A Taste of the Forbidden. Carole Mortimer

someone just shoot me now and get it over with?’

      Cesar’s brows rose even higher. ‘Shoot you?’

      ‘Yes.’ Grace Blake grimaced self-derisively. ‘Just bring in Rodney, or one of his cohorts, and have them shoot me now.’

      ‘You are referring to my chief security guard here?’

      ‘If he’s the same Rodney standing guard at the main gates, then, yes, that’s him.’ She nodded. ‘I thought he was thawing towards me a little when I spoke to him earlier today, but I’m sure that if you were to tell him that I stole and ate your chocolate mousse, then he’ll be only too glad to dispatch me—or whatever it is they call shooting someone in security guard jargon.’

      Cesar couldn’t decide whether to laugh—something he did all too rarely—at this young woman’s unusual and forthright manner, or do as she suggested, and call for Rodney—but only so that the other man might escort her back to her cottage in the grounds, rather than shoot her! ‘You seriously think that Rodney would shoot you because you have eaten a chocolate mousse belonging to me?’

      She grimaced. ‘I seriously think he would do whatever you told him to do, no questions asked.’

      Cesar hid his surprise at her statement behind hooded lids. ‘I believe cold-blooded murder is illegal in this country.’

      ‘Any sort of murder is illegal in this country,’ she corrected pertly. ‘But, with the level of security you have here, I doubt very much if you were to hide my body in the woods behind the house that anyone would ever find it.’

      Cesar doubted very much that he had ever had a stranger conversation in his life. Strange, and yet somehow compelling at the same time. In as much as he had no idea what Miss Grace Blake was going to say next.

      ‘You were about to tell me how you were feeling before you ate the chocolate mousse?’ he prompted as he stepped fully into the beam of light.

      Grace couldn’t speak at all as she got her very first look at Cesar Navarro ‘in the flesh’, as Beth had put it. Good grief, the man was—Well, he was—The only word Grace could think of at that moment was breathtaking.

      He was at least a foot taller than her own five feet three inches, the darkness of his overlong hair still in that rakishly tousled style—naturally so, judging from the slight wave in that midnight darkness—and those dark and glittering eyes were surrounded by the longest, thickest lashes Grace had ever seen, on a man or a woman, his cheekbones high in that swarthy face, his nose thin and aristocratic, with sculpted lips—sexily sculpted lips!—above a square and determined jaw.

      But it was probably what he was wearing—or, rather, what he wasn’t wearing—that surprised Grace the most.

      In the photograph she had seen of him he had been the height of understated—and, no doubt, expensive—elegance, in a perfectly tailored dark suit and white shirt, with a meticulously knotted silver tie at his throat. This evening he was dressed in a fitted black tee shirt that defined the muscled width of his shoulders and chest, leaving his equally muscled arms bare, and clinging to reveal the flat contours of his stomach—not an ounce of that middle-aged spread in sight!—with loose-fitting grey sweat-pants sitting low on the leanness of his hips, his long and elegant feet completely bare on the terracotta floor tiles.

      Was he dressed for going to bed, or working out in the gym in the east wing of the house, which Grace had also discovered when she went exploring earlier today? He certainly didn’t look all hot and sweaty, which he surely would have if it were the latter. Probably the former, too, if he hadn’t gone to bed alone …

      Whatever the reason for his casual clothing, his presence in the kitchen seemed to have sucked up all the air in the room, making it difficult for Grace to breathe, and his lean and muscled frame looked immense in the confines of the darkened kitchen, so much so that she felt sure he must rival in muscle any and all of the security guards he surrounded himself with.

      ‘What a waste …’ Grace heard herself murmur—and then winced as she realised she had spoken completely without thinking; just because she suspected that this man and Raphael were involved, there was no reason for her to say it out loud. In the circumstances, it was the last thing she should have said!

      ‘Miss Blake?’ Cesar prompted tersely.

      ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ She gave a firm shake of her head. ‘What was I feeling before I ate the chocolate mousse?’ she repeated desperately as she saw the way those dark eyes had narrowed speculatively. ‘Homesick, if you really want to know, and a little lonely. And chocolate always has a way of making things seem a little less bleak, don’t you think? No, of course you don’t, because you don’t eat sweet things. Why is that, by the way?’ She looked up at him questioningly, and then wished she hadn’t as she felt a decided click in her already tense neck.

      Something that would become an occupational hazard if she had to stand and have too many conversations with this man. Which clearly wasn’t going to happen, because he was going to have Rodney shoot her and hide her body in the woods—

      And you’re becoming hysterical, Grace, she admonished self-disgustedly. Unfortunately that realisation in no way helped to dispel those feelings, if her next comment was any indication, or the way in which she appreciatively eyed the muscled expanse of Cesar Navarro’s chest when she made it. ‘It certainly can’t be because you’re afraid of putting on unnecessary pounds.’

      No, Cesar acknowledged ruefully, he really didn’t have any idea what Grace Blake was going to say—or do!—next. Nor was he about to explain to this strange young lady that he had given up eating desserts because he considered them unnecessary frivolities. ‘Did you perhaps drink some of my wine, too, this evening, in an effort to dispel those feelings of loneliness?’

      ‘Certainly not.’ She looked indignant at the suggestion. ‘I rarely drink, and never when I’m at work.’

      ‘I am glad to hear it,’ he drawled dryly.

      She blinked, obviously unsure as to whether or not he was being sarcastic. ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’

      And a lot emotional, was Cesar’s guess.

      He straightened. ‘In that case, perhaps it would be better if we were to continue this conversation in the morning.’

      Those blue-green eyes widened. ‘Am I still going to be here in the morning?’

      ‘As opposed to being “dispatched” and buried in the woods behind the house?’ Cesar murmured softly.

      Colour once again warmed her ivory cheeks. ‘Maybe that was a little hysterical of me.’

      He arched mocking brows. ‘A little?’

      Her eyes snapped with temper. ‘Well, you would hardly have security guards here in the first place if you didn’t intend for them to protect you, should the need arise!’

      His mouth thinned impatiently. ‘I do, however, draw the line at asking them to shoot outspoken cook/housekeepers. Even temporary ones,’ he added abruptly.

      ‘Oh.’ Her guilty gaze dropped from meeting his as she obviously accepted that summary of her conduct so far this evening.

      ‘Unless you are suggesting I might be in need of protection from you?’

      Grace’s breath had lodged somewhere in her throat as the sultry huskiness of his tone brought to mind—totally inappropriately!—thoughts of running her fingers up that broad and muscled chest to his tousled, just-had-sex hair, as she brought his mouth down to hers and—

      Oh, good grief!

      She must be feeling lonlier than she had realised if she was having thoughts of kissing Cesar Navarro, of all men. If she was having thoughts of kissing any man she had just met!

      Oh, she’d had her share of boyfriends over the years, but none of those relationships had been in the least serious. She certainly