- -
- 100%
- +
www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
HERE at last. Dark, freezing cold, but for the first time in months Roberta felt some of that desperate unhappiness and awful, sickening sense of shame begin to lift from her shoulders.
She relaxed in the taxi, her eyes flickering interestedly over everything.
The taxi driver was chatting to her, capitalising on the fact that she was new to his city to boast about absolutely everything. And with good cause.
Toronto by night was marvellous. As the car weaved towards the heart of the city, there was something vital about the illuminated buildings that soared upwards, intent on reaching the stars.
In the distance, by the harbour front, he pointed out the magnificent CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the world, and Roberta gasped in awe at the slender column, rising upwards to its distinctive bubble before narrowing to needle-like slimness as it stretched upwards. Look at me, it seemed to be saying; in this concrete jungle I am the undisputed king.
There was nothing like this in London. Roberta frowned. She didn’t want to think about London. It made her depressed. She had come here in the hope of clearing her mind. The last thing she needed was to find herself pursued across the waters by her unhappiness.
‘How long you over here for?’ the taxi driver asked, and she dragged her attention away from the striking city skyline.
‘A month,’ she said. Would four weeks abroad really do anything?
‘Funny time of the year to pick for a long vacation,’ he responded, curiosity in his voice, and Roberta replied noncommittally, ‘I don’t mind the cold. It’s refreshing.’
He smiled and fell silent, leaving her with her thoughts.
It still seemed an incredible piece of good fortune that she had managed to land this job, even though she was well qualified for it.
She had been doing au pair jobs for the past two years. It had started out as a way of earning money while she considered various other options, but she had enjoyed it so much that those various other options had gradually faded into the background.
She was, she supposed, suited to it. She was a calm, self-possessed person, and she had quickly found that her capacity for patience had a quelling effect on even the most brattish of her charges.
Her friends all thought that she was mad. Why, they had uniformly asked her when she had first started, do you want to waste your university education on looking after spoilt two-year-olds?
But now she was glad that she had done so. How else would she have ever got an overseas job?
Of course, this was a slightly different one from those she had previously had. Emily was no toddler. She was a fourteen-year-old girl and, from what Roberta had read between the lines at her interview at the agency, a rather lonely little girl.
No mother, father hardly ever at home. The sort of domestic background that bred problems. She was doubtless terribly shy and insecure.
She found herself drifting off into speculation, only realising that they had reached their destination when the taxi stopped outside the house.
Roberta absent-mindedly paid the driver and stepped outside, gaping at the massive edifice facing her as he carried her luggage to the front door.
‘Well, have a good time,’ he said cheerfully, and she nodded distractedly. She had known that her employer was wealthy, but she certainly had not been prepared for this degree of wealth. No wonder the child’s father had no time for her, she thought wryly. He would have to work all the hours God made just to maintain a place of this size.
She tentatively rang the doorbell, hearing it reverberate distantly in the bowels of the house, and hoped that they wouldn’t be too long because it was cold outside. A dry, biting cold which seemed to work its way through her layers of clothing until she could feel its fingers pressed against her flesh.
She shivered and was about to ring the doorbell once again when the door was opened by a middle-aged woman wearing an ill-humoured expression.
Roberta ignored it and smiled.
‘Good evening,’ she said as warmly as she could through chattering teeth, ‘I’m—’
‘Yes, yes,’ the woman said, ‘I know who you are. You’re late. We expected you two hours ago.’
She ushered Roberta through, helping her with her cases, grumbling under her breath.
‘I should have been home by now,’ the woman muttered. ‘I had to stay here with Emily.’
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Roberta began. ‘Surely Mr Adams—’
‘Mr Adams works late most nights,’ the woman cut in with disapproval in her voice.
‘I see.’ She didn’t see at all. It was nearly ten o’clock, for heaven’s sake! Apart from anything else, had he no interest in meeting the woman employed to look after his daughter? Rude, Roberta thought. A workaholic with no manners.
‘I’m Glenda Thornson, by the way—the housekeeper,’ the woman introduced herself, slightly less ill-tempered now that she could sense departure imminent on the horizon.
‘Pleased to meet you.’
Mrs Thornson was already moving towards the staircase and Roberta followed her. ‘It’s a lovely house.’
‘Not when you have to clean it.’
Roberta laughed and got a grudging smile in response.
She looked around her, appreciating the warm golds and yellows of the large hallway, and the tasteful interspersing of mahogany-framed paintings on the walls.
‘Where is Emily?’ She directed the question to the strait-laced back ahead of her and Mrs Thornson responded without turning around.
‘Asleep. Thank God. I’ll show you to your bedroom and then, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Yes,’ Roberta said quickly, drily aware that any other answer would have met with a frosty reception. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t terribly hungry anyway, even though she had eaten hardly anything on the flight over.
‘Well, the kitchen is on the ground floor to the right of the house, and the fridge is well-stocked. There’s some salad stuff, cold meats, and bread in the bread bin.’
They had arrived at the bedroom and Roberta stepped in, her face lighting up at the sheer luxury.
A huge bed, framed at the back by magnificent flowered drapes that fell to either side, dominated the room. On the floor, a massive rug picked up the colours of the curtains and the rosy tints of the antique furniture.
Mrs Thornson had retreated to the door and coughed pointedly.
‘I’m just off, Miss Greene,’ she announced. ‘If you’re sure that there’s nothing that you want...’
Roberta smiled. ‘A few hours’ sleep might be a good idea,’ she replied, just as eager to be on her own as Mrs Thornson was to leave the house.
‘Fine. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, no doubt.’
With that she vanished, and Roberta carefully began unpacking, preferring to get it over with rather than be confronted with the task the following morning. Every so often she stopped to admire tiny details in the bedroom: the exquisite clock on the dressing-table, two small oval-shaped paintings on either side of the windows, the tapestry cushions on the bed.
Grant Adams clearly had taste, or more probably had paid someone who had to decorate the house.
The little touches, though, spoke of a female touch. Was this how Emily spent her time when she was not at school, perhaps? Trying to instil atmosphere in a place which, if left to her workaholic father, would have no doubt been an empty shell?
Roberta had seen enough of workaholics in her job to know that they rarely noticed their surroundings. They were invariably middle-aged men, their faces creased with lines of stress, who only seemed to come alive when discussing their work.
She was about to stick her suitcase into the wardrobe when a girl’s voice said from behind her, ‘So you’re the au pair grandmother insisted on importing.’
Roberta spun around. This was certainly not the child she had imagined. Long, black hair fanned out around a face that was sullen and suspicious.
‘Yes, I’m Roberta Greene and you must be Emily,’ she said, rapidly realising that this girl definitely did not while away her spare time adding female touches to the house.
‘Who else?’ She strolled into the room and sat on the bed, idly fingering the remnants of clothes to be stored away and staring openly at Roberta.
‘I’m sorry, I would have looked in on you but your housekeeper told me that you were asleep. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.’ Roberta smiled.
‘No, it’s not.’ Green eyes narrowed on her with biting dislike. ‘Not for me, anyway.’
‘Then why,’ Roberta continued in the same polite voice, ‘did you agree to having an au pair?’
‘It was you,’ Emily responded sourly, ‘or my vile relations in New Hampshire. I wanted to go to Europe with Grandmother, but she refused. I suppose she thought that the next best thing was a European au pair.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Or maybe she just thought that once you were over here it would be more difficult for you to leave.’
‘More difficult for me to leave?’ Roberta repeated warily.
‘Sure. The last two au pairs I’ve had didn’t last a week, never mind four.’
This, Roberta thought, removing her clothes from within Emily’s reach, was not what I had expected.
‘What did you do to them?’ she asked mildly. ‘Frogs under the pillows? Buckets of water in strategic positions?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Emily’s face flushed. ‘I’m not a child!’
‘Aren’t you? Silly me, I thought you were fourteen. The interviewer at the agency must have got it wrong.’
‘Very funny,’ Emily snapped, but there was reluctant interest in her eyes now. ‘Is that a British sense of humour? I suppose you think you’re clever, do you?’
‘Not at all!’ She sighed and looked calmly at the girl. ‘Look, we’re going to be together for the next few weeks. Why don’t we call a truce and try to be friends?’
‘Friends?’ Emily sniggered. ‘I may be stuck with you, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I intend to become friendly with you.’ She stood up, and pulled her dressing-gown tightly around her angular frame.
Her little hands were clenched around her, and Roberta saw that the knuckles were white. Much as she wanted to pose a threat, Roberta could see that underneath she was little more than a defensive child. A product of her upbringing.
She felt a surprising twinge of anger directed against the child’s father. Couldn’t these sort of people see the effect that their obsession with work had on those closest to them?
Emily was still scowling at her, and she glanced at her watch. ‘Perhaps you’d better be off to bed now. We can continue this discussion in the morning.’
‘Don’t worry. That’s precisely where I intend going. I just thought that I’d come and check you out myself.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Emily.’
The sentence was scarcely out of her mouth before the girl had flounced outside, slamming the door shut behind her.
Oh, lord, Roberta thought, sitting on the bed, this is definitely a far cry from a spoilt toddler who could be appeased with ice-cream in the park and trips to the zoo.
She tried to remember what the interviewer had said about Emily. Very little, from what she could recall, apart from the barest of facts. That she was fourteen, and lived with her father and her grandmother, and that she was between schools.
And Roberta had asked very few questions. She had been so keen to get the job that she had accepted what she had been told rather than miss the opportunity to leave England by appearing too inquisitive and choosy.
For instance, where was the mother? Were Emily’s parents divorced, perhaps?
She was beginning to get a headache from thinking about it, and on the spur of the moment she hurried downstairs, tentatively making her way towards the kitchen.
Like the rest of the house, it was sumptuously fitted out. The counters were a mixture of frosted oak and multi-coloured granite, and overhead a hanging shelf supported a range of plants which trailed downwards.
She poured herself a glass of milk and settled at the round kitchen table to drink it, mulling over in her head what other surprises lay in store for her.
Perhaps a few vicious Dobermanns that the interviewer had also failed to mention? She grinned to herself, feeling decidedly better now that there was something in her stomach.
It suddenly struck her that she had not given any thought to her own problems ever since she had stepped foot into the house. Maybe a difficult teenager was just the tonic she needed, she thought. Not that Emily was difficult. Probably just unhappy. She glanced around her and thought how lonely it must be for a young girl to be surrounded by such vastness, a vacuum which surely an ageing grandmother and a father who was absent most of the time found impossible to fill.
She carefully washed her glass and was heading back to the bedroom when the front door opened. Or, rather, it was pushed open forcefully, and the sight of a man framed by the blackness outside, the biting wind blowing his black coat around him, made Roberta’s blood freeze in her veins.
She had never been confronted by a more alarming sight. The sheer height and power of the man startled her, and it wasn’t helped by the expression of aggression on his face as his eyes raked over her mercilessly.
He slammed the door behind him without taking his eyes off her and slipped off his coat to reveal a superbly tailored grey suit, which somehow did nothing to lessen the impression of savage power that had initially struck her.
Roberta remained standing where she was, glued to the spot, too terrified and fascinated by the vision in front of her to move a muscle.
Then he spoke, and it struck her that his voice somehow matched the rest of him. Deep but hard, with a hint of menace behind it.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ he asked grimly, striding towards her.
Roberta cringed back, her eyes wide, her self-control for once deserting her. Alarm had replaced reason and her mouth was half parted in fear.
Her brain had somehow started functioning again, though, enough for her to recognise after the initial shock that this must be Emily’s father. The same dark, almost black, hair, the same peculiar shade of green eyes, but his features were harsh and arrogant. It was a striking face, one that forced you to look at it, and which, once seen, was never forgotten.
‘I asked you a question,’ he bit out. He was close to her now, towering above her. With a swift movement, he reached out and grasped her by her arm, shaking her out of her immobility. ‘Who the hell are you? Some friend of Emily’s? Is this my daughter’s idea of a sick joke?’
Anger suddenly replaced fear and Roberta’s lips compressed tightly. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said icily, but, instead of that having the desired effect, he shook her again, sending her hair flying around her face.
He’s mad, she thought with a jolt of panic. I’ve managed to land myself a job looking after a wayward teenager with an insane father. Why else would he be behaving in such a bizarre fashion?
‘If you don’t let me go at once, I’m going to scream,’ she said unsteadily, staring up into his ferocious green eyes.
‘Is that a threat? Because if it is, you seem to have forgotten whose house this is.’
His voice now was quite calm, but all the more disturbing for that.
‘Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on here, or do I have to shake it out of you?’ His voice left her in no doubt that he was prepared to do precisely that and she shivered.
Common sense told her to hang on to her self-control, but something about this man, quite apart from his behaviour, unsettled her. Everything about him was overpowering.
‘I’m Roberta Greene,’ she replied as calmly as she could, feeling like someone who had suddenly found themselves in a lion’s den and was trying to find the right placatory tone of voice to enable them to leave in one piece. ‘I’m here to look after your daughter.’
There was a long silence while he surveyed her at leisure and with the same glint of ruthless hostility in his eyes.
‘Well, Miss Roberta Greene, I don’t know how you managed to land this job, but you can forget about unpacking, because you’re going to be on the next flight out of here.’
‘What?’ Roberta looked at him, confused. ‘Why? What are you talking about?’
He gave her a scathing look and then proceeded to half pull, half drag her towards the massive left-hand wing of the house, into which she had not ventured.
Roberta wriggled against him, desperately trying to free herself from his iron grip, but it was useless. She was no match for his strength, and in the end she abandoned the effort, her mind whirling in confusion.
What was going on here? I should never have accepted this job after all, she thought, I should have known that it was too good to be true. Doesn’t fate make a habit of tripping you up?
Something was terribly wrong here. There was no way that this man’s behaviour could be classified as normal.
She was suddenly aware of the silent spaciousness around her.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, her voice uneven from the exertion of keeping pace with him.
‘Don’t you know? I’m sure you can suspect.’
He pushed open a door on the right and switched on the light, which threw the room into instant clarity. It was a large den. In one corner there was an old-fashioned desk with a computer terminal perched incongruously on top of it and the walls were lined with bookcases which groaned under the weight of books of every description.
‘Well, Miss Roberta Greene,’ he addressed her tightly, swinging her around, ‘tell me that this is a shock to you.’
Roberta stared in front of her at a large portrait which had not been visible from the door. It was of a woman of a similar age to her, wearing a forced smile on her lips.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, curiosity overcoming her confusion.
‘My wife, as you well know,’ he said derisively.
‘Why should I know?’
‘Don’t tell me that it was sheer coincidence that you applied for this job. Look at the portrait. Can’t you see the resemblance?’
Roberta focused on it and she reluctantly saw what he meant. They both had red hair, pure natural red, unadulterated by any shade of brown or auburn and, from what she could see, the same grey, widely spaced eyes.
But there any resemblance stopped. Roberta’s hair was cut in a neat bob that hung to her shoulders, and far from being neat and plain, which was how she considered herself, there was something untamed about this woman in the portrait. Her hair was a mass of curls, her eyes wild and knowing.
Was this what lay behind his accusations?
‘What are you trying to imply?’ she asked coldly, turning to face him. Her colour had returned to normal, and that alarming, addled feeling she had had a moment ago had subsided.
‘Put it this way,’ he said in an unyielding voice. ‘It isn’t the first time that someone has tried to wheedle her way into my affections, or should I say my money, by playing on a resemblance to my late wife.’
Roberta stared at him, taking in the hard contours of his face. Was there any woman brave enough to try and wheedle her way into this man’s affections? she wondered. He didn’t strike her as the sort who could be wheedled into anything. In fact, he looked the sort who played situations to suit himself, and to hell with the rest of the world.
‘Late wife?’
‘Yes, late,’ he snapped impatiently. ‘She died some years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I. Sorry that you turned up here.’
‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong about me,’ Roberta informed him calmly.
‘Oh, are you really? Afraid that I’m quite wrong about you?’ He stared back at her until she flushed, and then the harshness in his face softened slightly into amusement.
Roberta felt a surge of anger which she quickly stifled. She could see what he was thinking clearly enough because he couldn’t be bothered to hide it. He saw her as a prim little English woman, with nothing of that tigerish grace of his late wife, and he found it laughable.
She didn’t care, but on the other hand she didn’t see why she should have to put up with being the butt of his humour merely because he happened to be her employer.
‘Quite frankly, and I’m sorry to dent your ego, I had never heard of you until I applied for this job.’
‘I may be Canadian,’ he drawled, ‘but my face is well-known in the business circles in your country. As was my wife’s.’
She detected a certain inflexion in his voice at the mention of his wife and she put it to the back of her mind.
‘I don’t know a great deal about business,’ Roberta said, folding her arms across her chest and not caring for the way he raised one eyebrow at the movement. ‘I’m an au pair, not a stockbroker. I really wouldn’t know a prominent businessman from a bank clerk. I also,’ she continued, irritated with herself for being addled by those brilliant-green eyes, ‘consider it very rude that you haven’t seen fit to introduce yourself.’
‘Are you usually so uptight?’ he asked, ignoring her question and moving to sit in the leather armchair, where he proceeded to scrutinise her with infuriating thoroughness.
‘I’ve just been dragged through your house,’ Roberta replied through gritted teeth, ‘subjected to wild accusations—naturally I’m a bit tense at the moment.’
‘Naturally.’ He was laughing at her, even though his face was serious.
‘And you still haven’t introduced yourself,’ she flared. ‘I take it that you’re Emily’s father.’ She knew who he was, of course, but that didn’t mean that it excused his lack of manners.
‘You’re like a schoolteacher I once had,’ he said, ignoring her yet again. ‘Very prim and always bristling with righteous indignation.’
Roberta was positively fuming now. She hardly ever got angry, but right now she felt like exploding.
‘I seem to remind you of a lot of people, don’t I?’ she intoned politely. ‘I had no idea the world was so full of my look-alikes.’
He laughed at that, and her lips tightened a little bit more.
‘Definitely like that schoolteacher I mentioned,’ he said, ‘and the name is Grant Adams.’
Without that hostility marring his features, she was disturbed to realise, there was something very attractive about this man. Maybe it was that combination of striking good looks and the sense of power that he radiated.
Either way, it alarmed her, because after everything that had happened she should be immune to men, most of all men with charm.
They were dangerous, and danger was one element in her life she could quite happily live without.
‘I wish I could say that meeting you has been a pleasant experience, Mr Adams,’ she heard herself saying, ‘but I can’t.’
‘Let’s hope that time remedies that,’ he murmured, his eyes still glinting as though he found her a diverting novelty. ‘Have you met my daughter?’ He waved her to the other chair in the room and she hesitatingly sat down.
She had hoped that she might be able to leave the room, but he was clearly not in the slightest bit tired. In fact, he looked as though he could have kept going for another few hours at least. If this was his norm, then lord only knew how much sleep he needed. Maybe none. She glanced across at him and decided that he was the type who considered sleep an unnecessary waste of valuable time.