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Daisy was vexed with herself for letting that slip. If Ethan Cartwright was thinking she was free for fun and games, he could think again. She was not about to waste her time and emotion on a man who would dump her when he found another lady for the manor. She chopped up a cucumber with extra vigour.
‘How did your parents get into debt?’
The question surprised her, stirring a hope that he might toss out some free financial advice. She arranged her mouth into a rueful smile and looked directly at him as she answered. ‘Their superannuation manager directed them into investments which had gone bad. They borrowed money from the bank to renovate their home, believing they would have enough income to service the loan…’
‘And then the bottom fell out of the market,’ he finished for her. ‘Unfortunately a fairly common problem these days.’
It was an offhand dismissal of the subject. Daisy gritted her teeth over the stupid hope, then with a touch of resentment asked, ‘How is it that you knew better?’
‘My father is an economist,’ he answered matter-of-factly. ‘He was forecasting this financial blow-up for years. For the most part it didn’t suit people to listen to him. Many wrote him off as a crackpot academic.’
‘But you didn’t.’
He shook his head. ‘Numbers don’t lie. Numbers made the crash inevitable.’
She wished she could ask him to look at her parents’ investment portfolio, tell them where best to put what was left of their money, but such expert advice was his business. It wouldn’t come free and even if she could afford his fees, it would still smack of asking him for a favour, taking on an extra client whose nest-egg wouldn’t be big enough to earn him much of a commission. Favours put people under obligation to return them and she had nothing to offer Ethan Cartwright.
Except…
No, don’t go there, she sternly told herself.
Giving in to sexual chemistry was one thing.
Wanting financial pillow-talk out of it was something else.
But he’d be using her so why shouldn’t she use him?
The idea of having sex with him had been squirrelling around in her mind for weeks. She wanted to know how it would feel. He was, without a doubt, the most attractive man she’d ever met. It was only natural to be tempted to have the experience even though it wouldn’t lead to a serious relationship, and if there were side benefits…at least that would make up for being dumped afterwards. She could come out winning.
On the other hand, that was a gamble and she didn’t gamble.
The higher probability was she would come out losing…losing this job before she could find another, losing her self-esteem, losing her sense of right and wrong, and it was certainly wrong to barter sex for help. This wasn’t exactly a survival situation. She could manage it by herself. But for how long? And at what cost to her own life?
Heaving a despondent sigh, she picked up the punnet of cherry tomatoes and started cutting them in half to add to the green salad. He was whipping up a homemade dressing, blending Spanish onion with vinegar, sugar, vegetable oil, water, salt and mustard. The blender was switched off long enough for him to dip a finger into the mixture and lift that finger to his mouth for tasting.
Her heart did a ridiculous flip. It wasn’t a deliberately erotic action. Although when he saw her looking at him, those devilish green eyes sparkled wickedly. The urgent need for some down-to-earth distraction made her grab at the first non-sexual thought that ran through her mind.
‘How come you’re so into cooking?’ she blurted out.
‘I enjoy eating well. Don’t you?’
‘Yes. But you could afford to frequent the best restaurants. You don’t have to do it yourself.’
‘There’s more satisfaction in doing it precisely to one’s own taste. My grandmother taught me that.’
‘Your grandmother?’
He grinned, delighted to have teased her interest. ‘From the time I was a boy hanging out in her kitchen. I used to go there after school. She loved cooking and everything I ate with her tasted so much better than the stuff my parents bought. Neither of them ever cooked. It was always frozen meals or takeaways, eaten in an absent-minded fashion whenever they felt the need for fuel. They’re both so wrapped up in their mental world, the physical world barely impinges on it.’
He must have had a strange upbringing, Daisy thought, very different from her family life. ‘Does that mean your mother is an academic, too?’ she asked, unable to squash her curiosity about him.
He nodded. ‘The law is her life. She lectures on it at university. Writes books on it.’
‘Were you an only child?’ He hadn’t indicated the presence of any siblings.
‘One was enough for my parents,’ he said dryly. ‘Not that they didn’t care for me. They did in their own way. Though I’d have to say the best thing they did for me was send me to boarding school. I had a great time at Riverview with Mickey and Charlie and the other guys.’
He poured the dressing into a sauce-boat ready to use later. ‘Though the food wasn’t up to my grandmother’s standard,’ he added ruefully. ‘When I finally struck out on my own, I wanted to cook for myself.’
Daisy had to agree it was hard to beat a really good home-cooked meal.
‘This dressing is one of my grandmother’s recipes,’ he ran on. ‘Have a taste.’
It was impossible to resist dipping a finger in and carrying it to her mouth, though she was conscious of him watching the action, waiting for her response. ‘Mmm…yummy.’
He laughed. ‘It’s always a pleasure to share pleasures.’
His eyes twinkled with a seductive invitation to share many more with him.
Daisy instantly pulled herself back into a defensive shell. Everything about Ethan Cartwright made him too temptingly attractive. It was becoming more and more difficult to hang onto common sense. She couldn’t even write him off as a selfish, arrogant pig any more. He didn’t act like one.
But there was still the huge barrier of his billionaire status, and she couldn’t help resenting how easily he could throw money around, getting absolutely everything he wanted. Somehow that made it all the more imperative that he shouldn’t get her, not as anything but an employee who fairly earned her wage.
Ethan observed the shut-down on her face and the belligerent set of her chin as she finished with the tomatoes and moved to the tray where she’d placed the cutlery wrapped in paper serviettes.
‘I’ll take this down to the barbecue area, save having to bring it later,’ she slung at him, avoiding eye contact, and was off, not waiting for him to agree or disagree.
She moved so fast, her pony-tail and her perky bottom twitched from side to side. Ethan grinned to himself, sure that it had become too hot in the kitchen for her and she was taking evasive action. She was so marvellously different from the women who virtually threw themselves at him. With Daisy there was no flirting to encourage his interest, and a swift backpedalling whenever she felt herself teetering on the brink of responding to him beyond her set limits.
All the no-go signs from her only served to make the challenge of breaking through her barriers more compelling. He had made some headway this morning, moving onto personal ground, drawing out a curiosity about his life which revealed the interest she’d been deliberately repressing.
Maybe her ex-boyfriend had soured her view of men generally and she was wary of letting herself be vulnerable again. Certainly his experience with Serena had reinforced his cynical view of women. But he felt the potential for something very different with Daisy Donahue and nothing was going to stop him from clinching a connection with her. He had the rest of the day to work on cracking her resistance to being with him.
Daisy threw herself into the role of party hostess, determined to avoid being with Ethan Cartwright as much as possible. Luckily, none of the wives played tennis, so she couldn’t be drawn into playing a set of mixed doubles. The morning passed agreeably enough. The women expressed interest in a tour of the mansion and with Ethan’s permission, she showed them all they wanted to see, then stayed chatting with them at poolside, only moving away to refill drinks and ensure everyone was enjoying themselves.
All the men either played tennis or watched the game, amusing themselves with a lively commentary on the play, then cooling off in the pool before lunch. Daisy was the only one who didn’t go into the water, escaping to the kitchen on the pretext of last-minute preparations for the barbecue.
The vision of Ethan Cartwright in a brief black swimming costume had made her so hotly conscious of her own body, no way was she about to don the bikini she had brought with her. It was far more comfortable sticking her head into the refrigerator, staring at the contents which were largely dead meat with no sex appeal whatsoever. She was still blankly looking at the tray loaded with steak and sausages when his voice assaulted her ears with a tone of extreme annoyance.
