Italian Boss, Housekeeper Bride

She took a deep breath. ‘If I go away now, then you might appoint someone else before me, and no one will do the job as well as me. I can promise you that, Mr de Feretti.’

‘Signor de Feretti,’ he’d corrected flintily, but his interest had been awakened by her passion and determination and by the cold light of fear which lay at the back of her eyes.

He’d opened the door a fraction wider, so that a shaft of light had illuminated her, and Raffaele’d found himself thinking that she certainly wouldn’t provide much in the way of temptation—and maybe that was a good thing. Some of the younger applicants he’d seen that day had been pretty conturbante—sexy—and had made it clear that working for a single and very eligible bachelor was at the top of their wish-list for very obvious reasons. And the ones who’d been older had seemed itching to mother him. ‘So what makes you think you’d do the job better than anyone else?’ he’d demanded.

There was no possible answer to give other than the unvarnished truth, and Natasha had heard her voice wobble as she told him.

‘Because no one wants the job as much as I do. No one needs it as much as I do, either.’

He had seen she’d been shivering. Her teeth had been chattering and her eyes had a kind of wildness about them. He thought at the time that he might be offering house-room to someone who was very slightly unhinged, but sometimes Raffaele allowed himself to be swept along by a gut feeling that was stronger than logic or reason, and that had been one of those times.

‘You’d better come in,’ he’d said.

‘No! Wait!’

He frowned, scarcely able to believe his ears. ‘Wait?’

‘Can you give me a few minutes and I’ll be back?’

As Raffaele’d nodded his terse agreement he’d told himself he was being a fool—and he didn’t even have the fool’s usual excuse of having been blinded by a beautiful face and body. She was probably the head of some urban gang—the innocent-looking stool-pigeon who had arrived ahead of her accomplices who were even now bearing down on him.

But Raffaele was strong and fit and, deep down, he didn’t really think the woman was any such thing. Why, she was little more than a girl and her desperation sounded real enough, rather than the rehearsed emotion of some scam.

He’d tossed another log on the fire, which was blazing in his study, and poured himself a glass of rich, red wine. He’d almost given up on her coming back and thought that it was probably all for the best—though, his curiosity had somehow been whetted.

And then came the ringing on the door—only, this time it was even more insistent. His temper had threatened to fray as he’d wrenched it open.

‘You are not showing a very good example in interview technique!’ he’d grated, and then had seen that the woman was carrying a bundle—evident, even to his untutored eyes, as being a sleeping child—and there’d been a buggy on his front step. ‘What the hell is this?’

Without thinking, he’d pulled her inside out of the howling storm, swearing softly in Italian as he’d directed her in towards the fire, where she sank to her knees in front of the leaping flames, the child still in her arms, and let out a low, crooning sound of relief.

‘My friend’s been looking after my b-baby in the bus shelter while I came to see you.’

For a moment, he’d felt fury and pity in equal measures—but something else, too. He would help her, yes—but only if she proved she was worth helping. And, unless this mystery woman dried her eyes and pulled herself together, he would kick her back out on the street, where she belonged.

‘Hysterics won’t work in this case,’ he’d said coldly. ‘Not with me.’

Just in time, Natasha had recognised that he’d meant it and, sucking in a shuddering breath, she’d looked down at Sam. How did he manage to still be asleep? she’d asked herself with something close to wonder.

‘How old is he?’ Raffaele’d asked.

She’d lifted her face to his. It glowed in the firelight and had been wet with rain and tears, and he’d suddenly found himself thinking that her eyes were exceptionally fine—pale, like a summer sky.

‘How on earth d-did you know he was a boy?’ she’d questioned shakily.

He’d heard the strong and fierce note of maternal pride and, unexpectedly, he’d smiled. ‘He’s dressed entirely in blue,’ he’d said, almost gently.

Natasha had looked down and, sure enough, the hooded all-in-one and baby mitts had all been in variations on that shade. ‘Oh, yes!’ And, for the first time in a long, long time, she’d quivered him a smile. ‘He’s nearly eighteen months,’ she’d added.

Raffaele had hid the sinking feeling in his heart. Porca miseria! What he knew about children and babies could be written on his fingernail, but even he knew that children around that age were nothing but trouble.

‘But he’s really good,’ Natasha’d said.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Sam had chosen that precise moment to wake up. He’d taken one look at Raffaele and burst into an ear-splitting howl of rage.

There’d been a pause.

‘So I see,’ Raffaele’d said wryly.

‘Oh, he’s just tired,’ Natasha’d babbled, clamping him tightly to her chest and rocking him like a little boat. ‘And hungry. He’ll be fine tomorrow.’

He’d noticed her assumption that they would still be around the next day, but didn’t remark on it. ‘Why are you in this situation? Where have you been living?’

‘I’ve been working in a house—only, they keep asking me to do more and more, so that I hardly get a minute with Sam. And the house is damp, too—he’s only just finished a cold, and I’m terrified he’s going to get another. It’s not somewhere I want to bring a child up.’

His eyes had narrowed. ‘And what about his father? Is he going to turn up and want to stay the night with you here?’

‘We don’t see him,’ Natasha’d said, with an air of finality.

‘There isn’t going to be a scene? Angry doorstep rows at midnight?’

She shook her head. ‘No way.’

Raffaele’d looked curiously at the boy, who had been attempting to burrow into her shoulder, his thumb wobbling towards his mouth. He’d frowned. ‘Where’s he going to sleep?’

And with those words she’d known that she was in with a chance. That she’d had one foot in Mr—or rather—Signor de Feretti’s expensive door and she had to prove to this rugged, but rather cold-eyed, foreigner that she deserved to stay. They deserved to stay.

The child had spent his first night under the Italian’s roof in the same bed as his mother and when, the next morning, Raffaele’d caught Natasha trawling through the second-hand column of the local paper he’d overrode all her objections—which admittedly weren’t very strong when it came to her beloved boy—to order a top-of-the-range bed which was fashioned out of wood to look like a pirate ship.

And there mother and son had been ever since.

It suited all parties very well. Raffaele knew that it was far better his big house be lived in—especially as he was away a lot, not just in the States, but Europe, too, for the de Feretti empire spread far and wide. Once, Natasha had plucked up the courage to ask him why he bothered keeping on a house in England when presumably a hotel might have been more convenient.

But he had shaken his jet-dark head. ‘Because I hate them,’ he’d told her, with a surprising vehemence. Hadn’t he been in enough of them as a boy, following the death of his father, when he had been trailed from pillar to post by a mother determined to find herself a new rich husband? ‘Hotels have no soul. All the furniture is used by faceless hundreds. The pillows slept on by others and the mattresses made love on by countless couples. Yet, when you buy stuff of your own and put it down somewhere at least you can make any house a home.’

If she hadn’t been so busy trying not to bite her lip with embarrassment when he’d said that bit about making love then she might have disagreed with him—telling him that a home consisted of more than just furniture and belongings. It had to do with making it the place you most wanted to be at the end of the day. And, anyway, who was Natasha to disagree with him, when he had provided the only real home she and Sam had ever known?

When Sam had been old enough Raffaele had insisted on enrolling him to attend the nursery section of the highly acclaimed international school which was situated nearby.

‘Why not?’ he had queried, rather arrogantly, when she’d shaken her head.

‘It’s much too expensive,’ Natasha’d said defensively. ‘I can’t afford it.’

His voice had gentled in a the way it rarely did, but which was impossible to resist when he turned it on. ‘I know that. I wasn’t expecting you to pay. I will.’

‘I couldn’t possibly accept that,’ Natasha’d said, feeling as if she ought to refuse his generous offer even though her maternal heart leapt at the thought of Sam being given such a head start in life.

‘You can, and you will. It makes perfect sense,’ he’d drawled. ‘All the other schools are far enough away to eat into your time when you take him there, and ultimately my time. Listen, Natasha, why don’t you look at it as one of the perks of the job—rather than me giving you the use of a car, which so far you have refused to drive in London?’