Booties And The Beast. Valerie Parv

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СКАЧАТЬ She didn’t want his concern and she certainly didn’t need it, she told herself, but found it more pleasant than she wanted to. “She’ll return to her job and I’ll go back to my own work.”

      “And that is?”

      She didn’t want to talk about herself but he gave her little option. “I’m a systems planning consultant for small companies who don’t have full-time support staff. I organize their offices and their computer systems for maximum efficiency. Now can we—”

      “Give me a minute to think.” He massaged his chin, looking thoughtful. From the aura of aftershave around him, he had evidently shaved this morning but his hair was so black that a hint of shadow already darkened his jaw, giving him a slightly piratical air. “Organizational skills and Miranda’s recommendation. You could be just the person I need. Last month my personal assistant left for Zimbabwe. I’ve been on a deadline so I haven’t had chance to replace him yet.”

      It explained the chaos in the office, she thought. “Miranda understood you needed a house sitter.”

      “I do, while I’m on tour with the new book. But it would be a great help if the same person could sort out the office for me while I’m gone.”

      This wasn’t going according to Miranda’s script at all. In desperation, Haley pulled a clipboard out of her briefcase and consulted the points listed on it. “All the same, the decision isn’t up to me.”

      “But it is up to me and if I decide you’re right for this job, Miranda won’t argue. She knows I pay well.” He named a fee that Haley knew was in excess of Miranda’s usual rates. Even taking out Miranda’s commission, the amount left would solve a lot of Haley’s problems.

      It wouldn’t solve the main one, that he was Joel’s father, she told herself. All the same she couldn’t help thinking that working for him would give her a heaven-sent chance to find out more about him so she could tell her child when the time came. Knowing his father and having regular contact with him would have been preferable, but that wasn’t going to happen as long as Sam denied fathering Joel.

      Haley knew only too well how it felt to grow up without really knowing your father. She still couldn’t fathom how her mother, the most scatterbrained woman on earth, had managed to marry a straitlaced history professor and have his child. They had parted when Haley was six, and her mother had re-married an entomologist who was as eccentric as his wife. Currently the two of them were somewhere in the Amazon jungle collecting butterflies for his work. She had last seen Greg and her mother when they’d come back to Australia to attend their daughter’s funeral.

      Afterward her mother had stayed behind to help Haley, but within a couple of weeks she had created such chaos that Haley had decided she would cope better alone. Lovingly but firmly, she’d encouraged her mother to return to Greg in the jungle. She had suspected her mother was only too happy to comply. They loved each other but they had completely different ways of managing their lives.

      Haley knew she took after her real father, who was the organized one in the family. Ellen had teased Haley about being able to put her hand on whatever she needed, while Ellen had inherited Greg’s talent for creating disorder. Haley had tried to help her sister get organized, but it had never worked for long. “Let’s face it, I take after my Dad and you take after yours,” Ellen had conceded, throwing up her hands.

      Haley had to agree. She’d seen little of her father while she was growing up but she had seen enough to know how finicky he was. In her teens, she had attempted to get to know him, but even she found his fussiness daunting. Arriving so much as five minutes late earned her his disapproval. She could only imagine his reaction if she had, say, spilled her food or used the wrong cutlery. She had been careful to do neither, but it hadn’t exactly made for relaxing parent-child interactions.

      To be fair, her father had tried to live up to her expectations, but their meetings always felt stilted and uncomfortable. It hurt to think her father knew more about Bess Tudor than Haley Glen and that he wasn’t going to change. It seemed their orderliness was about all they had in common.

      After one such outing, he had said, “I’m truly sorry I can’t give you what you want, or know what to say to you. I don’t know the first thing about being a good father. You’re better off without me.”

      She had cried for two days afterward, then decided to accept the situation and get on with her life. She was proud of what she’d achieved, putting a down-payment on a her own apartment and setting herself up as her own boss. But it didn’t stop the black moments, when she wondered what it was about her that her father had found so difficult to love, from coming. She wanted better for Joel, she thought fiercely. He wasn’t going to have the same black moments in his life if she could do something about it. Even if it meant taking Sam’s assignment herself.

      She had seen enough of him already to be fairly sure that his mind wasn’t easily changed once he had made it up. It sounded as if he wasn’t about to budge about having her as his house sitter. Since she couldn’t do much about it without letting Miranda down, she decided she might as well make the most of the chance to fulfill her mission. But first she needed to be sure that he wouldn’t consider any other option.

      “Can we at least go through the formalities?” she asked.

      He looked pleased with himself. “Go ahead, as long as the name at the foot of that impressive checklist turns out to be yours.”

      She started to ask questions and tick boxes, uncomfortably aware that she was as interested in him as much for herself as for her baby.

      When she closed the file, he grinned at her and she crumbled inside. It was easier to remember him as The Beast when he scowled at her. Then she didn’t have this strange sensation of being swept out of her depth by a king tide.

      “I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked.

      Her confusion was genuine. “About what?”

      “After filling in all those little boxes, you’re still perfect for the job.”

      “How can you possibly know? You know nothing about me.” And he wouldn’t, if she had anything to do with it. Her blood ran cold at the prospect of him linking her with Ellen and treating her—and her sister’s baby—as cruelly.

      “I don’t need to know any more. By the time you move in, I’ll be heading off on the tour. So we’ll only be together long enough for me to brief you on what needs doing, then you’ll have the place to yourself.”

      She could swear he sounded disappointed, but told herself the strain of the meeting was making her imagine things. “You don’t have a problem with a baby staying in your house.”

      His expression darkened. “My sister, Jessie, has two small children so the house is equipped for a baby. And in my line of work, I’m unlikely to have a problem with children.”

      Only with Joel, she thought, quelling her reaction. “I could refuse to take the assignment.”

      “But you won’t.”

      She met his penetrating blue gaze with an equally direct one of her own. “What makes you so sure?”

      “Because you don’t want to lose Miranda one of her best clients.”

      With sinking heart, Haley knew that he had won.

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