Equal Opportunities

Something about the man disturbed her. One look at those flint-hard grey eyes had sent her stomach churning with nervous tension, and she felt very much as though she were the one being interviewed, and not him.

He was older than she had imagined, too. Somewhere in his mid-thirties. Not at all the kind of man she imagined would want to spend his time taking care of a small child. But then, Camilla had warned her that he was simply working as a nanny while retraining for a new career.

She reached the top of the stairs and turned to look back at him. He was half-way up, and from her vantage point she could look down on the thick darkness of his head. His hair was well groomed and clean, his nails on the hand that held on to the banister well kept and shaped, but not the nails of a man who regularly visited a manicurist. His clothes were good and very expensive, she observed, noting the softness of his leather blouson and the way the dark trousers clung to his thighs. Italian and very probably cashmere. He must have bought them while he was working abroad and earning good money, she decided.

‘The agency tells me that you’re very experienced with small children,’ she commented as she waited for him to join her. ‘I must say I’m surprised.’

Three steps behind her on the stairs Garrick tensed briefly, glad that she couldn’t see his face. What on earth was the woman talking about? And what did she mean—the agency?

Garrick wasn’t used to being caught at a disadvantage, and within the space of ten minutes this woman had done so twice, even if she herself was not aware of it.

The first time had been when she opened the door and he had realised that the girl he had mistaken for the nanny was in fact Kate herself. All right, so now she had her hair caught up in an elegant knot, and he could see now that he was face to face with her the air of cool authority she wore. But he could also see how trustingly the child looked at her, and how competently she held him in her arms, as though she was both used and happy with his small weight there.

That knowledge disturbed him, alerting him to a range of possible problems he hadn’t anticipated. What he had expected was that after a brief discussion he would offer Kate Oakley a generous sum of money to part with the child, which she would be only too relieved to accept, like the sensible businesswoman he had discovered she was. However, he was already beginning to suspect he had been too sanguine.

And what was this agency she was talking about? No one in the last ten years had ever mistaken Garrick for anything other than what he was: a singularly powerful and sometimes dangerous businessman.

‘I know that the agency have vouched in full for your abilities, but I expect you’ll appreciate that I’ll have to ask you a few questions of my own. Did they explain to you that you’ll be in full charge of Michael during the day? I work long hours, I’m afraid, and I don’t get home until well into the evening some days, which means that you’ll be on duty until I do return. Weekends you will be able to have off in full. I don’t have a car, but the agency told me that you had your own transport. I’ll show you your room in a moment. All right, Michael, I know you want your bath…I’m sorry about this,’ she apologised to Garrick over her shoulder as she hurried into the nursery. ‘But Michael loves his bath, and he’s apt to get a bit impatient if the fun’s delayed.’

She paused just inside the room, and said thoughtfully, ‘Look, why don’t I let you bathe him? As you will be in full charge of Michael, I’m sure you’ll realise that it’s important for me to feel that you can establish a rapport with him. I must confess when my friend suggested a male nanny, I was rather doubtful. She pointed out to me that Michael would benefit from the male influence in his life, but I feel he’s rather young as yet for me to worry about male/

female roles.’

Garrick, who had followed her into the room, stared at her back as she bent to put Michael down. Had he gone mad, or did this woman really believe that he had come here to be interviewed as a nanny for the child?

As Kate straightened up and gave him a coolly appraising smile, he realised that he hadn’t, and that Kate did seriously believe that was why he was here.

He opened his mouth to correct her misapprehension, and then closed it again. Several times during his life he had been called upon to make split-second and impulsive decisions, and never once had his intuition failed him. This time it was telling him to go along with her self-deception. He was rapidly coming to the belief that there was no way Kate Oakley was going to calmly hand over the child. He could see just by watching her with him how fiercely protective of him she was. That in no way altered his own determination to have sole responsibility for Michael, but what it did alter was the method he would now need to adopt to get legal control of Michael.

David Wilder had warned him that the only way the courts would ever take Michael away from Kate Oakley would be if she could be proved to be an unfit guardian. And what better way to be able to prove that than to live here in the same house with them and to observe at firsthand how she responded to her responsibilities?

One set of facts could be presented in so many different ways, to give a hundred different impressions, Garrick knew that. He wondered what the courts would think of a woman who employed an unknown man to take care of a nine-month-old child without even making any attempt to check his credentials.

When Kate looked at him, he was smiling at her. It was an odd, chilling sort of smile, and for a moment she was tempted to snatch up Michael and tell him to leave.

Control yourself, she commanded inwardly. Just because the man is so much more…male than you anticipated, that’s no reason to get in such a state. But, as she watched Garrick remove his jacket and deftly roll up the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing, she couldn’t help wishing that she had never listened to Camilla’s suggestion that she hire a male nanny to take care of little Michael.

Bathe him, she had said, and Garrick thanked his lucky stars that his mother’s preoccupation with infants had ensured that he had observed the bathtime routine often enough as a child and teenager to have retained some knowledge of what ought to be done.

Let’s face it, Garrick told himself, Kate Oakley probably didn’t have much more idea of how to take care of a small child than he did himself.

A dedicated career woman was how his data described her, and from the information he had been given he had formed the impression that she would be much harder, much, much more abrasive than she was turning out to be. Already he had discerned that there were certain anomalies about her…certain vulnerabilities that she tried desperately hard to conceal.

He took hold of Michael and started to undress him.

Kate watched impassively, but secretly just a little pleased, while Michael kicked and wriggled. The man didn’t seem to be too familiar with the poppers on Michael’s clothes, but his hands were gentle when he touched and held the little boy, she had to admit that, and she had to turn away from the sight of those male hands struggling with the small clothes. It brought back memories she wanted to suppress…memories of a time when she herself had been a much-loved part of a close family unit. A time before her world had been turned upside-down and her parents had left her…deserted her without any explanation, without any warning.

She noticed the faint grimace the man gave as he removed Michael’s wet nappy, and suspected that she was probably right in thinking that he had never taken care of such a very young child before.

All her earlier doubts came sweeping back, and she stepped forward protectively, ready to snatch Michael away from him.

‘I’m not sure that this is a good idea,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Michael is very young…’

She gave him a firmly dismissive smile and reached for her godson, but the man refused to let him go.

‘Yes. He is small for his age, isn’t he?’ he agreed, deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘Premature, was he?’

Garrick knew quite well that Michael had been premature, but he saw from Kate’s face that his remark had startled her.

‘Yes. Yes, he was a little,’she agreed reluctantly.

Without a word Garrick picked Michael up and carried him over to his waiting bath. Once there, he asked Kate over his shoulder, ‘And his father…what part does he play in Michael’s life?’

There was no harm in turning the screw just a little, he told himself, justifying his underhand actions with his conviction that Michael would be better off with him.

‘Michael’s parents are dead,’ she told him quietly, the pallor of her skin making him feel uncomfortably guilty. He hadn’t expected her to show such distress. He knew she had been close to Jennifer. The report had told him that much; they had, after all, grown up together in the children’s home, but he had gained the impression from the report that she rather tended to keep people at an emotional distance, and he had formed the opinion that she would look upon the responsibility of Michael as an unwanted one. Now he wondered uneasily if he had been too sanguine in his assumptions.

To cover his own inner disquiet, he said quickly, ‘So he isn’t really your child, then?’

Not really hers! Kate caught her breath on an unsteady shock of tension, increased by her awareness of just how much she feared and resented the assumption behind the casual words. Michael was hers…When she thought of Michael, she thought of him as being her child, she recognised. She loved him, and not just because of Jen.

Panic bit into her…the kind of panic she always experienced at the thought of allowing anyone to come too close to her emotionally, but where Michael was concerned it was already too late.

She heard the man saying calmly, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

And she focused on him, her body as taut as a bow string as she fought off the feelings threatening her.

‘You didn’t,’ she denied shortly, hoping he would drop the subject. To her dismay, he didn’t.

‘You must have been very close to the boy’s parents. He doesn’t look like you, though,’ he added, looking first at her and then at Michael.

Kate drew a sharp breath, aching to simply demand that he leave. He had no right to ask her these questions, to pry into her life. And then she tried to control her reactions and remind herself that he was simply trying to do his job and that it was only natural that he should want to have as much information as possible about Michael.

Taking a deep breath, she said as calmly as she could, ‘Michael isn’t a blood relative. He’s the child of a very close friend. She and her husband were killed in a motorway accident.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He wasn’t looking at her now, whether out of compassion or simply by accident, she wasn’t sure. ‘It can’t be easy for you…a single woman suddenly having a baby thrust into your life. Doesn’t he have any family?’

He was probing too deeply now, but there was nothing she could do to stop him without betraying herself. She could feel the old, familiar tension building up inside her stomach. She wanted to tremble with the force of it, but she had long ago learned to control that reaction.

‘Not really,’ she told him shortly. ‘Jen and I are…were both orphans. We grew up together in a children’s home. Alan, Jen’s husband, was an only child, his parents are dead, and I believe there is a distant family connection…a second cousin.’

‘Orphans,’ Garrick mused, ignoring the reference to himself. ‘I see.’

Here was his chance to subtly undermine her self-confidence by pointing out that as an orphan she was hardly qualified to act as a substitute family to such a young child…to ask her if she didn’t think Michael would be better off in the care of someone who could communicate to him through their own experiences, just what it meant to be part of a loving family.

Whatever else he might or might not be…however cynical his views on marriage had become over the years, he could never doubt the happiness that his parents had had…nor dismiss the love and security they had given him as a child.

It would be oh, so easy to make some idle comment that would increase the doubts he could see so clearly shadowing her eyes…to reinforce what he was beginning to suspect was her own private fear that she was not an adequate parent for Michael, but to his own consternation he found that he simply could not do it. He was as amazed by the recognition of his weakness as he would have been to discover that the world had suddenly turned upside-down.