Too Scared To Love

‘I don’t know a great deal about business,’ Roberta said, folding her arms across her chest and not caring for the way he raised one eyebrow at the movement. ‘I’m an au pair, not a stockbroker. I really wouldn’t know a prominent businessman from a bank clerk. I also,’ she continued, irritated with herself for being addled by those brilliant-green eyes, ‘consider it very rude that you haven’t seen fit to introduce yourself.’

‘Are you usually so uptight?’ he asked, ignoring her question and moving to sit in the leather armchair, where he proceeded to scrutinise her with infuriating thoroughness.

‘I’ve just been dragged through your house,’ Roberta replied through gritted teeth, ‘subjected to wild accusations—naturally I’m a bit tense at the moment.’

‘Naturally.’ He was laughing at her, even though his face was serious.

‘And you still haven’t introduced yourself,’ she flared. ‘I take it that you’re Emily’s father.’ She knew who he was, of course, but that didn’t mean that it excused his lack of manners.

‘You’re like a schoolteacher I once had,’ he said, ignoring her yet again. ‘Very prim and always bristling with righteous indignation.’

Roberta was positively fuming now. She hardly ever got angry, but right now she felt like exploding.

‘I seem to remind you of a lot of people, don’t I?’ she intoned politely. ‘I had no idea the world was so full of my look-alikes.’

He laughed at that, and her lips tightened a little bit more.

‘Definitely like that schoolteacher I mentioned,’ he said, ‘and the name is Grant Adams.’

Without that hostility marring his features, she was disturbed to realise, there was something very attractive about this man. Maybe it was that combination of striking good looks and the sense of power that he radiated.

Either way, it alarmed her, because after everything that had happened she should be immune to men, most of all men with charm.

They were dangerous, and danger was one element in her life she could quite happily live without.

‘I wish I could say that meeting you has been a pleasant experience, Mr Adams,’ she heard herself saying, ‘but I can’t.’

‘Let’s hope that time remedies that,’ he murmured, his eyes still glinting as though he found her a diverting novelty. ‘Have you met my daughter?’ He waved her to the other chair in the room and she hesitatingly sat down.

She had hoped that she might be able to leave the room, but he was clearly not in the slightest bit tired. In fact, he looked as though he could have kept going for another few hours at least. If this was his norm, then lord only knew how much sleep he needed. Maybe none. She glanced across at him and decided that he was the type who considered sleep an unnecessary waste of valuable time.

‘Briefly,’ Roberta replied. ‘I’m afraid I was a little late getting here, and she was in bed when I arrived, although she did pop into see me.’

‘I can imagine,’ he said blandly, ‘and what did you think of her?’

‘She seems very outspoken,’ Roberta said carefully.

‘I would say that that’s an example of very British understatement. She lacks discipline.’

‘Lots of teenagers are a bit unruly, Mr Adams.’

‘Grant. And Emily goes way beyond the boundaries of unruly. Have you been told that she’s been expelled three times?’

‘No,’ Roberta admitted, not surprised at that.

‘Have you been told that she should be at school now, but she was expelled from her last one a month ago?’

‘No.’

‘That hardly surprises me. My mother probably thought that such vital statistics would put off any prospective candidates for the job. Not many people are ready or willing to take on a fourteen-year-old with no sense of responsibility.’

Roberta was shocked by the inflexible hardness in his voice. No wonder your daughter’s a bit off the rails, she wanted to say.

‘A sense of responsibility is something that’s gleaned from the example of those around,’ she said bluntly.

‘Meaning?’

There wasn’t a great deal of amusement in his eyes now. She suspected that he was not accustomed to being criticised, however implicitly, and he didn’t like it.

‘How much time do you spend with her?’ she asked, and his frown deepened.

‘Excuse me,’ he said coldly, ‘but who’s employing whom? I don’t like your tone of voice, and I certainly don’t like what I think you’re saying.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Roberta murmured, not feeling sorry in the slightest. ‘I don’t mean to tread on your toes, but from what I gathered you don’t spend a great deal of time with your daughter. If you did, perhaps she might be more inclined to live up to your expectations of her.’

‘In case it hasn’t occurred to you,’ he said in a hard voice, ‘I do have a living to make.’

‘But at the expense of your daughter?’

‘What?’ he roared, running his fingers through his hair and glaring at her. ‘Have you forgotten that you’re paid to look after my daughter and not to analyse my behaviour?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Roberta said calmly.

‘You don’t sound it!’ He stood up and paced the room to the window, staring outside, his back to her.

No, she thought, he really was not accustomed to being criticised. No doubt that was something he held the monopoly on. And got away with, judging from what she had seen.

But his air of restless aggression didn’t intimidate her. When it came to her job she was coolly professional and daunted by very little. It was only in her personal life that she had bumped into things she couldn’t handle.

‘I was wrong about you,’ he bit out, turning to face her. ‘You may have a passing resemblance to Vivian, but that’s about all.’ He walked across the room and leant over her, his hands gripping either side of the chair. ‘But something must ruffle that cool exterior of yours. What is it? What goes on behind that controlled face of yours? You’ve made your opinions of me loud and clear; now it’s time for me to ask a few questions. After all, I’m entrusting my daughter to you.’

CHAPTER TWO

ROBERTA regarded him with a trace of alarm. As far as she was concerned, being au pair to Grant Adams’s daughter in no way gave him an invisible right to quiz her on her personal life, but the look of intent on his face, inches away from hers, disturbed her.

She lowered her eyes and wished that he would remove himself to another part of the room. His daunting masculinity so close to her made her feel slightly giddy and out of control and she didn’t like it.

‘I don’t think,’ she said carefully, ‘that what goes on under this cool exterior of mine, as you put it, has anything to do with my job here. I’m being paid to look after your daughter for four weeks, and that’s precisely what I shall do. I happen to be very good at my job.’

‘I never said you weren’t.’

She could feel his breath warm on her face, and it seemed to go to her head like incense. That, coupled with the relentless, demanding glint in his eyes, made her hackles rise even further and she had to control herself against another unaccustomed surge of anger.

‘Then I don’t see that there’s anything further to discuss,’ she said evenly, raising her eyes to his.

‘You really would have made a great schoolteacher.’

‘And I resent your constant insults!’ she snapped.