The initial stabbing jolt of fear lasted a half-beat before she relaxed and smiled. Obviously this was a dream—because no man had a face like that.

It was a master class in perfection, Miranda decided as she studied the shade and shadow of the dark fallen angel before her. Sharp angles and strong curves made this a face that went beyond mere symmetrical prettiness.

She stared, feeling an almost physical tug as she looked into velvety dark heavy-lidded eyes fringed by long, spiky lashes.

It was some moments later when, with a small sigh, she let her gaze stray to the fantasy mouth, its sculpted lips somehow managing to be stern and overtly sensual at the same time. The small crescent-shaped scar a few centimetres from the right corner of that extraordinary mouth was startlingly white against the uniform toasty gold of his skin, somehow emphasising how perfect everything else was.

‘Good morning.’

Her eyelashes fluttered against her sleep-flushed cheek. Like the face, the voice belonged in a dream. Deep and throaty, it even had the tantalising hint of an accent. The man with broad, taut, heavily muscled shoulders, a dark shadow on his square jaw, was the sort of man many women’s dreams were made of … though he seemed awfully real for a dream … and wasn’t she awake …?

About the Author

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily, and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Recent titles by the same author:

IN A STORM OF SCANDAL

THE THORN IN HIS SIDE

(21st Century Bosses) A SPANISH AWAKENING (One Night In …) STRANDED, SEDUCED, PREGNANT

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Gianni’s Pride
Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS eleven, a good two hours later than he had anticipated arriving, when Gianni eventually pulled up in the beat-up borrowed four-wheel drive. All things considered, he had decided with regret that the low-slung, sleek, powerful sports model that he enjoyed driving was not really a man-plus-child sort of vehicle—not only did young children not travel light, they were poor respecters of cream leather upholstery—and the rather more upmarket version he used to ferry his son around town was in for a service.

Besides, this was meant to be a low-profile trip; he was dropping off the radar for—if Sam was true to her word—a few days. It could not have come at a worse time from a business and personal perspective.

It was considered something of an honour to be asked to give the keynote lecture at the prestigious international literary festival—the previous year the honour had gone to an ex head of state. After pulling out at the last minute as a mere head of a publishing house, no matter how globally successful a brand it had become, Gianni doubted this accolade would be coming his way any time again soon! He had hopes that the lovely young model he had had to cancel on would be more forgiving but if not … there were other models.

He glanced into the back seat. His son had been asleep five whole minutes—five minutes of blissful silence apart from the worrying knocking noise in the ancient engine. No crying, no howling, no pathetic whimpers and, most importantly, no throwing up! A self-derisive half-smile twisted the sculpted contours of his hard mouth as Gianni reflected on the distinctly patronising note in his response when Clare, Liam’s nanny, had expressed doubts about undertaking the journey without her.

‘It’s late, he’s tired—he’ll probably sleep most of the way. While I accept you’re indispensable, Clare, I think I can muddle through. Enjoy your holiday.’

Humouring her, he had accepted the proffered travel bands and even half listened to her lengthy explanation of how they should be applied to the pressure points on Liam’s wrists to lessen nausea, and then he’d tuned out a great deal of the rest of the advice she gave while privately thinking, How hard can it be to strap a sleeping four-year-old child into the back seat of a car and drive a hundred miles?

He shook his dark head. He was just glad now he hadn’t expressed these views out loud or he would be feeling more of a fool than he already did. He also wished he had not left those travel bands on the table in the hall or given in to Liam’s requests for a burger and fries at the first rest stop. It had been all downhill from there.

Gianni winced now to recall his flippant parting shot.

‘Yes, Gianni, definitely a piece of cake,’ he muttered under his breath as he unclipped the harness of his son’s booster seat, trying hard not to inhale—the wet wipes supplied by a sympathetic woman in the last motorway services had not removed all the smell. Gianni scooped the sleeping child into his arms and nudged the car door closed with his knee, wincing as it banged loud in the still night.

‘Don’t worry, kiddo, it’s bedtime,’ he murmured as the whiffy bundle in his arms gave a cranky protest.

The picture-postcard thatched-roofed house, a white blur against the copse of trees behind, was in darkness. Presumably Lucy, who habitually rose at some unearthly hour to feed the variety of livestock and strays she had accumulated during the past two years, was already in bed. Seeing no point in waking her, and anyway in no mood to hear her inevitable amused critique of his parenting skills—his aunt never had a problem when it came to calling a spade a spade—he made as little noise as possible as he walked across the gravel. Then, balancing Liam on one arm, he reached for the key Lucy kept on the ledge above the door.

The moonlight appeared from behind a cloud as the red-painted door swung inwards, the silvery light illuminating the hallway enough to enable Gianni to make his way upstairs without switching on the lights. After depositing Liam on the bed in the small single room in the eaves of the house, he headed back to the car to grab the bag of essentials that Clare had packed for her charge, before hurrying back.

Liam had not moved an inch. Holding his breath and crossing everything crossable, he gingerly peeled off his son’s soiled clothes. To his relief the boy remained flat out, his breathing soft and even as Gianni replaced them with a pair of fresh pyjamas—a bath would have to wait for the morning. Smoothing the strands of dark hair back from a hot, sticky brow—the poor kid was utterly exhausted—a frazzled Gianni paused, the hard lines of his handsome face softening as he stared down at the cherubic sleeping features of his son, feeling the familiar rush of pride and fierce parental protectiveness.

That he had had any part in producing something so damned perfect still filled him with a sense of astonishment and awe. It might not have been planned, but fatherhood was the best thing he had ever done and from the moment of his birth his son had become the centre of his universe.

Carefully folding down the heavy top cover—it was a warm night—he opened the leaded window a crack, pulled the curtains and cast a last glance at the sleeping child, stifling a yawn as he finally headed for the adjoining room and his own bed. Halfway there he paused. If Lucy woke before him an explanation for the unknown vehicle parked in her yard might be a good idea. Lucy, who had once been the most trusting person on the planet, had reason to be suspicious of strangers. A note, he decided, should do the trick.

The dogs asleep in the kitchen rose to greet him halfheartedly as he went in, rubbing against his legs as he propped a suitable missive up against the cereal box on the big kitchen table. Neat freak Lucy, it seemed, had relaxed a little if the general clutter on the normally pristine work surfaces was any indication. He patted the dogs and made his way back to bed, checking on the sleeping child on his way there.

Ten seconds after Gianni’s head hit the feather pillow he was asleep. It was the sunlight shining through the window that awoke him.

Where am I?

The feeling of disorientation lasted only a moment; it was then followed by another—not so momentary.

This was a first.

He was thirty-two and though there had been some moments in his life he would prefer to forget, none up to this point had involved waking up with a total stranger in his bed.

And she was a stranger because that hair would not be easily forgotten, he decided, momentarily distracted by the remarkable shade of the thick mesh of curls, Titian interwoven with copper threads, spread out on the pillow beside him.

Raising himself on one elbow, he studied the slender back of the sleeping woman, who lay with one arm curled under her head, the other draped over the patchwork quilt. His glance travelled from the unvarnished neat nails up the curve of her arm. She had a redhead’s skin, pale and milky, lightly dusted with freckles along the curve of her shoulder and the nape of her neck where there had been sun exposure.

As far as he could tell she was naked. If anyone had walked in now they would assume … Was that what this was about—some sort of elaborate scam …?

The cynical furrow between his dark brows smoothed as he rejected the half-formed theory. Getting paranoid, Gianni, he told himself.

His eyes narrowed in effort as he kick-started his brain into sluggish life. Think, Gianni … focus … first, ditch conspiracy. This couldn’t be a set-up—nobody knew where he was. This he had made damned sure of. Gianni had tracked down enough people who had wanted to disappear to know that a secret stopped being a secret the moment you shared it.

That left …?

That left a big fat zero. Who was the naked woman with the silky-looking skin? His dark gaze caressed the smooth curve of her shoulder. Really silky … focus, Gianni! More important than identity was why was she here and in his bed?

Except it wasn’t his bed, was it? And it wasn’t his house.

His deep-set almond-shaped eyes framed by long thick black lashes widened as an explanation occurred to him. Was it possible the girl had been in the bed when he had climbed in too tired to register the warm body lying beside him?

Not only possible, you idiot—probable!

Presumably waking and finding a stranger in her bed would not be a good way for her to meet Lucy’s house guest. Gianni felt a stab of irritation. Obviously he was glad that Lucy had decided to take his advice and stop being a total recluse—he just wished that she hadn’t got sociable just yet.

He reached carefully for the quilt, curling his long brown fingers around the edge as he kept a cautious eye on the sleeping woman. Removing himself from the bed before she woke up was definitely desirable. His narrowed gaze left her briefly to make an impatient sweep of the room. Where had he left his clothes last night …?

Caught half naked in a woman’s bed. Gianni could see the tabloid headlines now and none of them said innocent mistake!

He spotted his clothes, but too late—at the same moment the sleeping figure yawned and stretched luxuriously, the sinuous catlike movement sending the sheet slithering lower to reveal the dip of her slender waist and feminine flare of her hips below.

Gianni winced, then, about to slide out from under the quilt, paused, fatally distracted as his eyes were drawn against his better judgement to the smooth, slender, womanly curves, lingering on the suggestion of a dimple above the swell of taut, peachy buttocks. Then the moment was gone—she murmured something and began to roll over, tugging the quilt up to her chin and snuggling down.

Gianni inhaled and prepared himself for the worst. Always, in his opinion, a good idea—a man could always be pleasantly surprised.

Let’s just hope she has a sense of humour!

In the event she didn’t scream. After blinking like a sleepy kitten, she smiled in warm, sleepy invitation—or maybe she was just short-sighted. Either way, lust bypassed the logic channels in his brain and Gianni caught his breath and lost his sense of urgency.

She was beautiful.

As usual Miranda woke sixty seconds before the alarm was set to go off. This morning it had been set to go off early. Her house-sitting duties involved more than the feeding of the family pets she had imagined and, having a strongly developed work ethic, she was determined to fulfil every task that her new employer had outlined so meticulously in one of her lists—there were a lot of lists.

The menagerie all had names that were not quite sorted in Miranda’s head yet: the ancient horse, the Shetland pony and the donkey, even the ducks and hens. Her employer had jotted down the list in her own neat hand. She had jotted a lot down, including a cleaning schedule that to Miranda, who didn’t mind a bit of clutter, seemed a little excessive, but she was being paid, and paid quite well, for having what her dad had called a holiday. That was before she had admitted that actually she wasn’t going back at the start of the new term; she had handed in her notice. Her paid holiday had then become a demeaning job for someone with her skills and qualifications.

Miranda sighed and wriggled a little deeper into the soft mattress, refusing to replay the argument in her head. She was escaping, not running away. The distinction was important and her actions long overdue … Think positive.

Although she hadn’t welcomed it at the time … Oh, all right, she had pretty much felt as though the sky had fallen in on her head and she still couldn’t bring herself to say it was a good thing, but if it hadn’t been for her sister Tam sweeping the man Miranda had wanted to grow old with off his feet things could have gone on as they were indefinitely, with her cutting a pathetic figure hoping that one day Oliver would notice she was something other than a dependable teacher of domestic science.

No, not dependable, exceptional, Miranda silently corrected in line with her new philosophy of ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’. If she’d flaunted her not at all bad figure in the sort of designer clothes that Tam wore it was possible that Oliver would have noticed more than her raspberry muffins.

Heartbreak aside, Miranda realised she actually felt good. She normally had a problem sleeping in a strange bed but last night she had gone out like a light and, apart from some strangely realistic dreams that were already slipping away, she had slept through the night. Perhaps it was a good omen.

Eyes still closed, she rolled over towards the window set in the uneven wall where the age-blackened exposed oak beams stood out dark against the bright blue paint. There were a lot of bright colours in the cottage. It had been a combination of the view across the rolling countryside from the window and those beams that had made Miranda select this room when Lucy Fitzgerald had said she could choose any one she liked—that and the enormous, hedonistically soft bed with the carved wooden headboard.

‘Lush,’ she murmured sleepily under her breath as she snuggled into the layers of feather mattress. Her right hand brushed the headboard, her left touched warmth and hardness … Still half asleep, she slowly turned her head.

The initial stabbing jolt of fear lasted a half beat before she relaxed and smiled. Obviously this was a dream because no man had a face like that.

It was a masterclass in perfection, Miranda decided as she studied the shade and shadow of dark fallen-angel features, fascinated by the sharp angles and strong curves that made this a face that went beyond mere symmetrical prettiness. This face represented a perfect combination of planes and hollows, the masterful nose aquiline, the razor-sharp cheekbones high and slanting, the forehead broad and intelligent. Miranda stared, feeling an almost physical tug as she looked into velvety dark heavy-lidded eyes fringed by long spiky lashes and set beneath strongly delineated ebony brows.

It was some moments later when with a small sigh she let her gaze stray to the fantasy mouth, the sculpted lips somehow managing to be stern and overtly sensual at the same time. The small crescent-shaped scar a few centimetres from the right corner of that extraordinary mouth, startlingly white against the uniform toasty gold of his skin, somehow emphasised how perfect everything else was.

‘Good morning.’

Her eyelashes fluttered against her sleep-flushed cheek. Like the face, the voice belonged in a dream. Deep, throaty—it even had the tantalising hint of an accent. The man with broad, taut, heavily muscled shoulders, the dark shadow on his square jaw, was the sort of man many women’s dreams were made of … Though he seemed awfully real for a dream and wasn’t she awake …?

Miranda blew away a curl that was tickling her nose, smelling the musky, spicy scent of warm male and a hint of some sort of male fragrance…. Expensive, she decided. He was an expensive dream man. Her eyes brushed the stubble on his square jaw, following the curve of his sensual mouth. He was also raw and raunchy. Personally she was more into subtle and sensitive when it came to dream men.

Or one dream man. A smiling image of Oliver drifted through her head, a billion miles from raw or raunchy. Her lips parted to release a wistful sigh. Miranda had met her dream man, worked with him on a daily basis and accepted that he just didn’t think of her that way … Then oddly it turned out he did see her sister—identical twin sister, how was that for irony?—that way.

Miranda prided herself on the fact that she had been grown-up about the situation, concealing her pain so well that Tam had remained oblivious to her heartbreak, and avoiding the dreaded knowing looks and sympathy. Even when, on the day before the wedding, her sister had confided that she was pregnant Miranda had somehow said the right thing, though she still had no idea what. She had actually begun to wonder if she had not gone into the wrong profession—she should have been an actor, not a teacher. But there were limits and Miranda knew she’d had to make a break—working in a school where Oliver, now her sister’s husband, was the headmaster was a non-starter.

While she and Tam had never shared the sort of empathic link that Miranda had read some identical twins enjoyed, there was no way even her twin, who was never that interested in things that did not directly involve her, would not catch on soon.

She directed her masochistically inclined thoughts from the imagined idyll Tam was enjoying on a Greek island with her bridegroom and concentrated on the man lying beside her. Now he was definitely raw—actually raw hardly covered the smouldering, in-your-face sexuality he exuded from every pore … The man she was looking at?

There’s a man in my bed!

Her horrified gasp was drowned out by the alarm clock that began to shrill. It stopped when she lobbed it at the strange man’s head and in a seamless motion, her sleepy contentment a dim memory, produced a stumbling exit from the bed modestly wrapped, in the best tradition of old movies, in most of the bedding.

Eyes like saucers, clutching the quilt to her heaving bosom, she stared at the man lying there, trying not to think about the draught that was cooling her exposed bottom. The adrenalin in her veins was telling her to run, but to get to the door she had to get past the bed. Thoughts racing, hyperventilating dramatically, she glanced longingly towards the open door that connected with the next room, but her feet remained nailed to the spot as she was submerged by a massive wave of visceral, paralysing fear.

Attack, they always said, was the best form of defence … Act like a victim, she had read somewhere, and you became a victim.

‘Don’t move an inch!’ Or what, Miranda? Her chin lifted, the defiance in her attitude an attempt to mask her fear as she played for time, waiting for her legs to move. ‘Or y-you’ll r-regret it!’

He had to have heard the quiver of fear in her voice … but on the plus side he hadn’t made any attempt to move. If he had … Miranda’s glance slid down the long, lean length of the stranger. Even in his present recumbent position his physical superiority was pretty apparent. His lean body was heavily muscled, not an ounce of spare flesh masking the power and vitality of a man at the peak of physical fitness.

He looked like the sort of fitness fanatic who could run marathons back to back without breaking sweat. He could swat her like a fly if he wanted to … Swatting was actually the least of her worries at that moment … Refusing to speculate on his intentions, she tried to breathe past the frantic pounding of her heart as, not taking her eyes off him, she surreptitiously reached out behind her for her phone. She could remember leaving it on the bureau the night before … Hadn’t she?

CHAPTER TWO

ONE hand pressed to his eye where the alarm clock she had lobbed as she exited the bed—not before he had got a glimpse of a lovely pert little bottom—had landed a glancing blow, Gianni looked at her through his uncovered eye and held up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. It did not take a genius to figure out what she was thinking.

‘Relax. This is a simple misunderstanding … a mistake …’ he soothed, making eye contact and experiencing a flicker of shock as he registered the quite extraordinary colour of her wide long-lashed eyes.

Extraordinary enough to make him briefly lose focus—an event in itself for the ultra-controlled Gianni—the deep, dark green made him think of cool, quiet forests, and the tiny flecks of amber recalled dappled sunlight shining through the foliage as she stared at him as though he were a coiled snake about to strike.

‘You mistakenly climbed in through the window and mistakenly took off your clothes and mistakenly got into my bed … That’s a lot of mistakes.’ Mine might be not keeping my big mouth shut, she thought as, picking up some of the slack of the quilt that trailed on the floor, she threw it awkwardly over her shoulder. Her rear now concealed by a heavy fold of fabric, she continued to feel exposed, just not to the elements.

Was the husky little rasp in her voice normal or a product of fear? Either way the tactile quality was extremely attractive, so much so that Gianni found himself curiously impatient to hear her speak again even if it was to hurl some more abuse.

‘When you put it like that it does sound bad,’ he admitted. ‘But I really am totally harmless.’

Do not hyperventilate, Miranda!

Struggling to maintain her hard-fought-for air of bravado, she sketched a tight little smile and thought, Sure you are … Anything less harmless than the man sprawled there like some sort of macho centerfold—after registering he was wearing nothing but an insubstantial pair of boxers she had kept her gaze above the waist—would have been hard to imagine.

He oozed sinister sexuality and was probably insane to boot! A predatory man had climbed into her bed … She shuddered—had he touched her …?

Her stomach responded violently to the lurid images forming in her head. ‘God, I think I’m going to be sick!’ she groaned suddenly as she dropped her chin to her chest, the blood draining abruptly from her face.

Her voice made even this prosaic statement sound seductive! ‘I’m getting that a lot.’

The dull metronome thud thud of her blood as it pounded against the delicate membrane of her inner ear drowned out his dry words.

What had Lucy said before she left …? I hope you won’t be bored. I’m afraid nothing interesting ever happens here. What would her employer call this—a slow Friday morning?

‘This is all an innocent mistake.’

She inhaled a deep sustaining breath and lifted her head, fixing the intruder with a look of loathing. ‘Do you say that to all the women you try to molest?’ Amazingly her voice was steady, if on the shrill side.

Miranda’s fingertips brushed the phone before she heard it fall onto the polished boards—damn! Her teeth clenched, she fought down the panic she felt closing like a fist around her windpipe. I will not be some crime statistic. I’ll survive. ‘I’m going to leave now.’ Once I regain control of my limbs.

‘I’m not stopping you.’ People feared his tongue, words written and spoken were his thing, and Gianni had rarely encountered a situation where he did not have the perfect response, but then up until now he’d never been viewed as a potential rapist. He found himself falling back on repetition.

He watched her eyes flicker around the room like a trapped animal seeking an escape route. ‘I’ve told you, this is simply a misunderstanding—a mistake.’

‘Yes, your mistake.’ How come her voice was working and her legs were not? The other way around would have been much more convenient. ‘You disgusting sleaze!’ How come I am saying the sort of things almost guaranteed not to placate a dangerous lunatic? ‘I know self-defence.’

He could see her shaking from here, her eyes didn’t leave his as she watched him, but she had guts, this redhead. Terrified, she still came out fighting. Gianni felt a stab of admiration as he pulled himself into a sitting position.

The action caused the petrified redhead to take a hasty step backwards.

Gianni, who did not like scaring women, produced a smile and struggled to channel harmless and innocuous—not so easy when you were a powerfully built six feet four and practically naked—as he studied the woman hiding behind the quilt she had dragged off the bed, along with half the blanket and sheets that now lay crumpled at her feet, and tried to figure out the best way to defuse the situation.

She was petite and slim and probably younger than Lucy. Though it wasn’t always easy to tell, she had the sort of face that looked perennially young—good bones, he decided, studying her delicate heart-shaped face dominated by a pair of enormous green eyes set above a neat little tip-tilted nose. Noticing that she had a kissable mouth that would be soft and lush when it wasn’t curled into a scared snarl was not going to defuse anything, but it was impossible not to. It was the sort of thing any man could not fail to notice.

‘There’s absolutely no need to freak out this way.’

He actually had the cheek to sound vaguely impatient. Her trill of laughter emerged husky from her bone-dry throat. If ever a situation called for major freaking, this was it!

‘I’m not freaking.’ She had gone beyond freaking!

‘This isn’t what it looks like.’

‘So what the hell is it?’ she snarled, looking so spooked that he was afraid she’d do something crazy like jump through that open window if he made a move to leave. Then, accident or not, her beautiful broken neck would be his fault.

‘Look, there’s a bathroom next door with a really sturdy lock on it. Why don’t you go in there, lock the door and we’ll sort this out?’

Not the sort of suggestion you might expect a potential rapist to make … Miranda did not lower her guard, but her anxiety levels dropped from red to amber. ‘How do you know that the bathroom has a lock?’

Thoughts continued to chase one another in frantic ever-decreasing circles around her head. Was this all part of some sinister plan? Was he playing with her …? Had he cased the joint while she slept? And what about the dogs? Lucy had said they barked at strangers.

‘Did you hurt the dogs? Because if you have … they’re rescue animals and …’

‘I know, they’ve had a bad time.’ Aunt Lucy had typically taken on the most tortured, hopeless canine souls she could find. ‘The dogs are fine,’ he soothed, thinking, For animals that their owner refuses to discipline. ‘Just yell Lucy, she’ll vouch for me.’ He raised his own voice and bellowed. ‘Luce!’

Taken by surprise, Miranda blinked. ‘You know Lucy?’ That had to be good, didn’t it?

Gianni tilted his head in confirmation and raised his voice in another bass bellow. ‘Lucy!’ Before adding in a conversational tone, ‘I really had no idea she had a visitor.’ His dark brows twitched into a sable line of irritation—where was Lucy? If his yell hadn’t roused her it had to have woken Liam. ‘Luce!’

‘She isn’t here.’ She stopped, trying to conceal a stab of dismay as she thought, Way to go, Mirrie! If he didn’t already know you were alone, he does now. And he might indeed know Lucy, but he was still pretty much an unknown quantity and one not to be trusted.

His dark brows twitched into a straight line above his hawkish nose. ‘She’s away?’ He released a hissing sound of annoyance through his clenched teeth and thought, Just my luck. When was the last time Lucy left this place?

‘But she’ll be back any minute.’

The tremor in her voice brought his scrutiny to her face. His dark eyes held understanding as he lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug.

The action made her unwillingly aware of the movement of muscles under the satiny surface of his dark skin. He had the sort of body that would have an artist reaching for a pencil. He had the sort of body that she could imagine incited a less artistic and much more hands-on response!

‘Look, I’m sorry I scared you … It came as quite a shock to me too to find I was sharing.’

‘I’m not scared,’ she lied. Unable to stop her eyes straying to the fuzz of dark hair sprinkled across his magnificent pectoral muscles, she swallowed. The man might look as if he were posing for some cheesy calendar, but he exuded an earthy, raw quality that was not cheesy so much as downright disturbing. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I let myself in with the key. Lucy keeps one above the door on a ledge … Yes, I know, crazy when she’s gone to all the trouble of installing a state-of-the-art security system, but she works on the theory that nobody would ever look in such an obvious place, and in answer to your previous question I know about the bathroom lock … I know where the key is kept because I’ve been here before …’

‘Before? Are you her boyfriend?’

The suggestion drew an unexpected laugh, deep, throaty and attractive. ‘I’m family.’

This time it was Miranda who almost laughed. She might just have swallowed boyfriend, though that would beg the question of why he’d climbed into this bed and not the one in the roomy, pretty master bedroom at the front of the house.

Actually it was not hard to see this man, with his Mediterranean colouring and bold eyes, and Lucy Fitzgerald together as a couple, she mused as she studied his rather too perfect profile … Individually either would stop conversations when they walked into a room. Together they would definitely cause an earth tremor … but family? No way, she decided. Lucy, with her cut-glass accent, was fair-skinned with incredible blue eyes and masses of ash-blonde hair that looked natural. This man, with his bold black eyes, ebony hair and bronzed body, was dark and not just in colouring. There was something elemental and primitive about him … volatile … dangerous.

‘Family?’

He tilted his dark head in acknowledgement. ‘I arrived late and I didn’t want to disturb anyone so … I use this room when I stop over, even though I’ve had the odd concussion when I’ve forgotten to duck.’

He looked sincere, the story sounded genuine, but then she had continued to believe in Santa Claus right up to the moment her more sophisticated twin had disillusioned her a good two years after her contemporaries. Repressing her natural instincts towards annoying gullibility, she struggled to retain a protective level of scepticism. ‘If you say so …’

‘You’re a tough audience, you know that, don’t you? Did you see the photos downstairs?’

Miranda, who had registered the large collection of framed photos on the dresser in the dining room, maintained an uncommunicative silence, but began to consider the possibility he might actually be telling the truth about the relationship.

‘You noticed them?’

She tipped her head in wary acknowledgement. ‘So what are you—her brother?’

He took her sarcasm at face value. ‘No, her nephew.’

‘Nephew?’ She gave a derisive hoot. ‘You’ve obviously never even met Lucy.’

‘You base that on what?’

‘Well, let me see, for one she’s younger than you, and English and you … I don’t know what you are! But I think you heard she was away, thought you’d see if there was anything worth taking, saw me asleep and—’

‘Could not resist the temptation …?’

Miranda felt the colour scoring her cheeks deepen.

‘While I don’t like to boast, it has been known for a woman to voluntarily share my bed,’ he admitted mildly. ‘As for my relationship with Lucy, she is my aunt, and, like her, I’m half Irish. My other half is Italian, hers is English. Lucy is two years younger than me and she is my aunt. Grandad Fitzgerald had three wives and ten children. My father was his oldest and Lucy, who came thirty years later, his youngest.

‘Look at the photos,’ he suggested. ‘You’ll see me in at least two of them … not flattering likenesses but …’ Holding her eyes the way he would a spooked horse, he put his feet on the floor and added in a soft voice, ‘If I was going to lie I’d come up with a much more convincing story, cara.’

Miranda maintained her defensive pose. He looked no less dangerous but on the other hand he had a point: his story was just lame enough to be true …

Gianni produced a smile that Miranda struggled not to respond to.

‘Sling me that shirt and pants, would you? They’re on the chair.’ Actually they were on the floor. He ran a hand down his hair-roughened chest before letting it rest on his ridged and muscled belly. ‘I’m feeling slightly self-conscious here.’

Now that was a lie!

Miranda, whose eyes had followed the movement of his hand from his broad chest to his washboard-flat stomach, lifted her gaze abruptly. Anyone more relaxed about being scantily clad in front of a stranger would be hard to imagine. She, on the other hand, was painfully conscious of her state of undress and even more painfully conscious of his!

Not totally convinced by his story, but no longer feeling he represented a physical threat to her, she kicked the shirt his way, waving her foot in agitation as it caught on her bare toe. Danger gone, her embarrassment was kicking in big time.

Gianni bent forward and picked it up, flashed what Miranda recognised as a grin of practised charm her way and shrugged it on. ‘I’m Gianni Fitzgerald, by the way.’

Miranda ignored both the unspoken invitation to introduce herself and the hand he extended her way. She had less success ignoring the ripple of muscle beneath his satiny skin that accompanied his every action.

After a pause Gianni shrugged. ‘So where is Lucy, and when is she actually due back?’ He arched a sardonic brow. ‘Or is that classified?’

‘She’s in Spain.’ Miranda aimed her response to a point over his shoulder. At least he was putting on some clothes, which was a good thing. The bad thing was that standing there with her modesty covered by the bedding left her feeling no less vulnerable than before.

Standing on one leg, a very long, muscular and hair-roughened leg—not that she was looking—somehow he made the action as he thrust the other into the leg of the crumpled jeans she had kicked across look effortlessly elegant. Prone to clumsiness, she had always envied coordinated people.

‘Why has she gone to Spain?’

If her employer had wanted to tell this Gianni, presumably she’d have told him. Respecting Lucy Fitzgerald’s right to her privacy, Miranda said vaguely, ‘She might be back in a month.’ Actually it was vague—the arrangement had been left pretty open-ended, with Miranda assuring the other woman that she could stay as long as she was needed.

Gianni dragged a frustrated hand through his hair and slid his second leg into the jeans, tugging them up over his narrow hips, zipping the fly, but leaving the leather belt threaded through the loops hanging loose.

His bronzed chest lifted as he sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. Lucy being absent was not a possibility he had taken into account. He’d been relying on lying low here to give Sam the breathing space she had begged. ‘We have a problem.’

‘We?’ Miranda shook her head at the inclusion; she had enough problems of her own without being included in those of a total stranger.

CHAPTER THREE

‘DADDY, I want a drink …’

Daddy …? Miranda’s head turned in the direction of the crabby childish voice.

Her jaw fell and her astonished eyes grew as wide as saucers as she registered the small figure standing in the doorway. He looked to be around three or four, was wearing a pair of pyjamas emblazoned with a cartoon character and clutching a stuffed toy that might once have been a rabbit in his hand.

Her accusing glance switched back to the man who called himself Gianni Fitzgerald. ‘He’s yours?’

Gianni nodded.

Miranda’s attention switched back to the child, who stood there rubbing his eyes with a clenched fist. His lower lip stood out as he walked across to his father and repeated his demand.

‘I want a drink—’

‘Please,’ his father inserted automatically.

Dear God, how heavily had she slept? How many other people were asleep in the house?

‘You’re not Aunty Lucy!’ The child directed an accusing look Miranda’s way from eyes that were, she saw immediately, the same unusual piercing blue as Lucy Fitzgerald’s, his hair was as dark as his father’s, the rosy-cheeked, sun-kissed face feature for feature a childish version of the older man’s.

It looked as if Gianni Fitzgerald really was who he said he was and also some things he hadn’t said he was! Things like married and a father.

Admittedly these were not necessarily the first things that someone said when they woke up and found themselves in bed with a stranger. Nevertheless, on behalf of women who might be interested, and she was guessing there might be more than two or three, a man who was spoken for in her opinion should wear a wedding ring.

Her glance flickered towards his long, brown tapering fingers. He had the hands of a musician or an artist; they were ringless.

Despite the fact that she knew she could now relax—this really had been what he claimed, a mistake, and even if it hadn’t been, a man intent on violent crime did not in general bring his child along—Miranda found herself clutching the blanket tighter. She no longer thought she needed to protect her virtue from a dangerous lunatic, but she might still die, only now from sheer embarrassment!

‘No, I’m not, I’m Miranda … Mirrie.’ She forced a smile for the child. ‘And you’re …?’

‘Careful there, champ,’ Gianni said, reaching out a hand to steady his son as he climbed up onto the bed. ‘This is Liam. Miranda …?’ Dark head tilted a little to one side, he studied her as though deciding if the name fitted; after a moment he nodded approval, so presumably it did.

Miranda turned her head away, aware that his scrutiny had brought a bloom of awareness to her cheeks. She had never encountered a man who had the trick of making the most innocent gesture … intimate.

‘Hello, Liam.’ Her smile faded and her green eyes acquired an unfriendly frost as they moved towards his father. ‘You didn’t tell me you weren’t alone.’

Gianni’s ebony brows arched sardonically. ‘Is that your version of, “I’m sorry, Gianni, I can see now that you were telling the truth—it was a genuine mistake”?’

‘Me apologise to you!’ The words were startled from Miranda.

‘Well, you did assume some very unpleasant things and I have provided you with a dinner-party story that will just give and give.’

She tried not to smile at his martyred expression. The only thing that made his arrogance tolerable—almost—was the fact he appeared to have a disarming sense of humour.

‘I think,’ she replied with dignity, ‘that I had some justification … like waking up and finding you in my bed …?’ As for sharing this incident for the amusement of her friends, Miranda could not at that moment conceive of circumstances when she’d feel like sharing this story.

‘I was mildly surprised myself, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proved guilty is my motto.’

‘Well, don’t worry, you’re quite safe from me,’ she told him with a sniff before adding crossly, ‘Didn’t it occur to you to explain who you were right off and mention that you had your son with you?’

‘I didn’t get much opportunity.’

‘I’m very, very thirsty,’ the child, who was trying to run up and down the bed, complained. ‘And I want to go home. I want Clare—she always leaves me a glass of water by my bed in case I get thirsty in the night.’

Who was this Clare? Miranda wondered. And where was the child’s mother?

‘Clare isn’t here.’ Not the best decision he’d ever made, but then hindsight was a marvellous thing. ‘It’s just you and me.’ Piece of cake, Gianni—those words were really coming back to haunt him.

‘She’s here.’

The child waved a hand towards her, and Miranda took an involuntary step forward in alarm.

‘He’s going to fall,’ she warned, holding her breath as she watched the dark-haired boy sway precariously as he ran up and down the bed, coming close to the edge. His father did nothing. ‘Shouldn’t you …?’ She lifted her eyes to Gianni’s face and as she encountered a distinctly hostile expression her voice faded.

Gianni’s square jaw had tightened several notches in response to an attitude that he had plenty of experience of, an attitude that never failed to get under his skin. He was in a position to know that being female did not necessarily make a person a childcare expert and having a Y chromosome did not make him utterly clueless.

‘He’s not going to fall.’ Gianni’s confident pronouncement coincided with his son landing on his bottom on the polished boards.

With a cry Miranda moved in to help but the boy’s father, who had responded with much quicker instincts and a lot more agility, had dropped to a crouch beside the boy, hiding him from her view.

He might be pretty clueless about long journeys with a child prone to car sickness, Gianni reflected, but at least he did know enough to keep anxiety out of his voice as he asked lightly, ‘Are you all right—hurt anywhere?’

Liam was inclined to laugh off bumps and bruises unless he picked up on an adult’s anxiety—then things could tip over into hysteria.

There were tears in the limpid blue gaze that lifted to his father. Gianni smiled reassuringly and ran his hands lightly down his son’s body to check for any obvious injuries.

The boy blinked several times and bit his wobbling lip before he shook his head and said, ‘I’m fine … Fitzgeralds are tough.’

Gianni patted his son’s shoulder and gave a thumbs-up sign as he rose to his feet. ‘Good man.’

Miranda, who had watched the revealing interchange with a disapproving frown, was forced to swallow to clear the emotional lump in her throat when the boy returned the thumbs-up gesture and beamed with pride as he struggled valiantly to his feet.

This was a very appealing kid who obviously wanted to please his father, who was clearly a paid-up member of the macho ‘boys don’t cry’ school of thought.

She just hoped for this child’s sake that his mother provided a softening influence. If ever I have a son, she thought fiercely, I’ll teach him that a boy is allowed to have feelings. He’s allowed to cry.

‘You haven’t said I told you so yet.’ Gianni turned his head and arched a sardonic brow. Caught unawares, Miranda found herself pinned by a heavy-lidded cynical stare.

‘I haven’t said big boys don’t cry either,’ she fired back, unable to totally shake the illogical feeling that those mocking eyes could see right into her head.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile. ‘Are you suggesting I’m not in touch with my feminine side, Miranda?’

Miranda was startled to hear him use her name with such familiarity. The way he said it made it sound … different? ‘N-no …’ On another occasion the suggestion might have made her laugh—feminine? The man who oozed more testosterone than a rugby team!

‘I’m half Italian, half Irish—neither are known for their inhibitions when it comes to expressing emotions.’

Miranda looked at the sensual curve of his mouth and thought, I can believe it.

‘Frequently loudly,’ he admitted with a flash of white teeth.

Miranda turned her head quickly to break the hold of his mesmeric gleaming stare and, ignoring her violently quivering stomach muscles, directed her attention to the little boy. ‘Are you sure he’s all right?’

It was the child under discussion who responded to the question. ‘No, I’m not all right. The car made me sick … a lot,’ the little boy announced with a hint of pride. He gave her a look resembling a mistreated puppy—it would have melted stone—and said pathetically, ‘The car smells. Daddy was mad.’

‘Was he? I’m sure that helped a lot.’ The smiling comment passed over the child’s head but hit its target.

Reconciled to being considered the monster in this scene, Gianni shrugged and thought, Why fight it? ‘A man and his car—you know how it is.’

Miranda gave a scornful snort, edged a little towards the window and glanced down seeing, not the shiny boy’s toy his comment had brought to mind, but a disreputable-looking four wheel drive parked down below.

You could tell a lot about a man by the car he drove, as her mother had always told her daughters—her theory was not in Miranda’s experience foolproof, but sometimes dead on. Oliver drove a solid estate, which suited him; safe, steady and dependable.

‘Gracious!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m not surprised he was sick in that thing! What possessed you to transport a child who suffers from travel sickness in something that’s one step up from a horse and cart?’

‘You know what they say, Miranda—beggars can’t be choosers,’ he drawled with a languid shrug. ‘And I’m obviously not the expert on all things relating to childcare that you are.’ Jaw clenched, he arched a sarcastic brow. ‘How many children do you have?’

‘That’s not Daddy’s car. Daddy has a big, big car!’ the child boasted as he made a thrumming sound in his throat and began to charge around the room in imitation of a car, proving if nothing else that he hadn’t been injured by the fall.

Miranda’s softly rounded jaw tightened with annoyance. ‘I don’t have children and I never claimed to be an expert.’

‘Just a woman.’

‘What have you got against women?’

His sensually sculpted upper lip curled into an exaggerated leer. ‘I have never been accused of not liking women.’

I just bet they like you right back, she thought, dragging her gaze from his mouth, aware as she did so of the heavy ache low in her abdomen. This man really was sinfully attractive. She felt a spasm of sympathy for Liam’s mother, then as her eyes were drawn back to his mouth that vanished as it occurred to her the woman didn’t need sympathy—she had that mouth.

Rather shocked by her thought, she blinked, then lowered her gaze, balling her fists on the quilt as she resisted the sudden impulse to touch her own lips.

‘I’m sure that makes your wife deliriously happy.’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Oh, I thought …’ Her eyes moved in an unscheduled sweep from him to the playing child and back again. Not married did not mean they were not a couple.

He answered the question she was clearly gagging to ask. ‘No, we are not together.’

‘Oh!’ What was she meant to say to that? After an awkward pause she produced a lame. ‘I … sorry.’

His expression froze. ‘Do not be. Liam does not suffer in any way because his parents are not a couple.’ By the time he was old enough to think about it, few of Liam’s friends would be the products of a conventional family unit.

But how many would have a mother who had declared herself unwilling and unable to adjust her lifestyle to accommodate the needs of a child?

As always Gianni pushed away the thought. It was a question for the future and he would deal with it at the appropriate time.

The same way he’d dealt with Sam’s initial bombshell when she’d told him she was pregnant; the same way he had dealt with her sympathetic but amused response when he had asked when she was going to give up front-line journalism—the days of speaking calmly to a camera while bullets whizzed by her were clearly to his mind over.

His only experience of mothers was his own and she had put her family first, and while he had never expected the mother of his children to turn into some sort of fifties stay-at-home housewife—he had no problem with her having a career, just not one that involved being held hostage by rebel bandits—it had not crossed his mind that she would not be the main carer.

Just as it had not crossed his mind that he would not be married to the mother of his child.

Startled that her reply had elicited such a defensive aggressive reaction, Miranda thought, Wow, did I hit a nerve or what?

‘Liam is—’ Gianni stopped, the groove between his brows deepening as he realised that, for someone who was not in the habit of discussing his personal life with strangers or defending his actions to anyone, he was doing a pretty good impression of someone who needed approval.

Lowering his dark lashes in a lush veil over his eyes, he ran a hand over his jaw where a dark shadow of the stubble that gave him a vaguely piratical air was visible. ‘I don’t enjoy arguing before I shave or have my first coffee, especially with naked women.’

The sly addition caused Miranda’s hand to fly to her mouth. Bad idea because the quilt slipped on one side, almost causing a dramatic wardrobe malfunction—or as dramatic as a B cup could be.

One corner of his mouth tugged upwards as Gianni watched her struggle. ‘It gives them an unfair advantage.’

Unfair! For a moment she was rendered totally speechless—the nerve of the man! Miranda, who had never felt at more of a disadvantage in her life, scowled before arranging her features into an expression of mock consternation.

‘Well, I’m all for a level playing field, and I wouldn’t want to be accused of taking advantage, so in the interests of fair play we can continue this conversation when I’ve got some clothes on.’

His laugh was warm, deep, throaty and totally unexpected. Miranda, aware of a faint responsive quiver low in her stomach, fought the urge to smile back. She knew he was a man who spent his life smiling and having people—women—smile back.

Miranda could think of few things worse than being with a man every woman lusted after, unless of course it was having the man you loved fall for your twin sister!

‘That seems fair,’ he conceded. ‘Come on, champ, I think a bit of soap and water might be appropriate.’ He scooped up his son, his nostrils quivering at the stale acrid smell. ‘I left the bags in the kitchen. How’s about we take the bathroom downstairs and you take the one up here—the one with the big lock.’

At the mocking addition she lifted her chin, pushing away the mental photofit image in her head of a beautiful long-legged blonde hanging on his arm and keeping out a constant eye for the opposition. ‘And don’t think I won’t use it, Mr Fitzgerald.’

He laughed again, but this time just with his eyes. God, but the man had bad boy written all over him—she had never been attracted to bad boys, though that seemed to put her in the minority.

‘My mother warned me about women with smart mouths.’ But they had no discussion on mouths that were made for sin, he thought, his darkening glance lingering a moment too long on the lush curve before he turned and walked towards the door, grinning but not turning back when she yelled after him.

‘And my mother told me that men who are afraid of smart women generally have self-esteem issues.’ The effect that brief heavy-lidded stare had on Miranda’s nervous system had been nothing short of electric. Breathing hard and trying not to hear the rich throaty sound of his amused laughter, she struggled to shake off the weird lingering feeling of anticipation and excitement heavy in the pit of her stomach as she lifted her makeshift robe and walked towards the bathroom.

CHAPTER FOUR

MIRANDA used the lock with an air of defiance, not caring—actually hoping he would hear it slide home. He might be innocent of knowing she was in the bed when he got in—that much she accepted—but she imagined it was one of the few things that Gianni Fitzgerald was innocent of!

Father to a cute child or not, he had the air of a man who had no problem crossing lines. Parenthood did not make him harmless—not that she expected for one second that he’d test the lock. Gianni Fitzgerald was not a man who needed to batter down doors if he wanted female attention; all he had to do was smile … or laugh … The echo of that warm sound sent a little shiver down her spine.

She dropped the quilt on the marble floor, warm with the under-floor heating that was a feature of the entire cottage, and turned on the shower. Instead of stepping into the vast double cubicle—Lucy Fitzgerald had spared no cash when it came to the luxurious renovations on this farm cottage—she leaned back against the door, closed her eyes and waited for her heartbeat to return to something approaching normal.

It continued to bang against her ribcage, the echo loud in her ears for a long time. The encounter had left her on a high. She knew it was the effect of adrenalin, but as she struggled to tamp down the weird combination of exhilaration and antagonism circulating through her veins the scene played on a loop in her head.

Finally with a sigh she levered herself upright and walked into the shower, gasping a little as the cool needles of water hit her warm body. Face raised to the jets of water, she reached for her shower gel and began to lather her skin, rubbing until her body tingled, but Gianni Fitzgerald’s voice lingered, along with his slow, sardonic smile, the mixture of insolence and amusement in his attitude and the sensuality that came off him in sonic waves.

When she emerged a few minutes later she felt satisfied she had washed Gianni Fitzgerald out of her hair figuratively speaking, now she had to do it in the practical sense and reclaim the cottage.

After towel-drying her hair she pulled on the clothes she had grabbed from the top of her case. She was short of a bra, but that wasn’t a major problem. She was not exactly over-endowed in that area and the fabric of the denim-coloured cotton shirt she fought her way into was not exactly clingy. Her still-damp skin felt oddly sensitive as she hurriedly buttoned it up.

She was dragging a comb through her thick, damp curls when from below she heard a bang and clatter. The kitchen, to her way of thinking the most impressive room in the cottage, was located directly underneath this room.

Her brows twitched into a frown as she glanced into the mirror, connected with her overbright eyes and looked away again quickly.

What was he doing now? she asked herself when there was another loud bang. Mingled with the dismay she experienced at the thought of any breakages was a stab of real concern. Kitchens could be dangerous places for little boys.

The kitchen in the cottage was at the back of the house. It opened out on to the courtyard of stone outbuildings. She had spent a happy hour exploring the large room the night before, discovering that the free-standing rustic-looking units hid some very unrustic state-of-the-art shiny appliances that had not come cheap. Clearly money was not an issue for Lucy Fitzgerald; though there was no clue in the place as to how she made her living, the woman herself had offered no information and Miranda had not liked to ask.

‘I don’t cook,’ the beautiful blonde had admitted when Miranda had expressed her admiration for the room.

Miranda, secretly scandalised by the indifference—it seemed a criminal waste of a kitchen she would have lived in, given the chance—admitted she enjoyed cooking.

‘Well, the freezer’s full of ready meals, but if you want to cook anything from scratch go for it,’ her employer had offered, pulling open the door of a well-stocked store cupboard that made Miranda’s eyes widen and saying vaguely, ‘There’s stuff here. A friend brought in some things—I was going to teach myself the basics.’ She gave an attractive self-deprecating grimace and admitted, ‘But I never actually … well, anyway, feel free. There’s a local farm shop and a terrific fruit and veg man who calls … Quite cute actually, if you’re not spoken for …?’

Miranda admitted she was not but did not go into detail and the other woman, respecting her privacy, had not pushed it.

Pushing away the memory of the conversation with a lot more success than she had had with the surreal events of this morning, Miranda squared her shoulders and reached for the door handle.

She walked in at the moment Gianni Fitzgerald tipped a dustpan full of broken crockery into one of the neatly labelled recycling boxes set beside the open stable door. Liam was sitting on a kitchen chair swinging his legs and patting the head of one of the dogs, a shaggy lurcher.

The child’s dark hair was damp, his cherubic face shiny and clean. He looked wholesome and delicious. His father, who also had damp hair, did not look wholesome, but he did look delicious.

Rampantly delicious, she decided, taking the opportunity while unobserved to work out what it was beside his startling male beauty that made her skin prickle when she looked at him—and she didn’t even like all that macho stuff! Miranda told herself that it was simple scientific curiosity that made her want to study him, though it was hard to call the hollow achy feeling in the pit of her stomach scientific.

She swallowed to ease the tightness in her dry throat. She couldn’t think she was the only female whose brain shut down in his vicinity—presumably Gianni Fitzgerald produced a similar visceral response in any female with a pulse. Was it the Latin thing …? Half Italian, he’d said, but she could see precious little of the Celtic heritage he had claimed in his dark toned features. His dark hair slicked back from his broad brow was still wet. The sleek style emphasised the beautiful severity of his lean, hard-boned, classically proportioned face.

Dressed casually in a loose-fitting black tee shirt—the loose cut did nothing to disguise the lean, muscular torso she knew it covered—and faded jeans that clung to his long, muscular thighs, he oozed a raw sexuality that had nothing to do with what he was wearing and everything to do with the man himself.

As if feeling her gaze, Gianni turned his head. Caught staring at his bottom, Miranda lifted her chin to an angle of mute defiance and adopted a ‘so hang me’ expression that made his mouth quirk slightly at the corners as he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement of the gesture and allowed his dark, long-lashed eyes to travel in a slow, comprehensive sweep up from her toes until he reached her face.

At this point their glances connected and Miranda, who had been enduring the scrutiny, glimpsed something that moved like silvered fire deep in his midnight-dark eyes.

She could not define what she had seen, it had only been there for a fraction of a second, but her body wasn’t dealing in names. It reacted indiscriminately, sending a wave of scorching heat through her body.

Whatever this man had, clothes were no protection, she mused as she tugged fretfully at the neck of her shirt, unwittingly loosing the top two mother-of-pearl buttons.

Gianni’s eyes went to the deep vee of milk-pale smooth skin revealed, hardly what could be termed provocative, but his body responded with a disproportionate pulse of hunger that slammed through his body before concentrating in a hard ache of frustrated desire in his groin.

He swallowed hard, annoyed by his lack of self-control, and tipped his head in exaggerated approval, resorting to strained banter in an effort to disguise his reaction while recognising an equally strong need to rationalise it.

‘I hardly recognised you with your clothes on, cara,’ he drawled, and watched the angry colour fly to her smooth cheeks.

A man woke up next to a beautiful woman and the inevitable happened. It was no mystery, nothing more complicated than physical hunger, nothing a cold shower … another cold shower would not cure.

Before Miranda could respond with a suitable degree of scorn to this worn-out cliché—it was always harder to deliver scorn when your face was the colour of a post box; this man was dangerous—Gianni’s attentions switched abruptly to his son.

‘No, stay where you are, Liam, until I check out the floor …’ The rest of the sentence was delivered in Italian and Miranda was fascinated to hear the child clearly as bilingual as his father, reply in the same tongue.

Unexpected emotion tightened in Miranda’s throat as she watched them, the sternness leaving Gianni’s face as he bent down to the chair, spanned the child’s waist with his big hands and lifted him down, pushing him in the direction of the open door.

‘I’m hungry!’

Gianni, whose routine meant he was out of the house before his son took breakfast—he rarely had time for anything himself other than a double espresso and a bagel—paused before reaching for the tin that he recalled sweet-toothed Lucy kept filled with biscuits. It was empty.

‘Dio.’ His long fingers beat out an impatient tattoo on the granite work surface as he experienced an unaccustomed stab of indecision and doubt. For a man who stayed cool while those around him went into meltdown it was an uncomfortable experience.

Small wonder, he reflected grimly, Clare had looked aghast when he’d told her he planned to spend some time alone with Liam. The nanny had probably wondered if she’d get the child back in one piece. It might have been better for everyone concerned if she’d come right out and said he didn’t have a clue.

He sighed through his nose and squared his shoulders. His time might be better spent proving her wrong rather than feeling sorry for himself. For once he had the quality time with his son that always seemed in short supply.

‘Where are the biscuits … bread …?’

Miranda watched as he looked around the room with the air of a man who expected someone to materialise and produce what he required out of thin air.

Seeing this self-assured man look at a loss actually made her feel a little less antagonistic towards him. Perhaps in his world that was what happened, Miranda speculated. He certainly had the arrogance of someone who was accustomed to giving orders and expecting people to jump.

Miranda didn’t jump, but she did walk across to the well-stocked fridge and pull out a carton of milk from the shelf. Not because she felt the need to rush to his rescue, but she could hardly let the little boy go hungry just because his father was a bossy, ungrateful control freak with, admittedly, a very nice bottom and a way of looking at her that made her feel jittery and defensive.

She found the plastic tumbler she was looking for in the second cupboard she tried and, filling it, handed it without a word to Gianni.

‘Perhaps that will keep him going until breakfast?’

Gianni waited for the lecture on child nutrition. In his experience it was a rare woman who could resist the opportunity to display her superior knowledge, and when it didn’t come he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement.

He stood guard until Liam had finished the glass of milk before wiping the milky moustache from his upper lip and nodding his permission for him to go outside into the yard.

Positioning himself by the door so that he could keep one eye on his son, he folded his arms across his chest and watched while Lucy’s house sitter began to prepare breakfast.

‘Can I do anything to help?’

Miranda adjusted the flame on the grill and, still holding her hair from her face with her forearm, lifted her head. ‘No.’ Then, conscious of the occasions she had been accused, with some justification, of being a bit of a prima donna in the kitchen, she softened the refusal by glancing his way and adding, ‘Thank you, I’m fine. I like to cook.’ The least she could do was feed them; she had no idea how far they had to go.

Gianni pressed his back against the exposed stone wall, crossed one foot over the other and watched her.

‘You look like you know what you’re doing.’ It was a strange kitchen but her body language was relaxed and she was actually humming softly under her breath.

The women he knew did not cook; hell, they did not generally eat, though they liked to sit and push food around a plate in fashionable restaurants! He was, Gianni realised, attracted to this redhead more than he had been attracted to a woman in a long time. Recognise it and move on because it’s not happening, he told himself, unless his instincts about her were totally wide of the mark …? He studied her soft profile, hoping to pick up on something that would suggest he was wrong about her, that she was actually a woman who wanted just sex from a man and not a piece of him.

He didn’t. Desirable or not, Lucy’s house sitter was the sort of female he actively avoided. He was a single parent, he worked long hours in a demanding job—he thought he juggled the twin roles pretty well, but romance and all that went with it were not on his agenda.

‘Yes, I do,’ she admitted, not feeling the need to display any false modesty on this subject. ‘But I’m making scrambled eggs,’ she pointed out, trying not to be pleased by his comment. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science or, for that matter, Michelin-star stuff.’

‘That kind of depends on your perspective. The last woman who cooked for me put a takeaway in her microwave still in the foil tray—set the microwave on fire.’

She laughed, her eyes flying wide. ‘Seriously?’

He nodded.

Fighting the urge to respond to the charm in his smile, she lowered her gaze and muttered, ‘I’m making breakfast, you’re here—I’m not cooking for you.’

And who was she cooking for? Miranda wondered. She knew his name, she knew he was related to her employer, but what was Gianni Fitzgerald other than a man prone to dizzying mood swings and owner of more charm than was good for him? He was a man with so many contradictions that it was hard to put him in a neatly labelled box—a man who drove a vehicle that looked one wheel bolt from the grave while his clothes might be casual but the labels said expensive. Not that he couldn’t have made cheap look good, she acknowledged, wondering a little at her curiosity as her eyes swept upwards from his boot-shod feet, pausing when she reached the metal-banded watch that gleamed against the golden skin of his hair-roughened wrist.

‘Yes, it’s the right time.’

‘What? Oh!’ Her eyes flew to his face. ‘I was just checking out …’

Amusement sparkled in his dark eyes. ‘I noticed.’

‘Not you! That is the time,’ she gritted, feeling the flush working its way up her neck. She bit her lip, silently cursing the fair redhead’s skin that came with the double curse of freckles and blushing. The blush deepened when he glanced from his wrist to the clock that had to be three feet in diameter positioned on the wall directly above her head.

‘It’s a nice watch …’

And if it was genuine, and he didn’t act like a man who was interested in fakes, it was also worth as much as she earned in a month, maybe more.

He gave a non-committal grunt. ‘Is this what you do for a living?’

She shook her head and thought, Is this what you call changing the subject? ‘What?’

‘The cooking-is-the-way-to-a-man’s-heart thing.’ His gesture took in the utensils neatly arranged on the butcher’s block, but in his head he was seeing her pale back, the skin smooth and flawless. It would not, he conceded, matter if she burnt water. This innately sexual little redhead would never have any problem accessing if not men’s hearts, certainly their libido.

She lifted her chin and tossed a smile up at him. ‘Relax, I am not interested in your heart, Mr Fitzgerald,’ she retorted.

‘It’s not my heart you have an effect on, cara.’

Miranda compressed her lips, not caring to be the butt of his warped humour. The annoyance in her eyes was dramatically extinguished as she encountered the smouldering heat in his ebony stare.

Not a joke!

She snatched a startled breath and felt her stomach flip before going into free fall.

‘I’m flattered.’

Heart thudding, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. No man had ever looked at her with such unvarnished lust before.

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