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Xander needed to talk to Ms Smith as soon as she arrived, and make it very clear from the onset what he would or would not tolerate from her young daughter. He already had a mental list of rules prepared.
No running up and down the hallways of his apartment.
No shouting or screaming.
No loud television programmes, especially in the mornings.
No going anywhere near his bedroom suite.
And absolutely no touching any of his artwork or personal things.
In fact, Xander would prefer it if he wasn’t even made aware of the child’s presence in his apartment. Was that even possible with a five-year-old?
It would have to be. Ms Smith and her daughter weren’t his guests but employees, and Xander expected her, and her daughter, to behave accordingly.
‘Oh, look, Mummy, have you ever seen such a big television?’
Xander barely had a chance to register the presence of the woman and her young daughter, after the doors opened to his private lift, before a small red-haired whirlwind rushed past him down the hallway in the direction of the open door to the home cinema. She clipped his elbow as she passed, which knocked him off balance. Enough so that Xander felt himself falling.
Sam’s stricken gaze followed her daughter’s headlong flight down the carpeted hallway with all the horrified fascination of someone watching an unstoppable train wreck.
She closed her eyes with a wince as Daisy rushed past an open-mouthed Xander Sterne, opening them again just in time to see him swaying unsteadily on his feet.
Yep, definitely a train wreck!
Sam quickly dropped her shoulder bag onto the floor in order to run down the hallway, reaching Xander Sterne’s side just in time to put a supportive shoulder underneath his arm to prevent him from toppling over completely.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
Unfortunately, Xander weighed probably twice as much as she did. So that when he overbalanced completely he took Sam down with him, both of them ending up on the floor, the fall slightly cushioned by the thick carpet but still eliciting a grunt from Xander Sterne as he landed on his back, Sam sprawled inelegantly across him, her denim-clad legs entangled with his much longer ones.
This wasn’t just a train wreck, it was a disaster!
‘Well, that’s rule number one already null and void!’ he muttered through gritted teeth.
‘Sorry?’ Sam raised her head to look down at him.
‘Why are you and Mr Sterne lying on the floor, Mummy?’ a bewildered Daisy enquired curiously as she wandered back down the hallway to look down at them.
‘Will you tell her or shall I?’ Xander Sterne’s chest —his very muscled chest beneath another fitted black T-shirt—moved beneath Sam’s breasts as he bit the words out.
Sam felt the colour warming her cheeks as she realised her eyes were just inches away from the censorious brown ones now glaring up at her, and that her boss’s chiselled features were twisted in displeasure.
Or perhaps it was pain he was exhibiting rather than censure?
Daisy had just succeeded in knocking this man over when he was still recovering from a broken leg, the very reason that she and Daisy were in his apartment in the first place.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Sam mumbled as she moved carefully, to avoid hurting Xander further, lifting herself up and away from him before standing up. She wondered whether she ought to answer her daughter first or help him back up onto his feet.
She decided to do both as she noted that his face had paled in the last few minutes.
‘We fell over, darling,’ she answered Daisy distractedly as she went back down onto her knees beside Xander. ‘Should I call your doctor before you attempt to get up, do you think?’ she prompted worriedly as he began to roll onto his right side—the side with the leg that wasn’t broken—with the obvious intention of attempting to get back up onto his feet.
Xander turned to give her a cold stare, knowing it was his dignity that was injured more than his leg. Four weeks of hobbling around on crutches hadn’t exactly been good for his ego, and now he had to deal with the fact that he had been knocked off his feet by a child.
Although it hadn’t been all bad, Xander acknowledged grudgingly as he reached for his crutches to help him to his feet; Ms Smith might be a tiny little thing, and her build a bit too much on the slender side for his normal taste, but what little of her there was was completely feminine. A fact his body had definitely responded to as she lay sprawled on top of him. Her body had felt incredibly soft, and she’d smelt of flowers.
It was good to know, after six weeks without sex, that at least that part of him was still in working order, even if the rest of him was still shot to hell.
Even if it was an entirely inappropriate response to the woman being paid to share his apartment for the next two weeks.
‘I don’t need a doctor to know that the only part of me that’s bruised is my ego!’ Xander answered her more harshly than he had intended. Slightly regretting that harshness as she appeared to recoil and withdraw into herself.
What had she expected? That he was just going to laugh it off as childish exuberance?
Damn it, she and her daughter had only just arrived; he hadn’t even had chance as yet for the talk about rules regarding her daughter’s behaviour.
‘Ah, just in the nick of time,’ Xander muttered as the lift doors opened a second time and Paul stepped out carrying several bags, obviously the mother and daughter’s luggage. ‘Paul can help me get up, if you would like to take your daughter with you into the kitchen and make a pot of tea,’ he bit out.
Sam knew it was an order rather than a request, and a means of getting she and Daisy out of the way.
And who could blame the man? He had already suffered the indignity of being knocked off his feet; he didn’t need the further embarrassment of having to be helped back up in front of an audience.
Xander Sterne didn’t give the impression he was a man who liked to show any sort of weakness. Ever. Which didn’t bode well for the next two weeks, Sam acknowledged with a wince, when she was supposed to be helping him, as well as cooking for him.
She gave Paul a grateful smile before leaving him to help Xander back onto his feet, while she and Daisy went down the hallway in search of what turned out to be a beautiful red and black high-gloss kitchen, its numerous and expensive appliances all in gleaming chrome.
The sort of kitchen that she would have loved to explore further, if she weren’t feeling quite so much trepidation about whether or not she and Daisy would be here long enough for her to see any more of this apartment than the kitchen. And the inside of the lift again, as they left!
She lifted Daisy up onto one of the bar stools before finding a carton of orange juice in the huge American-style fridge, and pouring some into a glass for her.
‘I thought we had a rule about running in the house?’ she chided Daisy gently as she moved to put the kettle on before looking for the tea, aware of the murmur of male voices out in the hallway as she did so.
‘Sorry, Mummy.’ Her daughter gave a guilty grimace. ‘I just saw the huge television and I wanted to— Sorry,’ she muttered again contritely.
Sam’s expression immediately softened. ‘I think you owe Mr Sterne an apology for running in his home, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Mummy. Do you think he’ll let us stay now?’ Daisy added anxiously.
It didn’t help that Sam was wondering the same thing.
She raised her brows. ‘Do you want to stay?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Daisy enthused.
Sam had no doubts that the huge TV was the reason for her daughter’s enthusiasm. It certainly couldn’t be because Daisy liked Xander Sterne, when all he had done so far was growl at them.
Xander had just been about to enter the kitchen, with the intention of giving the woman a blistering piece of his mind before then ordering her to leave, when he overheard the conversation between mother and daughter.
At which point his chest gave a tight and unexpected squeeze at how subdued the previously exuberant Daisy now sounded.
Because he had reacted like a bad-tempered idiot. To a five-year-old.
Damn it, he was not turning into his father.
He was not!
It wasn’t as if the little red-haired tornado had meant to knock him off his feet. It had been a complete accident that she had managed to clip his elbow as she passed.
But why was he making excuses for her, when he had just been presented with the perfect opportunity—the perfect excuse—to dismiss Ms Smith? Before she’d even had chance to unpack the few belongings in the bags he had instructed Paul to leave out in the hallway before he left.
And what happened if Xander did dismiss her? He did still need her help and he would mess up Darius and Miranda’s honeymoon plans if he dismissed her now.
The fact that Sam might be counting on the money she would earn by working for him for the next two weeks was also a consideration.
Despite his reservations, even Xander wasn’t selfish enough to want to be responsible for causing Ms Smith, or her daughter, unnecessary hardship.
CHAPTER THREE
SAM HAD HER back turned towards Xander when he finally entered the kitchen, allowing him to enjoy the sight of that gloriously curling red hair as it flowed loosely down the narrow length of her spine, the pertness of her shapely bottom clearly outlined by her skinny jeans.
Xander veered his scowling gaze sharply up and away from all that femininity, to instead look at the little girl seated at the breakfast bar, and currently watching him with huge and anxious amethyst-coloured eyes over the top of the glass of orange juice she was drinking.
It was an anxiety Xander remembered from his own childhood.
An anxiety he was now responsible for causing, as his father once had for him.
Xander’s knowledge and experience of children was limited, to say the least, but even he could see that the child was a beauty, with her riot of long, red curls. Her features were more rounded than her mother’s, although the promise of the same beauty was definitely there. It was a cherubic face at the moment, dominated by large and serious eyes, and she had a similar endearing smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her tiny nose.
She now struggled down from the tall bar stool to look up at him from beneath long dark lashes. ‘I’m very sorry for knocking you over, Mr Sterne.’
Oh, hell, she even had an endearing lisp when she talked, caused no doubt by that noticeably missing front tooth.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ she continued to lisp. ‘It’s just that I’ve never seen such a big television before.’ Her eyes filled with unshed tears. ‘But Mummy has told me re—re—’
‘Repeatedly,’ Samantha supplied helpfully as she placed a cup of steaming-hot tea and the sugar bowl down on the breakfast bar in front of where Xander stood.
‘Re— Lots of times,’ the little girl substituted endearingly, ‘not to run in the house.’
‘I’ve labelled it “the whipped puppy look”,’ Sam confided softly even as she ruffled her daughter’s red curls affectionately.
‘What?’ Xander had to drag his gaze away from the contrite-looking child in order to look at her mother.
‘The tears welling up in the big eyes, the trembling bottom lip; “whipped puppy” look,’ the mother supplied ruefully. ‘It’s a look my daughter, most young children in fact, have mastered to perfection by the time they’re three!’
‘Oh.’ How to feel foolish in one easy lesson; he was being played, and by a five-year-old, at that!
Sam gave a rueful smile as she obviously saw the confusion in his expression. ‘I assure you, the contrition is perfectly genuine, and you really shouldn’t feel bad about responding to “the look”; it usually works on me too.’
Xander had the distinct impression he was fast losing control of this situation. If he’d ever had control of it in the first place!
But it was well past time that he did.
Xander looked coldly down the length of his nose at the two Smith females. ‘Paul left your bags out in the vestibule, which for obvious reasons you will have to carry to your rooms yourself. You have the two adjoining bedrooms on the right at the end of the hallway. My own suite of rooms is behind the doors on the left. An area that, under no circumstances, will either of you enter without permission. For any reason,’ he stated decisively.
For a heartbeat or two she looked taken aback by the harshness of his tone after their earlier conversation, before she straightened her slender shoulders, seemingly unaware of how the movement thrust forward her tiny but perfectly rounded breasts.
Something Xander was completely aware of, in spite of himself.
‘Of course, Mr Sterne,’ she now answered him smoothly. ‘Come along, Daisy, Mr Sterne wants to be alone now.’ She held out her hand to her daughter, which Daisy took before turning to bestow another shy smile on Xander as they left the kitchen together.
Leaving Xander feeling like a complete boor for having spoken to the two of them so harshly.
He instantly dismissed the feeling; if Daisy Smith had that ‘whipped puppy’ look down to perfection, then she had almost certainly acquired it from her mother.
* * *
‘Is there anything else I can get for you, Mr Sterne?’
Sam kept her expression deliberately bland as she waited beside the formal dining table where she had just served him the first course of his dinner: perfectly cooked asparagus and Béarnaise sauce.
Her long hair was secured tidily at her nape, and she was wearing the same plain white shirt and tailored black trousers she had worn to her interview earlier in the week; it was her idea of her evening ‘uniform’ for the next two weeks.
Sam had brought all the ingredients with her for the meals she would be serving over the weekend, knowing that she wouldn’t have the time, with Darius and Andy’s wedding tomorrow, to go shopping for food until Monday.
She had decided to prepare something simple for Xander’s evening meal today: the asparagus, followed by steak and a fluffy stuffed potato and buttered carrots, and for dessert she had made a pineapple upside-down cake with ice cream; easy to make, but it looked and tasted good. And there was no denying that the kitchen was a dream to work in.
Sam had always liked preparing and cooking food, and it was something she knew she was good at too. Which was why she had been deeply disappointed when Malcolm had refused to allow her to cook for him, insisting that it was what he employed his chef for. The most Sam had been allowed to do in that area was to approve the menus for the week.
Unfortunately, since the separation and divorce Sam’s meagre budget had been a huge deciding factor in the meals she had been able to prepare for Daisy and herself.
Happily, there would be no such limitations in Xander’s household. Sam very much doubted he had ever eaten a bowl of home-made stew in the whole of his privileged life!
‘What did you have in mind?’ He leant back in his chair to look up at her with those dark unfathomable eyes, his only concession to changing for dinner being to replace the black T-shirt of earlier with a white one. But then, he was in his own home, and so perfectly at liberty to wear whatever he chose, whenever he chose. Or not...
It had been a couple of hours since he had dismissed Sam and Daisy from the kitchen, and Sam had made good use of that time, by unpacking their few belongings and putting them away in the empty drawers in their bedrooms. She had also put the food she had brought with her away in the fridge and kitchen cabinets, before preparing dinner.
Sam’s cheeks warmed now as she heard the unmistakeable challenge in his tone. A challenge she chose to ignore. She had been married to a man whose wealth, and the power that wealth gave him, had rendered him both arrogant and selfish, to the point that Malcolm had ridden roughshod over everybody. Including Sam and her romantic dreams of their happy future together.
She had no intentions of so much as acknowledging that Xander Sterne had that bad-boy look off to perfection, in the fitted white T-shirt that stretched tautly over his wide shoulders and chest, and revealing his tanned and muscled arms. Or that she was guilty of having noticed the tautness of his bottom earlier, in those hip-and-thigh-hugging black jeans.
Enough so that it now made Sam’s heart beat faster just to look at all that blatant maleness, her palms feeling slightly damp, a tingling warmth in her breasts and between her thighs.
None of which she wanted to feel for the arrogant man. ‘You made a comment earlier,’ she said coolly. ‘Something about rule number one being null and void?’
‘So I did.’
‘What did you mean by it?’
‘Where’s Daisy?’ He asked a question of his own rather than answer hers. ‘It seems very quiet in the apartment this evening.’ He raised questioning blond brows.
Sam’s hackles were already up in regard to her daughter, but she stiffened defensively now; no matter what this man might think to the contrary, Daisy was not a noisy or a rowdy child. The opposite, in fact. Daisy was introspective rather than outgoing; no doubt a legacy of those early years of her childhood spent with a father who ignored her very existence, and had his own set of rules for ensuring he did so.
A guilt Sam still lived with on a daily basis.
For having ever held out even the fragile hope her marriage would one day return to their first year together, when she and Malcolm had seemed so happy together. For hoping, praying, that Malcolm would one day come to love his beautiful daughter.
She had wasted almost three years hoping and praying for those things, not just of her own life but of Daisy’s too, and on a man Sam had belatedly realised she wasn’t sure she had ever really known, let alone loved. A rich and arrogant man who had seen his much younger wife only as an asset, to be paraded on his arm, and to fill his bed at night. A man who was too selfish, too self-absorbed, to love the beautiful daughter they had made together.
Xander Sterne was even richer and more powerful than Malcolm could ever hope to be, and Sam didn’t even want to acknowledge that he was also far more disturbingly attractive too. That he possessed a sensual magnetism she responded to, however unwillingly.
Her days of allowing herself to be attracted to rich and powerful men were long gone!
Having been forced to live by a set of rules once, Sam wasn’t sure she could now adhere to another set, laid down by Xander Sterne for the time she and Daisy would be staying with him in his apartment.
‘Samantha?’
She blinked before focusing on the man now studying her with piercing eyes beneath long lashes.
‘Sam,’ she invited automatically.
‘I prefer Samantha,’ he dismissed arrogantly—as if that settled the matter.
Which in Xander Sterne’s self-assured eyes, it probably did. And really, what did it matter whether this man called her Sam or Samantha, when in two weeks’ time they would never set eyes on each other again?
‘Whatever you’re comfortable with,’ she allowed disinterestedly. ‘And to answer your question, Daisy has already been fed, bathed, and is now fast asleep in bed.’
Xander had no idea where Samantha’s thoughts had been for the past few moments, but he was pretty sure they couldn’t have been pleasant ones. Her eyes had taken on a haunted look, the hollows of her cheeks paler than ever against the fullness of her rose-coloured lips. ‘It’s only eight o’clock.’
Samantha nodded. ‘Daisy always goes to bed at seven o’clock on schooldays.’
Something else Xander didn’t know about children.
‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Then perhaps you and I can talk about those rules after dinner?’
Her back stiffened. ‘Of course, Mr Sterne.’
‘Xander.’
‘I would prefer that we keep things formal between the two of us.’
‘Does that mean you would really prefer that I call you Mrs Smith?’
‘No, because I’m not Mrs Smith,’ she answered with a humourless twist of her lips.
Xander studied her through narrowed lids. ‘I seem to remember my brother telling me you’re divorced?’
‘I am.’ She nodded tersely. ‘I reverted to my maiden name after the divorce.’
He frowned. ‘Is Daisy’s surname Smith too?’
‘Yes.’ Her mouth tightened defensively.
‘I don’t understand.’
Not many people would understand a situation like hers. One where a father insisted upon, rather than objected to, his child’s surname being changed to her mother’s maiden name after the divorce. Malcolm hadn’t even wanted Daisy to possess his surname.
‘Your food is getting cold, Mr Sterne.’ She pointed out the obvious as she once again avoided meeting his gaze. ‘And I have several things that need my attention in the kitchen,’ she added before he could object. ‘But I’ll be more than happy to have that chat after I’ve served your coffee.’
Xander frowned as he began to eat his cooling asparagus, his attention really on watching her as she left the dining room. He was totally aware of the defensive stiffness of her very straight spine and shoulders, and the vulnerable length of her neck as she tilted her head back just as defensively.
Obviously he had said something to upset her—something else to upset her!
But wasn’t it a little unusual to also change a child’s surname after a divorce?
Not that he was acquainted with divorce on a personal level. His own parents had been unhappily married and probably should have divorced each other, but they hadn’t, so that when Lomax Sterne died, Catherine and her two sons had continued to keep the surname Sterne. His mother had only changed her name to Latimer when she married Charles, Xander’s stepfather.
Xander knew he would object strongly to any woman wanting to change his child’s surname to her own, divorce or no divorce.
Xander gave a shake of his head; he was taking far too much of an interest in the life of his temporary employee.
* * *
‘Dinner was excellent, thank you.’
Sam gave a nod of her head in acceptance of the praise as she placed the tray of coffee things down on the dining table.
‘Sit,’ Xander invited tersely as she began to clear the dessert bowl from the table.
‘I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind,’ she said, trying not to bristle at being ordered about so impolitely.
His gaze was cool as he looked up from stirring sugar into his black coffee. ‘I do mind.’
Sam gave a perplexed frown. ‘I really don’t think it’s appropriate for maintaining our employer/employee relationship for me to join you at the dinner table.’
‘I think the appropriateness or otherwise of our situation will be dispensed with the moment you have to help me prepare for bed later tonight!’
Sam instantly felt the heat of embarrassment burning in her cheeks—a blush she knew would clash horribly with the red of her hair—at this reminder that this was one of the duties she had agreed to when she took this job. A totally ridiculous embarrassment, when she had been a married woman for over three years.
Except she hadn’t been married to Xander Sterne.
Xander Sterne was in a whole different category from Malcolm when it came to physical prowess. Despite the inconvenience of having had a broken leg for six weeks, which had seriously affected his mobility, he was still all lean muscle and barely leashed power.
The thought of having to help him prepare for bed later tonight, including being available in case he needed help with his shower, was enough to make Sam feel hot all over, and she had to clasp her hands tightly together behind her back so that he wouldn’t see they were trembling.
‘All the more reason for us to maintain the formalities between us,’ she countered coolly.