An Innocent, a Seduction, a Secret

Helen shrugged. ‘Whatever you want, Edie. Most people would jump at the chance to go home early.’

Edie smiled weakly. She wasn’t most people and she didn’t need the reminder.

For the rest of the day she and Jimmy worked in companionable harmony. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice her tension. When they were leaving work he asked if she’d like to join him and his friends at a nearby bar, but she smiled and declined. Her brain was addled after everything that had happened that day. Seeing Rivas again. Feeling the same things.

As she sat on the crowded bus, heading north from the centre of town, she told herself to stop being so trepiditious. Maybe getting to know Sebastio Rivas a little would help her to topple him from the almost mythic place he’d taken up in her consciousness, where no other man could touch him.

After all, he hadn’t ever known her circumstances, had he? That night in the club she’d been just another woman approaching him for a sliver of attention... He couldn’t possibly have known just how fragile she’d been then.

But she wasn’t fragile any more.

Edie forced her mind away from the past and pulled her phone out of her pocket when she felt it vibrate. There was a text message from Helen, with an address in Richmond. Sebastio Rivas’s address.

Her heart thumped when she read it.

You’re to meet Sebastio Rivas at his house tomorrow at ten

a.m. He’ll talk you through what needs to be done and his legal team will draw up a temporary work contract. Good luck and Happy Christmas, Edie! Helen

Once again Edie was stunned that her boss had sanctioned this move. Albeit temporarily. But, in fairness, it wasn’t as if Marrotts was short of display artists. She was one of many. And of course it would enhance their reputation to loan out one of their staff to a new and illustrious client.

Edie quickly did an internet search on the address in Richmond, and five minutes later wished she hadn’t. It was an old hunting lodge that looked more like a mansion than a lodge, set in acres and acres of its own grounds. There were even wild deer. Her experience was in dressing spaces that ranged between ten and twenty-five square feet. Not grand country mansions!

She felt a flare of panic and doused it, telling herself that she’d overcome far bigger challenges in the past. She wasn’t going to allow Sebastio Rivas to see that she was daunted by this project. He’d told her to run along once before. She wouldn’t give him the opportunity to do it again.

* * *

The following morning, Edie turned a corner in the long winding drive that led up to the house in Richmond, cursing herself for assuring the security guard at the gate that she wouldn’t mind the walk. He’d tried to get her to wait for a groundsman to give her a lift but she’d insisted, needing to get her wits about her. She hadn’t realised it would take quite so long, though.

And now she stopped in her tracks. Dazzled by the sight before her. No picture could have done justice to the low winter sun glinting off hundreds of windows and the sheer stately magnificence of the house.

It had two levels, and an elegantly grand front entrance. She could make out what looked like manicured gardens at the back, and as far as the eye could see to the front were rolling grounds, with a wood in the distance.

As she approached the front entrance, feeling more and more intimidated, the huge front door opened and a dapper older gentleman dressed in a smart suit appeared.

He came down the steps, smiling and holding out his hand. ‘You must be Edie.’

She came forward, ‘Yes.’ She shook his hand. He had an accent that she guessed was from Italy.

‘I’m Matteo, Mr Rivas’s housekeeper. He’s on his way from his office in London, but some of his assistants are here to go through the contract with you in the meantime.’

Edie barely had time to catch her breath before her coat and bag were taken and she was being ushered into a bright office off the entrance hall, where two men and a woman stood up to greet her. They were sleek and officious. Polite but brisk. No doubt they had better things to be doing back in the city.

She’d just signed on the dotted line, and was still reeling with the knowledge that she was going to be paid a fortune for what was effectively a little over three weeks’ work, when a distinctive thwack-thwack sound came from outside.

She looked out of the window to see a sleek black helicopter landing at the back of the property. She shivered slightly.

Sebastio Rivas’s assistants packed up their things and said goodbye to Edie, and then they swept out, leaving her standing in the room, waiting for the man himself.

As she waited, the tension inside her grew.

What was she doing here? Thinking she could step into Sebastio Rivas’s world like this? This was on another level. The kind of level people like Edie never got close to. The man had taken a helicopter to get here, for crying out loud! She’d spent the best part of two hours on a packed Tube and had then taken a taxi from the station.

At that moment she heard a noise and looked to the door, to see Sebastio Rivas easily filling its frame with his tall, broad body. His black hair was unruly, which she guessed was from the helicopter. He wore a three-piece suit and in spite of the messy hair he looked every inch a successful titan of international finance.

And yet she could sense something far more elemental underneath—the barely leashed power of the fierce athlete he’d once been. It was very provocative.

He came into the room. ‘You’ve signed the contract?’