Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions: Taming Her Italian Boss / The Uncompromising Italian / Secrets of the Playboy's Bride

He looked at her blankly, recognising neither her name nor the need for a response. ‘And you are?’ she prompted.

He blinked and seemed to recover himself. ‘Max Martin.’

Ruby shifted Sofia to a more comfortable position on her hip. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Martin.’ She looked inside the dark interior of the limo. ‘Now, are we going to start this interview or what?’

* * *

Max sat frowning in the back of the limo. He wasn’t quite sure what had just happened. One minute he’d been fully in charge of the situation, and the next he’d been ushered into his own car by a woman who looked as if she’d had a fight with a jumble sale—and lost.

She turned to face him, her eyes large and enquiring as she looked at him over the top of Sofia’s car seat, which was strapped between them. ‘Fire away,’ she said, then waited.

He looked back at her.

‘I thought this was supposed to be an interview.’

She was right. He had agreed to that, but the truth of the matter was that, unless she declared herself to be a drug-addicted mass murderer, the job was hers. He didn’t have time to find anyone else.

He studied his new employee carefully. The women he interacted with on a daily basis definitely didn’t dress like this. It was all colour and jarring patterns. Somehow it made her look very young. And, right there, he had his first question.

‘How old are you?’

She blinked but held his gaze. ‘Twenty-four.’

Old enough, then. If he’d had to guess, he’d have put her at a couple of years younger. Didn’t matter, though. If she could do the job, she could do the job, and the fact that the small bundle of arms and legs strapped into the car seat was finally silent was all the evidence he needed.

He checked his watch. He really didn’t have time to chit-chat, so if she wanted to answer questions, he’d dispense with the pleasantries and get on with the pertinent ones. ‘How far away do you live?’

For the first time since he’d set eyes on her, she looked surprised.

‘Can we get there in under half an hour?’

She frowned. ‘Pimlico. So, yes... But why—?’

‘Can you pack a bag in under ten minutes?’

She raised her eyebrows.

‘In my experience, most women can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t actually understand why, though.’ It seemed a simple enough task, after all. ‘I believe it may have something to do with shoes.’

‘My parents dragged me round the globe—twice—in my formative years,’ she replied crisply. ‘I can pack a bag in under five if I have to.’

Max smiled. And not just the distant but polite variety he rolled out at business meetings. This was the real deal. The nanny stopped looking quite so confrontational and her eyes widened. Max leaned forward and instructed the driver to head for Pimlico.

He felt a tapping on his shoulder, a neatly trimmed fingernail made its presence known through the fabric of his suit sleeve. He sat back in his seat and found her looking at him. ‘I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.’

She wasn’t one to beat about the bush, was she? But, then again, neither was he.

‘Will you?’

She folded her arms. ‘I need to ask you a few questions first.’

For some reason Max found himself smiling again. It felt odd, he realised. Not stiff or forced, just unfamiliar. As if he’d forgotten how and had suddenly remembered. But he hadn’t had a lot to smile about this year, had he?

‘Fire away,’ he said.

Was that a flicker of a smile he saw behind those eyes? If it was, it was swiftly contradicted by a stubborn lift of her chin. ‘Well, Mr Martin, you seem to have skipped over some of the details.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as: how long will you be requiring my services?’

Oh, those kinds of details. ‘A week, hopefully. Possibly two.’

She made a funny little you-win-some-you-lose-some kind of expression.

A nasty cold feeling shot through him. She wasn’t going to back out already, was she? ‘Too long?’

She shook her head. ‘I’d have been happy for it to be longer, but it’ll do.’

They looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she delivered her next question. ‘So why do you need a nanny for your daughter in such a hurry? I think I’d like to know why the previous one left.’

Max sat bolt upright in his seat. ‘My daughter? Sofia’s not my daughter!’

The nanny—or almost nanny, he reminded himself—gave him a wry look. ‘See? This is what I’m talking about...details.’

Max ignored the comment. He was great with details. But nowadays he paid other people to concentrate on the trivial nit-picky things so he could do the important stuff. It worked—most of the time—because he had assistants and deputies to spring into action whenever he required them to, but when it came to his personal life he had no such army of willing helpers. Probably because he didn’t have much of a personal life. It irritated him that this mismatched young woman had highlighted a failing he hadn’t realised he had. Still, he could manage details, sketchy or otherwise, if he tried.

‘Sofia is my niece.’

‘Oh...’

Max usually found the vagaries of the female mind something of a mystery. He was always managing to put his foot in it with the women in his life—when he had time for any—but he found this one unusually easy to read. The expression that accompanied her breathy sigh of realisation clearly said, Well, that explains a lot.

‘Let’s just say that I had not planned to be child-minding today.’

She pressed her lips together, as if to stop herself from laughing. ‘You mean you were left holding the baby.... Literally.’

He nodded. ‘My sister is an...actress.’

At least, she’d been trying to be the last five years.

‘Oh! Has she been in anything I’ve heard of?’

Max let out a sigh. ‘Probably not. But she got a call from her agent this morning about an audition for a “smallish part in a biggish film”. Something with...’ what was the name? ‘...Jared Fisher in it.’

The nanny’s eyes widened. ‘Wow! He’s really h—’ She shut her mouth abruptly and nibbled her top lip with her teeth. ‘What I meant to say was, what a fabulous opportunity for her.’

‘Apparently so. She got the job, but they wanted her in L.A. right away. The actress who was supposed to be playing the part came down with appendicitis and it was now or never.’

Secretly he wondered if it would have been better if his little sister had sloped despondently into his office later that afternoon, collected her daughter and had gone home. She’d always had a bit of a bohemian lifestyle, and they’d lost touch while she’d travelled the world, working her way from one restaurant to another as she waited for her ‘big break’. But then Sofia had come along and she’d settled down in London. He really didn’t know if this was a good idea.

Maybe things might have been different if they’d grown up in the same house after their parents had split, but, while he’d benefited from the steadying influence of their English father, Gia had stayed with their mother, a woman who had turned fickle and inconsistent into an art form.

They had grown apart as teenagers, living in different countries, with totally different goals, values and personalities, but he was trying to make up for it now they were more a part of each other’s lives.

Gia always accused him of butting his nose in where it wasn’t wanted and trying to run her life for her, but she always said it with a smile and she was annoyingly difficult to argue with. Perhaps that was why, when she’d turned up at his office that morning with Sofia and had begged him to help her, her eyes full of hope and longing, he hadn’t been able to say no.

‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Why do you need a job in such a hurry?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘It was either this, or my father was threatening to make me work for him.’

‘You don’t want to work for the family firm?’

She pulled a face. ‘I’d rather jump off the top of The Shard! Wouldn’t you?’

Max stiffened. ‘I now head up the business my father built from nothing.’

An unexpected stab of pain hit him in his ribcage, and then came the roll of dark emotion that always followed. Life had been much simpler when he’d been able to bury it all so deep it had been as if it hadn’t existed. ‘There’s something to be said for family loyalty,’ he added gruffly. ‘For loyalty full stop, actually.’

She looked a little uncomfortable, but waltzed her way out of the awkward moment with a quip. ‘Well, I’m quite prepared to be loyal to your family. Just as long as you don’t ask me to get entangled with mine. Parents are fine and all that, but I’d rather keep them at a safe distance.’

Max couldn’t help but think of his mother, and he decided not to quiz Ruby any further on her motives. It wasn’t going to alter whether he hired her or not for a couple of weeks. If this had been for a more permanent fixture in his life, it might have been a different matter.

‘So, why do you need a travelling nanny?’ Her face lit up. ‘Are we going to Hollywood?’

She sounded just like Gia. Max resisted the urge to close his eyes and wish this were all a bad dream, that he’d wake up in bed, his nice, ordered life back.

‘I’m taking Sofia to stay with her grandmother,’ he said. It was the only possible solution. All he had to do now was convince his mother of that. ‘I can’t possibly babysit a toddler for the next fortnight, even if I knew how to. I have three weeks to turn around an important work situation and I can’t take any time off.’

The shock of realising he’d have to cope with Sofia on his own while Gia was away had been bad enough, but then his biggest client had phoned, slinging a spanner in the works. Now he couldn’t afford even an hour off work, let alone a fortnight. He needed time to think. Space. Peace and quiet. And Sofia brought none of those things with her in her tiny, howling package.

Hopefully he’d get Sofia installed at his mother’s, then he’d be able to fly back and be at his desk first thing Monday, only half a day lost. It had been Gia’s idea, and, while he didn’t relish having to take time out to deliver Sofia, at least his sister’s moment of destiny had come on a Friday morning. He’d stay overnight to make sure they all settled in and leave the nanny with his mother. He’d thought of everything.

The girl gave him a sideways look. ‘So work is important to you? More than family?’ She didn’t look impressed.

Max gave her one of his patented you-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about looks. Of course family was important! That was why he had to seal this deal. He was determined to carry on and finish what he and his father had started together, to ensure that his dad’s dream was fulfilled.

‘I’m a thirty-something bachelor with a riverside apartment that has split-level floors with no railings, stairs with no banisters and no outside space except a balcony with a hundred-foot drop to the Thames. Do you think it would be the responsible thing to allow a child to live there?’

He could see her wrestling with herself, but finally she shook her head.

‘Taking her to her grandmother’s is the most sensible and practical thing to do—for everybody.’

He looked up. They’d crossed the river now and could only be minutes from her home. If she said no he’d just drop her off and they’d never see each other again. And he’d have to wrestle a screaming Sofia all the way to her grandmother’s on his own.

‘So, Miss Lange with an e, will you take the job?’

She inhaled and held the breath for a few seconds before glancing up at her building, then she let the air out again. ‘I have one last question.’

‘Which is?’

The corners of her mouth curled up, as if she couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t mentioned this himself. ‘You really are a big-picture kind of guy, aren’t you?’

Yes, he was. ‘How did you know?’

‘There’s another detail you’ve forgotten, a rather important one. If I’m going to be your travelling nanny, I kind of need to know where we’ll be travelling to.’

Ah, yes. Another good point. He cleared his throat. ‘Italy,’ he said. ‘We’re going to Venice.’

Ruby’s hand shot out, her long slender fingers stretched towards him. ‘Done.’ He half expected her to spit in her palm, but she just looked steadily at him.

He encased her smaller hand in his own, feeling the warmth of her palm, the softness of her skin. Something tiny but powerful tingled all the way up his arm. He shook her hand. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said, his voice rumbling in his own ears. ‘You’re hired.’

But as he pulled his hand away he started to wonder if he knew exactly what he’d got himself into.

CHAPTER THREE

RUBY SHOULD HAVE realised when the limo driver gingerly put her hastily packed canvas rucksack into the boot that this journey was going to be different. She was used to travelling, used to crowded terminals in international airports teeming with the whole spectrum of human life. She was used to queuing just to buy a bottle of water and browsing the endless shops filled with travel gadgets in order to fill the time. She was used to playing ‘hunt the chair’ in the departure hall, and dozing on it with her jacket for a pillow when she found one.

She was not used to hushed and elegant lounges in small city airports, free food, drink and entertainment. Even though her father could easily afford to fly business class everywhere, he refused to, preferring what he called ‘real’ travel. If he wasn’t squished into Economy or standing at a three-mile queue at Immigration it wasn’t a real trip. Of course, the public loved him for it. Privately, Ruby had always wondered why dust and the ubiquitous Jeep with dodgy suspension were more ‘authentic’ than air-conditioned coaches these days, but she wasn’t daft enough to argue with him. He was disappointed in her enough already.

She sighed. It had been better when Mum had been alive. Even though she’d done exactly the same job, travelled along with him and presented the programmes alongside him, she’d always been good at hugs and sending postcards and presents to boarding school to let Ruby know that just because she was out of sight, it didn’t mean she was out of mind. Her father was no good at that stuff. And after she’d died he’d channelled his grief into his work, meaning he lost himself in it more than he ever had done before.

Ruby found herself a spot on the edge of a designer sofa in the lounge and reached for the bowl of macadamia nuts on the table in front of her, only scooping two or three out with her fingers and popping them quickly into her mouth, then she returned to doodling on a paper napkin with a pen she’d pulled out of her bag.

It was supposed to have been easier once the journey got under way. She’d thought that at least the ‘travelling’ part of being a travelling nanny would be inside her comfort zone. Wrong again, Ruby. And she didn’t even have anything work-related to do to keep her mind off her awkwardness, because Sofia, obviously exhausted by the sheer graft of tantruming half the day, was stretched out on the plush sofa with her thumb in her mouth, fast asleep and completely unaware of her surroundings.

Her new boss didn’t make it any easier. He’d hardly made eye contact with her since they’d left her flat, let alone talked to her. He was a right barrel of laughs.

She filled the short time they had by quickly sketching him as he remained, granite-like and motionless, hunched over his laptop; the only parts of him moving were his eyes and his fingers. She used only a few lines to get the back of his head and his jaw right, leaving the strokes bare and uncompromising, then settled down to reproducing the wrinkles on the arms of his jacket, the soft shock of dark thick hair that was trimmed to perfection at his nape.

Thankfully, once the flight was called and they had to head to the gate and board the plane, Ruby started to feel a little more normal. Jollying a freshly woken toddler along kept her occupied. It wasn’t that difficult. Sofia was a sweet child, even if the quiet curiosity hid a will of steel, like her uncle’s. Poor child must have been scared and upset when she’d seen her mother disappear out of Max’s office without her. It was no wonder she’d screamed the place down.

As the plane began its descent to Marco Polo airport Ruby began to feel the familiar quiver of excitement she always got at arriving somewhere new. She’d always wanted to visit Venice, had even begged her father to go when she’d been younger, but he hadn’t been interested. It was a man-made construction, built on stilts in the middle of a lagoon, and the city itself had few open green spaces, let alone rare wildlife—unless you had an unusual passion for pigeons. Ruby didn’t care about that. She liked cities. And this one—La Serenissima, as it used to be known—was supposed to be the jewel of them all.

It was a disappointment, then, to discover that they weren’t going to be arriving in Venice by boat, as many visitors did. Instead Max had ordered a car to take them along the main road towards the city of Mestre, which then turned onto the seemingly endless bridge that stretched from the land to the city across the lagoon.

Sofia began to whine. Although she’d had that brief nap at the airport, the poor little girl looked ready to drop. Ruby did her best to calm her down, and it helped, but what the child really needed was someone she knew. She might have taken to her new nanny, but Ruby was still a stranger. As was her uncle, Ruby guessed. The sooner she was reunited with her grandmother, the better.

The car pulled to a halt and Ruby looked up. Her face fell. Usually, she liked catching the first glimpse of a new place, seeing it as a far-off dot on the horizon, and getting more and more excited as it got closer and closer. This evening, she’d been so busy distracting Sofia back from the verge of another tantrum, she’d missed all of that. They’d arrived at a large square full of buses. They were in Venice at last, and yet this didn’t look magical at all. The Piazzala Roma looked very much like any other busy transport hub in any busy city.

People were everywhere. They spilled off the large orange buses that seemed to arrive and leave every few minutes, dragging luggage behind them as they set off on foot, maps in hands; or they queued wearily and waited for the buses to empty so they could clamber inside and head back to the mainland.

The driver started unloading the bags. Ruby took her rucksack from the boot before this one had a chance to be snooty about it, then reached inside and unclipped Sofia from her car seat. The little girl grizzled softly as she clung round Ruby’s neck. They walked a short distance to a waiting motor launch on the side of a nearby canal. But Ruby was too busy trying to work out if the sticky substance Sofia had just wiped onto her neck was tears or snot to really pay attention. The boat driver nodded a greeting to Max, and then started up the engine.

For the next few minutes they took a dizzying route through the narrow canals—the equivalent of back streets, she supposed—and she could hardly see more than whitewashed or brick walls, oddly placed ornate windows high up in them, or the odd washing line strung with underwear, waving like unconventional bunting above their heads. But then they emerged onto the Grand Canal and Ruby was glad she was sitting down, with Sofia’s weight anchoring her to her seat in the back of the boat, because she surely would have thumped down onto her backside if she’d been standing up.

She’d never seen so many beautiful buildings in one place. All were ornately decorated with arches and windows and balconies. Some were crested with intricate crenellations that reminded her of royal icing fit for a wedding cake. Others were the most beautiful colours, the old stone worn and warmed by both the salt of the lagoon water that lapped at their bases and the soft sun dangling effortlessly in a misty sky.

She was still sitting there with her mouth open when the boat puttered to a stop outside a grand-looking palazzo. Instantly, two uniformed men dashed out of an ornate wooden door and onto the small, private landing stage, complete with the red-and-white-striped poles, and collected their bags and helped them from the boat. One tried to relieve Ruby of Sofia, but the little girl wouldn’t have it. She clung so hard to Ruby’s neck that Ruby almost choked. She had to make do with letting one of the men steady her as she clambered, a little off balance, onto the small stone jetty.

Ruby looked up. The building was very elegant. Traditional Venetian style, its tall windows topped with almost church-like stonework. Surely nobody real could live anywhere quite so beautiful?

Max must have decided she was dawdling, because he huffed something and turned.

She shook her head slightly. ‘Your mother lives here?’

He thought she was being slow again. She could tell by the way he was looking at her, a weary sense of disbelief on his features. ‘Of course my mother doesn’t live here. It’s a hotel.’

Maybe it was because she was tired and Sofia felt like a lead weight, or maybe it was because this had probably been the strangest day of her life so far, but she bristled. ‘You said we were taking Sofia to see your mother. You didn’t say anything about a hotel.’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she said darkly, and then muttered under her breath, ‘Details, Mr Martin.’

He waited until they had walked through the lobby and were whooshing upwards in a shiny mirrored lift before he spoke again. ‘This is the Lagoon Palace Hotel. Sofia is tired.’ He nodded in her direction, where the child was still clamped onto Ruby’s shoulder like an oversized limpet. It was the first time he’d even given a hint he’d remembered his niece existed since she’d taken over. And, consequently, the fact he’d even noticed Sofia was exhausted took Ruby by surprise. ‘It’ll be a lot less fuss if we settle in here this evening and go and see my mother in the morning.’

Ruby opened her mouth to ask why, then shut it again. A flicker of a look had passed across his features, tensing his jaw and setting his shoulders. She was only too well acquainted with that look. Some people rushed into their parents’ arms after a separation, but other people? Well, sometimes they needed a chance to mentally prepare themselves.

She just hadn’t expected Max Martin, who seemed to have life buttoned up and marching to his tune, to be one of her fellow throng.

* * *

The inside of the Lagoon Palace was a surprise. Ruby had expected it to be full of ornate furniture, antiques and brocade, but the style was a mix of classic and contemporary. The original features of the building were intact, such as the tall marble fireplaces, the plasterwork and painted ceilings, but the decor was modern, with furnishings in bold, bright colours and rich textures.

The suite Max had booked had a main living area overlooking the Grand Canal and a bedroom on either side. A low, modern sofa in cherry-red velvet faced the windows and two matching armchairs sat at right angles. The end tables were a funky organic shape and the walls were the same colour as the furnishings. Other than that it was all dark wood and pale creamy marble.

Ruby stood in the middle of the living area, mouth open, taking it all in. ‘I was expecting something a little more...traditional,’ she said to Max as she dropped her rucksack on the floor and let Sofia down from where she’d been carrying her. Sofia instantly thrust her arms upwards, demanding to be picked up again.

Ruby sighed and did as commanded. She needed a moment to get her bearings and having a wailing child wouldn’t help. So far she’d felt totally at sea, and she had no idea whether she was looking after Sofia the right way. For all she knew, she could be mentally scarring the child for life.

Her uncle might not have noticed, but she needed to start acting, and thinking, like a real nanny. Tomorrow they’d be meeting Sofia’s grandmother, and, if she was anything like her son, she’d be sharp as a tack, and she definitely wouldn’t be oblivious to Ruby’s shortcomings. The last thing she wanted was to lose this job before it had even started.