Contracted For The Spaniard's Heir

He was fascinated by Ellie’s clear-eyed gaze as their eyes met.

Predictably, she was staggered by the sum he was willing to pay. Even more predictably, she hotly refused to allow him to part with such a vast amount of cash.

‘You’re overreacting,’ he dismissed, reaching to top her glass up. ‘I’m not offering you the crown jewels...’

‘As good as. It goes against my nature to accept a sum as large as that.’

‘And it goes against my nature to be stingy when it comes to a situation like this. You’ll be doing me a service, and I’m a man who rewards good service.’

A quiver of excitement rippled through her as their eyes met and tangled. This was a business arrangement, but right now it felt like an adventure...

CHAPTER THREE (#ue3e2a30c-da9b-5f45-8982-cc72937f694d)

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Ellie finally made contact with her sister.

Lily had called their father the night before and it hadn’t taken him long before he phoned Ellie to tell her all about their conversation. But by then Ellie was on her way out to meet Luca for dinner. He would have her contract of employment and had told her that it was essential she knew what was expected of her. Ellie thought that top of the agenda would be not making personal calls while her charge slipped out of the house.

‘Did she leave a number, by any chance?’ Ellie asked when there was a break in the conversation.

She was going to be late for dinner but if she didn’t talk to Lily now then there was no guarantee that she would talk to her at all. Over the years as Lily had pursued fame and fortune, using her incredible looks to open doors, she and Ellie had grown increasingly distant. It took a lot of will power to resist the temptation to let things slide until their contact was reduced to birthday cards and polite conversation over the turkey with their father on Christmas day.

Ellie had no time to beat about the bush.

‘Did Dad mention anything...er...about his situation over here?’ she asked bluntly, because the long-distance call was costing her money, and if she didn’t stop her sister in mid flow then she would have to spend the entire phone call listening to Lily wax lyrical about all the exciting things happening in her life and the agents who were hunting her down with scripts for movies.

‘What situation?’ her sister questioned cautiously, so Ellie explained.

She decided that throwing out hints wasn’t going to work. ‘I thought that since you’ve found your feet over there you might think about helping me out, Lily. I earn a teacher’s salary and I don’t have to tell you that it’s not much...’

‘You chose to be a teacher,’ Lily snapped defensively. ‘So please don’t tell me to start feeling sorry for you because you haven’t got any money!’

‘This isn’t about me, Lily. It’s about Dad. I’ve had to take...er...another job to help raise money to clear his debts, but if you could contribute then it would give me some flexibility...when it comes to accepting the offer. Luca will clear the debt but obviously it goes against my pride to accept that level of generosity.’

‘What job?’ Lily asked curiously. ‘Luca? Who’s Luca?’

In a mad rush to leave, Ellie briefly explained the situation, that Luca was a Spanish businessman who had hired her to look after his godson for the summer. Lily knew where she stood when it came to money. She would know that accepting such a vast sum of cash would have been tough.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Lily said, although her voice was more thoughtful now. ‘Stop with the pride thing and just accept what’s on the table. Jeez, the guy is obviously loaded and he needs you to look after the kid. Instead of beating yourself up about it, you should be trying to suss whether you can’t get more out of him! Anyway, I can’t commit to anything, Ellie, and even if I could I’d be nuts to hand over hard-earned cash when there’s some rich guy willing to clear all Dad’s debts for a few weeks of playing happy families with his kid.’

So that was that.

Despite the fact that her sister was in the enviable position of having producers banging on her door, she was being true to who she was and refusing to help.

In a rush, Ellie barely glanced at herself in the mirror before flying out of the house.

She was meeting Luca at an Italian bistro in Covent Garden. He had only ever seen her in clothes used to walk dogs, but this was going to be a more formal meeting, and she had dressed accordingly, in the same outfit she pulled out of the wardrobe for parents’ meetings. A neat grey skirt, a white blouse and a pair of ballet pumps.

It was an outfit that reminded her of the businesslike nature of their relationship, and for that Ellie was grateful, because when she thought of him her mind started playing games, and what she saw in her head wasn’t someone in a suit discussing terms and conditions and holding a fountain pen, it was a man with smouldering sexiness and a smile that could give her goose bumps.

She was half an hour late by the time she stepped into the bistro and looked round her, spotting Luca instantly.

She smoothed down her skirt and took a few seconds to gather herself. The restaurant was busy, with every table filled, and despite the casual sense of waiters hurrying with trays, the open-plan kitchen and the unfussy furnishings, Ellie could tell that the food would cost a fortune.

The clientele was all well-heeled. The food passing her on plates was delicate, artistic creations.

She weaved her way towards Luca and, the closer she got, the more nervous and self-conscious she felt. Her outfit, which had seemed sensible and appropriate when she had put it on an hour earlier, felt cheap and drab and she slid into her chair with a palpable feeling of relief.

‘You’re late,’ Luca opened.

Ellie’s initial reaction was to snipe back at him. Her glass-green eyes were narrowed as he glanced at his watch and then relaxed back in the chair to look at her.

Unlike the other people in the restaurant, who were all clearly kitted out in designer gear, Luca looked as though he had dressed in a hurry and without any thought for the end result. His dark hair was combed back and there was a scraping of stubble on his chin. Yet it suited him—he looked even more dangerous with a five o’clock shadow and her nervous system went into free fall.

He was in black. Black tee shirt. Black jeans. Loafers without socks.

Her mouth was suddenly parched and she gulped down some of the water that had been poured into a glass in front of her. A glimpse of her prissy grey skirt was a timely reminder of why she was sitting in this upmarket bistro.