Contracted For The Spaniard's Heir

No. She’d already become way too involved in his backstory. She’d done her good deed for the week and delivered him back to his home and it was doubtful she would lay eyes on him again.

Whatever nanny Luca got, Ellie’s money was on the poor girl being monitored more closely than a convict on parole. She would be manacled to the poor child while Luca carried on making money and kidding himself that he was being a good guardian by flinging cash at the problem that had landed on his doorstep.

Hateful and obnoxious, she thought, barely aware of the walk back to the park and then on to the nearest bus because she was so busy thinking of him.

Ellie shared a house with three other girls. Every time she approached the front door, she recalled the far nicer little place she had rented previously where she had been able to relax in peace; where she hadn’t had to jostle for space in the fridge; any time she wanted to herself now had to be spent in a bedroom that was only just about big enough for a bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe that was a whisker away from being held together by masking tape. But needs must.

She wondered, but only briefly, whether she should have listened to whatever offer Luca had been prepared to put on the table...

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, Ellie was on her way back home when she noticed a long, sleek, black car pull away from the kerb, picking up speed and then slowing down until it was right alongside her.

The persistent rain of the past couple of weeks had stopped and, at a little after six-thirty in the evening, a watery sun was trying to remind everyone that it was still summer.

The road was quiet, practically deserted, and with a flare of panic she quickened her steps, only almost to collide into the passenger door of the car which had been flung open, barring her path.

‘Hop in, Ellie.’

She recognised the voice instantly and, when she peered inside, her heart did a quick flip and her breathing hitched. Luca was the last person she had been expecting to see again.

The tinted windows had prevented her from seeing the driver and now she wondered how on earth he had managed to do that? Show up just when she was on her way back to her house. Did he have some sort of telepathic X-ray vision?

She blinked, her mouth opening and shutting while Luca looked at her in total silence.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Hop in.’

‘No!’

‘Don’t slam the door. Just get in the car and listen to what I have to say.’

‘How did you find me?’ she repeated, reluctant to get in the car yet not wanting to draw attention to herself. She slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind her.

In the enclosed space, she was uneasily conscious of the raw sexuality that had accosted her the last time she had been in his company. He was so staggeringly male, so devoid of any soft side, so unapologetically masculine.

She looked at him and didn’t know whether it was because he had been on her mind, or whether it was just the shock of seeing him when she hadn’t expected to, but her body was suddenly filled with a disturbing electric charge.

Her nipples pinched, scraping against her tee shirt because she seldom wore a bra except to work. What was the point when there was precious little to hold in place? And there was a stickiness between her legs that horrified her, made her want to slam her thighs together tightly.

‘Don’t forget, I know where your dog-walking clients live,’ Luca intoned smoothly. ‘I asked them whether you were out with their dogs. Actually, I struck jackpot with owner number one. You’re a creature of habit, Ellie. Same routine. It was a pretty simple process of deduction that you would be heading back to your house around now. Mrs Wilson was kind enough to let me have your address. She also gave me your mobile number but I thought it best if I surprised you.’

‘She had no right to hand over my private details!’

‘Maybe she could tell at a glance that I wasn’t a homicidal maniac.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Which is your house?’

‘I don’t want you in my house!’

‘Then we can sit here and have this conversation,’ he said calmly. He killed the engine and reclined in the chair, angling his big body so that he was facing her.

‘We’ve covered everything there is to say. I’m not going to work for you.’

‘You’ve moved.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You never used to live in this part of London. You used to rent a tidy little flat in West London, but you gave that up two months ago so that you could move to this area which is, at the very best, dodgy.’

‘How did you find all of that out?’

‘I can find out anything I want to,’ Luca told her without batting an eyelid. ‘And I wanted to find out about you because I want you. You’re saving money, and a brief background check leads me to believe that it’s because you’re helping your father out of a hole.’

Ellie stiffened, shocked and dismayed. How far was his reach?

‘Tell me about it,’ he said, but his voice was curiously gentle. ‘And don’t let your feelings for me and your pride get in the way of your common sense, Ellie. Like I told you, we can help one another. As business arrangements go, this could be an extremely rewarding one for both of us. I need someone there for Jake. Did you know that he’s asked after you?’

Suspicion poured out of every pore in Ellie’s body but that question, tacked on at the end, made her hesitate, even though she suspected that he was a man who would work the cards in his hand any way he chose if it could get him what he wanted.

You didn’t get to the top by being kind and caring and making allowances for the weak and feeble. You got to the top by being ruthless, and he was at the very top.

‘It’s the first conversation I think I’ve had with Jake since he came over here. Or, at least, the first conversation that wasn’t like squeezing blood from a stone.’

Ellie opened her mouth to inform him that she wasn’t interested, and besides she resented the fact that he had been investigating her behind her back, but instead she heard herself say, ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve barely spoken. I’ve had reports from the nannies but the times we’ve sat down together over a meal, he’s only managed to mutter a few monosyllabic answers to the questions I’ve asked. This morning, he asked after you, and after those mutts you introduced him to. He wanted to know whether he would be able to return to the park so that he could walk with you.’

His expression was shuttered but Ellie was good at reading body language and what she was seeing was genuine emotion from a man who probably found it difficult to express himself in terms of feelings and who was at a loss with a situation he couldn’t control.

‘This would not be a permanent position,’ he told her softly, shifting, because a car was not the most comfortable of places in which to have a protracted conversation. ‘It would be a matter of a few weeks, no more than the duration of the summer holidays, during which time you could perhaps help source a replacement nanny for Jake. I think your input would be helpful on that front. It’s clear you have an instinctive empathy with children, which is something I clearly lack.’

Ellie opened her mouth and he raised his hand.

‘No, allow me to finish before you start digging your heels in.’ He shot her a crooked smile and Ellie blinked because, shorn temporarily of that authoritarian streak in him that she had previously glimpsed, he was curiously human. It was unnerving.

‘I could have found out the details of whatever commitment you may have towards your father, but I stopped short of that because it doesn’t matter, and I also felt that if you wanted to fill me in then you would. I will pay you enough to more than cover the entire debt your father has incurred.’

‘That’s a crazy assurance,’ Ellie said shakily. Her eyes dropped to where he was resting his hand lightly on the gear shaft and she inconsequentially thought what shapely hands he had.

‘My pockets are shockingly deep,’ Luca returned without a trace of false modesty. He paused and inclined his head to one side. ‘What happened? Do you want to talk about it?’

The vision of being released from the stranglehold of a debt that would take her years to clear dangled in front of Ellie’s eyes like an oasis in the desert.

‘If you’d rather not go into the details, then that’s fine. All I want to know is this: are you prepared to consider my offer? In return for a handful of weeks working for me, your father will never have to worry about his debts again. You don’t have to like me to agree to this. That doesn’t enter the equation. All you have to do is ask yourself whether you’re willing to prolong your father’s unhappy situation because of misplaced pride.’

As trump cards went, Ellie knew that he had pulled out the ace of spades. Her father was stressed beyond belief and frankly so was she.

Did she want him to know the situation? Ellie already knew that she would agree to what he wanted. He’d somehow managed to find the precise spot where his appeal would hit pay dirt.

‘It would be a relief to clear my father’s debts,’ Ellie said stiffly.

‘Before you continue, do you want to carry on this conversation in your house? I’m too big to sit in this car indefinitely. I need to stretch my legs.’

‘I share the place with other girls.’ She involuntarily grimaced. ‘But I guess we could go to a pub. There’s one not far from here. I could direct you.’

Having secured the deal, Luca had no intention of letting the grass grow under his feet. They were in the pub with a bottle of chilled wine in front of them within fifteen minutes.

‘So...?’ he pressed urgently.

‘My dad has found himself in a bit of a pickle.’ She opened up, because she did want him to know more than just the bones of why she was taking this job. He’d found out so much about her that he could easily have found out the entire story and the fact that he hadn’t softened her impression of him. Just a little. If she chose not to explain anything, she knew that he wouldn’t try to find out off his own bat but, for some reason, she didn’t want him to be left with the suspicion that her father had blown away his savings on rubbish.

‘He got taken in by a scam on the Internet. He didn’t admit to what had happened for a while. In fact, I only found out because I happened to come across a letter from the bank he had left on the console table in the sitting room. When I asked him what was happening, he admitted to everything. The bills have been piling up and he hasn’t been able to meet his mortgage payments for the past few months. He’s been having panic attacks.’

She looked down quickly. ‘Apologies,’ she said huskily. ‘My dad and I are very close and I can’t bear to think what he must have been going through. Anyway, of course I earn enough to keep body and soul together, but I’ve had to move into somewhere smaller temporarily. It’s been very stressful and you should know that if it weren’t for...this situation there is no way I would be sitting here having this conversation.’ She looked at Luca, her green eyes challenging.

The clarity of her gaze was so disconcerting that for a few seconds words failed him.

He was staring at someone from another planet. He had offered her an easy, hassle-free job and instead of biting his hand off and naming her price she had turned him down. She was only accepting the offer now because she would have been insane to refuse it.

Luca was accustomed to women who accepted his generosity without batting an eyelid. He was made of money and he had never yet come up against any woman who didn’t enjoy spending some of it when it was on offer.

He hadn’t cared why she’d needed money when he had first suggested the job. He’d been confident that she would snap at the chance to get her hands on some to fund whatever lifestyle had left her in debt. He’d assumed a credit card crisis and had banked on her trying to manoeuvre to get the maximum out of him.

He was quietly pleased that he hadn’t been able to buy her.

‘Tell me how much your father owes,’ he said, not beating around the bush, and Ellie reddened and hesitated.

‘Do you think I’m going to laugh because he’s been the victim of a scam?’

She didn’t answer that, instead naming a figure that seemed so huge to her that she looked away in embarrassment.

‘Naturally I don’t expect you to cover that stupid amount...’

Luca told her what he was willing to pay her, and for once in his life he wasn’t interested in driving a hard bargain.

The woman had such fundamental integrity that he was surprised to discover a side to him that wasn’t utterly cynical. Born into wealth, Luca had seen from the sidelines how ugly the pursuit of money could be after his mother had died. As an eligible middle-aged widower, his father had become a magnet for women from the ages of twenty to seventy. Many of the women, having admitted defeat with his father, had turned their attentions to him, even though Luca had been a mere boy of seventeen at the time.

His own experiences as an adult had hardly served to change his opinion that there wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t do whatever it took when the stakes were high.

Luca didn’t mind. He was happy to be lavish with the women he dated but he had no intention of settling down with any of them. He had no intention of settling down, full-stop.

He was fascinated by Ellie’s clear-eyed gaze as their eyes met.

Predictably, she was staggered by the sum he was willing to pay. Even more predictably, she hotly refused to allow him to part with such a vast amount of cash.

‘You’re overreacting,’ he dismissed, reaching to top her glass up. ‘I’m not offering you the crown jewels...’

‘As good as. It goes against my nature to accept a sum as large as that.’

‘And it goes against my nature to be stingy when it comes to a situation like this. You’ll be doing me a service, and I’m a man who rewards good service.’

A quiver of excitement rippled through her as their eyes met and tangled. This was a business arrangement, but right now it felt like an adventure...

CHAPTER THREE

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Ellie finally made contact with her sister.

Lily had called their father the night before and it hadn’t taken him long before he phoned Ellie to tell her all about their conversation. But by then Ellie was on her way out to meet Luca for dinner. He would have her contract of employment and had told her that it was essential she knew what was expected of her. Ellie thought that top of the agenda would be not making personal calls while her charge slipped out of the house.

‘Did she leave a number, by any chance?’ Ellie asked when there was a break in the conversation.

She was going to be late for dinner but if she didn’t talk to Lily now then there was no guarantee that she would talk to her at all. Over the years as Lily had pursued fame and fortune, using her incredible looks to open doors, she and Ellie had grown increasingly distant. It took a lot of will power to resist the temptation to let things slide until their contact was reduced to birthday cards and polite conversation over the turkey with their father on Christmas day.

Ellie had no time to beat about the bush.

‘Did Dad mention anything...er...about his situation over here?’ she asked bluntly, because the long-distance call was costing her money, and if she didn’t stop her sister in mid flow then she would have to spend the entire phone call listening to Lily wax lyrical about all the exciting things happening in her life and the agents who were hunting her down with scripts for movies.

‘What situation?’ her sister questioned cautiously, so Ellie explained.

She decided that throwing out hints wasn’t going to work. ‘I thought that since you’ve found your feet over there you might think about helping me out, Lily. I earn a teacher’s salary and I don’t have to tell you that it’s not much...’

‘You chose to be a teacher,’ Lily snapped defensively. ‘So please don’t tell me to start feeling sorry for you because you haven’t got any money!’

‘This isn’t about me, Lily. It’s about Dad. I’ve had to take...er...another job to help raise money to clear his debts, but if you could contribute then it would give me some flexibility...when it comes to accepting the offer. Luca will clear the debt but obviously it goes against my pride to accept that level of generosity.’

‘What job?’ Lily asked curiously. ‘Luca? Who’s Luca?’

In a mad rush to leave, Ellie briefly explained the situation, that Luca was a Spanish businessman who had hired her to look after his godson for the summer. Lily knew where she stood when it came to money. She would know that accepting such a vast sum of cash would have been tough.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Lily said, although her voice was more thoughtful now. ‘Stop with the pride thing and just accept what’s on the table. Jeez, the guy is obviously loaded and he needs you to look after the kid. Instead of beating yourself up about it, you should be trying to suss whether you can’t get more out of him! Anyway, I can’t commit to anything, Ellie, and even if I could I’d be nuts to hand over hard-earned cash when there’s some rich guy willing to clear all Dad’s debts for a few weeks of playing happy families with his kid.’

So that was that.

Despite the fact that her sister was in the enviable position of having producers banging on her door, she was being true to who she was and refusing to help.

In a rush, Ellie barely glanced at herself in the mirror before flying out of the house.

She was meeting Luca at an Italian bistro in Covent Garden. He had only ever seen her in clothes used to walk dogs, but this was going to be a more formal meeting, and she had dressed accordingly, in the same outfit she pulled out of the wardrobe for parents’ meetings. A neat grey skirt, a white blouse and a pair of ballet pumps.

It was an outfit that reminded her of the businesslike nature of their relationship, and for that Ellie was grateful, because when she thought of him her mind started playing games, and what she saw in her head wasn’t someone in a suit discussing terms and conditions and holding a fountain pen, it was a man with smouldering sexiness and a smile that could give her goose bumps.

She was half an hour late by the time she stepped into the bistro and looked round her, spotting Luca instantly.

She smoothed down her skirt and took a few seconds to gather herself. The restaurant was busy, with every table filled, and despite the casual sense of waiters hurrying with trays, the open-plan kitchen and the unfussy furnishings, Ellie could tell that the food would cost a fortune.

The clientele was all well-heeled. The food passing her on plates was delicate, artistic creations.

She weaved her way towards Luca and, the closer she got, the more nervous and self-conscious she felt. Her outfit, which had seemed sensible and appropriate when she had put it on an hour earlier, felt cheap and drab and she slid into her chair with a palpable feeling of relief.

‘You’re late,’ Luca opened.

Ellie’s initial reaction was to snipe back at him. Her glass-green eyes were narrowed as he glanced at his watch and then relaxed back in the chair to look at her.

Unlike the other people in the restaurant, who were all clearly kitted out in designer gear, Luca looked as though he had dressed in a hurry and without any thought for the end result. His dark hair was combed back and there was a scraping of stubble on his chin. Yet it suited him—he looked even more dangerous with a five o’clock shadow and her nervous system went into free fall.

He was in black. Black tee shirt. Black jeans. Loafers without socks.

Her mouth was suddenly parched and she gulped down some of the water that had been poured into a glass in front of her. A glimpse of her prissy grey skirt was a timely reminder of why she was sitting in this upmarket bistro.

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