Annie West - Undone by His Touch

Her breath stilled as she recalled him emerging from the pool: naked, wet and virile. Her mouth dried.

Horrified to find her gaze following a narrow line of dark hair to the top of his faded jeans, Chloe yanked her attention back to his face, her cheeks glowing.

Anyone less in need of building up she had yet to meet. He was all hard-muscled energy and husky, powerful lines. She’d never met a man so vibrantly alive. So confrontingly masculine. Her stomach gave a strange little shimmy just being close to him.

‘I hadn’t thought in terms of … building up your strength.’ Again her gaze strayed and she firmly yanked it back to his face.

Despite her embarrassment, amusement rose at the idea of trying to cosset this man like a child. The previous housekeeper must have had her work cut out trying to feed him invalid food. Had she really tried to serve him junket? Chloe wouldn’t have dared.

‘What was that?’ His brows arrowed down ferociously as if he’d heard the laugh she stifled.

‘Nothing, Mr Carstairs.’ She paused. ‘I’d planned chicken tikka-masala burgers with cucumber raita and lime pickle for lunch. But if that doesn’t suit …’

‘It suits perfectly. Suddenly I’m ravenous.’ For a moment the shadow of a grin hovered on his lips and Chloe had a shocking glimpse of how irresistible he must be in good humour.

If ever he was in good humour.

‘Clever too,’ he drawled. ‘Far easier for a blind man to handle.’

That observation, the little sting in the tail, robbed his earlier praise of warmth and left her deflated.

Was there anything wrong in trying to take his limitations into consideration? To realise it must be difficult chasing unseen food around a plate?

He made her consideration seem like condescension.

Her boss was frank to the point of rudeness, bad-tempered and graceless. He was nothing like his charmer of a brother.

A shiver whispered down her spine and she stiffened.

Chloe knew which brother she’d rather deal with. Declan Carstairs might be arrogant but …

‘I’ll have it ready in half an hour, then.’

‘Good.’ He turned away, took three uneven paces and put his hand down to the corner of the desk as if to reassure himself he was in the right place. It was a subtle move she wouldn’t have noticed except that her brain was busy cataloguing everything about him.

Instantly she felt a pang of sympathy. How hard it must be for an active man to adjust to a world he couldn’t see.

Perhaps his temper was understandable.

‘Before you go, Ms Daniels.’ She paused in the act of turning away. ‘Tell me, you did sign a confidentiality clause with your contract of employment, didn’t you?’

‘I did.’

‘Then you know the severe penalties for revealing private information about anything you see or hear in the course of your work.’

Chloe drew a deep breath, telling herself he was within his rights to check, just as he’d been to insist she sign such a clause before working for him. It had nothing to do with her personal integrity.

‘I understand that.’ Nevertheless her fingers curled tight.

‘Good. Keep it in mind. Because I’d have no hesitation in suing an employee who betrayed my trust if, for instance details of this current deal, or personal information about my life, were to appear in the press.’

Chloe’s hackles rose. Did he distrust all his employees on principle or just her?

That fragile stirring of sympathy withered, replaced by a belligerent determination to keep out of Declan Carstairs’ way. She didn’t need to listen to his provocation. She had enough on her plate with worry about Ted’s health and meeting the cost of his rehabilitation.

‘I’ve worked for celebrities in the past, Mr Carstairs. People hounded by the paparazzi every time they stepped outside.’ Her tone, more frigid than cool, implied they were far more newsworthy than he, despite the fact he was one of the country’s richest men. ‘None of them ever had complaints about my discretion.’

‘Really?’ One dark eyebrow arched provocatively.

‘Really. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Carstairs, I’ll get on with lunch.’

Chloe immersed herself in the routine of keeping the house in tip-top condition. A magnificent sprawling place, it dated from the nineteenth century. Her favourite feature was the wide veranda with its vista of manicured gardens. The gardens led to the cliff edge that dropped sheer to the blue-green valley, which spread into the distance.

Built at a time when a rich man included a ballroom in his country retreat, the place was a pleasure to work in. Especially as a wing had been added with a modern kitchen and housekeeper’s suite.

She loved the gracious old home and didn’t mind that it took a lot to maintain. That gave her reason to avoid the corner study where Declan Carstairs spent his time.

Occasionally as she crossed the lobby she heard his rich baritone on the phone or chatting to his PA, David Sarkesian, who’d returned from Sydney. The sound of her employer’s deep voice made her quicken her pace lest he accuse her of eavesdropping for saleable gossip.

That insinuation still burned.

As did the suspicion that she enjoyed listening to the smooth rhythms of his voice for too much. The tingling awareness she felt in Declan Carstairs’ presence disturbed her. It reminded her that, contrary to everything she’d learned in the last six years, her libido hadn’t died with Mark.

She wished it had. She didn’t need that hot, edgy sensation low in her stomach when Declan touched her hand reaching for a plate. Or the breathless anticipation that caught her lungs when he spoke to her.

She even enjoyed the verbal wrangling that seemed to be part of daily life working for him. He never let an encounter go by without challenging, probing or teasing till she almost suspected he looked forward to provoking her responses.

At least it prevented her dwelling on memories of the last time she’d lived here, when her dream job had turned into a nightmare.

‘It’s over now. You need to put it behind you,’ she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Easier said than done when fragmented nightmares still shattered her dreams. That was why she’d forced herself to come in here, to what had been Adrian Carstairs’ suite.

Better to face the past squarely.

She’d learned that when she lost Mark years ago. The shock of grief, the unfairness of it, had kept her in denial for ages, trying to cling to a life that was past. It was only when she accepted the devastating blow that had stolen their dreams that she was able to move on.

Chloe swiped a cloth over the vanity unit.

‘The past is gone.’

When she lost Mark those words had been a lament. Now there was relief that the trauma of Adrian Carstairs’ frightening obsession was over. No matter how much she regretted his death, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of freedom that he’d never stalk her again. That his dangerous fixation was over.

She picked up her cleaning supplies and turned, only to walk into a wall of naked male muscle.

She was soft, lithe and warm as his arms instinctively closed around her. The unexpectedness of contact momentarily stunned Declan, but a second later his body was responding to the intimate contact.

Predictable, he supposed, since he hadn’t had a lover since well before the accident.

Yet why did his grip tighten when she moved to pull away? Surely not because he enjoyed the feel of her slender hand splayed across his bare chest? The gentle, almost phantom caress of her breath near his collarbone?

‘Ms Daniels, I presume?’ He forced himself into speech, covering his abrupt loss of control.

‘Mr Carstairs, I didn’t expect to see you here.’

There was a slightly breathless quality to her usually crisp voice as if he’d caught her out in some way.

He liked it.

Just as he liked the firm yet enticingly soft curves pressed against him.

This was Chloe Daniels, his sharp-tongued, no-nonsense housekeeper? She sounded young, but he’d supposed her voice was misleading. She was nothing like those sturdy, slightly frumpish women who’d staffed the various Carstairs properties in his childhood.

This woman was slim but curved in all the right places. ‘Luscious’ was the word that sprang to mind. His fingers tightened.

A familiar surge of frustration hit him: impatience that he couldn’t see her for himself. Anger at this disability. Damn his blindness! Would he ever be whole again? He’d been curious about her so long and now, holding her, he had more questions than ever.

‘I didn’t expect to find you here either. I thought I heard voices.’

No need to say the muffled sound of conversation from Adrian’s room had hit him like a sledgehammer blow to the heart. He’d dropped the shirt he’d taken off as he reached the head of the stairs and hurried here, nerves strung tight.

He wasn’t a fanciful man but to his guilt-ridden conscience, the sound of talking from Adrian’s suite had seemed portentous.

‘I was talking to myself.’ She sounded defiant rather than defensive, as if challenging him to make an issue of it. He was intrigued at this facet of his ever-practical employee.

‘Indeed?’

‘I’m sorry I disturbed you. I was just doing a quick clean.’

‘No one will be using the suite.’ He’d lost his taste for company the day he’d lost his brother.

‘I understand.’ She paused then added, her voice low, ‘I’m sorry about your brother, Mr Carstairs.’

‘Thank you,’ he said tersely, dropping his hands.

Familiar guilt swamped him—that he was here, alive, experiencing a surge of sexual interest for this woman, when Adrian was dead. He’d failed his younger brother.

He should have been able to stop him.

His stomach lurched sickeningly. They’d been close, despite their recent geographical separation. He’d been Adrian’s biggest supporter, the one Adrian had turned to when their parents had been busy with their business and charity interests.

But that counted for nothing. All that mattered was that last, irrevocable failure.

How had he let himself be persuaded by Adrian’s upbeat assurances? He should have come here sooner, not relied on phone and email during that vital phase of his new project. How could he not have known Adrian was in such despair?

‘Is there anything else, Mr Carstairs?’

Declan plunged a hand through his shaggy hair. He wished there was something else—something to distract him.

Work was no solace. It couldn’t ease the weight of remorse.

Nor could the search for the woman who’d used his little brother then tossed him aside when she found he’d lost his wealth. Her betrayal had driven Adrian to suicide. Any doubts Declan had about her guilt had been obliterated by the scrawled note David had found jammed in Declan’s desk. As soon as he’d recognised Adrian’s handwriting he’d told Declan, who’d insisted he read it aloud.

Neither had spoken of it since but the words were engraved in Declan’s memory: desperate words that confirmed Adrian’s unnamed girlfriend, the woman he’d been seeing those last weeks, had pushed him to the edge.

Yet the private investigator had turned up no clue to her identity. Where had she vanished to?

Declan’s mouth tightened. Adrian had always been the more sensitive one and, he realised now, more vulnerable. Declan felt impotent, unable to find the woman who’d destroyed his brother and make her face what she’d done.

He gulped down bitter regret, concentrating instead on the burning hate that sustained him when the burden of guilt grew unbearable.