Read Online The Sex Was Great But... by Tyne O’Connell - Free Book Online

it,” I said, rolling my eyes. I elected not to mention what I dream about. My big dream of doing a set in the Ministry of Sound as Mix Master Monroe and bringing the crowd to their knees with euphoria seemed pathetic and feeble now.
    We climbed out of the car and I noticed the gardener was ambling over to meet us. He was holding up his hedge trimmers in greeting. If he’d been a bit taller and a bit younger the gesture might have been threatening, but between the straw hat and his height there wasn’t much room for menace. He just looked friendly.
    When he finally reached us I noticed he was wheezing a bit, so I offered him my inhaler. Holly told me his name was Joseph and he grasped both my hands in his and shook them enthusiastically, like I was someone he’d been waiting to meet all his life.
    Holly said something to him in Spanish that I hoped was, “I want this exotic Englishman here to make wildly animalist love to me under the jacaranda.” But after all the summers I’ve spent in Ibiza my Spanish isn’t bad enough for me to believe that was actually what she said.

CHAPTER 5
    HOLLY
    â€œSecretly, and please don’t tell the Star, I’m nowhere near as unattached to my possessions as my Buddhist guide would have it.”
    I t was only when we arrived at my place that the potential danger of my situation actually impacted. What the hell was I thinking, inviting a street person into my home? A home I only now realized was woefully short on armed security men and attack dogs.
    My only line of defense in the event of an attack was Joseph; my fifty-year-old bronchial gardener, and Conchita, his wife—a four-foot-five maid with an arthritic hip. All my advisers had pleaded with me to get proper security, with CCTV and guards to look after the place, but I’d never gone for the idea. Despite what the readers’ poll said,I was seeking a modicum of normality here, and I didn’t fancy living on a Big Brother set.
    Joseph greeted Leo like a long-lost relative from Mexico. This meant he thought I was doing something with Leo that I might be ashamed of later. I checked with Leo as to whether he could speak Spanish and, reassured that he couldn’t, explained to Joseph about what had happened to Leo’s nose and asked him to keep a close eye on him. He seemed nice enough, but you can never be sure, right?
    Joseph responded to my explanation with a lascivious look—as if I’d introduced him to my latest sex toy.
    Usually when I introduce Joseph to the men I bring home—which I hardly ever do, by the way—he puffs out his chest, sticks his chin in the air and does this strutting thing like a farmyard rooster. He’s very protective of me. He’s always telling me that he’s a very proud man and a respecter of women. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t remind me of this. His wife, Conchita snorts if he ever says this kind of stuff in her presence.
    Joseph made a worrying little wheezy sound and Leo offered him a blue inhaler from his pocket, which he refused because, as Conchita delights in reminding me, he prefers to treat his bronchial condition with cigarettes. As if on cue he pulled a packet of Marlboros from his pocket, offered one to Leo and lit up.
    I reasoned that at least Leo now knew that there was another man around the place. Even if Joseph couldn’t wrestle him to the ground, he was still capable of calling the police if Leo got any ideas.
    Just to be sure, though, I asked Joseph in Spanish if he knew the number for emergency services.
    â€œEmergency,” he replied in English—winking at Leo.
    â€œSo you know the number to ring in an emergency?” I said in Spanish.
    â€œ Si, nine, one, one.” He nudged Leo, who nudged him right back. What is it with men that they can bond so easily?
    I know I shouldn’t have been so untrusting of a guy who’d technically been beat up for coming to my rescue, but