Rumours: The Ruthless Ravensdales: Ravensdale's Defiant Captive (The Ravensdale Scandals) / Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress (The Ravensdale Scandals) / Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy (The Ravensdale

‘He’s my employer.’

‘I know but you and he seem to be pretty chummy,’ Holly said. ‘How long have you worked for him?’

‘Since he moved to Argentina eight years ago.’

‘So you would’ve seen quite a few girlfriends come and go in his life, huh?’

Sophia cast her a glance. ‘Why are you so interested in his private life? Do you have designs on him?’

Holly coughed out a laugh. ‘Me? Interested in him? Are you joking? He’s the last person I would fall for. The very last.’

Sophia released a soft sigh. ‘That’s probably a good thing.’

‘Because I’m too far below his station?’

Sophia shook her head. ‘No. He wouldn’t let something like that be an issue. I think he wouldn’t fall in love too easily, that’s all.’

‘Like we have a choice in these things,’ Holly said, then quickly added, ‘not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.’

‘So you haven’t lost your heart to anyone yet?’ Sophia asked with another sideways glance.

The word yet seemed to hang in the air. It was like a gauntlet being thrown down. Fate issuing a challenge. A dare.

Holly laughed again. ‘Not yet.’ Not ever. Not going to happen.

Not in a million years.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u2749712f-7352-5476-818a-34ed57cbdfd4)

JULIUS HADN’T PLANNED to drive home so late but his flight back to Buenos Aires from Santiago had been delayed several hours due to a storm. A solid week of work, long hours of meetings and field research had done little to quell the errant feelings he had for Holly. Feelings he hadn’t expected to feel. Didn’t want to feel. She occupied his thoughts whenever his mind drifted away from work. She filled his brain. She filled his body with forbidden desires and wicked urges. She filled his every waking moment—and even his dreams—with visions of her lithe body, her pert breasts, her cheeky smile and the way she upped her chin in a challenge or twinkled her brown eyes in a dare.

He could not remember a time when he had been more obsessed with a woman. She was as far from an ideal partner as any he could imagine. Her wilfulness, her defiance and her rebellious nature made everything that was rational, logical and intellectual inside him shrink away in abject horror. But everything that was male and primal in him wanted to possess her. He ached and pulsed to feel her body, to be surrounded by her. Every hormone in his body twanged with longing. Every nerve-ending craved the stroke or glide of her touch. He had X-rated dreams about her pouty little mouth on him, drawing on him, pleasuring...

Julius was disgusted with himself. Not just because of his uncontrollable desire for her but because he still couldn’t forgive himself for the way he had hurt her. What had he been thinking, hauling her bodily from the pool like that? There was no excuse. So what if she had goaded him? So what if she had defied him? Disobeyed him? He was an adult. He was a civilised, educated man. What had he hoped his action would achieve?

Or had he secretly—unconsciously—wanted to touch her? To hold her sexy, wet body against the throbbing heat of his...

He had wanted to kiss her so badly it had tortured him not to. Her mouth had been so close he’d felt the breeze of her sweet breath. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed and then some to drop his hold on her and step back. He could still feel the silk of her skin against his fingers. He could still feel the magnetic force of her body drawing his closer. It was stronger, way more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. How he had not slammed his mouth down on hers and thrust his tongue through her lush lips still surprised him.

He had been so close.

So terrifyingly, shamefully close.

Work had legitimately called him away, thankfully. He hadn’t trusted himself to be around her. He still didn’t trust himself, which was even more worrying.

But it wasn’t just the physical attraction that was so troubling to him. There were other feelings he was experiencing that were far more dangerous. Tiny sprouts of affection were popping up inside him. He actually liked her. He admired her spirit. Her edginess. Her blatant disregard for the rules. For propriety. He found himself missing her teasing playfulness. He missed her dimpled smile and the way her eyes danced with mischief.

He had no business missing her. He wasn’t supposed to get attached to her. She wasn’t his type. And he clearly wasn’t hers. She only wanted to sleep with him to prove a point. It was nothing but a game to her.

He was nothing but a game to her.

Another bonus of being called away to work was that the press had stayed away from his villa. He had been intercepted at the airport and issued his usual ‘no comment’ response to the media. The last thing he wanted was the press sniffing around his home and finding a young woman in residence, especially as he didn’t trust Holly to behave herself. He’d left strict instructions with Sophia on monitoring Holly’s movements and making sure she didn’t speak to anyone if they should turn up at the villa. No one had, which gave him some measure of comfort, but how long before someone did?

Julius parked in the garage and walked into the villa as quietly as he could so as not to disturb anyone. It was two in the morning so he hoped his little house guest was tucked away safely in bed.

She wasn’t.

Holly came out of the kitchen as he came in the back door. She was wearing one of the outfits he’d bought her. The cashmere separates looked far slinkier on her than it had in the online catalogue. But then she would make a bin liner look like a designer gown, he thought. The fabric draped her slim curves like the skin of an evening glove.

‘How was your trip?’ she asked.

Julius wasn’t in the mood for trite conversation. Not with her looking good enough to eat and swallow whole. How did she manage to stir him up so easily? ‘Tiring.’

She moved towards him with catlike grace. ‘Fancy a snack?’

‘What’s on the menu?’ Bad choice of words.

Her eyes glinted. ‘What do you fancy?’

He tried not to look at her mouth but a force far more powerful than his resolve pulled his gaze to its lush ripeness. ‘What’s on offer?’ What was it with him and the double entendres? He was acting like Jake, for God’s sake.

‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘Your wish is my command.’

‘I thought you didn’t take too kindly to commands?’

She tiptoed her fingers along the corded muscles of his arm. ‘Maybe I’ll make an exception tonight.’

He suppressed a shiver as her fingers lit every nerve under his skin with red-hot fire. Need pulsed in his groin. Lust growled, roared. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve missed you.’

Julius barked out a laugh and gently pushed her arm away as he moved past. ‘Go to bed.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?’

He turned back to look at her. ‘You’re answerable to me. Not me to you. Or has that somehow slipped your attention?’

Her caramel-brown eyes ran over him like a lick of flame. ‘Were you with a lover?’

He gritted his teeth until his jaw ground together like two tectonic plates. ‘No. I was working. Remember that word you seem to have so much difficulty with?’

She leaned one shoulder against the door jamb. ‘I’ve been working. Go ask Sophia.’

‘I will, but not at this time in the morning.’

Her eyes did another scan of his body, her chin coming to rest at a haughty height. ‘I even cleaned your room.’

Julius didn’t like the thought of her in his room. Actually, he liked the thought way too much. His mind filled with images of her laid out on his bed, her gorgeous, luscious body as hungry for him as he was for her. His flesh crawled with lust. It was like a fever in his blood. Raging. Taking him. Taking over his control like a shot of a powerful drug. ‘I’d prefer it if you’d stay out of there.’