The Cinderella Factor Read online

  ‘I never thought about it,’ Patrick said, frowning. ‘You’re probably right. My godfather would have thought it was ideal.’

  ‘Your godfather?’ echoed Jo, puzzled.

  ‘I inherited the château from him last year. Along with the cars.’ He patted the nose of the gleaming T73. ‘He was quite an autocrat, my godfather. I guess he would have thought that the chauffeur could take care of himself.’ He gave her a sudden rueful smile. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Jo led the way up the stairs. She looked back at him curiously. ‘Why?’

  He followed her up the stairs more slowly. The limp was pronounced. How could she have missed that this morning?

  He was impatient. ‘Well, you’re not exactly a bruiser with a wrench in one hand and a fistful of soldering iron in the other, are you? And this place is just too easy to get into.’

  She looked over shoulder and saw that his frown was blacker than ever.

  ‘Hell, sue me for political incorrectness, if you want. I should have thought harder about the implications of your accommodation.’

  Jo bridled. ‘What? Why?’ she asked belligerently.

  He gestured to the barn door at the bottom of the stairs. ‘This place is hardly secure. And a woman on her own—and young—you’re vulnerable. Unless you’re a kick boxer, I suppose. And I’d guess that you aren’t. But you are reckless.’

  ‘Reckless? Me?’ She was amazed. ‘I’m never reckless.’

  He was dry. ‘Then you’re even younger than I thought.’

  They had got to the landing outside her room. She was on the point of opening the door, but at that she stopped and looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  His eyes were full of irony. ‘You need me to tell you that stripping to the buff and swimming in a river on your own is reckless?’

  ‘Oh.’

  Jo wished he hadn’t said that. She had been working quite hard at not thinking about their first meeting.

  ‘What if you had got into difficulties in the water? It’s quite deep, and there are trailing weeds that get wound round you. Or say someone less—restrained—than I am had come along?’

  Or less uninterested, thought Jo resentfully. And shocked herself rigid.

  She didn’t want this ironic powerhouse of a man to be interested in her. Did she?

  Of course not. She didn’t want any man to be interested in her. In fact, she wanted to stop this line of thought right now.

  So she muttered, ‘Sorry,’ in the sulky teenager sort of voice that infuriated her.

  It did the trick, anyway. Patrick Burns stopped looking ironic and superior. Instead, he looked harassed.

  ‘I’ve never paid much attention to the barn before. But now I’ve taken you onto the payroll, I suppose I’m responsible.’

  He had reached the top of the stairs. He stood in front of the front door that led into her living quarters and looked it up and down disparagingly. ‘Hell, look at that. Anyone could get in here.’

  Jo gave a choke of laughter. In comparison with what she was used to, the flat was a haven of security.

  Patrick did not like her laughing, she could see that. Well, he would just have to live with it, she thought. He was her employer. She would do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. But she wasn’t going to turn herself inside out for him.

  She shrugged and opened the door. It was too narrow to pass on the landing, so she went inside and turned to hold it open for him.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘No lock?’

  ‘There’s a lock on the outside door to the whole barn.’

  She released the door and walked into the long, bright room that stretched over half the garage. It was still warm from the day’s sun. It smelled of the wild flowers she had put in a jam jar on the table.

  Patrick did not look at her domain. He stayed where he was, inspecting the door with a faint frown between strongly marked brows.

  ‘No separate lock?’

  She shrugged again. ‘What’s the point? No one ever comes here.’

  His eyes locked on hers. ‘I’ve come here.’

  For a moment the silence between them was like a physical thing. Fog, maybe, in which you couldn’t see your way. Or a rushing wind that blew you off your feet. She could not hear, could not think. All she could do was look and look at him. Jo put a hand to her throat to ease her breathing.

  Then Patrick straightened and came into the room. The door swung creakily behind him.

  ‘I was right,’ he said grimly. ‘Reckless.’

  Jo could not help herself. She let out a great sigh of relief.

  ‘Think about it,’ said Patrick in a hard voice. ‘You may like to dress like a car mechanic. But you’re a woman, and sexy with it. And you’re all on your own out here. If you called for help, what hope do you think there is that anyone in the main house would hear you?’

  Sexy? Sexy?

  She gave a little shiver. She didn’t like that. Nobody had ever made her shiver before. It made her feel vulnerable all over again.

  Vulnerability was not an option, she reminded herself. She stuck her chin in the air.

  ‘Why should I call for help?’ Jo said scornfully. ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘From what I saw at the river today, I would say there was a distinct question mark over that,’ Patrick said dryly.

  Jo froze where she stood. The door finally shut. The catch closed with a noise like a pistol shot. As if the sound had released her from an enchanter’s spell, Jo turned to face him.

  His eyebrow rose questioningly. Mockingly. Jo glared. But she blushed as well. He pursed his lips, looking at her tranquilly. His mouth tilted a little as he saw the colour running under her tanned skin. It made her even more hot and bothered. His eyes gleamed with mockery.

  ‘Admit it. I scared you witless by the river.’

  It was horribly close to the truth. Jo strove for some of her old brave flippancy.

  ‘You didn’t scare me,’ she said. ‘If you’d had a long black cloak and pointed canines it might have been different, but—’ she gave him a gamine grin ‘—it was daylight. The moon is way off full. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said politely. His eyelids dropped. His lashes were long and black. It must be the dramatic frame they provided which made those eyes so memorable, Jo was thinking, when they lifted suddenly and his eyes locked with hers. ‘No doubt that is why you took off like a rocket in the middle of the conversation,’ he said softly.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jo. She eyed him warily. ‘Would you believe I’d just remembered I had to be somewhere?’

  He looked pointedly at her scratched hands.

  ‘The middle of a bramble bush?’

  In spite of her rejection of vulnerability, Jo was a realist. She turned her hands over ruefully, pulling a face. ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ she admitted. ‘Okay, that one doesn’t run. Well, then—’

  ‘Please. No more excuses. You were scared,’ he said dryly. He added unexpectedly, ‘I don’t blame you.’

  Jo gritted her teeth. ‘No, I wasn’t. I don’t know why I shot off like that.’

  The long, curling lashes dropped again. ‘Don’t you?’

  Jo frowned. Was she being teased?

  She had been teased by the boys at school sometimes. But it had felt different. And it was so long ago. The years on the road had made her practical and self-reliant. But they had done absolutely nothing for her ability to flirt.

  This man had worked out that she was an amateur and was making no secret of the fact. It had not taken any more than one botched retort and he had found her out like a chameleon that had lost the ability to change colour.

  Annoyed, she said, almost to herself, ‘Life must have got too easy.’

  Patrick was startled. ‘What?’

  ‘Three months ago I wouldn’t even have noticed,’ she muttered irritably.

  He gave a choke of laughter. ‘Wouldn’t have noticed you were scared?
Or wouldn’t have noticed me?’

  But it was not either of those two, and they both knew it.

  Jo turned away, trying to hide her self-consciousness under irritability. Not a bad effort, either. Slightly overdone, but you couldn’t have everything.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong idea about me. I’m not a schoolgirl. I’ve taken care of myself for years. I’ve had to,’ she flung at him.

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have,’he said calmly. ‘I think you’d better tell me about this self-sufficiency of yours. When did you leave home?’

  She stiffened. ‘What business is it of yours?’

  Although his voice was soft, it took on a deadly note she was coming to know.

  ‘If—I stress if—I’m going to be your employer, I’ve got a right to know what I’m taking on,’ he said with irony. ‘Now, no more evasions, if you please. When did you leave home?’

  He held all the cards. Jo’s resistance collapsed.

  ‘A long time ago. Years.’

  ‘Years?’ His eyebrows flew up. ‘And you’re only nineteen now?’

  She was annoyed with herself. She had forgotten that she told him that.

  ‘I was an early developer,’ she said flippantly.

  ‘Hmm.’ He did not smile. ‘So you ran away while you were still a minor? Why didn’t your parents have you brought back?’

  ‘Not parents,’ corrected Jo swiftly. ‘Foster parents, if you like. I called them aunt and uncle.’

  ‘Ah.’ The look he gave her was troubled. ‘Even so—’

  ‘They didn’t find me. I’m good at hiding when I want to be.’

  ‘You must be exceptionally good if you gave the police the slip.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have called the police,’ said Jo with certainty. ‘Easier to cut their losses.’

  Patrick frowned even harder. ‘Were you some sort of wild child? Into sex and drugs and rock and roll?’

  It was so unexpected that Jo laughed aloud, a great blast of un-inhibited mirth. ‘Not even close,’ she said, when she could speak.

  His eyes glinted. ‘Wilful, then. A must-have-her-own-way kind of gal?’

  ‘Like your Maddie Kaufman, you mean?’

  There was a small pause. ‘I guess I do, at that.’

  Her hazel eyes danced. She shook her head. ‘Nope. Not guilty. Never made a pass at a man in my life.’

  ‘Ne—’ He broke off, his expression arrested. His eyebrows flew up. ‘Never?’

  Jo did not like that. In fact, she could have kicked herself the moment that unwary confession popped out. Desperate to retrieve the position, she stuck her nose in the air and said, ‘Never needed to.’

  But from the way he laughed she could tell he didn’t believe her. Blast, blast, blast.

  ‘Okay. I’ll buy it. You weren’t a tearaway and you weren’t a drama queen. So what on earth was the trouble with your parents?’ Seeing her brows twitch together, he corrected himself at once. ‘Foster parents. Sorry.’

  Rather to her own surprise, Jo decided on the truth. Well, quite a lot of the truth. As long as she didn’t mention Mark there was no risk, after all. She gave Patrick a level look.

  ‘You have to understand that I am unwanted baggage. My mother farmed me out. My uncle—well, he calls himself my uncle, but there’s no blood tie—is a drunk and a gambler who doesn’t take disappointment well. When he loses he drinks. When he drinks he hits out. His wife thinks that’s okay, as long as he hits someone else. I,’ she said, shaking her head back and looking at him challengingly, ‘don’t.’

  Patrick’s face went blank with shock. Jo had seen that before when she told people. After it came either disbelief or disgust. It was not going to be nice if this man looked at her with disgust.

  ‘He hit you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Yes.’

  She bit her lip. Well, he might as well know the whole ugly story. Then she would not be on tenterhooks in case he found out from some other source.

  ‘The first time—the first bad time—he cracked two of my ribs. They took me to the casualty department of the hospital eventually, because it hurt me to breathe. I took a copy of the notes the doctor wrote about me. The second time he tried it, I left. I haven’t seen either of them since.’

  He looked shaken.

  ‘Have you still got the notes?’

  She smiled bleakly. ‘Oh, yes. They’re my insurance policy.’

  The tiger’s eyes glinted. She thought, He understands that. It gave her an odd little rush of warmth, as if she had just discovered something they had in common.

  But all he said was, ‘Far-sighted of you.’

  Jo hesitated briefly. Could she afford to tell Patrick about Mark as well? She was tempted. But it didn’t exactly put her in a good light. There was more than an element of kidnapping in the story. She was not sure at all that Patrick would belong to the school of ends justifying the means. He might even insist on Mark going back. She couldn’t risk that.

  So she said nothing.

  Patrick said, with deceptive mildness, ‘All alone, with a couple of broken ribs! So where did you go when you left?’

  Jo shrugged again. ‘I told you. On the road.’

  ‘What?’

  She realised that she had made him very angry. She said defensively, ‘What else could I do? I couldn’t go to friends. My uncle would have beaten them up. He was violent.’

  ‘But how did you live?’ It was controlled. He was shocked, she thought. And fiercely angry. But not, thank God, disgusted. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘A couple of my friends gave me some money when I told them what had happened. I slept the first night in a railway station. Then I went to Manchester. After a couple of days I got a job waiting tables at a lorry drivers’ café. They didn’t pay your stamp or your tax; they just paid you out of petty cash. So the staff got paid off regularly before any bureaucrats could ask questions. There are lots of places like that,’ Jo said tolerantly. She gave another laugh. ‘I used to thank God for them. I must have worked in most of them, one way and another. You last about three weeks if you’re lucky. Sometimes it’s only a couple of days.’

  Patrick looked stunned.

  ‘But—where did you live?’

  ‘Here and there. I kept travelling. The odd hostel. There were a couple of squats that were nice. Friendly—you know what I mean? One, in London, was really rough. They used a lot of drugs. And the guy in charge was mad. I got out of there as soon as I could.’

  ‘Dear God in heaven.’

  ‘It wasn’t bad,’ Jo said. ‘Cold sometimes. At least nobody busted my ribs for me again. And then I found a women’s refuge and they helped me get back on my feet.’

  He surveyed her. At least the mocking light had died out of his eyes, Jo saw with satisfaction.

  ‘I see why you’re not worried about taking care of yourself,’ he said wryly.

  Jo shook her head. ‘I told you—experience puts a few years on the clock.’

  The dark face twisted, as if he had somehow applied pressure to a wound he had forgotten.

  But all he said was, ‘Yes. I can see that.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he said abruptly, ‘I’m sorry if I offended you. When I was nagging about the safety of this place.’

  Jo was surprised. She gave him a forgiving smile.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise. Just don’t try treating me like some little darling just out of school with a teddy bear still on the end of her bed. It annoys me.’

  The golden-brown eyes flickered.

  ‘I can see it would,’ he said at last, gravely. ‘And if I gave you the impression that was how I meant to treat you, I’m sorry. You’ve won your right to independence harder than most of us.’ He paused, clearly picking his words with care. ‘But look at it from my point of view. I can’t help feeling that I’m responsible for what happens to you while you’re—on my property.’

  She opened her mouth to object, but he flung up a hand to stop her.

  ‘No, let me finish. You’
re my employee. You’re out here on your own. The barn is a good ten minutes from the house. And you’re sitting above several million euros’ worth of vintage cars. You must see that I am concerned for your safety. Any reasonable man would be.’

  Put like that, there was not much Jo could say. Although she could not help feeling that she had been out-argued by a master, she could not actually find any flaw in his reasoning.

  ‘So, what do you want to do?’ she said. ‘I don’t want to come and stay in the main house,’ she added warningly, remembering Mrs Morrison’s veiled hints.

  ‘No. I don’t think that would be a good idea, either.’

  He smiled down at her suddenly. When he smiled like that his eyes went tawny. It made Jo’s mouth go dry. She remembered The Furry Purry Tiger again. The furry purry tiger always smiled lovingly into the eyes of animals it was going to eat. The tiger looked so golden and beautiful that the animals forgot their alarm and walked towards it to be eaten. All the time its victims were walking towards it, the tiger purred. A little, superstitious shiver ran up her spine.

  She said slowly, ‘Do you always get your own way?’

  He raised his brows. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll do whatever you want here, no matter what I say. Won’t you?’

  ‘It’s my house,’ he reminded her gently. ‘I’m afraid I will.’

  Patrick’s house. Patrick’s laws.

  Something in his face made her back away. ‘Then look round. See what you want. As it’s yours, anyway.’ Her voice bit.

  ‘Don’t spit at me,’ he said, amused. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. And you know it. I don’t want to invade your privacy. Can’t you see I’m concerned for your safety?’

  Jo’s chin came up as if drawn by a magnet.

  ‘Nobody has to worry about me.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to,’ Patrick said, suddenly exasperated. ‘If you want to work for me that’s the deal. Take it or leave it.’

  Jo’s chin came down fractionally.

  ‘I thought that would do it,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Very well, then. Do what you want.’ She tried to sound dignified but only managed to sound like a thwarted child, she thought in disgust.

  He smiled that warm, tempting smile at her, that looked so beguilingly like affection.