Joaquin glanced over his shoulder to see efficient Sara gathering their mugs and the cookies. If she left, he’d miss her cooking. But fending for himself had been his way of life long before now. After their mother went away, their father would throw packets of cheese and crackers and handfuls of candy bars into the room he shared with Felipe as if they were bones for the family dogs.
They’d made do on processed foods and each other’s companionship.
Until Felipe had found other people and developed other needs.
Shit.
He hoped Renata wasn’t on his doorstep to report another “sighting.”
How many times would he have to remind her his brother was dead? That Joaquin had held Felipe in his arms as he took his last breath?
With his hand on the front door, he paused, gathering his resolve and his good sense. Okay. Fine. He’d get rid of Renata, and then he’d tell Sara she should resign.
The tempting butler would be out of his life.
His world would be woman-free. And uncomplicated by personal relationships—the kind he was careful to avoid because he wasn’t any good at them.
It was a relief, really, to think of the serenity he’d find without the beautiful—and God yes, so tempting—blonde moving about the house.
But first he must dispense with the unexpected visitor.
With that thought foremost in his brain, he turned the knob and flung open the door only to stare at the figure revealed by the porch light.
The petite, dark-haired person squealed and then launched herself into his arms.
Joaquin’s hands automatically came up to pat the air around her as she squeezed. Then she bounced away and smiled up at him. “Surprise, Big Brother! It’s me! I’ve come to stay!”
Fifteen minutes later he found Sara in one of the guest rooms, in the process of slipping a pink dress onto a hanger. She hung it beside a dozen others on the closet pole. He glanced at the near-full suitcase open on a luggage rack beside the bed.
“Where’s Essie? And how many clothes did she bring?”
“She went to the kitchen to find a snack. I offered to make her one, but she said she wanted to help herself. As to how many clothes…” Sara shrugged. “I haven’t yet unzipped the third suitcase.”
Groaning, Joaquin crossed to the easy chair in the corner of the room. He dropped into it and forked both hands through his hair. “I don’t know what happened.”
But of course he knew what happened. He’d been unable to say no to that face. Staring down at his half-sister, he’d been staggered by how much she looked like Felipe. A feminine version, of course, but his brother’s features were clearly stamped on Essie. It had been a couple of years since he’d seen her last, and then she’d been a chubby-cheeked imp with a mouthful of braces and spiky bangs that she’d cut herself, to Renata’s dismay. Now, near grown-up, Essie had the lustrous, long dark hair of their mother and the fine bones and warm brown eyes of Felipe.
He’d had a non-threatening, pretty kind of handsomeness, an almost androgynous look that served him well to his slavering audience of young girls.
Though Joaquin wasn’t dissimilar from his brother in appearance, his extra height and bigger build—even though he was two years younger—had always made him feel less like his brother’s doppelganger and more like his brother’s bodyguard.
Joaquin had failed in that role, too.
“I checked with our mother,” he told Sara now. “She’s fine with it since the girlfriend’s family Essie was supposed to be staying with had to fly out to visit an ailing grandma in Colorado. Renata and Martin are at their Mexican villa for the next three weeks, and Essie swears she’ll ‘expire of ennui’ if made to go there.”
“Your sister didn’t want to check with you first before driving over?” The butler efficiently clipped a pair of jeans onto another hanger. “What if you hadn’t been home?”
“A lack of impulse control clearly runs in our family,” he said drily.
Sara shot him a quick look over her shoulder, giving him a view of the flush high on her cheekbones. “And how’d she get the passcode?”
“We’re a sneaky lot as well,” he replied, shrugging. “Though for years Renata has kept all the family passwords and key codes in plain sight on a paper taped to her desk.”
He cocked his head. In the distance but coming closer he heard excited chatter. Then Essie came into view, her cell phone glued to her ear. In her other hand she held a tray on which she balanced a plate of fruit, a glass of milk, a can of soda, and a bag of chips. The items slid like deck chairs on the Titanic as she bopped into the room.
Joaquin shot to his feet and rescued the ship before disaster struck.
His half-sister smiled at him. His heart flopped over.
“R.J. and Lulu can come over tomorrow, right?” she asked. “They want to see the house, and I told them they could.”
“Um…sure.”
“He says sure,” she repeated into her phone. “Bring stuff to stay the night, ′kay?”
Stay the night?
“Or stay a couple of days,” Essie trilled without a single glance in his direction. “It’s going to be so cool without any ′rents around!”
′Rents as in
par
ents? Did the kids these days still use that term? And wait, was she putting together a teenage house party or something?
Panic clutched at his gut. This couldn’t be happening. He carefully set the tray on the dresser and crossed his arms over his chest. “Essie, we need to talk.”
She waved a little hand toward him. “After my bath,” she said, crossing toward the en suite, all the while still continuing her conversation, punctuated with gasps and giggles and an amazed, “No way!”
Frustrated, Joaquin frowned as he watched her begin to swing shut the door. Then, at the very last second, she shot him another grin.
Felipe’s grin.
At the click of the latch, he flopped back into the chair and held his head with his hands.
“What have I done?” he muttered.
Control was spiraling away from him at the exact time of year he needed to lock down on his emotions. He needed calm, not chaos…it was coming on the fifteenth anniversary, for fuck’s sake!
From the bathroom he heard Essie’s continuing conversation and the roar of water from a spout, confirming that what was supposed to be his private retreat for the month was definitely invaded by another female—the sister he didn’t know. Christ, how many ways could he screw up this situation?
Then the butler approached, distracting him. Thoughts of his half-sister fled as his fingertips recalled the silky heat of the bare skin at the small of her back. His mouth remembered her taste and the sweet glide of her tongue against his. For a moment he took a mini-vacation and lost himself in the memory and the beauty of her blue, blue eyes.
Sara cleared her throat. “I see your life’s a little more complicated now,” she said. “So tomorrow morning I’ll leave straightaway. That should simplify things.”
Gobsmacked, he stared up at her. “Are you kidding me?”
His expression must have communicated his bewilderment, because she cleared her throat again and made a vague gesture in the direction of the living room where the latest kissing had taken place.
“Well, it’s best…because…” She swallowed. “I’ll resign, you can let me go, whatever works.”
“Oh, no. Oh, hell no.” Getting to his feet, Joaquin glared down at the butler. Essie’s unexpected arrival wasn’t Sara’s fault, of course, but she could damn well take part in the handling of it. “You’re not going anywhere, my girl, not as long as I have a teenager in the house.”
“What are you doing here?” Charlie asked, letting Sara in the door that led from the beach into the Archer family’s sun room.
It was 8:30 on a weekday morning and with Wells at school, his father at work, and the nanny still absent, Sara had known her friend would be alone. So after making a pot of coffee and setting out a bowl of fruit and the bagels and cream cheese on the counter, she’d left Nueva Vida while the other occupants remained asleep.
“I went for a run,” Sara said.
Her friend’s eyebrows shot high. She knew Sara had never “run” a day in her life. She didn’t mind walking, hiking, or biking, enjoyed them all, actually, but the idea of rushing as a form of exercise seemed…unwise.
Incautious.
“Okay, I’m hiding,” Sara admitted.
She needed a breather at a neutral location where she could get her mind around the new situation. She’d needed the breather so badly, she had truly raced along the sand to have a consultation with one of her best friends.
Unflappable Charlie would make her feel better. She’d convince Sara that she could handle this development…and any forthcoming development that might crop up.
Her friend led the way into the Archers’ spacious kitchen. “Tea?” Charlie asked.
Sara nodded.
“What’s the problem?” her friend asked as she filled the kettle.
“Well…” Where to start? Sara leaned against a countertop. “My duties have…expanded.”
“Expanded?” Charlie echoed. “You mean beyond whatever extras you’re doing now that Joaquin is in residence?”
Extras. Sara felt sure Charlie didn’t put kissing her employer into that category. She cleared her throat. “His sixteen-year-old half-sister showed up last night. It seems she’s staying for a few weeks.”
“Oh? What’s she like?”
Sara shrugged. “Like sixteen, I suppose. I’m really worried she might recognize me. That gossip started in London, but it was all over the States as well.”
“Don’t I know it.” Charlie responded to the kettle’s whistle and poured boiling water into a mug already prepared with a teabag. Passing it to Sara, she pursed her lips. “But I can’t see it as a problem. You’ve cut and colored your hair. You hide beneath all those clothes. And teenagers are so self-absorbed they never see anyone but themselves, anyway.”
“I suppose.” Sara sipped at the hot liquid. “I don’t have a lot of experience with them.”
“You shouldn’t need any,” Charlie said, filling her own mug. “The butler is not in charge of children.”
Straight out of the Continental Butler Academy textbook. “Right, like you don’t always have an eagle eye on Wells.”
Charlie quickly waved that observation away. “Because of flaky Laura the nanny. Mr. Archer is coming around to the idea we have to find someone to take her place.”
Joaquin’s half-sister didn’t have a nanny or parents in the picture at the moment. “I get the feeling that Essie is left a lot on her own. I suspect she’s lonely.”
“Because?”
“The only-child thing…raised like one, anyway, with her brother being so much older. You and I both know how that can be. And don’t you worry about Wells in that regard?”
Charlie turned away. “Wells will be fine. His dad loves him enough for two parents and a whole dining table full of siblings.”
Toying with the tag on her teabag, Sara dithered about what to say next. “There’s something else…”
“I’m listening.”
“Uh…” She shot a quick glance at her friend. “I’m a tiny bit attracted to him.”
“To
Mr. Archer
?”
“What?” Sara jerked back, alarmed by Charlie’s shocked tone. “Of course not. Geez! Not Wells’ dad. I was talking about Joaquin.”
“Oh.” The other butler relaxed. “Joaquin. Well, he
is
attractive.”
Sara swallowed. “I don’t mean I find him appealing like a model in a magazine ad or a leading man in a movie. It’s a little less, you know, cerebral and more, um...visceral.”
“
Oh
.” Charlie seemed to take a minute to gather her thoughts. “That’s inconvenient.”
“You’re not appalled?” Sara stared into her tea. “With my history, doesn’t it seem beyond inappropriate?”
“I don’t think you can halt how you feel, Sara. We might wish we could…but it’s impossible, trust me.”
An odd note in her friend’s voice caused Sara’s gaze to jump to Charlie’s face. But she looked as calm as ever. Unflappable.
“Anyway,” the other butler continued. “It’s not as if you’d act on it, right?”
“Right,” Sara said faintly.
She couldn’t admit to it now, even though her mind instantly transported back to that interlude on the couch when she’d had Joaquin’s tongue in her mouth, and she’d shivered as his fingertips stroked her bare skin. Lost in sensation, she’d also lost all sense of propriety.
What did he
do
to her? How did he make her forget everything but him?
Thank goodness Joaquin had broken the kiss and pulled away. With inches of air between them, her good sense had come flooding back along with a profound sense of embarrassment. In her mind, there’d only been one recourse.
“You don’t think I should resign?” she asked Charlie now.
“You can’t afford to,” her friend said, always practical. “You know that.”
“I know that.” She sighed.
And Joaquin didn’t want her to leave her post, either. He’d been clearly alarmed at the thought of taking sole charge of his younger sister, exposing a vulnerability she’d found both amusing and…well, cute. God! Didn’t that just spell more trouble?
She sighed again.
“Sara.”
“Hmm?” She looked up to meet her friend’s eyes.
“It’s going to be okay. You can handle this—the attraction to Joaquin.”
“I can?”
“Yes, and I’m going to tell you how.”
That’s what was so great about Charlie. She made plans. She stuck to them.
“Go ahead,” Sara urged.
“You’re going to muster your best composed butler demeanor and keep your feelings on a tight leash.”
“Best composed butler demeanor,” Sara repeated. “Feelings on a tight leash.”
“And you’re going to always maintain a professional distance.”
“Always maintain a professional distance.”
But hadn’t she done that very thing until the moment when she wasn’t distant from him? Until she found herself lips-to-lips, her blood running hot and crazy through her veins, every notion of self-preservation washed away in a flood of desire?
“And now that I think of it,” Charlie continued, “the arrival of his sister works to your benefit.”
“Yes?” That sounded hopeful.
“She’s the perfect buffer.” Charlie pointed her forefinger at Sara. “You stick close to the kid, and she’ll stay between you and her brother. You’ll be over this infatuation in no time.”