Rags To Riches: His Wish, Her Command: The Last Summer of Being Single / An Enticing Debt to Pay / A Navy SEAL's Surprise Baby

Serene. Tranquil. Warm. Heaven. He could stay like this for ever. Arms outstretched.

He was instantly transported back to another time in this very garden and his life as a boy. Memories flooded into his head. Memories he had not even thought about for many years, memories buried deep down inside his private life, which the paparazzi would never know about or expose to the public world.

Memories of gentle hands and kind adult voices saying how sorry they were, and how much they would miss her. His grandmother in black. Friends and neighbours, school pals.

His mother had died in her favourite month of the year. And that was more than sad. She would have enjoyed this garden.

His reverie was broken by a snuffling noise coming from the direction of the kitchen to his right, followed by the unmistakeable sound of the same woman’s voice, humming along to an old show tune.

Seb slowly opened his eyes, dropped his arms in alarm like a teenager caught with his hands in the cookie jar, and whipped around to check that nobody had seen him so exposed. His neck flared red with embarrassment at the thought that Ella Martinez and her son were probably both awake and sniggering at him through the bedroom curtains!

He had already embarrassed himself enough talking to Dan about his dad without adding to the humiliation.

Of course there had been no way of knowing that Dan’s father had passed away, but it was still an awkward moment and he felt for the boy and his mother. He knew what it was like to lose a parent and Dan was so young. That was tough.

As it was he had barely spent more than an hour with Ella and Dan the previous evening before excusing himself to a couple of intense hours spent in the company of his laptop, a two-day backlog of emails and a delicious meal Ella had delivered to his room on a tray.

This probably explained his grumbling stomach in need of breakfast.

Time to find the source of the singing! And something quick to eat so that he could get packed and back to civilisation—and away from these unsettling memories.

By following the sweet voice Seb strolled slowly around the patio, his bare feet finding an occasional piece of loose gravel, but it was worth it.

Ella Martinez was standing just inside the kitchen door, whisking something in a large ceramic bowl. She was dancing and jiggling her head from side to side. A telltale pair of white headset wires trailed down to the pocket of her pink pyjamas.

Her right arm was beating in tune with the song she was humming, which sounded as if it should be from a classical musical, but he could not place it.

Her hips and shoulders twisted and turned and as he watched she lifted a wooden spoon and conducted a virtual orchestra on the other side of the kitchen window, so caught up in her world that he felt guilty at the very thought of intruding.

The sunlight was on one side of Ella’s face, flashing the copper and gold highlights in her long brown hair that fell about her shoulders. She looked rapturous and as innocent as the day.

It was a moment and a view he knew would stay with him. No photograph could have captured it. The smell of the flowers early in the morning, the tang of the pine trees, the sound of songbirds in the trees.

And a pretty brunette dancing in a country kitchen.

It was all combined into one magical moment in time.

A familiar heat welled inside him, and despite his best intentions Seb wondered how a grown woman old enough to have a little boy like Dan could look so sexy and desirable in pyjamas with pink rabbits on them.

She was so totally different from the kind of woman he normally was attracted to, but somehow, in this house and this garden, she was perfect.

He envied her total sense of relaxed serenity and the calm lifestyle that came from living in a country farmhouse. Her day might be spent within the small world of this house and garden but he could think of worse places to live.

It was not Sydney. It couldn’t be. His apartment was within walking distance of world-class restaurants and entertainment. But calm? No.

One more reason for him to get back to his own world as soon as he could. No doubt about it. This place was seriously unsettling, even if he did enjoy the view.

Ella was humming as she moved between a long pine kitchen table and the granite worktop of a very modern-looking professionalstandard kitchen.

Ella Martinez was not just pretty. She was unspoilt, unsophisticated and completely charming. And disarming. Part of him wanted to know more about the woman behind the façade of mother and housekeeper.

Which unsettled him even more.

Perhaps it was this house that was the cause of such thinking?

And yet…the attraction was there.

He should ask her if she had heard anything from Nicole. Keep it formal and fast.

Then he remembered that he was in boxers and a T-shirt. Unshaven and in need of a shower. Perhaps not his best look. Time to make a discreet retreat back to his room to get changed.

Too late. Just as he turned Milou snuffled his way across the patio from the direction of the barn and the woods, saw him, stopped dead, ears up, then hurled itself in Seb’s direction, tail wagging. And started barking furiously.

Seb groaned and the dog jumped up onto his scanty clothing trying to make purchase on thin cloth not designed for dog claws but this time he managed to stay on his feet by sitting on the edge of the patio table. Oh, no, not again. And ouch.

Instantly he heard a low whistle and looked up as Ella strolled out of the kitchen, her wooden spatula dripping in one hand. Milou leapt towards his food bowl, leaving Seb to try and salvage his dignity and modesty with a bright, ‘Good morning, Mrs Martinez.’

Exposed.

Ella wondered how long he had been watching her.

A flush of the heat of embarrassment flared at Ella’s neck under the hairline and she shook it off. It was done now.

And it might have been worse. Some days she only wore the T-shirt! Nicole usually brought a female friend to stay or a gentleman guest who made himself scarce in the most discreet way.

And Sebastien Castellano was going to be here for a few days!

With a bit of luck his early-morning wander around the garden was the exception rather than the rule.

She loved her music and this short time before Dan woke was so precious, she claimed it for herself. For an hour or so each morning she could indulge in her passion for her music without waking Dan by playing the piano in the salon or singing too loudly.

Ella swallowed down her embarrassment, lifted her chin and smiled politely as though she were greeting a garden-party guest and waved at him as graciously as she could with her wooden spoon, especially considering that they were both in their nightwear.

‘Good morning to you. And it’s Ella, remember?’ she replied. ‘I hope that you slept well. It’s a lovely morning.’

The smell of warm earth, the garden flowers and a salty citrus tang of man sweat and whatever body spray he used hit her hard, then hit her again as she moved closer to shake his hand. Except one of her hands was holding a mixing bowl and the other was sticky with splashes of batter from the wooden spoon.

His dark eyes under darker eyebrows flickered with something close to amusement as she changed her mind and simply gestured with her spoon instead.

Even in shorts that revealed long powerful legs and a taut waist, Sebastien was every inch the sophisticated city millionaire businessman. And he was tall. At least a foot taller than she was. But there was also a presence about Seb. A gravitas that screamed loud and clear that this was a man who was used to giving orders and seeing them through.

The main effect it had on her was to make her gabble to fill the silence between them.

‘And if you don’t like Ella some of my friends call me Cindy. You know—Cinderella. Like the fairy story. But I’ll answer to either Ella or Cindy. You choose.’

She looked into his slightly stunned face and wondered if her Beatrix Potter T-shirt and pink pyjama bottoms were too much for that time in the morning. And she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

And she had messy unbrushed bed hair.