AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She hadn’t even realised she was frowning.
‘Maybe you should put that away,’ he suggested. ‘We’re here.’
Lulu looked up and she knew in that moment she’d bitten off more than she could chew as she saw the villa looming up ahead. It was a colonial-style mansion that spoke of money and history.
It was also a working farm. She’d seen the horses grazing in the home paddocks, and now they drove past brick stables and various outbuildings into the courtyard.
Lulu took a steadying breath and kept her eyes down as Alejandro escorted her inside.
There was a lake behind the house. She saw this because there were glass windows everywhere and an expansive feel to the house, as if it were open to the outdoors. Moorish arches linked the entrance hall to various other rooms.
Lulu felt a vertiginous sense of dislocation, but countered it by pressing her back up against the wall as she stopped in one of the archways.
Staff came trooping past with her luggage.
‘How many people live here?’ she asked.
‘There’s eight permanent staff for the house, but they come in daily, the gauchos who work on the estancia, and I keep an office manager here on the estate—he lives in one of the guest houses.’
Alejandro was frowning at her, possibly because she had stuck herself to the wall.
Edging forward just enough not to look completely foolish, Lulu told herself she would cope.
‘I’ll take you on a tour…’
‘No! I mean… I’m tired. Can I go to my room?’
She hated how abrupt she sounded, but it was difficult to speak normally when her vocal cords felt as if they were freezing.
He frowned.
Her phone buzzed.
‘Again?’
She shook her head. ‘My mother worries.’ She read the message.
Alejandro watched her face fall as she read the text and it had his own tension levels knotting. He knew what it was like to be on the end of a tugging string of phone calls and texts. His disaster of a mother couldn’t make a decision without dragging him into it. It was probably why he only ever had relationships with women who could take care of themselves.
Lulu clearly couldn’t draw that line with her mother. He told himself not to get involved.
Her pleated brow didn’t change as she put the phone away.
‘Do you want me to throw your phone into the lake?’
Lulu looked up in surprise and then remembered the other night, when she’d wanted to throw her phone across the room. Her mouth trembled into a reluctant smile. ‘That might be a bit extreme,’ she said.
How had he known?
‘Your mother is a nightmare.’
Her forced smile faded. ‘How can you say that? You don’t even know her.’
‘How many times has she rung you today?’
‘We’re close—I’m her only daughter.’
‘I saw her in action back at the castle. She treats you like a little girl.’
