The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4) (2 page)

“Are you okay?” he repeated, his tone more brusque now, which reminded her
he
might not be.

Who was he? “How did you get here?”

Still half-bent, he glanced over the top of her sedan. “Car.”

Following the direction of his gaze, she saw it now, most of it screened by the lush-growing oleanders on the other side of the driveway. “Oh. Did you…did you break down?” She reached into her purse to locate her cell phone. “We can call a tow.”

“I didn’t break down,” the stranger said. “I couldn’t get in.”

“Get in?”

“You must have changed the passcode.”

“Oh.”
Uh-oh.
Sara moistened her lips, hoping, hoping this wasn’t going where she thought it was going.

“You
are
Sara…Sara Butler, right?”

“Um, almost.” Then her training kicked in, even as embarrassment at the awkward meet twined with resentment—because her privacy was now compromised—coursed through her. She punched the release on her seatbelt and climbed from the car. The man moved back to give her space. He was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and muscular.

She pinned her gaze on a neutral spot near his Adam’s apple and stood straight before him. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Sara Smythe.
The
butler. And you’re…”

The master
, a mischievous voice said in her head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Emmaline’s.
He’s your master.

Sara’s face burned hot.
Get your mind out of the gutter
, the voice continued, a suppressed laugh in its tone.
I meant, he’s the master of your house.

With a silent gnash of her teeth, Sara ignored the Emmaline-in-her-head and reached out her hand. His grasped it, their palms touching, his fingers closing around hers.

“I’m Joaquin Weatherford.”

“Yes. Mr. Weatherford.” Sara pulled her hand away and hoped the jerky movement didn’t betray the urgency she felt about getting free of him. But from their point of contact a bolt of sensation had shot its way up her arm and was now tumbling down her spine. It seemed like a warning. “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” she said, to mitigate any residual rudeness from her hasty de-coupling. Memory reminded her that the estate’s owner was indeed one “J. Weatherford.”

“Thank you. And nice to meet you…the, uh, butler.” He shook his head, then turned and paced toward the front bumper of her car to inspect the place where it had met his front gate. “You’re not American?”

Behind his back, Sara made a face. People here thought she had an accent. People in England thought she had an accent. “Half. I grew up sometimes here and sometimes in the U.K.”

Without glancing at her, he gestured toward the driver’s side with his hand. “Looks like you’re not hung up. Just put your car in reverse and back up a little.”

Sara did as instructed, then popped out of her seat again. Her bumper appeared mildly scuffed, the gate just fine. She blew out a relieved sigh and stroked the wooden surface. “Don’t worry,” she reassured it. “Not even a scratch.”

Then she felt eyes on her and realized Mr. Weatherford was staring, his eyebrows arched over those aviators. Okay, her action probably seemed odd. Her cheeks heated, and she thought maybe she could convince him that talking to a house, well, the entrance to a house, wasn’t weird, but a Brit thing. A Brit butler thing.

To cement the idea, she turned to him and pinned on her best staff smile, restrained and with no teeth showing. “All’s well. Jolly good.” Her hand waved. “Tally ho.”

“Jolly good?” he echoed, his tone dry. “Tally ho?”

She nodded and waved her hand again. “No harm done. So…”

It was ridiculous, what a hoper she was. A survivor, maybe, and a thriver perhaps in the future, but right now the hope was running strong inside her that the master of the estate was in the next moment going to climb back into his car, merge onto the Pacific Coast Highway, and cruise along to wherever he’d come from.

Leaving her to her sanctuary.

Taking away that strange…awareness she had of muscled, hair-dusted forearms.

“So…” he said, echoing the way she’d drawn out the word. “Sara Smythe, aren’t you going to let me in?”

Her futile wish dashed, her fingers knotted together at her waist. “Have you… Have you come to inspect the estate?” That wouldn’t be so bad, maybe. A quick walk-through and then he’d return to wherever. She thought he’d been living in Portland, Oregon?

Now the man pushed up his sunglasses, revealing darkly lashed eyes, their color a pale gray with the barest hint of blue, the shade both cool and hot at the same time. Sara’s heart started to race even as her muscles froze, making her feel as if she was one of the bunnies that skipped along the Malibu bluffs suddenly sensing a predator.

“No, Sara,” he said. “I’ve not come to inspect the estate. I’ve come to stay.”

Inside the gates, Joaquin Weatherford parked his car where the woman indicated and climbed out, intending to find the nearest bed and face plant onto its soft surface where he could sleep for the next two dozen days or so. Divesting the company of a troublesome division had taken months of planning, finessing, and politicking, and it had sucked the spirit from his soul and the energy from the very marrow of his bones.

It didn’t help that the fucking fifteenth anniversary was looming at the end of the month.

He’d need strength to hold up against that and to hold steady through his old friend Mick’s annual visit to commemorate the dead. Until then, Joaquin aimed to seek relaxation and renewal behind these estate walls, all alone.

Well, all alone with the exception of the girl butler.

What the hell was up with that anyway?
Butler?

It was confusing, and confusion was a complication he didn’t need, especially at this moment. He was bone-tired and obviously he’d missed the punchline when his assistant had given him the woman’s name and, apparently, her title.

It hadn’t penetrated his foggy brain then, and he didn’t have it in him now to call his assistant and demand answers.

“Here, sir,” the girl butler said, indicating a sweep of descending pathway that led beyond the detached garage. “The front entry is not far.”

With her hat pulled down that low, he couldn’t see her face, or not much of it anyway. He frowned in its direction. “What about that?” he asked, pointing to a nearby door.

“A side entrance to the house,” she said. “It leads to a utility room, storage spaces, and the like.”

“Is it the closest way to get inside?”

“Well, yes, sir, but wouldn’t you like—”

“I’d like—no,
need
—a bed and pillows. Stat. Are the sheets clean?”

“Of course,” she hurried to say, her tone horrified. “The sheets are always kept clean. But don’t you think—”

“I’m not thinking at all now, actually,” he said. He breathed deep of salt-laden ocean air, but it didn’t clear the cobwebs. The sun’s warmth on the top of his head and shoulders barely registered. “I’m exhausted. Just lead me to a mattress, okay?”

“Whatever you wish, sir.”

The words were right, but the attitude accompanying them was just a tad disapproving. Her prim voice and starchy posture managed to rouse him from his well of fatigue, and he took a closer look at her as he followed her through the doorway into the house.

She appeared unobtrusive enough, he supposed, with the low-riding hat, the loose, practical clothes, and the soft-soled shoes. Even her footsteps wouldn’t disturb his sleep.

Still, he studied her ass, almost mesmerized by the shift of each round cheek as she moved. Her long, roomy shirt camouflaged her waistline and hips, but didn’t completely disguise the round apples of her sweet, firm bottom.

Guilt goosed him for staring, and he shifted his gaze from her ass to over her shoulder. They were heading down a long, cool hallway, the floor covered in a plush Oriental carpet. He glanced at a framed piece of art on the wall, a colorful, Impressionistic scene of a crowd on a beach that strangely went well with the more formal rug.

Then his phone trilled in his pocket.

The sound caused a too-familiar tightening of his muscles followed by another wave of exhaustion. “What now?” he muttered, pulling out the device to check the call. His assistant. A bench sat against the wall to his right and he dropped onto it as he answered. “Another problem, Patrick?” he asked, his voice weary.

As he spoke, he saw Sara glance over her shoulder, then glide away, giving him privacy.

His assistant had no such scruples.

“I’m nosy is all,” the other man said. “Did you make it safely to Malibu? What do you think about the house?”

“This isn’t about work? There’s not a hang-up, a glitch, a damn disaster that cries out for my attention?”

“Nope,” Patrick said, in a cheery tone. “It’s about my curiosity. And my natural concern for my boss, of course,” he added.

“You’re so full of shit.” But Patrick Douglas had also kept Joaquin sane during these last few months…for longer than that, really. He’d been Joaquin’s right hand for two years, ever since George Weatherford had died, leaving TempuCorp to his adopted son.

“Come on,” Patrick coaxed. “Tell me what you think of Nueva Vida.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Your Malibu place.”

It has a name?
“I just arrived, and I haven’t found a bed yet. I think it’s too much house.”

“Maybe. Shortly before he passed, George bought it as an investment from someone who didn’t have the cash to finish the big renovation in progress. You’ll be able to sell it, if that’s what you want, now that I’ve employed the butler to sort things out and have it set to rights.”

“About that woman—”

“You’ve met Sara?”

Joaquin didn’t like his assistant’s sly tone. “She seems capable enough. How did you come to hire a
butler
, for fuck’s sake?”

“I was given her name, checked her references, and interviewed her via Skype since we were working out of Portland.”

Joaquin sighed. “I know I told you I wanted you to find me a place in Southern California where I could decompress before Mick’s visit, but…”

Another wave of tiredness rolled through him because there was no ideal somewhere that would prove sufficient for him to duck the dark deluge of fresh grief surely on its way—even if he traveled to deepest, darkest Peru. On another sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Relax, Boss,” Patrick said. “Take a breather. Use the down time to check out the estate and then decide what you want to do with it.”

“It’s too much house.”

“Let me know if you still think that at the end of the month.”

Joaquin opened his mouth for another comment, but a second call came through. Noting the name on the screen, he didn’t attempt to stifle his groan. “I’ve got to go.”

Then he sucked in a calming breath and spoke evenly into the phone. “Good afternoon, Renata.”

“Darling. Are you finally out of the land of dreary skies and ugly flannel shirts?”

His mother wasn’t a fan of the Pacific Northwest, the place being too chilly for her Latin blood, and the sartorial atmosphere not up to her silks-and-cashmeres preferences. “I’m in Malibu.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Bohemian and a bit too beachy for my taste, but you’ll see sunshine for the first time in months. You’ve been working much too hard.”

“I’ve got a company to run.”

“I don’t know why George had to dump all that responsibility on you—”

“He saved me, Renata. When he adopted me, he saved me. You know that. Taking over his business is a privilege.” An old argument, and one he wasn’t ready to dive into again.

“Yes, but—”

“Where are you, Renata?” he asked to distract her from the discussion. She and Spouse Number Three made the rounds between a house in Bel-Air, another in Palm Springs, a three-story “cabin” at Lake Arrowhead, and a villa on the wild Pacific side of Mexico. “And is Martin well?”

“Martin is fine.”

And Joaquin breathed easier that she let the other subject drop.

“Obsessed with golf, as always,” she continued, but with an indulgent note that told her son the retired financier was keeping her happy—by keeping her in jewels and cocktails, Joaquin supposed. “We’re in the Springs for the weekend. Soon it will be much too warm to visit the desert.”

Renata was like a hothouse flower. She needed a specific and very short range of temperatures to remain in perfect bloom. The fact was, she looked damn good for a woman in her early fifties, thanks to good bones, good doctors, and a good marriage.

This third time.

“And Essie?” Esmerelda was his half-sister, now aged… “How old is she again?”

“Sweet sixteen just two weeks ago.”

“I missed it.”
Patrick is usually on top of those things
, Joaquin thought, frowning.

“No, you didn’t. You sent her a huge bouquet of flowers and the sweetest little bracelet studded with her birthstone. I’ll remind her she’s yet to send a thank-you note.”

Which Essie should address to his assistant, he thought, with a wry grimace. “I’m glad she liked them.”

Renata hesitated now. “Joaquin…Darling…”

His shoulders tensed. “What?” he asked, wary.

She sniffed, and he could imagine a tear trailing down her cheek. “Someone…someone thought they saw him.”

A dagger, forged in guilt and sharpened by pain, speared Joaquin’s chest, and he closed his eyes, his free hand pressing hard against his heart. “Mom…”

She sniffed again.

“Where, Mom? Where did someone think they saw Felipe?”

“At Coachella,” she said, the tears now in her voice. “And also at Stagecoach.”

Coachella and Stagecoach, the two big California music festivals held in the spring. “Are you reading the tabloids again?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “You’re reading the tabloids again.” She’d been obsessed with them for fifteen years, as much as they’d tried encouraging her to give up the habit of perusing the scandal-strewn, gossipy trash for any mention of Felipe Cielo.

“With Elvis again,” his mother added.

Good God.
Joaquin pinched the bridge of his nose.

Elvis and Felipe. One day they were spotted at Stagecoach. Next there’d be sightings at a balloon festival in Paris—the one in Texas as well as the one in France. According to other, older reports, they’d been seen eating peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches together at a diner in Tuscaloosa. More recently, Felipe had been spied alone at a liquor store outside of Vegas, wearing a red ball cap and holding a six-pack of Bud.