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‘I admit I do have a great deal of money, but I assure you I also have quite a bit of sense. Enough to tell you that I understand perfectly where you’re coming from. You want love and marriage, and those are two things I’m not looking for. Certainly not when it comes to love. That’s something I am incapable of promising to any woman.’

‘Why?’

‘Some of us have it in us, some of us don’t. The important thing is that neither of us is staring the perfect partner in the face, here. Which begs the question: What do we do with this thing between us?’

He pushed his chair back and relaxed with his hands behind his head and stared at her with a wicked smile.

Every bit of him oozed sex appeal and the temptation to touch what was on offer was so powerful it almost took her breath away.

She wasn’t going to go there.

That would be following in her mother’s footsteps. Not that she would be nurturing any of those crazy hopes her mother had always lived by, with each and every doomed relationship she engaged in.

No!

She was not going to cave in to weakness. She’d spent too much of her life making sure she was incredibly careful when it came to men. Jimmy had made sense to begin with, but it still hadn’t worked out for them. Yes, mistakes happened, but that didn’t mean she was going to ditch her principles.

‘Well, I’m not interested,’ she said in a hitched, breathless voice. She stood up and began sweeping the dishes off the table, busying herself so that she didn’t have to look at him, although she could feel his dark gaze on her as she stacked them next to the sink.

‘We can’t leave this stuff here.’ She leaned against the counter, arms folded and looked at him.

He was still lounging back in the chair, his hands behind his head. He was looking at her with something that felt a bit like amusement. Amusement and sexual appreciation, which made for a devastating combination. And she’d bet her life that he knew that.

Hope bristled. It dawned on her that of course he would find her amusing, with her sermons about relationships and her overcautious approach to sex.

He was the guy who had thousands of women falling in and out of bed with him!

That is, if Carlos was to be believed.

Javier was the guy who wouldn’t have recognised commitment if it walked up to him and shook his hand.

She just wished he didn’t look so damned…delectable.

His hair seemed to have grown a bit and he’d obviously cut down on the shaving, because he had a six o’clock shadow that made him even sexier.

‘I’ll get someone to come in and deal with it tomorrow. Or even later today, if you find a couple of plates and an unwashed glass or two is bugging you.’

‘And that’s exactly what I mean!’ It felt good to have something to cling on to, something infuriating about him that could bring her swirling head back down to planet Earth. ‘This is precisely what I’ve spent my life avoiding. Rich men who think that they can snap their fingers and everyone will jump and obey them!’

She wanted to goad him into being someone she no longer found attractive.

She waited, bristling, for him to take the bait. For him to argue with her. Because an argument was what she badly needed to distract her from the tangle of feelings zipping through her. Confusing, unwanted feelings.

‘I mean…’ she sniped with pointed sarcasm, ‘…do you honestly think you can’t load a dishwasher yourself and turn the On button?’

Javier returned her heated antagonism with a slow smile.

‘I hate those rich people as well,’ he said demurely. ‘The ones you describe who think they can rule the world by issuing orders. And as for the dishwasher? I admit, I could work it out without any trouble at all. At a push, I could probably rustle up something to eat for myself, as well. That said, I like to think that I usefully employ people to do stuff like that for me and pay them well over the odds.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘Yes, really. Lots of the places around here lie vacant during the year but many incomes rely on the tourism brought in by the very people who own them. I try and make sure that I keep a lot of people in steady employment even when I’m not using my villa. I make sure crew are employed to constantly check on my yacht, that staff come in to service the villa even when it doesn’t need it and that the gardeners keep things ticking over. And, whenever possible, I employ a private chef to cook for any guests who come.’

Hope was mentally configuring the small army of people kept in useful employment by a generous benefactor, which ran contrary to what she had earlier criticised him for.

Between the two extremes probably lay the truth.

She wanted him to be the bad guy and he kept reminding her that he wasn’t.