Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions

‘This is Sofia’s nanny,’ Max said, this time joining his mother in her native language. ‘I hired her especially for the trip.’

‘Ruby Lange,’ Ruby said and offered her hand, hoping it wasn’t sticky, and then continued in her best Italian, ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’

Max’s mother just turned and stared at her son, tears filling her eyes, and then she set off up the staircase again, this time at speed, her heels clicking against the stone. ‘You have insulted me, Massimo! Of all the things you could have done!’

Max hurried up the stairs after his mother. ‘I’ve done nothing of the sort. You’re making no sense at all.’

He’d reverted to English. Which was a pity, because when he spoke Italian he sounded like a different man. Oh, the depth and tone of the voice were the same, but it had sounded richer, warmer. As if it belonged to a man capable of the same passion and drama as the woman he was chasing up the stairs.

Ruby turned to Sofia, who was looking up the staircase after her uncle and grandmother. Once again, she’d been forgotten. Ruby wanted to pull her up into her arms and hug her hard. She knew what it was like to always be left behind, to always be the complication that stopped the adults in your life from doing what they wanted. ‘What do you say, kiddo? Shall we follow the grown-ups?’

Sofia nodded and they made their way up the stairs. It was slow progress. Sofia had to place both feet on a step before moving to the next one. Her little legs just weren’t capable of anything else. When they got halfway, Ruby gave up and held out her arms. The little girl quickly clambered up her and let her nanny do the hard work.

Well, that was what she was here for. Or she would be if Signora Martin didn’t think she was so much of an insult that she threw Ruby out on her ear. Max hadn’t been wrong when he’d mentioned drama, had he?

When she got to the top of the stairs the decor changed. There was wood panelling on the walls and the ceilings were painted in pastel colours with intricate plasterwork patterns. Every few feet there were wall sconces, dripping with crystals. If this explosion of baroque architecture and cluttered antique furniture was what Max had meant when he’d called Venetian style ‘fussy’, she could see his point.

The ‘discussion’ was still raging, in a room just off the landing. The space must have been huge, because their voices echoed the same way they would in a church or a museum. His mother’s was emotive and loud, Max’s steady and even. Ruby was glad her soft shoes didn’t make much noise and she crept in the direction of the raised voices, Sofia resting on her hip.

‘You’re never going to forgive me, are you?’ his mother finally said softly.

Ruby crept a little closer. The room had double doors, which were still standing where they’d been flung open, and she peeked at the interior through the gap next to the hinges.

Max’s mother closed her eyes and sadness washed over her features. ‘That’s why you brought the nanny, wasn’t it? You think I’m not fit to look after my granddaughter on my own. Was I really such a terrible mother?’

This was getting too personal, Ruby realised. It was time to back away, leave them to it. She’d just have to find somewhere to hide out with Sofia until the whole thing blew over. Surely there must be a kitchen in this place somewhere?

She retreated a couple of steps, but she’d forgotten that she was much less nimble with Sofia increasing her bulk and she knocked into a side table and made the photo frames and lamp on it jangle.

There was silence in the room beyond. Ruby held her breath. A moment later Max appeared in the doorway and motioned for her to come inside. Ruby would rather have drunk a gallon of lagoon water, but she really didn’t have much choice. She hoisted Sofia up into a more comfortable position, tipped her chin up and walked into the room.

It was a grand Venetian salon, with a vast honey-coloured marble fireplace and trompe l’oeil pillars and mouldings painted on the walls in matching tones, with mythic scenes on the walls in between. A row of arched windows leading onto a stone balcony dominated the opposite side of the room, and three large green sofas were arranged in a C-shape, facing them. But the sight that Ruby was most interested in was the stiff figure in the pink suit standing in the middle of the room.

‘Ruby isn’t here to usurp you, Mamma. I hired her partly to help me bring Sofia over here with minimum fuss, but also because I thought she could help you. Why should you have to cancel your social engagements, alter your plans, for the next couple of weeks because of Gia’s work problems?’

The other woman’s features softened a little, and she looked a little ashamed. She turned to face Ruby and held out her hand. Ruby let Sofia down and the little girl ran to the window to look at a speedboat that had just shot down the medium-sized canal beyond.

‘Serafina Martin.’ She smiled warmly and shook Ruby’s hand firmly but very briefly. ‘But everybody calls me Fina. I apologise most sincerely for not welcoming you to Ca’ Damiani when you first arrived, but I do so now.’

Ruby replied in her best Italian. ‘Thank you, Signora Martin, for your welcome and for opening your home to me, if you do decide you could do with my help. I’m afraid this is my first job as a nanny so I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.’ She glanced at Max, who was watching her carefully. ‘You’ll probably have to help me more than I’ll help you.’

A small flicker of approval, and maybe relief, passed across the other woman’s features. Fina tilted her head. ‘Your Italian is very good.’

Ruby kept her smile demure. ‘Thank you.’

Fina’s gaze swept over her dress and then up to her head. ‘But your hair is not. Purple?’

She shrugged. ‘I like it.’

For the longest moment Fina didn’t move, didn’t say anything. She didn’t even blink, but then she smiled. It started in her eyes and moved to just lift the corners of her mouth. ‘Bene. What do I know? I am old and out of touch, probably, and I like a woman who follows her own path.’ And then she turned and swept out of the room. ‘Come, Massimo! We have to decide what you are going to do about this child.’

* * *

Max stared at his mother. ‘What do you mean you want me to stay here, too?’

That hadn’t been the plan at all. The reason he’d brought Sofia here was because now was definitely not the moment to take an impromptu holiday. He couldn’t let everything he and his father had worked for slide.

His mother did that infuriating little wave of her hand, suggesting he was making a mountain out of a molehill. ‘You made a very good point,’ she said airily. ‘I do have plans this week, including earning a living. I can’t take time off at this short notice.’

Max’s jaw dropped. ‘You have a job?’

She turned her head to look at him. ‘Why is that so hard to believe? Yes, I have a job. I work for a real estate company in the mornings, helping them dress and present their luxury properties.’

He shook his head, hardly able to believe it.

‘You are straying from the point, Massimo. It is not important where I work, but how we are going to do the best for Sofia.’

He frowned. ‘I know that, Mamma. That’s why I came to you in the first place. It just isn’t possible to keep her in London with me. There’s a work issue that’s at a very crucial point and I can’t give her the time and attention she deserves.’

‘You know I adore having Sofia with me, but do you think I keep this place running because money falls from the sky? I also have urgent work to do.’

He shot a glance across at his travelling nanny. She was kneeling on the carpet, helping Sofia build a house out of colourful blocks. Max didn’t know where they’d come from. His mother must have had them stashed away somewhere. ‘But that’s why I brought Ruby.’ He’d thought of everything, made it simple and easy. Why was his mother turning this into a problem when there was none?

‘The poor child is upset and away from her mother. When I’m not here, she needs to be with someone she knows.’

She looked the picture of innocence, perched on the edge of a green damask sofa. The high windows let in the soft light of the May morning, basking her in an almost saintly glow.

‘But she doesn’t know me, either.’

His mother frowned. ‘I thought Gia had said that you were in regular contact now.’

‘We text, mainly,’ he mumbled. ‘And she comes into the city to have lunch every couple of months, but she doesn’t usually bring Sofia with her.’

He rather suspected she deliberately chose the days Sofia was at nursery, so she could come up to town and have a few hours to herself. She very kindly always picked the best places, and always let her brother pay.

‘Texting is not communicating! It is not the same as a smile or a hug or a warm word. One cannot build relationships through one’s phone.’

He shrugged and his mother did another one of her famous hand gestures. Not the little elegant hand-flap, this one. Both arms flew above her head and she stood up and walked over to stare out of the windows onto the canal below. ‘Then this is the perfect opportunity for you to get to know her. You really should. She is your only niece, after all.’

If that wasn’t an example of his mother’s own brand of circular logic, he didn’t know what was.

‘But she cries every time I look at her,’ he said, more than a little exasperated. ‘I try to talk nicely to her but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I’d stay if it were different, but it’s hardly the best thing for Sofia to leave her with me on my own if that’s the case.’

‘But you won’t be on your own,’ his mother said, far too silkily for his liking. ‘You’ll have Ruby.’

They both transferred their gazes to the travelling nanny. Ruby, who must have sensed two pairs of eyes on her, stopped what she was doing and looked up at them from under her fringe. Max had a lightning stab of revelation. Ruby had already proved very useful when it had come to Sofia, perhaps she could be more useful still. Perhaps he could enlist her as an ally. He sent her a silent message with his eyes.

Ruby’s lips twitched. ‘It’s true,’ she said, looking at his mother. ‘She does cry most of the time when she’s near him. They don’t know each other at all. He’s not even sure how old she is.’

His mother reached across and slapped his leg. Quite hard, actually. ‘Massimo! Honestly!’

She turned to look at Ruby, and Max had the feeling he was being pointedly ignored for the moment. ‘She’ll be three in a month,’ his mother said in Italian, and then she and Ruby had a brief exchange about when Sofia’s birthday was and what sort of things she liked to do. He was quite surprised at how good the nanny’s Italian was, to be honest. He hadn’t even known she spoke it. Just went to show his instincts about her had been right, even if she did make each day look as if she’d raided a different fancy dress shop.

However, when Ruby and his mother started getting into what time was bedtime and favourite snacks, he decided that enough was enough. He stood up and walked closer to them. ‘Can we just get back to the matter in hand?’ he said, maybe a little abruptly.

Both women stopped talking and looked at him. They wore identical expressions. Max had the horrible sinking feeling that maybe he’d been right about Ruby being a good ally. He just wasn’t sure she was his.

‘I need to know this kind of stuff, actually,’ she told him. ‘And you weren’t much help.’

Details.

He could almost hear Ruby’s mental whisper that followed.

That was enough to set his mother throwing her hands in the air again. When she’d calmed herself down by walking over to the fireplace and back again, she fixed him with a determined expression. Max knew that look. It meant she’d made up her mind about something, and budging her from that viewpoint was going to be about as easy as asking the whole of Venice to pick up her skirts and move a little further out into the lagoon.

‘I have made a decision,’ she announced. ‘I would like nothing more than to have my lovely granddaughter here for a visit.’

He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. ‘Thank you, Mamma.’

His mother drew herself up and put on her most regal air. ‘But I will allow it on one condition.’

What?

‘I won’t take Sofia unless you stay, too,’ his mother told him, folding her arms across her chest. ‘You cannot live your life cloistered away in that stuffy office of yours, communicating to those you love through bits of technology. It’s high time you lived up to your family responsibilities, Massimo.’

Max almost choked. His family responsibilities? That was rich!

He opened his mouth to argue, but didn’t get very far. He became aware of a small but insistent tugging on the left leg of his trousers and looked down to find his niece standing there. She was trying to pull him in the direction of the pile of blocks on the rug near the fireplace.

His mother just smiled at him. ‘She’s not crying now, my darling son, and you said you’d stay if she stopped.’ She looked over at her granddaughter. Warmth and joy flared in her eyes. ‘It seems I am not the only one who has made my mind up about this—Sofia has, too.’

CHAPTER FIVE

MAX AND HIS MOTHER had had a long conversation out on the balcony, ironing out the details of her ultimatum. When they returned, Fina knelt down on the carpet beside Ruby and Sofia and joined in their game of piling up bricks into tall towers for Sofia to knock down again.

Fina smiled and laughed, totally absorbed in her granddaughter, while her son stood, towering and silent on the fringes of the room. Ruby shot him a sideways look and found him staring back at her. She swallowed. She felt a little guilty that she’d ended up unwittingly providing Fina with leverage to use against him, but not guilty enough to regret she’d done it.

Despite Fina’s superior manner and haughty words, Ruby had seen the way she’d looked at Max. That was a mother hungry for her son’s company and, just like a child who’d settle for negative attention when they couldn’t get praise, in desperation she’d taken whatever she could get.

Funnily, Ruby warmed to Fina for that. She wished her own father looked at her that way sometimes, but she’d never once got the impression from him that he was hungry for more of her company. No, he’d seemed perfectly content to push her out of the nest at an early age.

‘I’d better go and check out of the hotel and get our bags,’ Max finally growled.

Ruby stood up and brushed her skirt down. ‘I’ll help you.’ That was the least she could do.

He scowled at her, indicating she’d done enough already. She ignored it and followed him as he headed out of the door. She had to trot to keep up with him as he marched down the corridor and down the sweeping staircase.

‘So, what’s going on?’ she finally asked. ‘I presume we’re staying, for a short while, at least.’

Max sighed. ‘My mother and I have come to an...arrangement.’ He shuddered slightly, as if the idea of compromise was an abhorrent concept.

He was doing it again: failing to fill her in on the important stuff. ‘Which is?’

Max stopped on the stairs and turned, hands still in pockets. ‘My mother has agreed she will care for Sofia when she’s free, with your help, of course, but only if I stay for a minimum of seven days. Otherwise she’s happy to escort us all to the airport where we can catch the next plane back to London.’

Ruby’s face crumpled into a bemused smile. ‘She’d really do that?’

He grunted and set off again. ‘You have no idea how stubborn my mother can be when she puts her mind to it.’

Ruby didn’t reply to that. The only response that came to mind was that maybe he was more like his mother than he realised, and she’d got herself into enough trouble already with him this morning.

She studied the back of his head carefully as she followed him down the stairs. Did he really not get that this ultimatum had nothing to do with his sister’s childcare issues and everything to do with Fina wanting to repair the gaping breach in her family? Ruby had also gone to extreme lengths to get just a crumb of her father’s attention in her teenage years, and she understood completely why Fina had done it.

‘And what about the Institute of Fine Art? The plans?’

He turned as he reached the ground floor, looking surprised.

‘Couldn’t help overhearing you on the phone last night. And then there are the drawings littered all over the suite...’

Max ran a hand through his hair as they emerged from the palazzo onto the dock and wearily took in the grand and crumbling buildings around them. ‘I’m in Venice...’ he said, and she sensed he was quoting his mother verbatim. ‘The most beautiful city in the world. What better inspiration could I have?’

* * *

Thankfully, Max discovered his mother hadn’t disposed of the little motor launch that had once been his grandfather’s. By the looks of it, she’d kept it in immaculate condition. The varnish wasn’t peeling and the navy paint on the sides was fresh and thick. He jumped in, stood behind the small windscreen and slid the key into the ignition to start it up. Ruby, unmissable in that damn strawberry dress, clambered in hesitantly then plopped down on the seat at the back. He put the boat in gear and set off through some of the narrower canals.

He’d spent every summer here as a boy, even before his parents’ divorce, and it amazed him that, even though he hadn’t driven a boat here in more than two decades, the old routes and back-doubles came to him easily. His passenger didn’t say much. She spent most of the journey to the Lagoon Palace looking up at the tall buildings, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide. It was only when they moored the boat a short distance from the hotel’s private jetty, where only the dedicated shuttles from the bus and train stations were allowed to dock, that Ruby began to talk again.

‘So, what are the finer points of your agreement with your mother? You can’t have spent that long arguing about it without going into details.’

He sighed as he led her up a narrow cobbled calle between buildings and out onto a wider one that led to the foot entrance of the hotel. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to win his mother over to his plan from the moment he’d stepped out onto the balcony with her. He had, however, managed to broker a deal that meant his stay here would be on his terms.

‘I have conceded to spend a couple of hours each morning with Sofia while my mother is at work and to attend a family dinner each evening.’ He couldn’t help the slight tone of disgust in his voice at the word ‘family’.

She kept up pace, slightly behind him. ‘And what did she concede?’

‘That I should have the rest of the time to work on my design and do my business.’

‘Will that do?’

He stared straight ahead and looked grim. ‘It will have to.’ As they entered the hotel through the street entrance he sighed. ‘What’s the alternative? At least this way I’m only tied up for seven days, instead of two weeks or more in a totally unsuitable apartment. Aside from the fact you’d be trying to stop Sofia breaking her neck every moment of the day, I’ve only got one bedroom.’

Ruby swallowed and her face grew just a little closer to the shade of her dress. ‘No, I can see that would be a...’ she swallowed again ‘...problem.’

‘I don’t know why she does these things. For some reason my mother isn’t happy unless she’s creating havoc in everyone else’s lives as well as her own.’ He shook his head.

They’d arrived at the suite now, and the next quarter of an hour was spent packing up their belongings. And then they checked out and headed back to the boat. Max carried his bag, his laptop case and his document tube, and she took care of her own rucksack and Sofia’s bag.

He decided to take a less direct, but maybe more scenic, route back. If she’d liked the little crumbling buildings of the back canals, she’d love some of the palazzos on the Grand Canal. He pointed a few of them out to her, telling her a few of the famous stories connected with them, many of which he guessed had been embellished over time with a healthy drop of the Venetian love for drama and spectacle. She chatted back, asking him questions and laughing at the more ridiculous tales, so it kind of took him by surprise when she suddenly said, ‘I don’t think she’s done this to cause trouble, you know. I think she just wants to spend time with you and, yes, she’s gone about it a back to front kind of way, but she’s not asking anything terrible, is she?’

He didn’t say anything. Just stared straight ahead. Suddenly he didn’t feel like playing tour guide any more.

He should have remembered this one was different, that she wasn’t like his employees at the firm, that she liked to say things she shouldn’t and be inquisitive. None of them had ever dared to comment on his personal life. But then he’d never given any of them a personal tour of Venice, either.

He thought about what she’d said and let out a low growl of a laugh.

‘What?’ she asked, never one to miss an opportunity to stick her nose in.

‘Now, maybe, my mother seems like that,’ he said gruffly, ‘but she’s a hypocrite.’

Despite the bustle and noise of the city—the purr of outboard motors, the noise of the seagulls and pigeons and the ever steady hum of a million tourists’ exclamations—the air around them went very still. He’d shocked her into silence, had he? Well, good.

‘She deserted my father and left him broken-hearted. He never got over it. So don’t talk to me about family loyalty.’

He turned to look over his shoulder, wanting some grim satisfaction in seeing her squirm, but instead he found her looking at him, her eyes large and warm. He looked away again.

‘How old were you when she left?’ she asked softly, almost whispering.

He forgot to ask how she’d guessed, too caught up in a sideswipe of memories that left him gripping the steering wheel so hard it burnt his fingers. ‘Fourteen,’ he answered hoarsely. ‘She said she didn’t want to disrupt my education, so she took Gia and left me in London.’

There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice this time. ‘That was thoughtful, wasn’t it?’

He made that same almost animalistic sound that could pass as a laugh again. ‘It was an excuse. I’m too like my father, you see. Or I was. He died five months ago.’

There was a shuffling noise behind him. He couldn’t resist a quick glance. Now he’d got what he’d wanted. Her cheeks were flushed red and she was looking down at her flat little black ballet pumps.

‘Don’t get sucked in,’ he warned her. ‘She’s not what she seems. Nothing is what it seems in this city.’

* * *

Nothing is what it seems in this city.

Ruby heard the words inside her head as she stood outside the library door.

It was pure Venice, wasn’t it? To have a proper room designated as a library in your palazzo, not just a flat-pack bookcase stuffed under the eaves in your poky little attic flat. Max had decided to use it as his office while he was here, and he was inside now. She could hear him tapping away on his laptop keyboard, along with the odd rustle of paper.

Not even you, Max Martin, she thought, as she knocked softly on the door. Or should that be Massimo?

All she got in response was a grunt. She took it as an invitation.

Max didn’t look up straight away when she pushed the door open and slid inside to stand with her back pressed against the wall, hands tucked behind her. The library was small compared to some of the other rooms in the apartment, but it shared the same high ceilings and leaded windows. Two of the four walls were filled with bookshelves, and Max sat at a desk placed up against the dark green silky wallpaper of one of the other walls.

It had been a whole twenty-four hours since she’d seen him doing exactly the same thing in the hotel suite, but somehow she felt as if she were looking at a completely different man.