was stormy. Fortunately her mother kept some kerosene lamps handy but in the dark she tripped around until she located them. Then she lit a couple and brought one into the sitting room.

Carlos was lying unmoving, his eyes were closed and he looked very pale.

She stared down at him and felt a wave of tenderness flow through her because the truth of the matter was that Carlos O’Connor was gorgeous. All the lean six foot plus length of him, the dark hair, testament to his Spanish heritage, that he often pushed out of his eyes, those grey eyes that sometimes glinted wickedly at you…

She’d had a crush on Carlos since she was fifteen—how could you not? she sometimes wondered. How could anyone be immune to that devastatingly sexy aura? He might be ten years older than her eighteen years but surely she could catch up?

Not that she’d seen an awful lot of him over the past five years. He didn’t live on the property but she believed he’d grown up on it; he lived in Sydney, but he did come back from time to time. Usually it was only for a couple of days but he rode, not only horses but quad bikes, and because Mia was allowed to stable her horse on the property, and because she kept a weather eye on his horses when she was home, they had a bit in common.

She’d had some marvellous gallops with Carlos and if he’d ever divined that sometimes he made her heartbeat triple he’d never given any sign of it.

At first her daydreams had been simple and girlish but over the last couple of years she’d graduated from alternating between telling herself to forget all about Carlos O’Connor—he was a multi-millionaire, she was only the housekeeper’s daughter—and some rather more sophisticated daydreams.

Still, he was way out of her league. What could she offer him over the gorgeous beauties who sometimes accompanied him on his visits?

‘Mia?’

She came out of her daydream with a start and saw that his eyes were open.

‘How do you feel?’ She knelt down beside him and put the lamp down. ‘Do you have a headache? Or double vision? Or any strange symptoms?’

‘Yes.’ He thought for a moment.

She waited, then, ‘What? Tell me. I don’t think I can get a doctor to come out in this—’ she gestured up towards the cacophony on the roof above ‘—but—’

‘I don’t need a doctor,’ he murmured and reached for her. ‘Just this. You’ve grown up, Mia, grown up and grown gorgeous…’

Mia gasped as his arms closed about her and somehow, she wasn’t sure how, she ended up lying beside him on the settee. ‘Carlos!’ she remonstrated and tried to sit up. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Relax,’ he murmured.

‘But—well, apart from anything else, you could have a fractured skull!’

‘If I did, quiet and warmth and comfort would be recommended, don’t you agree?’ he suggested gravely.

‘I…you…perhaps but—’ Mia broke off helplessly.

‘That’s exactly what you could provide, Miss Gardiner. So would you mind not wriggling around like a trapped pilchard?’

‘A trapped pilchard?’ Mia repeated in outraged tones. ‘How dare you, Carlos?’

‘Sorry. Not the most complimentary analogy. How about a trapped siren? Yes, that’s better, don’t you agree?’ And he ran his hands down her body, then cuddled her against him. ‘Pilchard. I must be crazy!’ he murmured.

Mia took a breath to tell him he was crazy but suddenly she was laughing. Then they were laughing together and it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to Mia.

So much so, she lay quietly in his arms and when he started to kiss her, she didn’t resist. She was powerless to be unaffected by the amazing rapture he brought to her as he kissed her and held her. As he told her she had the most luscious mouth, skin like silk and hair like midnight.

She was made conscious of her body in ways she’d never known before as delicious ripples of desire ran through her. She was deeply appreciative of his easy strength and his long clean lines, the width of his shoulders and the way his hands brought her so much pleasure.

In fact she started to kiss him back and, when it was over, once again she lay quietly against him, her arms around him and she was deeply affected by everything about him. Not only that but conscious that it wasn’t impossible for him to be attracted to an eighteenyear-old—why else would he be doing this? Why else would he tell her she’d grown up and grown gorgeous?

Surely it couldn’t be concussion?

Two days later Mia drove away from the O’Connor estate and set her course, so to speak, for Queensland, where she’d been offered a university place.

She’d said goodbye to her parents, who’d been proud but just a little sad, but she was secure in the knowledge that they loved their jobs. Her father had a great deal of respect for Frank O’Connor, who’d built his construction company into a multi-million dollar business, although he’d recently suffered a stroke and been confined to a wheelchair, leaving his son Carlos in charge.

It was Carlos’s mother Arancha, a diminutive Spanish lady, a beauty in her earlier days but still the epitome of style, who had given her only son a Spanish name and it was she amongst the O’Connors who loved the Hunter Valley estate of West Windward passionately.

But it was Mia’s mother who actually tended the homestead, with all its objets d’art, priceless carpets and exquisite linens and silks. And it was her father who looked after the extensive gardens.

To some extent Mia shared both her parents’ talents. She loved to garden and the greatest compliment her father had given her was to tell her she had ‘green fingers’. She also took after her mother in her eye for decorative detail and love of fine food.

Mia was conscious that she owed her parents a lot. They’d scrimped and saved to give her the best education at a private boarding school. That was why she always helped as much as she could when she was home with them and she knew she was fulfilling their dream by going to university.

But as she drove away two days after the storm, her thoughts were in chaos, her head was still spinning and she didn’t look back.




CHAPTER ONE


‘CARLOS O’CONNOR WILL be attending,’ Mia Gardiner’s assistant Gail announced in hushed, awed tones.

Mia’s busy hands stilled for a moment—she was arranging a floral display. Then she carried on placing long-stemmed roses in a standard vase. ‘He is the bride’s brother,’ she said casually.

Gail lowered the guest list and stared at her boss. ‘How do you know that? They don’t have the same surname.’

‘Half-brother, actually,’ Mia corrected herself. ‘Same Spanish mother, different fathers. She’s a couple of years older. I think she was about two when her father died and her mother remarried and had Carlos.’

‘How do you know that?’ Gail demanded.

Mia stood back, admired her handiwork but grimaced inwardly. ‘Uh—there’s not a lot that isn’t known about the O’Connors, I would have thought.’

Gail pursed her lips but didn’t disagree and studied the guest list instead. ‘It says—it just says Carlos O’Connor and partner. It doesn’t say who the partner is. I thought I read something about him and Nina French.’ Gail paused and shrugged. ‘She’s gorgeous. And wouldn’t it be lovely to have all that money? I mean he’s got a fortune, hasn’t he? And he’s gorgeous too, Carlos O’Connor. Don’t you think so?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Mia replied and frowned down at the tub of pink and blue hydrangeas at her feet. ‘Now, what am I going to put these in? I know, the Wedgwood soup tureen—it sounds odd but they look good in it. How are you going, Gail?’ she asked rather pointedly.

Gail awoke from her obviously pleasurable daydream about Carlos O’Connor and sighed. ‘I’m just about to lay the tables, Mia,’ she said loftily and wafted away, pushing a cutlery trolley.

Mia grimaced and went to find the Wedgwood tureen.

Several hours later, the sun went down on Mount Wilson but Mia was still working. Not arranging flowers; she was in the little office that was the headquarters of the Bellbird Estate.

It was from this office in the grand old homestead, the main house on the estate, that she ran the reception function business, Bellbird Estate, a business that was becoming increasingly well-known.

Not only did the old house lend its presence to functions but its contents delighted Mia. It contained lovely pieces of old furniture, vases, lamps, linen and a beautiful china collection—including the Wedgwood tureen.

She catered for wedding receptions, iconic birthday parties—any kind of reception. The cuisine she provided was superb, the house and the gardens were lovely but perhaps the star of the show was Mount Wilson itself.

At the northern end of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, it had been surveyed in 1868 and had gradually acquired a similar reputation to an Indian ‘hill station’—English-style homes with cool-climate English gardens in alien settings, this setting being bush and rainforest.

And anyone’s first impression of Mount Wilson had to be how beautiful it was. Yes, the road was narrow and clung to the mountainside in tortuous zigzags in places but the trees in the village—plane trees, limes, elms, beeches and liquid ambers, were, especially when starting to wear their autumnal colours, glorious. There were also native eucalypts, straight, strong and reaching for the sky, and native tree ferns everywhere.

The glimpses of houses through impressive gateways and beyond sweeping driveways were tantalising, many old and stone with chimneys, some smothered in creepers like wisteria, others with magnificent gardens.

All in all, she’d thought often although she kept it to herself, Mount Wilson shouted money—new money or old money but money—and the resources to have acres of garden that you opened to the public occasionally. The resources to have an estate in the Blue Mountains, a retreat from the hurly-burly of Sydney or the heat of its summers… .

And tomorrow Juanita Lombard, Carlos O’Connor’s half-sister, was marrying Damien Miller on Mount Wilson—at Bellbird, to be precise. Damien Miller, whose mother, rather than the bride or her mother, had booked the venue without mentioning who the bride was until it was too late for Mia to pull out without damaging her business reputation.

Mia got up, stretched and rubbed her back and decided enough was enough; she’d call it a day.

She didn’t live in the main house; she lived in the gardener’s cottage, which was in fact a lot more modern, though unusual. It had been built as an artist’s studio. The walls were rough brick, the plentiful woodwork was native timber and the floors were sandstone cobbles. It had a combustion stove for heating, a cook’s delight kitchen and a sleeping loft accessible by ladder.

It was an interior that lent itself well to Mia’s photography hobby, her images of native wildlife and restful landscapes, enlarged and framed, graced the walls. It also suited her South American poncho draped over a rail, her terracotta tubs full of plants and her chunky crockery.

It was also not far from the stables and that was where she went first, to bring her horse, Long John Silver, in from the paddock, to rug him and feed him.

Although it was summer, there were patches of mist clinging to the tree tops and the air was chilly enough to nip at your fingers and cheeks and turn the end of your nose pink. But the sunset was magical, a streaky symphony of pink and gold and she paused for a long moment with her arms around Long John’s neck to wonder at life. Who would have thought Carlos O’Connor would cross her path again?

She shook her head and led Long John into his stall. She mixed his feed and poured it into his wall bin, checked his water, then, with a friendly pat and a flick of his mane through her fingers, she closed him in.

That was when she came to grief. She’d collected some wood for her stove and was taking a last look at the sunset when, seemingly from nowhere, what she’d kept at bay for hours enveloped her—the memories she’d refused to allow to surface ever since she’d known who would be at tomorrow’s wedding flooded back to haunt her.

‘Surely I can do this,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve come so far since those days—surely I can do this?’

She closed her eyes but nothing could stop those memories as she allowed herself the luxury of picturing Carlos O’Connor in her mind’s eye. Luxury? Or was it a torment?

Whatever, how could she forget that night-dark hair that sometimes fell in his eyes? That olive skin his Spanish mother had bequeathed, yet the grey eyes that came from his Irish father and could be as cool as the North Sea or so penetrating his glance made you mentally sit up in a flurry and hope like mad you had your wits about you.

How could she forget the satanic edge to his looks that was so intriguing; irresistible but at the same time capable of making you feel you were playing with fire?

Or not remember the way he laughed sometimes and that wicked sense of humour?

Or the times when no one would have suspected he was at the helm of a multi-national construction company. Times when he exchanged his suit for jeans and T-shirt and indulged his favourite pastimes—sailing, riding, flying. In fact he was rarely formal when she thought about it. But above all how could she ever forget lying in Carlos O’Connor’s arms?

She stood perfectly still for a long moment, then she reached into her pocket for a tissue and mopped herself up, determined that she would recover her equilibrium before tomorrow.

Mercifully, when she woke early the next morning, it was to see that at least the weather was fine; the sun had just started to climb into a cloudless sky. She had all sorts of contingency plans for wet weather but it was a relief not to have to resort to them.

She got up, dressed swiftly in jeans and an old shirt and brewed herself a cup of tea, which she took out into the garden. She loved the garden, all five acres of it, and although Bellbird employed a gardener it was Mia who supervised what went in and came out, something that led her into frequent discord with the gardener, Bill James, a man in his sixties who’d lived all his life on the mountain. Bill and his wife, Lucy, lived in another cottage on the property.

Lucy James was away at the moment. She made an annual pilgrimage to spend a month with her daughter and her six grandchildren in Cairns. To Mia’s regret, Bill drove Lucy up to and back from Cairns but only ever stayed a couple of days with them.

That left Mia in the position of having to cope with Bill living on his own and hating it until Lucy returned. If he was cranky when his wife was present, he was ten times crankier when she wasn’t.

Still, it had been a huge stroke of luck how she’d come to be able to start her reception business at Bellbird in the first place. She’d met the two old ladies, sisters and spinsters and now in their late eighties, who owned Bellbird, at Echo Point.

It had been her first visit to the Blue Mountains’ premier tourist attraction, from which you could look over the Three Sisters and the Jamison Valley.

From the viewing platform she’d gazed out over the scenery and been enchanted by the wondrous views.

The elderly sisters had sat down on the bench beside her and struck up a conversation. Before long she’d learnt about the estate on Mount Wilson, the fact that the sisters now lived in a retirement home in Katoomba, which they hardly had a good word to say for. And the fact that they were looking for a use for their estate.

Mia had explained that she’d come up to the Blue Mountains with the idea of opening a function business—and things had progressed from there. Of course the sisters had had her vetted but what had started out as a business venture had blossomed into a friendship and Mia often visited them in their despised retirement home that was actually very luxurious and well-run. And she often took them bunches of flowers and snippets of gossip about the mountain because she could well imagine what it must be like living away from Bellbird.

If there was one area of concern for her regarding the estate it was that her lease was renewed annually and due for renewal shortly. Her two spinsters would be perfectly happy to renew it but had let drop that they were under some pressure from their nephew, their closest relative and heir, to think of selling Bellbird and investing the money for a higher return than the estate was earning them.

On the morning of the Lombard/Miller wedding, things at Mount Wilson were looking pretty grand. The gardens were in spectacular form and so was the house, Mia noted, as she reluctantly went indoors and did a thorough inspection.

The ceremony was to be conducted by a marriage celebrant in an elegant rotunda in the garden, whilst the meal was to be served in the huge main dining room that easily seated the estimated seventy-five guests. It was a spectacular room with a pressed iron ceiling and long glass doors that opened onto the terrace and the main rose garden.

Dancing would be in the atrium with its cool tiled floor, and tables and chairs were dotted around the main lawn.

‘Well, it all looks good,’ Mia said to the newly arrived Gail—she lived on the mountain only a few minutes’ drive away. ‘And here come the caterers. OK! Let’s get started.’ And she and Gail gave each other a high five salute as was their custom.

In the time she had before the wedding party arrived Mia took a last look into the wedding suite—where the members of the bridal party would dress and be able to retire to if need be. And, content that it was all spick and span, she jogged to her own quarters, where she took a shower and dressed herself for the event.

She studied herself thoughtfully in the mirror when she was ready. She always contrived to look elegant enough to be a guest but a discreet one, and today she was wearing a slim short-sleeved jade-green Thai silk dress with fashionable but medium heels in matching leather and a string of glass beads on a gold chain. She also wore a hat, more of a fascinator, to be precise. A little cap made from the same Thai silk with feathers and a froth of dotted voile worn on the side of her head.

He probably won’t recognise me, she reassured herself as she stood in front of her cheval mirror admiring her reflection, and particularly the lovely fascinator, which seemed to invest her with more sophistication than she usually exhibited.

But even without the hat she was a far cry from the kind of girl she’d been in those days. Always in jeans, always outdoors, always riding when she could get away with it. Her clothes—her hair alone must look different from how she used to wear it. She grimaced.

Her hair was a sore point with her. Nearly black, it was wild and curly, yet it never looked right when it was cut to be manageable. So she wore it severely tied back when she was being formal, something she’d not done when she was younger.

Nothing, she had to acknowledge, had changed about her eyes, though. They were green and Gail had once told her her eyelashes were utterly to die for and so was her mouth. She also possessed a pair of dimples that she wasn’t a hundred per cent keen on—they didn’t seem to go with the sophisticated woman of the world she liked to hope she resembled.

She turned away from the mirror with a shrug and discovered, to her horror, that she was trembling finely because she was scared to death all of a sudden.

No, not all of a sudden, she corrected herself. Ever since she’d realised who the bride was, she’d been pretending to herself that she was quite capable of dealing with the O’Connor family when, underneath that, she’d been filled with the desire to run, to put as much distance between them as she could.

Now it was too late. She was going to have to go through with it. She was going to have to be civil to Arancha O’Connor and her daughter Juanita. Somehow she was going to have to be normal with Carlos.

Unless they didn’t recognise her.

She took a deep breath and put her shoulders back; she could do it.

But all her uncertainties resurfaced not much later when she moved the Wedgwood tureen with its lovely bounty of hydrangeas to what she thought was a better spot—her last act of preparation for the Lombard/ Miller wedding—and she dropped it.

It smashed on the tiled floor, soaking her feet in the process. She stared down at the mess helplessly.

‘Mia?’ Gail, alerted by the crash, ran up and surveyed the mess.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ Mia stammered, her hand to her mouth. ‘Why did I do that? It was such a lovely tureen too.’

Gail looked up and frowned at her boss. At the same time it dawned on her that Mia had been different over the last few days, somehow less sure of herself, but why, she had no idea. ‘Just an accident?’ she suggested.

‘Yes. Of course,’ Mia agreed gratefully but still, apparently, rooted to the spot.

‘Look, you go and change your shoes,’ Gail recommended, ‘and I’ll clean up the mess. We haven’t got much time.’

‘Thank you! Maybe we could get it fixed?’

‘Maybe,’ Gail agreed. ‘Off you go!’

Mia finally moved away and didn’t see the strange look her assistant bestowed on her before she went to get the means to sweep up what was left of the Wedgwood tureen.

The wedding party arrived on time.

Mia watched through the French windows and saw the bride, the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride arrive. And for a moment she clutched the curtain with one hand and her knuckles were white, her face rigid as she watched the party, particularly the bride’s mother, Arancha O’Connor. She took a deep breath, counted to ten and went out to greet them.

It was a hive of activity in the bridal suite. Mia provided a hairdresser, a make-up artist and a florist and in this flurry of dryers and hairspray, perfumes both bottled and from the bouquets and corsages, with the swish of petticoats and long dresses, laces and satins, it seemed safe to Mia to say that no one recognised her.

She was wrong.

The bridal party was almost ready when Arancha O’Connor, the epitome of chic in lavender with a huge hat, suddenly pointed at Mia and said, ‘I know who you are! Mia Gardiner.’

Mia turned to her after a frozen moment. ‘Yes, Mrs O’Connor. I didn’t think you’d remember me.’

‘Of course I remember you! My, my, Mia—’ Arancha’s dark gaze swept over her comprehensively ‘—you’ve certainly acquired a bit of polish. Come up a bit in the world, have we? Although—’ Arancha looked around ‘—I suppose this is just an upmarket version of a housekeeping position, really! Juanita, do you remember Mia?’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Her parents worked for us. Her mother in the kitchen, her father in the gardens.’

Juanita looked absolutely splendid in white lace and tulle but she frowned a little distractedly. ‘Hi, Mia. I do remember you now but I don’t think we really knew each other; I was probably before your time,’ she said. ‘Mum—’ she looked down at the phone in her hand ‘—Carlos is running late and he’ll be coming on his own.’

Arancha stiffened. ‘Why?’

‘No idea.’ Juanita turned to Mia. ‘Would you be able to rearrange the bridal table so there’s not an embarrassingly empty seat beside Carlos?’

‘Of course,’ Mia murmured and went to move away but Arancha put a hand on her arm.

‘Carlos,’ she confided, ‘has a beautiful partner. She’s a model but also the daughter of an ambassador. Nina—’

‘Nina French,’ Mia broke in dryly. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of her, Mrs O’Connor.’

‘Well, unfortunately something must have come up for Nina not to be able to make it, but—’

‘Carlos is quite safe from me, Mrs O’Connor, even without Ms French to protect him,’ Mia said wearily this time. ‘Quite safe, believe me. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to work.’ She turned away but not before she saw the glint of anger in Arancha’s dark eyes.

‘It’s going quite well,’ Gail whispered some time later as she and Mia happened to pass each other.

Mia nodded but frowned. Only ‘quite well’? What was wrong? The truth was she was still trembling with suppressed anger after her encounter with Arancha O’Connor. And it was impossible to wrest her mind from it.

Her skill at blending the right music, her talent for drawing together a group of people, her adroit handling of guests had deserted her because Arancha had reduced her from seasoned professional to merely the housekeeper’s daughter.

‘But he’s not here!’ Gail added.

‘He’s running late, that’s all.’

Gail tut-tutted and went on her way, leaving Mia in her post of discreet observer but feeling helpless and very conscious that she was losing her grip on this wedding. Not only that but she was possessed of a boiling sense of injustice.

She’d actually believed she could show Arancha that she’d achieved a minor miracle. That she’d begun and prospered a business that had the rich and famous flocking to her door. Moreover she could hold her own amongst them; her clothes bore designer labels, her taste in food and décor and the special little things she brought to each reception was being talked about with admiration.

But what had she proved? Nothing. With a few well chosen words Arancha had demolished her achievements and resurrected her inferiority complex so that it seemed to her she was once more sitting on the sidelines, looking in. She was no closer to entering Arancha and Juanita’s circle than she’d ever been. Not to mention Carlos’s…

She’d believed she could no longer be accused of being the housekeeper’s daughter as if it were an invisible brand she was doomed to wear for ever, but, if anything, it had got worse.

From a dedicated cook, a person to whom the smooth running of the household—the scent of fresh clean linen, the perfume of flowers, the magic of herbs not only for cooking but infusions as well—from that dedicated person to whom all those things mattered, her mother had been downgraded to a ‘kitchen’ worker.

Her father, her delightfully vague father who cared passionately about not only what he grew but the birds and the bees and anything to do with gardens, had suffered a similar fate.

She shook her head, then clamped her teeth onto her bottom lip and forced herself to get a grip.

That was when the snarl of a powerful motor made itself heard, not to the guests but to Mia, whose hearing was attuned to most things that came and went from Bellbird, and she slipped outside.

The motor belonged to a sports car, a metallic yellow two-door coupé. The car pulled up to a stone-spitting halt on the gravel drive and a tall figure in jeans jumped out, reached in for a bag, then strode towards her.

‘I’m late, I know,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I…I’m running the show,’ Mia replied a little uncertainly.

‘Good, you can show me where to change. I’m Carlos O’Connor, by the way, and I’m in deep trouble. I’m sure I’ve missed the actual ceremony but please tell me I haven’t missed the speeches!’ he implored. ‘They’ll never talk to me again.’ He took Mia’s elbow and led her at a fast pace towards the house.

‘No, not the speeches,’ Mia said breathlessly, ‘and now you’re here I can delay them a little longer while you change. In here!’ She gestured to a doorway on the veranda that led directly to the bridal suite.

Carlos turned away from her. ‘Would you let them know I’m here?’

‘Sure.’

‘Muchas gracias.’ He disappeared through the doorway.

Mia stared at the door with her lips parted and her eyes stunned. He hadn’t recognised her!

Which was what she’d hoped for but the awful irony was she hated the thought of it because it had to be that she’d meant so little to him she must have been almost instantly forgettable…

She swallowed, then realised with a start that she still had a wedding to run and a message to deliver. She straightened her hat and entered the dining room and discreetly approached the bridal table, where she bent down to tell the bride and the groom that Mr O’Connor had arrived and would be with them as soon as he’d changed.

‘Thank heavens!’ Juanita said fervently and her brand new husband Damien agreed with her.

‘I know I didn’t need anyone to give me away,’ Juanita continued, ‘but I do need Carlos to make the kind of speech only he can make. Not only—’ she put a hand on Damien’s arm and glinted him a wicked little look ‘—to extol all my virtues but to liven things up a bit!’

Mia flinched.

‘Besides which, Mum is starting to have kittens,’ Juanita added. ‘She was sure he’d had an accident.’

‘I’d have thought your mother would have stopped worrying about Carlos years ago,’ Damien remarked.

This time Juanita cast him a speaking look. ‘Never,’ she declared. ‘Nor will she ever rest until she’s found him a suitable wife.’

Mia melted away at this point and she hovered outside the bridal suite to be able to direct the latecomer to the dining room through the maze of passages.

She would have much preferred to delegate this to Gail, not to mention really making Gail’s day, no doubt, but she was not to be seen.

After about five minutes when Carlos O’Connor still had not appeared, she glanced at her watch with a frown and knocked softly on the door.

It was pulled open immediately and Carlos was dressed in his morning suit and all present and correct—apart from his hair, which looked as if he’d been dragging fingers through it, and his bow tie, which he had in his hand.

‘I can’t tie the blasted thing,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I never could. Tell you what, if I ever get married I will bar all monkey suits and bow ties. Here!’ He handed Mia the tie. ‘If you’re in charge of the show, you do it.’

Typically Carlos at his most arrogant, Mia thought, because she was still hurt to the quick.

She took the tie from him with a swift upward glance that was about as cold as she was capable of and stood up on her toes to briskly and efficiently tie the bow tie.

‘There.’ She patted it briefly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind and seeing as you’re already late as it is, this wedding awaits you.’

‘Wait a moment.’ A frown grew in Carlos’s grey eyes as he put his hands on her hips—an entirely inappropriate gesture between guest and wedding reception manager—and he said incredulously, ‘Mia?’

She froze, then forced herself to respond, ‘Yes. Hi, Carlos!’ she said casually. ‘I didn’t think you’d recognised me. Uh…Juanita really needs you so…’ She went to turn away but he detained her.

‘What are you mad about, Mia?’

She had to bite her lip to stop herself from blurting out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Chapter and verse, in other words, of every reason she had for…well, being as mad as she could ever recall.

She swallowed several times. ‘I’m having a little trouble getting this wedding going,’ she said carefully at last. ‘That’s all. So—’ She tried to pull away.

He slipped his hands up to her waist and said authoritatively, ‘Hang on. It must be—six—seven years—since you ran away, Mia.’

‘I didn’t…I…well, I suppose I did,’ she corrected herself. ‘And yes, about that. But look, Carlos, this wedding is really dragging its feet and it’s going to be my reputation on the line if I don’t get it going, so would you please come and make the kind of speech only you can make, apparently, to liven things up?’

‘In a moment,’ he drawled. ‘Wow!’ His lips twisted as he stood her away from him and admired her from her toes to the tip of her fascinator and all the curves in between. Not only that but he admired her legs, the slenderness of her waist, the smoothness of her skin, her sweeping lashes and delectable mouth. ‘Pardon my boyish enthusiasm, but this time you’ve really grown up, Mia.’

She bit her lip. Dealing with Carlos could be difficult at the best of times but she well recognised him in this mood—there would be no moving him until he was ready to be moved.

She heaved an inward sigh and mentally gritted her teeth. All right, two could play this game…

‘You’re looking pretty fine yourself, Mr O’Connor,’ she said lightly. ‘Although I must say I’m surprised your mother hasn’t found a wife for you yet.’

‘The last person I would get to choose a wife for me is my mother,’ he said dryly. ‘What brought that up?’

Mia widened her eyes not entirely disingenuously but in surprise as well. And found she had to think quickly. ‘Probably the venue and what’s going on here,’ she said with an ironic little glint. ‘Mind you, things are about to flop here if I don’t pull something out of the hat!’ And she pulled away, successfully.

He stared at her for a long moment, then he started to laugh and Mia felt her heart pound because she’d gone for so long without Carlos, without his laugh, without his arms around her…

‘I don’t know what you expect me to do,’ he said wryly.

‘I don’t care what you do, but if you don’t come and do something, Carlos,’ she threatened through her teeth, suddenly furious although she had no idea if it was with him or with herself, or the situation, ‘I’ll scream blue murder!’




CHAPTER TWO


‘FEELING BETTER?’

Mia took another sip of brandy and looked around. Everyone had gone. The bridal party, the guests, the caterers, they’d all gone. The presents had all been loaded carefully into a station wagon and driven away.

Gail had gone home in seventh heaven because she’d not only seen Carlos, she’d spoken to him. And the wedding had been a success. It had livened up miraculously as soon as Carlos had made his speech and Juanita had thrown her arms around Mia and Gail and thanked them profusely for their contribution to her special day as she’d left.

Carlos had driven away in his metallic yellow car and Mia had kicked off her shoes and changed her Thai silk dress for a smock but, rather than doing any work, she’d sunk into an armchair in the foyer. Her hat sat on a chair beside her. She was perfectly dry-eyed but she felt as if she’d been run over by a bus.

It was quite normal to feel a bit flattened after a function—she put so much into each and every one of them—but this was different; this was an emotional flat liner of epic proportions. This was all to do with Carlos and the fact that she’d been kidding herself for years if she’d thought she’d gotten over him.

All to do with the fact that the feel of his hands on her hips and waist had awoken sensations throughout her body that had thrilled her, the fact that to think he hadn’t recognised her had been like a knife through her heart.

That was when someone said her name and she looked up and moved convulsively to see him standing there only a foot or so away.

‘But…but,’ she stammered, ‘you left. I saw you drive off.’

‘I came back. I’m staying with friends just down the road. And you need a drink. Point me in the right direction.’

Mia hesitated, then gestured. He came back a few minutes later with a drinks trolley, poured a couple of brandies and now he was sitting opposite her in an armchair. He’d changed into khaki cargo trousers and a grey sweatshirt.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked again.

She nodded. ‘Thanks.’

He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re in the right job if it takes so much out of you, Mia?’

‘It doesn’t usually—’ She stopped and bit her lip.

‘Doesn’t usually affect you like this?’ he hazarded.

She looked down and pleated the material of her smock. ‘Well, no.’

‘So what was different about this one?’

‘I don’t know.’ Mia shrugged. ‘I suppose I didn’t think any of you would recognise me.’

‘Why the hell wouldn’t we?’ he countered.

She shrugged. ‘I’ve changed.’

‘Not that much.’

She bridled and looked daggers at him before swiftly veiling her eyes. ‘That’s what your mother tried to tell me. I’m just a souped-up version of the housekeeper’s daughter, in other words.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he retorted. ‘Since when did you get so thin-skinned, Mia?’

She took a very deep breath. ‘I’m not,’ she said stiffly.

‘I can’t work out whether you want us to think you have changed or not.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Carlos,’ she advised coolly. ‘In fact, thank you for getting me a drink but I’d be happy if you went back to your friends. I have a lot to do still.’

‘Short of throwing me out,’ he replied casually, ‘which I doubt you could do, you’re going to have to put up with me, Mia, until I’m ready to go. So, why don’t you fill me in on the missing years? I’m talking about the years between the time you kissed me with considerable ardour then waltzed off to uni, and now.’ His grey gaze rested on her sardonically.

Mia went white.

‘I’m waiting,’ he remarked.

She said something supremely uncomplimentary beneath her breath but she knew from the autocratic set of his jaw that he wouldn’t let up until he got the answers he wanted.

‘All right!’ She said it through her teeth but he intervened.

‘Hang on a moment.’ He reached over and took her glass. ‘Let’s have another one.’

With the deepest reluctance, she told him about the intervening years. How her mother and father had retired and were living in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. How they’d started a small tea shop in a country town that was becoming well known, not only for the cakes her mother baked but the honey her father produced and the herbs he grew.

How she’d finished university, spent some months overseas; how a series of catering jobs had finally led her to taking the plunge and starting her own business.

‘And that’s me up to date,’ she said bleakly and added with irony, ‘how about you?’

He avoided the question. ‘No romantic involvement?’

‘Me?’ Mia drew her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘Not really. Not seriously. I haven’t had the time. How about you?’ she asked again.

‘I’m…’ He paused and grimaced. ‘Actually, I’m currently unattached. Nina—I don’t know if you’ve heard of Nina French?’ He raised a dark eyebrow at her.

‘Who hasn’t?’ Mia murmured impatiently. ‘Top model, utterly gorgeous, daughter of an ambassador,’ she added.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We had a relationship. It fell through. Today, as a matter of fact.’

Mia choked on a sip of her drink. ‘Today?’

He nodded.

‘Is that why you were late?’ she asked incredulously.

He nodded. ‘We had a monumental row just before we were due to set out—to be here on time.’ He shrugged. ‘About fifty per cent of our relationship consisted of monumental rows, now I come to think of it.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ Mia said. ‘But that probably means a…a grand reunion.’

‘Not this time,’ he replied perfectly coolly, so coolly it sent a little shiver down Mia’s spine.

He was quiet for a time, rolling his glass in his hands. ‘Otherwise,’ he continued, ‘I’ve worked like a Trojan to fill my father’s shoes since he had that stroke. He died a few months ago.’

‘I read about that. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It was a release—for all of us, I guess. After the stroke he became embittered and extremely hard to live with. He was always a hard man. I never felt I was living up to his expectations before he became ill but even less so afterwards.’

He sat back and tasted his drink. ‘I’ve even branched out in new directions, successfully, but—’ he paused and shrugged ‘—I can’t help feeling he wouldn’t have approved or that he would have thought of a different way of doing things.’

‘I didn’t know him much,’ Mia murmured.

‘The thing is—’ Carlos drained his drink and looked out into the sunset ‘—I don’t know why I’m telling you this; maybe weddings generate a desire to understand things—or maybe monumental rows do it—’ he shrugged ‘—but I don’t know if it’s thanks to him and his…lack of enthusiasm for most things, including me, that’s given me a similar outlook on life.’

Mia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s something missing. Hard to put my finger on it, though.’

‘Maybe you’d like to take a year off and live amongst some primitive tribe for a change? Is it that kind of an itch?’

He grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Then it could be a wife and family you’re lacking,’ Mia said in a motherly sort of way and was completely unprepared for what came next.

He studied her for a long moment, his eyes narrowed and very intent. Then he said, ‘You wouldn’t like to take Nina’s place?’

Mia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You wouldn’t like to get engaged to me? Not that I was engaged to Nina, but—’ He gestured.

She swallowed, choked again on a sip of her drink and came up spluttering.

He eyed her quizzically. ‘An unusual reaction,’ he murmured.

‘No. I mean yes. I mean…how could you?’ She reached for a napkin from the trolley and patted her eyes and her mouth. ‘I don’t think that’s funny,’ she told him coldly.

He raised a dark eyebrow at her. ‘It wasn’t meant to be. I’m in rather desperate need of a—what should I call it?—a shield at the moment. From Nina and the whole damn caboodle of them.’ He looked irritated to death.

‘Them? Who?’ Mia queried with a frown.

‘The set she moves in, Juanita too, my mother and all the rest of them.’ He gestured. ‘You saw them all today.’ He paused, then smiled suddenly. ‘In comparison, the housekeeper’s daughter is like pure sweet spring water.’

Mia moved abruptly and went white to her lips. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered. ‘How dare you patronise me with your ridiculous proposal and think you can make me laugh about being the housekeeper’s daughter?’

‘Mia—’ he sat up ‘—it may be seven years ago but you and I set each other alight once—remember? Perhaps it didn’t mean a great deal to you, but it happened.’

‘M-may not have meant m-much to me?’ Mia had trouble getting the words out. ‘What are you saying?’

‘You ran away, remember?’

‘I…Carlos, your mother warned me off,’ Mia cried, all her unspoken but good intentions not to rake up the past forgotten. ‘She told me I could never be the one for you, no “housekeeper’s daughter” would be good enough to be your wife. She told me you were only toying with me anyway and she threatened to sack my parents without references if I didn’t go away.’

‘What?’ he growled, looking so astounded Mia could only stare at him wide-eyed.

‘You didn’t know.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘I ended up in hospital that night, remember? When I got home you’d gone. Listen, just tell me how it happened,’ he ordered grimly.

Mia stared into the past. ‘She came home first, your mother,’ she said slowly. ‘The storm had passed but I was still—’ she hesitated a moment ‘—I was still lying on the settee. I hadn’t heard her. You were asleep. She was…she was livid.’ Mia swallowed and shivered. ‘She banished me to the service quarters after I’d told her what had happened and she rang for a medevac helicopter. I don’t know when you woke up. I don’t know if you had concussion but the next day was when she warned me off.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘I never told them, not what had happened with you. But I had just received an offer of a place at a Queensland university. I hadn’t been sure I’d take it—it would mean I’d be a long way from my parents—but that’s what I told them—that I’d made up my mind to do it. I left two days later,’ she said bleakly. ‘You hadn’t come back. I didn’t even know if you would. But I couldn’t risk them losing their jobs.’ She looked at him long and steadily. ‘Not both of them at the same time. I just couldn’t.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. I must have been quite groggy because I don’t remember much about the medevac. But I did go back to West Windward after all sorts of tests and scans and—’ he shook his head impatiently ‘—palaver to determine whether I’d cracked my skull but you’d gone. That was when she told me you’d got a place at a Queensland university, that your parents were so proud of you and what an achievement it was for you. So I congratulated them and they told me they were so proud of you and there seemed to be no trauma attached to it.’

Mia patted her eyes again with the napkin. ‘They were proud of me.’ She shrugged. ‘Did you never…’ she paused, then looked at him directly ‘…did you never consider looking for me to check it out?’

He held her gaze for a long moment, then he said, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’ she whispered.

He looked away and rubbed his jaw. Then he looked directly into her eyes. ‘Mia, it occurred to me I could only mess up your life. I wasn’t ready for a relationship so all I could offer you was an on/off affair, especially if you were up in Queensland. I’d only just taken over from my father so my life was in the process of being completely reorganised.’

He shrugged. ‘I could have kicked myself for doing it—’ He stopped abruptly as she flinched visibly.

‘Hell,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry but—’

But Mia had had enough. She jumped up precipitately. ‘So, if your mother hadn’t warned me off, you would have?’

‘No.’ He said it decisively and he got to his feet and reached for her. ‘No.’

As she jumped away she tripped and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her. ‘Listen to me,’ he ordered as he wound his arms around her. ‘Just listen.’

Mia ignored him and struggled to free herself.

‘Mia,’ he warned, ‘since when did you think you could beat me in a damn fight? Be still and listen.’

‘There’s nothing you can say I want to hear,’ she gasped.

He eyed her narrowly, her flushed cheeks and her eyes dark with pain, her hair coming loose. ‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘Then how about this?’

And before she had a chance to identify what he was leading up to, he bent his head and claimed her mouth with a kiss.

She went limp in his arms, from sheer surprise about the way he did it, the way he moved his hands on her body. The feel of him, steel-hard against her softness, was mesmerising. And her lips parted beneath his because she simply couldn’t help herself.

When it was over her head was resting on his arm, her hair flowing over it, her eyes huge, very green and stunned, her lips parted in sheer shock—shock that he had done it, shock that she had responded after his news of what had to amount to a betrayal.

‘Don’t look like that,’ he said.

‘Why did you do it?’ she whispered.

‘It’s a traditional way to stop a fight between a man and a woman,’ he said dryly. ‘Didn’t you know?’

Her lashes fell and it occurred to him that he’d hurt her again—like some ham-fisted clod, he thought with distaste. ‘Mia, I would never have warned you off because you were the housekeeper’s daughter.’

‘Oh, Carlos, you may be able to deceive yourself but—’

‘Listen,’ he broke in savagely, ‘yes, I’d have told you there was no future for us then but it had nothing to do with who you were. I have never,’ he said through his teeth, ‘shared my mother’s delusions of grandeur.’

It flashed through Mia’s mind, an image of herself during the day and how, once again, she’d keenly felt her position on the sidelines, despite her designer clothes and her undoubted skills. How she’d proven to herself today that she still had a long way to go in the self-confidence stakes, how she might always be a fringe-dweller compared to the O’Connors and the ubiquitous Nina French.

But above all how much it hurt to know that Carlos would have warned her off himself…

As for his proposal?

‘I think you must be mad,’ she said with bitter candour, ‘if you really believe I’d want to get engaged to you. After all that—have you any idea how cheap your mother made me feel?’

He closed his eyes briefly, then released her and handed her her glass. She blinked and took a sip of brandy.

Carlos stared at her for an eternity, then he said abruptly, ‘How old are you now?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Why not—twenty-five?’

She nodded.

‘Has there been anyone?’

Two spots of colour entered her cheeks and she put her glass down on the trolley with a snap. ‘That’s none of your business, Carlos.’

‘I think it is. I think it must have been a ghastly experience. My mother—’ He gestured and shrugged.

‘I’m a little surprised you believe me,’ Mia broke in.

‘My mother,’ he repeated dryly, ‘has persistently meddled in all our lives but not in a way that’s actually hurt anyone like this before. What happened to my father came as a big shock to her too and may have made her…may have unbalanced her a bit.’ He paused and grimaced. ‘Whatever, I can’t let this go.’

‘There’s nothing you can do. I…one…gets over these things.’

‘That’s the problem, I don’t think you have. I strongly suspect you’re a twenty-five-year-old virgin, Mia.’

Mia gasped and jumped up. ‘Will you…will you just go away?’ she flung at him. ‘To…to think,’ she stammered, ‘that I thought you were the nicest of the O’Connors.’

He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘The best of a bad bunch?’

‘Yes! No. Oh!’ Mia clenched her fists and ground her teeth and suddenly it was all too much for her again and she kicked her shoes off and ran out onto the veranda, onto the lawn and down towards her cottage.

Of course she came to grief—it was that kind of day.

She didn’t see the sliver of glass she stepped onto although she yelped in pain.

Carlos was right behind her, and he said her name on a harsh breath and simply picked her up and turned as if to take her back to the big house.

‘No, no,’ she said raggedly. ‘I don’t want to bleed all over the house.’

‘Where then?’

‘Down there, my cottage. I’ve got a first aid kit. Oh, I’m bleeding all over you.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Here we are. Stand on one foot while I open the door and get the lights.’

A few minutes later Mia was sitting lengthwise on her settee with a towel under her foot. Carlos had turned all the lights on and, following her instructions, had found the first aid kit in the bathroom.

‘I’m a good doctor, by the way,’ he said as he laid out tweezers, a bowl of antiseptic, cotton wool and dressings.

‘How do you know?’ Mia peeled off her stocking.

‘I’ve had no complaints to date.’

‘How many people have you actually “doctored”?’ she asked. ‘Is it deep?’

He studied her heel. ‘Deep enough. But I can’t see anything in it and we should be able to keep it from bleeding until tomorrow when we can get you to a proper doctor. It might need a couple of stitches. You’ll have to keep off it for a while.’

He dabbed it liberally with cotton wool dipped in antiseptic, then he dried it and applied a dressing.

‘There.’ He sat back. Then he reached for her and took her in his arms. ‘And you’re a good patient,’ he said into her hair. ‘Feeling OK?’ He held her away and studied her face. ‘You look a bit pale.’

Mia grimaced and, without giving it a second thought, laid her head against his shoulder. ‘I’ll be OK. I feel a bit stupid. I always check the lawn for broken glass; when people drink you never know what they can end up doing with their glasses. I never sprint across it barefoot.’

‘Why did you?’ He kissed the top of her head and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to Mia.

But she sighed. ‘I was running away from you, Carlos.’ She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. ‘For a few minutes I really hated you. And thinking back makes me feel that way again.’

‘Then don’t think back,’ he advised and traced the outline of her mouth. ‘It always was one of the most delicious mouths I’ve ever seen.’

Mia was conscious of a growing clamour in her nerve-endings, delicious but at the same time disturbing, as her awareness of him grew. Awareness of how surprisingly strong he was; he’d carried her with ease. Awareness of all the old sensations being in his arms could arouse, the feel of his body against hers, the pure male scent she used to love so much when they rode together, of the cotton of his shirt mingled with a hint of musk.

Awareness and memories of his hands, so sure when he’d kissed and touched her tonight and once before, even if he was suffering from a concussion on that occasion.

It was that last thought that brought her up with a start. She had to remember that Carlos was dangerous to her mental health!

Correspondingly, she pushed herself away from him and changed tack deliberately and completely. ‘This accident couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I’ve got wall-to-wall functions over the next week. I really need to be on my feet!’

‘Tomorrow?’ he queried.

‘No, not tomorrow but from the day after.’

He looked at her with some irony. ‘Don’t you have any contingency plans? Are yours the only pair of feet available?’

Mia sank back. ‘Well, no. There’s Gail.’

‘Ah, Gail,’ Carlos murmured with a sudden glint of amusement in his grey eyes. ‘Now, I met Gail. She very kindly introduced herself to me and offered me any assistance I might need.’

Mia looked briefly heavenward.

Carlos noted this with a twist to his lips. ‘I did form the impression, however, that, despite being young and impressionable, Gail is a fairly practical person. Possibly a hard worker as well.’

Mia closed her eyes on her inward irritation, then opened them to say honestly, ‘You’re right. Forgive me, Gail,’ she added in an aside.





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