As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

Every minute, Diego and his men had watched her, all of them expecting her to refuse to go on. But she never quit.

She made only one mistake and it was a big one. It took just three hours before Diego’s six workmen saw that she spoke Spanish. But she couldn’t help it. They told a joke and she laughed. She begged them to please not tell Alejandro. Since they knew he was pretending that he couldn’t speak English, they loved lying to him. Besides, they liked the tall skinny girl who worked as hard as they did.

At lunch, she rode in the truck between Diego and Alejandro when they went to a drive-through restaurant. “I hope you know that this stuff is awful for you,”

she said as she bit into a hamburger the size of a dinner plate and dripping three kinds of sauce. “Ooooh. Curly fries. What a treat.”

That night she took a shower, pulled on a huge T-shirt of Diego’s and the white yoga pants she’d worn under her wedding dress, then collapsed into bed. She slept so soundly that tornadoes wouldn’t wake her.

The next morning she awoke early. There was a bit of light coming through the bedroom curtain and she could see Alejandro asleep just a few feet from her.

In the two days she’d been there, she’d never seen him in the other bed, but now, she lay there looking at him. His eyes were closed, his whiskers dark, his lashes soft against his cheeks. The light cover was off one bare shoulder, which meant that underneath there was a lot of naked skin.

She wondered what he’d do if she slid into bed with him. She imagined saying nothing, just taking the two steps across the room, moving the sheet aside, and getting into the narrow bed with him.

What would it be like to kiss him? He had the most beautiful lips, so full and luscious looking.

When she looked down at his neck, she could almost feel her lips on his warm skin.

Yesterday he’d opened a big bottle of water and drunk half of it at once. Water had run down his chin, his neck, and onto his T-shirt. Elise had been planting some red geraniums and she’d stopped to watch him. Her mouth and hands seemed to dry out.

Miguel, one of Diego’s workmen, had seen her looking. “You better make your claim,” he said in Spanish, then nodded across the garden.

Tiffany Bellmont, a little dog in her arm, was also watching Alejandro.

Elise suppressed an urge to throw her sharp-pointed trowel at the girl. Why was Tiffany looking at Alejandro? She was married. And like her mother, she was a snob. If she wanted Alejandro, it was for only one thing.

Miguel and the two workmen beside him laughed at the expression on Elise’s face. He said she’d better be careful or her jealousy would set her hat on fire.

“I’m not—” she began, but stopped when Alejandro turned to look at her. She gave a cough as she glared at Miguel, who grinned back at her.

Now Elise was looking at what she could see of Alejandro’s body and imagining the feel of it, the taste of it, the—She quit thinking when she realized that his eyes were open. Slowly, he held out his hand to her in invitation.

Yes! she thought. She would go to him and for the first time in her life have sex with a man who wanted her. A man who desired her. Who—

She couldn’t believe what she did, but she threw back the cover and ran out of the room. In the living room, she leaned against the wall, her heart pounding, and tried to understand what she’d just done. This is what she wanted, wasn’t it? This is what she’d complained to Olivia and Kathy about. So far in her life, she’d missed out on great sex. Maybe later, after she got away from Kent and their parents, she would find someone to have it with, but right now there was this beautiful man. So why was she turning down his invitation?

Because she liked Alejandro, that’s why. To him they’d just met, but to her, she’d laughed with him, shared his hopes and dreams.

And damn it! She wanted more than just wham! Bam! Be quiet so Diego doesn’t hear.

She wanted... What she couldn’t have, she thought.

She heard the shower running in “their” bathroom. Yesterday after lunch, he’d insisted that Diego stop at a big drugstore and let her go inside to buy some toiletries. Alejandro had gone in with her and paid for everything.

Her toothbrush was in a glass with his. They used the same container of toothpaste.

His razor—which he didn’t use often—was next to her pink one.

Elise tried to calm herself—and to stop thinking. As she pushed away from the wall, she noticed the rolled-up papers on the coffee table and wondered what they were. When she unrolled them, she saw that they were a garden plan for Mrs. Bellmont.

It took Elise about two minutes to see that it was a rip-off design from an estate she’d seen in England. An elegant, tranquil English garden was the last thing someone as flamboyant as Mrs. Bellmont would want.

She looked at the bottom. Ah. Right. Designed by Leonardo. The delicate little man who was all the rage of the neighborhood. Her mother had said she wanted to get Leonardo to redesign her garden. “And put in some stainless steel sculptures?” Elise had said, but her mother’s put-down look had silenced her.

Diego came into the room, yawning.

“Are you going to do this garden?”