The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4) (3 page)

Joaquin’s brother would never be seen with a six-pack of Bud. He’d have a case, if not two.

“You…” Renata’s voice was small. “You don’t think…”

“
Mamá
.” He hadn’t called her that since he was a child, and he hadn’t been a child since his biological father had dragged him to his first Hollywood audition when he was five years old. “You
know
Felipe has passed.”

“I…I know.” Over the line came the sound of her drawing in a shaky breath. “But…but it’s nice that people don’t want him to be gone, don’t you think?”

Fine. Just pull out the bloody knife and stab him with it again, over and over and over. “Yeah,
Mamá
, it’s very nice. All of us wish he was here.”

Joaquin’s big brother had been a star, burning a bright trajectory across the sky and leaving them with nothing but bitter ashes and these painful “sightings” fifteen years later.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve got to let you go, Renata. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

When she agreed, he thumbed off the phone then slumped against the wall behind him, weary of everything.

“Sir?” At the butler’s voice, he opened his eyes to see a tall glass of ice water in his sights, a delicate slice of lemon floating on top.

He took it from her, parched from his throat to his soul. “Thank you.”

“Let me show you to your room now,” she said, her voice as cool as the water that he swallowed with gratitude.

“Yes.” Gathering himself, he stood up and followed her again to enter an expansive bedroom suite.

“I already took the liberty of closing the blinds,” she said, gesturing toward a set of wide windows taking up one entire wall. “Your bags have been unpacked and the cases stored in the luggage room.”

If he was less tired, he might feel weird about that. “You carried them in?”

With her cap still pulled low, he couldn’t see her face clearly, but he got the impression of a semi-smile, lips curved up but showing no teeth. “I’m quite strong.”

“I suppose.” Though she was only of average height, and no bodybuilder either, gauging by the slender width of her shoulders.

“The bathroom is just through there.” She gestured again.

He cast a quick glance that way, saw another luxurious space. But it was the bed that caught his attention now. The mattress was huge, the pillows fluffy, and as he watched, she neatly folded back the pale blue covers to reveal pearl-gray sheets that appeared to be ironed.

A craving for sleep shuddered through his body. His feet drifted toward the bed as if the thing was magnetized.

“Would you like me to wake you at a certain time, sir?” Sara asked, as if sensing he was about to go down for the count.

“No.” Maybe he could slide into unconsciousness and stay there until Mick arrived at the end of the month. “I might be out for a while,” he warned the butler. “Don’t worry about me.”

She hovered near the door. “But that’s my job, sir. I’m here to be at your service.”

He put up a hand. “Joaquin. Not ‘sir.’”

Her reluctance was palpable, but then she inclined her head. “As you wish. I’m here to be at your service, Joaquin.”

That slight Brit edge to her accent made his name sound…different. “Thank you, Sara.”

“Have a good rest.” She started to move over the threshold.

Some unnamed impulse opened his mouth for him. “Wait…” he said, then hesitated.
Oh, what the hell?
“Would you mind taking off your cap? I feel like I should be calling you by Hat Brim instead of your name.”

Her already perfect posture seemed to go more erect. A moment passed. Then, slowly, she reached up to pull her cap from her head. The hand came down slowly too, the khaki canvas shielding her face for another few seconds. In that small interval of time, Joaquin’s belly tightened, just as it did in the last anticipatory moment before a woman dropped her clothes to reveal herself naked to him for the first time.

Her arm dropped to her side, cap clutched in her fingers.

In a self-conscious move, her other hand fluffed her short, platinum-blond hair, lifting the longer layers at her crown.

While he stared at the sweet face below it.

It was wide at the forehead, eyes, and cheekbones, the kitten-shape tapering to a small chin with a shallow cleft. The mouth was small too, but rosy and full. Kissable.

And those blue eyes, as blue as summer sky or a peacock feather or the marble his big brother had once found in the dirt and given to Joaquin after polishing it on his T-shirt.

The blue of trust, loyalty, peace.

All the things he sometimes thought he didn’t deserve and believed he’d never find.

Joaquin turned away from those eyes. He heard the soft click of the door as she closed it behind her.

But once unclothed and between the sheets he couldn’t rid himself of Sara’s image so easily. His tired body had found new vigor from somewhere and sent it all to his cock. It throbbed and ached, as hard as it had ever been, even though his libido had seemed as depleted as the rest of him when he’d landed at LAX that afternoon.

Shit.

He ran the heel of his hand down the length of it, feeling an echo of pleasure along his spine. But he couldn’t drum up the inclination or additional energy to take himself in hand.

Something told him he wouldn’t find it satisfying anyhow.

Chapter 2

The smell of bacon woke him.

He shifted in the bed, disoriented by his bare skin rubbing against soft cotton. Sleeping naked was reserved for sleeping with lovers. The rest of the time he wore pajama bottoms—silk, one of the pairs given to him by his mother for each birthday, Christmas, and Easter.

His hand groped at the space next to him, but he found no nubile female form or any residual warmth left by one.

But the bacon scent was unmistakable, so who was—

Sara. The butler.

Unless Patrick had hired him a fryer of bacon too.

Yawning so hard his jaw cracked, Joaquin pulled himself from the bed and searched through the dresser drawers—the ones he’d been too tired to paw through earlier for pajama bottoms. Once dressed in boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt, he padded, barefoot, in search of the source of that smell.

It had his belly gnawing on its own lining.

The hallway was shadowed, and his internal clock told him a few hours had passed. So it was…six-thirty, seven o’clock in the evening? Light up ahead drew him toward a downward staircase, and he paused at the top of it, struck hard by the view.

Wow
.

He understood more of the house’s layout now. From that side door, he’d entered into what was actually the second story, with bedrooms and bathrooms and a den and media room that he’d spied through gaping doorways. The open gallery leading to the stairs told the rest of the story. Below him was the main living area of the house—that he suspected he would have seen first had he come through the front entry. It was a large, open-concept space—so large he couldn’t see all of it from here.

But he could see the view.

Windows reaching to the second-story roofline comprised the structure’s entire west wall, with glass doors that opened onto a deck enveloped by sloping grounds that led to beach that led to ocean. Staring straight ahead, Joaquin took in the boundless Pacific, with the yellow-orange orb of the sun sliding toward the horizon.

Well.

It’s fucking stupendous
, he thought as he descended the steps. But still too big.

Following his nose, he passed through a living area with lots of cushioned seating and a huge coffee table, a dining room—with seating space for four times the number of friends he could count as his own—to find the butler in a kitchen that should probably be described as “gourmet” tending a sizzling batch of bacon in a pan. Still dressed the same, except now sans hat, she seemed unaware of his approach.

He slid onto a stool at the island that created a boundary between the cooking space and another small seating area that included shelves of books, a blue pottery bowl of sand dollars, and another of multi-colored sea glass.

Whose books? Who had combed the beach for those treasures?

Before he could ask, Sara suddenly whirled, one hand clutching her throat, the other raising a spatula like a weapon.

“Easy,” Joaquin said, holding out his palms. “Just the homeowner.”

Her cheeks appeared flushed, maybe from the radiant warmth of the burner or the reflected glow of the sunset or because his sudden arrival had unnerved her.

“I’m sorry.” The spatula lowered. “I’m not used to anyone else being in the house.”

He wasn’t used to the way the beautiful butler affected him. Already heat was racing through his veins, and his dick started to harden. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been laid but clearly it had been too long. Tonight it was going to have to be fist-and-shower sex, he decided, because he couldn’t walk around with constant wood in his pants.

How long would he have to hold on before doing just that? Glancing at the digital clock display on the stacked set of ovens, he noted it was near half-past seven. Then he looked back at the butler.

“Don’t you ever go home?” he asked, sexual frustration roughening his tone.

A darker flush bloomed on her cheeks, making her eyes stand out like jewels. “I…I…”

Joaquin wanted to punch himself in the face. What a jerk. He cupped the back of his neck, rubbed. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“I live here,” she said, then bit her puffy bottom lip.

He stared. “Here?
Here
here?”

Sara nodded, then gestured to the side, to another hall off the sitting area. “There are quarters—sitting area, bedroom, and
en suite
for live-in staff.”

For God’s sake
. He didn’t only have a butler, he had a housemate. A blue-eyed beauty of a housemate…who was
at his service
.

She’d actually said that.

His mood must be written all over his face because she set down the spatula with a clatter and spun the burner dial to Off. “I’ll get out of your way.”

Like right, he was going to run her off from her meal. “Finish making your dinner.”

“There’s a simple kitchenette in my private part of the house, and I’ve already eaten. I was only in here to make you a snack for when you woke up.”

“Snack” spoke to his stomach just as her blue eyes spoke to his sex.

“Your assistant,” she continued, “told me you’ve been craving BLT&As.”

He nearly fell off his stool. What the hell? Patrick was sharing Joaquin’s need for some tits-and-ass action? Then sense penetrated his calorie- and shag-starved brain, and he delivered a mental slap to his forehead. “Bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwich.”

Sara nodded. “Coming up in five minutes, along with a beer, if you’d care for it?”

“Heaven,” he said, because his stomach was now growling like a lion.

Fifteen minutes later, he’d soothed the beast with two sandwiches made on toasted bread. Sara puttered around the kitchen cleaning up as he ate. With one of his appetites assuaged, he felt a little more under control, and he figured he’d better get a clearer picture of her role.

“So you live here.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, nodded.

“Is there a Mr. Sara the Butler?”

Her hand, wiping a countertop, stalled. “No.” Then her cleaning continued.

“You could sit,” he offered, feeling more mellow by the moment as he took another long swallow from the pilsner glass she’d slid in front of him. She’d filled it three times. “Open yourself a beer. Or pour some wine.”

From here he could see a well-stocked beverage refrigerator, its glass door revealing a bevy of selections.

“It’s…not a good idea.”

Did she suspect he had the hots for her? Did he look that horny? “Why isn’t it a good idea?”

“Because it’s not done.” That prim tone of hers again.

He couldn’t leave it alone. “Women and men drink together all the time.”

She turned now, and leaned back against the granite surface she’d been cleaning. “I’m your butler.”

“About that…” Now into his third beer, he was feeling a little buzzed, if he didn’t mind admitting it. Which he did not. The recent late nights and business headaches, not to mention the talk about Felipe with his mother that afternoon all made a slight drunk quite well-deserved, as a matter of fact. “I find myself somewhat disappointed you’re not married to the chauffeur.”

That sweet, rosy little mouth of hers twitched. “Well…”

God, she was beautiful. And beneath those boring clothes he’d bet she had a smokin’ body. He shouldn’t be thinking like that, Christ, he knew it, but truth was truth, especially after three potent brews. “What are you almost smiling about? I need to know everything,” he told her.

That made an intoxicated kind of sense. Maybe he’d been so quickly taken with her because of his fatigue and the brand new situation in which an attractive, enigmatic blonde with a sexy accent said “I’m at your service.” A little bit longer in her company and all the novelty would wear off and he’d get his head screwed on straight.

Instead of the smaller one inconveniently focused on screwing her.

“I might not be married to a chauffeur,” she said now, “but I am a chauffeur’s daughter.”

He paused in lifting his beer to his mouth, now more intrigued. “Yeah?”

“He retired last year, and lives in a tiny cottage in Costa Rica—his dream—but I spent a lot of time in his quarters over the garage of a posh estate just outside London.”

“Holy Sabrina, Batman. Did you fall in love with the son of the family?”

Her lips twitched again. “No, there were only three daughters. And none took a particular shine to me. I spent the school year in Michigan with my maternal grandparents, but holidays and summers mostly with my dad.”

“So how did you end up here?”

Her head tilted, the light catching her bright hair. “Mr. Douglas really didn’t share much with you.”

“I admit that having a butler came as a surprise,” Joaquin said. “That doesn’t mean Patrick didn’t tell me, however. It’s been a busy period at work, and I’ve been buried in details of a business deal for months. It’s possible I missed it.”