Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions: Taming Her Italian Boss / The Uncompromising Italian / Secrets of the Playboy's Bride
- -
- 100%
- +
‘I’ve just put Sofia to bed, and I wondered if you’d like to go and say goodnight? She’s asking for you.’
His chair scraped and he moved to get up. Ruby pushed away from the wall and clasped her hands in front of her. She cleared her throat. ‘I have something to say before you go.’
He stopped moving and looked at her.
She inhaled and let it out again. ‘I’d like to apologise for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean to butt in.’
She’d expected his face to remain expressionless, but she saw a subtle shift in his features, a softening. ‘Thank you.’
He made to go forward and her mouth started off again before she could ask herself if it was a good idea or not. ‘I know what it’s like, you know. My relationship with my father has always been difficult. But I pretend I don’t care, that it doesn’t get to me. That it shouldn’t matter after all these years...but it does.’
She was rambling, she knew she was. But she couldn’t seem to shut up.
‘So I just wanted to say that I won’t comment on your family any more and that I’ll try and be a little bit more professional in the future.’
He’d been right. She should keep her nose out. Not in the least because this silent, dedicated man was starting to tug at her heartstrings, but also because she was just the nanny, and getting sucked in definitely wasn’t part of her job description.
He nodded and glanced towards the door. ‘I’d better go and see Sofia before she falls asleep.’ And then he walked down the wide corridor without looking back.
Ruby sagged back against the library wall and looked up. She hadn’t noticed before, but painted cherubs were dancing on the ceiling, blowing flutes and twanging harps. For some reason, she got the feeling they were mocking her.
* * *
If there was one room Max hated more than any other in his mother’s house, it was the dining room. Most people were left speechless when they walked inside for the first time, at least for a few moments, then the exclaiming would begin.
Apparently, his great-grandfather had had a fondness for whimsy, and had commissioned an artist to paint the whole room so it resembled a ruined castle in a shady forest glade. Creepers and vines twined round the doorway and round the fireplace. Low down there were painted stone blocks, making the tumbledown walls, and above, tree trunks and leaves, giving glimpses of rolling fields beyond. It even carried on up onto the ceiling, where larks peered down and a pale sun shone directly above the dining table. It was all just one big lie.
The table only filled a fraction of the vast space, even though it seated twelve. Max sat down at one of the three places laid at one end and scowled as his mother sat at the head and Ruby sat opposite him. He hadn’t liked being manoeuvred into this whole arrangement and he wasn’t going to pretend he liked it any more than he was going to pretend they were sitting in a real forest glade enjoying the dappled sunshine. He was just going to eat and get out of here. The plans he’d left on the desk only a few minutes ago were already calling to him.
‘My family were successful merchants here in Venice for five hundred years,’ his mother told Ruby as they tucked into their main course. ‘But now I live more simply and rent the other parts of the house out.’
Max saw Ruby’s eyes widen at the word ‘simply’. As always, his mother had no grip on reality, and no awareness of how other people carried on their lives. He tuned the conversation out. His mother was busy regaling Ruby with stories from the annals of their family history, both triumphant and tragic. He’d heard them a thousand times, anyway, and with each telling the details drifted further and further from the truth.
Then his mother ran out of steam and turned her attention to their guest. Well, not guest...employee. But it was hard to think of Ruby that way as she listened to his mother with rapt attention, eyes bright, laughter ready.
‘So, tell me, Ruby, why did you decide to become a nanny?’
Ruby shot a look in his direction before answering. ‘Your son offered me a job and I took it.’
Fina absorbed that information for a moment. ‘You didn’t want to be a nanny before that?’
Ruby shook her head.
‘Then what were you?’
Max sat up a little straighter. He hadn’t thought to ask her that during their ‘interview’. Maybe he should have. And maybe Ruby was annoyingly right about details being important on occasion.
Ruby smiled back at his mother. ‘Oh, I’ve been lots of things since I left university.’
He leaned forward and put his fork down. ‘What course did you take?’
‘Media Studies.’
Max frowned. ‘But you don’t want to work in that field, despite having the qualification?’
She pulled a face. ‘I didn’t graduate. It was my father’s idea to go.’ She shook her head. ‘But it really wasn’t me.’
His mother shot her a sympathetic look. ‘Not everyone works out the right path first time.’
Max snorted. If these dinners had been his mother’s plan to soften him up, it was backfiring on her. Every other word she uttered just reminded him of how she’d selfishly betrayed the whole family. She might not have been a Martin by birth, but she’d married into the institution, and if there was one rule the family lived by it was this: loyalty above all else.
If his mother had heard the snort, she ignored it. ‘You must have had some interesting jobs,’ she said to Ruby, smiling.
Ruby smiled back. ‘Oh, I have, and it’s been great. I’ve made jewellery and I worked in a vineyard.’
‘In France?’ Fina asked.
Ruby shook her head. ‘No, in Australia. I did that the year after I left university. And then I just sort of travelled and worked my way back home again. I tended bar in Singapore, worked on a kibbutz in Israel. I did a stint in a PR firm, I joined an avant-garde performance company—that was too wacky, even for me—and I’ve also busked to earn a crust.’
His mother’s eyebrows were practically in her hairline. ‘You play an instrument?’ she asked, taking the only salvageable thing from that list.
Ruby gave her a hopeful smile. ‘I can manage a harmonica and a bit of tap dancing.’
Lord, help them all! And this was who he’d thought was exactly what he needed? No wonder his sensible plan was falling to pieces.
‘And will you stay being a nanny after this? Or is it on to the next thing?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I know this sounds stupid, but I see the way my father loves his work, and I want to find something that makes me feel like that.’
His mother leaned forward. ‘What does your father do?’
Ruby froze, as if she realised she’d said something she shouldn’t. She looked up at them. ‘Oh, he makes nature programmes.’
‘What? Like Patrick Lange?’ his mother exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘I loved his series on lemurs! It was fascinating.’
‘Something like that,’ Ruby mumbled.
Now it was Max’s turn to freeze. Lange?
‘Your father’s Patrick Lange?’ he asked, hardly able to keep the surprise from his voice. The man seemed such a steady kind of guy. Max could hardly believe he had a daughter like Ruby.
She nodded and returned to eating her pasta.
‘How marvellous,’ his mother gushed and then the smile disappeared from her face. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry about your mother, Ruby. It was such a tragedy. She was such a wonderful woman.’
Ruby kept her head down and nodded.
Max racked his brains. There had been a news story... Oh, maybe fifteen years ago? That was it. Martha and Patrick Lange had always presented their nature documentaries together until she’d contracted some tropical disease in a remote location while filming. She’d reassured everyone she was fine, that it was just a touch of flu, and had carried on, reluctant to abandon the trip. By the time they’d realised what it was, and that she’d needed urgent treatment, it had been too late. She’d died in an African hospital a week later.
Max watched Ruby push her pasta around her plate. He knew what it was like to lose a parent, and it had been bad enough in his early thirties. Ruby could have only been...what? Nine or ten?
‘Anyway,’ Ruby suddenly said, lifting her head and smiling brightly. ‘I’d like to find my perfect fit. My niche.’
His mother, who had finished her meal, put her knife and fork on her plate and nodded. ‘There’s no sense in doing something if your heart isn’t in it.’
There she went again. He’d just about forgotten about being angry with her for a moment, distracted by Ruby’s sad story, but she had to dig herself another hole, didn’t she? It just proved she would never change.
His mother must have noticed the expression on his face, because she stopped smiling at Ruby and sent him a pleading look. He carried on eating his pasta. She tried to smile, even though her eyes glistened in the light from the chandelier.
‘Well, maybe being a nanny will be your niche. You’re a natural with Sofia.’
‘Thank you, Fina.’ Ruby smiled, properly this time, and the gloom of her previous expression was chased away. How did she do that? How did she just let it all float away like that, find the joy in life again?
‘Massimo wanted to be an architect since he’d got his first set of building blocks,’ his mother said. Her face was clear of the hurt he’d seen a few moments ago, but he could hear the strain in her voice. ‘He always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.’ She turned to him. ‘He would have been so proud to know you’d secured the commission for the Institute of Fine—’
Max’s chair shot back as he stood to his feet. ‘Don’t you dare presume to speak for my father,’ he said through clenched teeth. His insides were on fire, yet his skin felt as cold as ice. ‘In fact, I’d rather you didn’t mention him at all in my presence.’
And then he turned and strode from the room.
CHAPTER SIX
MAX STARED AT SOFIA, who was currently sitting on one of his mother’s sofas, staring at him expectantly. Gone was the sunshine of the previous day, replaced by a low, drizzly fog. It would probably clear up by the afternoon, but that didn’t help him now.
There would be no walk this morning, no playing ball games in the street or a nearby square. Unsurprisingly, there weren’t many parks in Venice, so children had to make do with whatever outside space the city presented to them. He tried to rack his brains and think what he’d done as a boy on his visits here, but most of his memories were of when he was older, involving boats or other children.
Ruby walked into the room. He hadn’t seen her since last night, and had almost got used to the bright strawberry-covered dress. Her attire was once again completely different, but somehow it seemed less of a jump this morning. Today she looked like a groupie from a rock band, with skinny jeans, a black T-shirt and a multitude of necklaces and bangles. Her dark, purple-streaked hair also seemed to be standing up a little more than usual.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
Max nodded.
Ruby must have seen the panic in his eyes, because she smiled that soft little I’m-trying-not-to-make-it-look-as-if-I’m-laughing-at-you smile. He gave up any pretence of competence.
‘What do I do?’ he asked, gesturing towards the windows.
She shrugged. ‘Do something she likes to do.’
Marvellous suggestion. Great. That was the whole point. ‘But I don’t know what she likes to do.’
He searched around the room. His mother didn’t have many toys, just a few in the bottom section of an antique sideboard. He opened the door and started to rummage. When he was halfway through pulling things out, most of them puzzles and board games far too old for his niece, he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He twisted his head and found Sofia grinning at him. ‘Dat!’ she announced firmly, pointing to a cardboard box.
Max reached for it and opened the lid. It contained the brightly coloured wooden blocks that Sofia had been playing with yesterday. As he stared at them, the way they were worn, how the paint had been knocked off some of the corners and edges, he realised they’d once been his. Sofia nodded, walked over to the large rug that filled the middle of the room and sat down on it, waiting.
Well, at least he knew what to do with bricks, even if they were this small. He started arranging them into a small structure, but Sofia wasn’t happy with that. ‘Build pinsess!’ she said firmly, tugging at his shirtsleeve.
Max looked at her. ‘Huh?’
‘Build pinsess,’ she repeated, looking at him as if he should have no trouble obeying her command. He looked up at Ruby helplessly.
‘I think she’s saying “build princess”.’
He was still lost.
Ruby chuckled. ‘I think she wants you to build her a fairy-tale castle.’
Max looked down at his rather square, half-finished house. Great. Now the Institute of Fine Art weren’t the only ones who weren’t pleased with an original Martin design.
‘What does a fairy-princess castle look like?’
Ruby got down on the rug beside them and started gathering bricks. ‘The basics are there,’ she said. ‘You just need to embellish a little.’
She leaned forward to pick up another brick and Max caught the scent of her perfume. He would have expected her to wear something bold and eye-watering, like too-sweet vanilla or pungent berries, but it was a subtle mix of flowers and spices. It made him forget where he’d been about to place the next brick.
He shook himself and found somewhere, even though he was sure he’d had a different spot in mind when he’d picked the thing up.
They finished the main structure then added turrets and a drawbridge. Ruby even went and found a blue scarf from her luggage and they circled it round the castle like a moat. Sofia took a role as site manager, instructing the adults where she wanted the next tower built and letting them know in no uncertain terms when their efforts didn’t meet her expectations.
‘She’s reminding me of someone else I know,’ Ruby muttered under her breath.
Max hid a smile. Seriously, he was not that bad.
She reached for a red triangular brick at the same time he did and their hands bumped. She pulled back and rested her bottom on her heels. ‘No, you have it. You’re the expert.’
He picked it up and dropped it into her hand. ‘This isn’t a job I can accomplish on my own. I think the finishing touches require some definite feminine input to come up to our patron’s high standard.’
She grinned back at him. ‘She is a bit of a slave driver.’ And then she put the brick above the main gate, making a porch, instead of the obvious place where he would have put it on top of the central turret. When she’d finished she stood up and brushed the carpet fibres off her black jeans.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked, realising he was disappointed she was leaving.
He told himself it was because he needed her there as backup, that he didn’t want to be left alone with Sofia. What if she started crying again?
‘It’s lunch time,’ she said, smiling. ‘I think Sofia is getting hungry.’
Max checked his watch. So it was. He’d forgotten how much he’d loved these blocks as a boy, how many rainy days just like this one he’d spent in this room, building forts and skyscrapers and alien space stations.
He stood up and surveyed the creation they’d made together. Despite its flouncy, OTT design, he was quite proud of himself. And Ruby and Sofia, obviously. This really was a spectacular castle. He’d enjoyed himself, remembered just how much joy could be had from building and creating when the pressure wasn’t on. And he’d enjoyed the good-natured banter and arguments about which door should go where and just how ridiculously high Sleeping Beauty’s tower should be. Instead of feeling burdened and irritated, he felt...
It took him a while to name the sensation. Probably because it had been absent from his life for so long.
He felt relaxed.
‘That’s you relieved of duty for the morning, then,’ Ruby said and held out her hand for Sofia and asked her if she’d like lunch in Italian. Sofia nodded vigorously and began to tell Ruby exactly what she’d consent to eat. The list consisted of mainly chocolate and flavours of ice cream. Ruby just smiled and led her away and Max was left staring at Sofia’s castle.
The smile slowly slid from his face. The tiny rainbow-coloured castle might have turned out well, but he still had no idea how to add the same flair to his design for the institute. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and trudged back to the library. For some reason, he didn’t think turrets and a moat would be a hit with his clients.
* * *
Rather than the pearly mist of the day before, which had draped the whole city in soft, off-white tones, the next morning was bright and loud and colourful. Instead of setting the blocks up in the living room, Max led Ruby and Sofia outside to the dock.
A minute later they were zipping through canals heading for somewhere Max said was a prime spot for what he had in mind. Ruby stared at the ‘equipment’ he’d brought with them that sat in the bottom of the boat. She guessed they must be doing fishing of some kind, because there were a couple of buckets, some nets and a line of dark wire, wrapped round a plastic reel, with a weight and a hook at one end.
She looked down at the toddler in her arms. Didn’t fishing require patience and silence? She wasn’t sure how much of a good idea this was.
She didn’t have the heart to mention that to Max, though. All traces of the frown that had been permanently etched into his forehead since she’d first met him had disappeared, and he looked calmer, more relaxed, as he drove the little boat through narrow and wide canals, manoeuvring it expertly with only a slight twist of the wheel here and there.
They moored alongside a wide path beside a smallish canal. They were deep in the heart of the city, far enough off the beaten track to have left most of the tourists behind. Max hopped out of the boat and held out his hands for the tackle. Ruby passed him Sofia first, and reminded him to hold her hand tightly. She then picked the buckets and nets up and placed them on the edge of the stone path before clambering out herself.
‘What now?’ she asked, slightly breathlessly.
Max stared at the opaque green water. ‘Now we put our line down and see if we can catch any crabs.’
‘Crabs?’ That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all.
He nodded. ‘Every Venetian child knows how to fish for crabs. At certain times of year, when young ones have shells that are still soft, they are considered a local delicacy.’
‘Are you sure Sofia’s going to—?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly. ‘But why don’t we give it a try?’
There wasn’t much Ruby could say to that, so she stood by and lent a helping hand where she could, holding on to Sofia while Max carefully explained to her what they were going to be doing and started to put some bait on the hook. He didn’t let Sofia touch that bit of the line, but lowered it slowly into the dark water, allowing her to hold on to the plastic reel, but keeping his hands over hers.
They waited for a short while and then he slowly drew the line up again. Nothing. Ruby waited for Sofia to start fidgeting, but she seemed to be fascinated. She clumsily helped Max unreel the line again, frowning in concentration.
Ruby almost laughed looking at the pair of them. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before, but the family similarity smacked her right between the eyes. The same dark eyes, same cheekbones. They even pursed their lips in the same manner as they stared at the dark twine hanging in the water.
After a minute or so, Max helped Sofia wind the line up again, and this time a tiny green-and-brown mottled crab was hanging from the end. It was hanging on with grim determination, as if it had decided it was his dinner on that hook and he wasn’t giving it up for anybody.
Sofia squealed. Ruby shot forward, meaning to comfort her, but she realised when she saw the little girl’s eyes shining that the noise had been one of delight, not fear. In fact, Sofia was so pleased with her catch that she reached out to grab it as Max tried to gently shake it from the line into a bucket he’d filled with canal water.
Then came another squeal. This one high-pitched and urgent. It seemed Sofia had been a little too enthusiastic, and the crab had thought her a little too tempting, because it had clutched on to her with its free pincer. Ruby quickly darted in and shook it away, but Sofia’s eyes filled with tears and she looked at her hand in horror. ‘Naughty!’ she said vehemently. ‘Bad fish!’
Ruby scooped her up and gave her a hug, then bent to kiss the red patch on her finger. The skin wasn’t broken and she was probably more surprised and offended than in real pain. She pulled back and smiled at the little girl. ‘He just liked you so much he didn’t want to let go,’ she told her.
Sofia’s eyes grew wide. ‘Fish like me?’
Ruby nodded. ‘He’s a crab, not a fish, and, yes, I think he thought you looked very tasty.’
Sofia screwed up her face and chuckled heartily. ‘Silly fish,’ she said leaning over the bucket and peering at her catch. ‘No bite Sofia. Kiss.’ And she puckered up her lips and bent over farther. Ruby caught her quickly before she got any other ideas.
‘Why don’t we see if we can find him a friend?’ And she indicated where Max was waiting with the crabbing line.
Sofia grinned. ‘Want lots and lots friends.’
So that was what they did for the next forty-five minutes—found lots and lots of friends for the little green-and-brown crab. Ruby and Max worked as a team, keeping a firm hold on Sofia when she got over-excited and tried to lean too far over the water, and dealt with crabs and bait when needed. After the first handful of attempts they settled into an easy rhythm, giving them lulls in the action while the bait dangled in the water.
Ruby took an opportunity to look around at the buildings. She wished she had her sketchpad with her—and a free hand—so she could draw them. ‘There are so many wonderful shapes to be seen in this city,’ she said, sighing. ‘What’s that called?’ She showed Max the building on the far side of the canal, where the stonework around a window curved to a point at the top.
‘It’s an inflected arch,’ he said.
‘It makes me think of far-off lands and tales of Arabian nights.’
‘It’s interesting that you say that, because a lot of Venetian architecture has Eastern influences. Merchants travelled to the Byzantine Empire and traded with the Moors and they came back and combined those shapes with the European gothic architecture to create a unique style.’
She pointed to another building. ‘And what about those ones? They’re beautiful. At first it just looks like intricate shapes, but then you can see that the fussier patterns are actually made up of intersecting circles.’
He turned to look at her and didn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘You have a good eye for shapes.’
She shrugged and then bent down to help Sofia shake another crab off her line into the bucket. ‘Thank you. I like to draw sometimes. I suppose it’s just something I’ve picked up.’
Max took the line from his niece for a moment and worked out a few tangles before giving it back to her. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing when I’ve seen you scribbling away in that notebook of yours?’
She nodded. She hadn’t realised he’d noticed. ‘It’s just a hobby. Nothing impressive, really.’
‘You haven’t thought of making a career out of it?’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘Seeing as you’ve tried everything else?’
‘Ha, ha. Very funny. Go for the easy target, why not?’ Everyone else did.
‘Seriously, if you love it so much, why don’t you do something with it?’
She tipped her head to one side. ‘You mean, like you did?’
‘I suppose so.’
She looked down at the water below them, at the way the light bounced off the surface, moving constantly. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to do what you do. It’s very structured and disciplined. When I draw, I just go with the flow. I see something that interests me and I capture it. I’m not sure you can make a career out of that.’