Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions: Taming Her Italian Boss / The Uncompromising Italian / Secrets of the Playboy's Bride

‘More fish! More fish!’ Sofia shouted, jumping up and down so hard she almost toppled into the canal. Ruby kept a firm hand on her as she shook the most recent catch into the bucket to join his friends. Sofia did it so vigorously that Ruby was sure the poor thing must have a concussion.

When Sofia was happily dangling the line in the canal again, Ruby looked at Max. ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘Was it something I said?’

He sighed again and crouched down to look at where Sofia was pointing at some silvery fish swimming near the surface of the water. ‘No. It’s something I said.’

She waited for him to stand again.

‘It’s a commission for the Institute of Fine Art,’ he told her. ‘I’ve worked for months on a preliminary design that I’m really proud of, but the board say they’re not sure about it.’

Ruby shook her head. She couldn’t believe that. The designs she’d glimpsed were amazing. They were totally Max, of course. No frills. No fuss. Nothing ostentatious. But there was an elegance to the simplicity. A pared-back beauty. ‘Why on earth not?’

He shrugged. ‘I think the actual phrase they used is that they want more “wow factor”.’

A screech from around knee level interrupted their conversation. Ruby hadn’t noticed it while she’d been talking to Max, but the bucket was now almost full and the crabs were scrambling over each other in an attempt to climb out.

Max knelt down next to his niece. ‘It’s time to put them back now,’ he said matter of factly and tipped the bucket over to let a stream of crustaceans, legs flailing, fall back into the salty lagoon water.

‘No!’ The exclamation was loud and impassioned and followed immediately by a stream of hot tears. ‘Want friend! Want friend!’

Ruby grabbed for the bucket and righted it. Only three crabs remained in the bottom.

Sofia stopped shouting and sniffed. ‘Want take fish home.’

Ruby crouched down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders and joined her in looking into the bucket. She might be wrong, but she thought one of the three crabs left might be the little one they’d caught first. ‘We can’t take them back to Grandma’s, sweetie. They belong here in the water. It’s their home. We just picked them out to say hello for a little bit.’

Sofia let out a juddering sigh.

‘Why don’t we put the last ones back one by one and say a nice goodbye to them?’

Sofia frowned. ‘Come back ʼmorrow say hello?’

Ruby smiled. ‘If you want.’

The little girl nodded. Ruby looked inside the bucket and then up at Max. ‘How do we...?’

Quick as anything his hand plunged into the bucket and he pulled out a crab. ‘There’s a trick to it. If you hold them at the back of the shell like this, they can’t reach to pinch you.’

He held the crab up for Sofia to see. She puckered up her lips. ‘Kiss fish?’ she asked.

Ruby’s heart just about melted.

‘Not too close,’ she said softly, imagining what Fina would say if her precious granddaughter came home with pincer holes in her lips. ‘Just blow a kiss.’

Sofia blinked then puffed heartily on the crab, who was so shocked it stopped waving its legs around angrily and went still. A deep rumble started in Max’s chest then worked its way up out of his mouth in the most infectious of chuckles. Ruby looked up at him, eyes laughing.

‘That’s a first,’ he said, smiling, and then he gently plopped the crab back into the canal.

They followed the same routine with the next crab, too, but when they came to the last one, Ruby asked, ‘Can I pick it up?’

Max nodded. He put the bucket down on the cobbles and took hold of Sofia while Ruby took off her watch and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. She inhaled, then dipped her hand into the cold water and aimed her forefinger and thumb for the parts of the shell the way she’d seen Max do it. It wriggled away a couple of times, but then she gripped more firmly and lifted the crab out of the water.

‘I did it!’ she exclaimed. ‘For a moment there I didn’t think I was— Ow!’

A searing pain shot through her finger, making her eyes water. She blinked the moisture away, slightly breathless, to find an angry little crab attached to her hand. She was sure it was scowling at her.

‘Ow, ow, ow...’ she yelped and started shaking her hand backwards and forwards. Anything to make it let go!

Eventually the force of the swinging must have got the crab, either that or it lost its grip on her wet hands, because it shot off, landed on the paving stones a couple of feet away then scuttled to the edge and flung itself into the canal.

‘Ow,’ Ruby said again, just to make her point, even though her attacker probably neither heard nor cared.

She looked down as her finger started to throb. That had definitely not been the original crab with the delicate little pincers that hadn’t punctured Sofia’s finger. This one had been mean and angry, and blood was now seeping from a hole in her skin.

‘Here, let me look,’ Max said and swiftly caught up her hand.

Ruby would have expected his examination to be practical and thorough, and it was, but she hadn’t expected it to be so gentle. She looked at him, head bowed over her hand as he ran his fingers over the area surrounding her war wound, and for some reason the sight of his dark lashes against his cheek made her feel a little breathless.

Sofia hugged her left leg. ‘No cry, Ruby. Fish no want let go.’

Despite the thudding of her pulse in her index finger, Ruby couldn’t help but smile. She looked up to find Max doing the same, but his face was very close. She blinked and sucked in a breath.

‘Kiss better!’ Sofia commanded.

Ruby would have been okay if she hadn’t realised he was holding his breath, too, that he seemed to be stuck looking at her the same way she was looking at him.

‘Go on, Uncle Max! Kiss better.’

Slowly Max raised her hand, not taking his eyes off her until the moment he bent his head and softly pressed his lips to where Ruby’s finger was throbbing. The sensation spread out from that finger, through the rest of her body, until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Max seemed to be similarly affected, because even though he’d lowered her hand again he still held it between his warm fingers.

Sofia tugged Ruby’s trouser leg, seeking a response she hadn’t yet got. ‘Him no want let go.’

Ruby swallowed. ‘I know, sweetheart.’ And as she spoke the words she slid her hand out of Max’s and looked away to where the crab had plopped into the water.

‘I think it’ll be fine,’ he mumbled, then busied himself collecting up the fishing equipment and putting it back in the boat.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u44d6f22c-62d1-5fe1-a7f7-6e203a18167f)

MAX SPENT THE REST of the afternoon in the library with the door shut. He tinkered with his plans for the institute until his eyes were gritty and his brain was spinning. It didn’t help that every time he wasn’t 100 per cent immersed in what he was doing he kept having strange flashbacks.

He kept seeing Ruby’s slightly swollen and bleeding finger. Inevitably that led to memories of looking up into her eyes. He hadn’t noticed their colour before. Warm hazel. Not green. Not brown. But a unique pairing of the two that was slightly hypnotic. He hadn’t been able to look away, hadn’t been able to let go. And then he’d gone and kissed her finger. What had all that been about?

Okay, he knew exactly what that had been about. He might not have been in the mood to date since his father’s death, finding himself drawn to his own company, filling his hours with work, but he was no stranger to desire.

He stopped tweaking a design for a staircase he had up on his computer screen and deleted all the last fifteen changes he’d made. It had been better before. Now it was more boring, if that was even possible. He’d seen a hundred different staircases like it in a hundred different buildings.

He pushed back from the desk, stood up, began to pace.

He needed something different. Something unique.