Sister Swap. Lilian Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ English nanny, spent hours riding out the tantrums. She refused ever to give in, getting stricter and stricter the louder Pia screamed, until finally Pia would exhaust herself and fall asleep.

      And I don’t have the time for that, or the patience, Gino knew. Lord help me, what is wrong with my child?

      How could a woman as perfect as Angele—serene, cool, competent in everything she did—have given birth to such a difficult little girl?

      Abruptly, with his decision made before he even knew it, he released his grip on his daughter and watched her dart between the spring coats and business suits of those waiting to meet the London flight. Passengers had begun to appear. As long as Rowena Madison wasn’t one of the last off the plane, he should be able to keep a rough eye on Pia’s whereabouts and not lose her.

      He’d only met Rowena a few times, but he was confident he’d recognize her right away. Based in Rome and with a senior executive role in the Di Bartoli family’s multinational cosmetics corporation, he’d organized the initial interview with her regarding the garden restoration and had sat in on a couple of subsequent meetings to discuss her plans. The day-to-day liaison and supervision on the Di Bartoli estate itself he’d delegated to his thirty-three-year-old younger brother, Francesco.

      Apparently Francesco had taken the liaison element way too seriously, however. Francesco had a perfectly charming and exceptionally suitable fiancée in Rome, and yet that hadn’t stopped him from begging Rowena for an affair in Tuscany. According to Francesco, Rowena’s trembling hesitation had only increased his desire.

      Yes, well, so it would, Gino thought cynically. Francesco had always wanted something all the more when he found he couldn’t get it too easily. He wasted large chunks of his life this way.

      And Gino wasn’t going to let him waste the prospect of a very good marriage on a stupid little affair with an American horticultural expert who didn’t seem to know whether she wanted him or not, even if she was entitled to call herself Dr. Madison, thanks to her doctoral dissertation on seventeenth-century European garden design.

      Where was Pia?

      His heart thudded suddenly and he looked around in a panic. He couldn’t see her. He should have dressed her in something brighter this morning. There weren’t many bright outfits in her closet, however. As Angele had, Miss Cassidy favored exquisitely made French children’s clothing in the same neutral colors—navy, gray and cream—that most of the adults in the airport were wearing. She was camouflaged as effectively as—

      Ah. There she was. Safe. Intently watching a woman struggle with the jammed wheel of her suitcase.

      And here was Rowena Madison.

      She hadn’t seen him yet. She was scanning faces with her eyes narrowed, and her teeth scraping across her lower lip, as if anxious that he might not have come. She wasn’t to know how much he prided himself on his reliability.

      He raised his hand and gestured, smiled and called her name. She saw him, and a strange series of expressions crossed her face, almost as if someone were trying out a series of different screen savers on a computer.

      He had no idea what Francesco saw in her, despite how pretty she was with those deep blue eyes, the pale, creamy skin, the long dark hair loosely swept back. To Gino, she always seemed so prim and tame, like pasta cooked to mush instead of al dente—quite edible, yes, but not at all appetizing.

      She pushed her way through the crowd toward him, a little breathless, with her wheeled and long-handled suitcase trundling behind her. She wore a neat beige pantsuit with a white silk blouse beneath. The blouse wasn’t as neat as the suit. One of the middle buttons had come unfastened, showing the lower part of a white lacy bra and a shadowed stretch of the skin between her ribs. “Francesco…?” It wasn’t quite a question.

      “…couldn’t come,” Gino answered in his near-perfect English. He didn’t apologize on his brother’s behalf, since it wasn’t his brother’s fault.

      He’d virtually ordered Francesco to stay in Rome to cool his head, while he himself took over the role of working with Rowena Madison on the garden. He could manage Di Bartoli business for a few weeks while based on the family’s Tuscan estate, and he desperately wanted to get Pia out of Rome.

      To see if that made a difference to the tantrums.

      To find out how she behaved without the presence of the English nanny whom Angele had always praised to the skies.

      To get to know his child.

      “Francesco couldn’t come,” Rowena echoed. Her voice sounded a little throaty, deeper and richer than he remembered, as if it had gotten strained by the poor-quality air during the flight. Or maybe she had a cold.

      “Sorry,” he said, about Francesco’s absence.

      He wasn’t sorry.

      Was Dr. Madison? She did look a little shocked.

      “Guess I’ll just have to make do with you, then…uh… Gino.” She threw him a dazzling, panicky grin.

      The dazzle sent an odd jolt through him, and the panic made him curious. He’d already seen that she was somewhat an anxious, nervous type, but this seemed different. This wasn’t a cage bunny’s terror on being let out, but a wild hare’s panic on being shut in.

      But where was Pia?

      Another, different kind of jolt. He’d lost Pia’s mother, first through divorce and then through her untimely death. He wasn’t going to lose his only child, as well.

      This time, he really couldn’t see her, and cursed her dove-gray dress again. Why not pink or bright lilac or something red with flowers? What sort of color was gray for a little girl?

      “Is something wrong?” Roxanna asked Francesco’s older brother.

      Sheesh, she’d had a narrow escape on that one!

      Never having seen either man before, she’d actually called him Francesco, but he’d thought she was talking about Francesco, asking why he wasn’t here, so she’d gotten away with it. Then it had taken her three seconds too long to think of Gino’s name. That was the problem with cramming for an exam the night before. Vital facts flew out of your head at the worst moments.

      “Yes,” he said, his dark eyes searching over Rox’s shoulder. He was dressed for business in a charcoal suit, a white shirt and a conservative dark tie. As she watched, he reached for the tie knot and loosened it, which gave him a rakish, Cary Grant sort of look. Rox could tell he didn’t even realize what he’d done. “I can’t see my daughter. She’s only four…”

      And that was the problem with working from crib notes. Sometimes the vital facts just weren’t there. She’d had no idea that Gino Di Bartoli had a daughter.

      Did he have a wife?

      And had Rowena met the daughter?

      Because if Row has, then I should help look for her, because I’ll supposedly know what she looks like. But I haven’t met her, so how can I? What’s her name?

      “Pia!” Gino said, his voice rising. He spoke in Italian. “Pia, where are you?”

      Whew! Again.

      Pia, СКАЧАТЬ