Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions. Fiona Harper

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Ruby kept her smile demure. ‘Thank you.’

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

      She shrugged. ‘I like it.’

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

      * * *

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

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

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

      Max’s jaw dropped. ‘You have a job?’

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

      He shook his head, hardly able to believe it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘But she doesn’t know me, either.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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