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

She could hear her employer through his open bedroom door, in a one-sided conversation, talking in clipped, hushed tones. She glanced over at the desk, where he’d already made himself quite at home. The surface was covered in sheets of paper and printouts, and a laptop was silently displaying a company name that floated round the screen.

Martin & Martin.

Ruby changed direction and wandered over to take a better look. Amongst the printed-out emails and neat handwritten notes there were also half-rolled architectural plans—for something very big and very grand, by the looks of it.

So Max Martin was an architect. She could see how that suited him. He was possibly the most rigid man she’d ever met. Anything he built would probably last for centuries.

She couldn’t help peering over the plans to get a better look at the writing on the bottom corner of the sheet.

The National Institute of Fine Art.

Wow. That was one of her favourite places to hang out in London on a rainy afternoon. And she’d seen a display last time she’d visited about plans for a new wing and a way to cover the existing courtyard to provide a central hub for the gallery’s three other wings.

Max’s voice grew louder and Ruby scuttled away from the desk. She’d just reached the centre of the room when he emerged from his bedroom, mobile phone pressed to his ear. She did a good job of trying not to listen, pretending to flick through a magazine she’d grabbed from the coffee table instead, but, even though she was trying to keep her nose to herself, it was obvious that Max was the front-runner for the institute’s new wing, but the clients had reservations.

She finished flipping through the glossy fashion mag and put it back down on the table. To be honest, she wasn’t sure what to do now. Did being Sofia’s nanny mean she just had to hole herself up in the bedroom with her, never to be seen or heard without child in tow? Or was she allowed to mingle with other members of the family? Seeing as this was her first experience of being a nanny she had absolutely no clue, and seeing as this was Max’s first experience of hiring one—even if he had been the kind of person to dole out information without the use of thumbscrews—he probably didn’t know, either.

He turned and strode towards her, frowning, listening intently to whoever was on the other end of the phone.

Ruby looked up at him, expecting maybe a nod, or even a blink of recognition as he passed by, but she got none. It was as if he’d totally forgotten she existed. So she became more comfortable studying him. He looked tired, she thought as she watched him pace first in one direction and then another, always marking out straight lines with precise angles. The top button of his shirt was undone and his tie was nowhere to be seen.

It was odd. All day so far, he’d just seemed like a force of nature—albeit in a pristine suit—and now that just the tiniest part of that armour had been discarded she was suddenly confronted by the fact he was a man. And a rather attractive one at that.

His dark hair was short but not severe, and now she knew he had Italian blood in him, she could see it in the set of his eyes and his long, straight nose. The mouth, however, was totally British, tightly drawn in, jaw tense as he grimaced at some unwelcome news and hung up on the caller without saying goodbye. He brought the phone down from his ear and stared at it so hard that Ruby thought it might burst into flames.

That was when he looked up and spotted her sitting where she’d been for the last ten minutes, and it took him by total surprise. She allowed her lips to curve into the barest of smiles and held his gaze. For some reason she liked the fact her presence sometimes ruffled him.

He shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘Is there anything you need?’

His tone wasn’t harsh, just practical.

‘I was wondering what to do about food.’ Her stomach growled again, just to underline the fact. She refused to blush.

He had only just stopped frowning at his phone call, and now his features crumpled back into the same expression, as if he’d forgotten hunger was an option for him, and he was taking time to remember what the sensation was like. Eventually, he indicated a menu on the sideboard. ‘Have what you want sent up.’

Ruby nodded. She’d been hoping he’d say that. ‘Do you want anything while I’m ordering?’

‘No...’ His gaze drifted towards the array of papers on the desk and he was drawn magnetically to it. He picked up a sheet and started reading a page of dense text.

Ruby wasn’t quite sure if he’d finished saying everything he’d been going to say, but she guessed he’d forgotten he’d actually started talking, so she went and fetched the menu. When she ordered her club sandwich she did it discreetly, so as not to disturb him, and just before she put the phone down she quietly ordered another. He hadn’t touched the food on the plane, and she hadn’t seen him eat anything all afternoon. He had to get hungry some time, didn’t he?

If he did, he showed no sign of it. His eyes stayed on his papers while his fingers rapped out email after email on his laptop. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, slightly fascinated. He was so focused, so intense. He seemed to have an innate sense of confidence in his own ability to do what needed to be done.

To be honest, she was a little jealous.

She’d tried a number of jobs since dropping out of university but none of them had stuck. She wanted what Max had. A purpose. No, a calling. A sense of who she was in this world and what she was supposed to be doing while she was here.

A knock on the door a few minutes later heralded the arrival of her dinner. She opened the door and tipped the room-service guy, then wheeled the little trolley closer to the sofa.

What she needed to do right now was stuff her face with her sandwich, before her stomach climbed up her throat and came to get it. That was the problem, maybe. She could always see the step that was right in front of her, the immediate details—like taking the job this afternoon—but when it came to the ‘big picture’ of her life it was always fuzzy and a bit out of focus.

She poured a glass of red wine from a bottle she’d ordered to go along with the food and took it, and the other sandwich, over to her boss. He didn’t look up, so she cleared a little space at the corner of papers and put the plate down. The wine, however, was more tricky. The last thing she wanted to do was put it where he’d knock it over. Eventually, she just coughed lightly, and he looked up.

‘Here,’ she said, handing him the glass. ‘You looked like you could do with this.’

For a moment he looked as if he was going to argue, but then he looked longingly at the glass of Pinot Noir and took it from her. As he did, just the very tips of their fingers brushed together.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Ruby held her breath, then backed away silently. Her face felt hot and she had the sudden urge to babble. She always did that when she was flustered or nervous, and suddenly she was both.

Max, however, didn’t notice. It was obvious he was as cool and calm and focused as he’d always been. He put the glass down near the back of the desk and carried on typing the email he’d been working on. Her cheeks flushed, Ruby retreated to the far end of the large sofa and ate her sandwich in silence.

When she’d finished her dinner, she stood up and replaced the empty plate on the trolley, then she hovered for a moment. He hadn’t touched either the food or the wine. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what; then she interrupted herself with a yawn. It was almost ten and it had been a long day. Maybe she should just go and get ready for bed.

Still, as she made her way towards her bedroom door she lingered, fingers on the handle, her eyes drawn to the silent figure hunched over his laptop in the corner. It was a long while before she pressed down on the metal fixture and pushed the door open.

As she got undressed in the semi-dark, careful not to wake the sleeping child, she thought about Max and all his quiet dedication and commitment. Maybe he was rubbing off on her, because suddenly she wanted to rise to the challenge in front of her.

She knew it seemed as if she’d come by this job almost by accident, but maybe that was just fate sending her a big, flashing neon sign? This way, Ruby... Maybe being a nanny was what she was meant to do. Hadn’t Max said she was exactly what he needed? And Sofia already seemed very attached to her.

She held her breath as she slid in between the cool cotton sheets and pulled the covers up over her chest. Maybe this was her calling. Who knew? But for the next week—possibly two—she’d have her chance to find out.

* * *

Max looked up from his plans and papers and noticed a club sandwich sitting on the edge of the desk. How long had that been there? His stomach growled and he reached for it and devoured it in record time.

Ruby must have put it there. He frowned. Something about that felt wrong.

And not just because taking care of him wasn’t part of her job description. He just wasn’t used to being taken care of full stop, mainly because he’d carefully structured his life so he was totally self-sufficient. He didn’t need anyone to look after him. He didn’t need anyone, at all. And that was just as well. While his father had been his rock, he hadn’t been the touchy-feely sort, and work had always kept him away from home for long hours. And his mother...

Well, he hadn’t had a mother’s influence in his life since he’d been a teenager, and even before the divorce things had been...explosive...at home.

A rush of memories rolled over him. He tried to hold them at bay, but there were too many, coming too fast, like a giant wave breaching a sea wall in a storm. That wall had held fast for so many years. He didn’t know why it was crumbling now, only that it was. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, paced across the living room of the suite in an effort to escape it.

This was why he hated this city. It was too old, full of too much history. Somehow the past—anyone’s past—weighed too heavily here.

He shook his head and reached for the half-drunk bottle of wine on the room-service trolley and went to refill his glass. The Pinot had been perfect, rich and soothing. Just what he’d needed.

He didn’t want to revisit any of those memories. Not even the good ones. Yes, his mother had been wonderful when she’d been happy—warm, loving, such fun—but the tail end of his parents’ marriage had been anything but happy. Those good times were now superimposed with her loud and expressive fits of rage, the kind only an Italian woman knew how to give, and his father’s silent and stoic sternness, as he refused to be baited, to be drawn into the game. Sometimes the one-sided fights had gone on for days.

He took another slug of wine and tried to unclench his shoulder muscles.

His relationship with his mother had never been good, not since the day she’d left the family home in a taxi and a cloud of her own perfume. He hadn’t spoken to her in at least a year, and hadn’t seen her for more than three.

He looked down at his glass and noticed he’d polished it off without realising. There was still another left in the bottle....

No. He put his glass down on the desk and switched off his laptop. No more for tonight. Because if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he’d need a clear head to deal with his mother come morning.