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‘No need for that. I’ve a water taxi arriving at the hotel at eleven-thirty. We can share it.’
Her heart jumped. ‘Thanks, but...I’d prefer to go my own way.’ Even a half-share in a water taxi was beyond her means now that she’d been dismissed from her job with nothing to show for it. She’d have to watch every dollar from now on. And start saving madly the moment she found another job back in London.
‘You’d prefer to struggle onto a crowded waterbus with all your luggage and then put up with a long tedious train ride to the airport when I’m offering you a free ride in a water taxi that will be empty, apart from myself, and will take less than half an hour? You’re being ridiculous.’
She bristled, but realised at the same time that it would be ridiculous to refuse. Especially if he was paying.
‘Oh, all right. Thanks,’ she said, trying not to sound ungracious. It would also give her a couple of extra hours here in Venice. Time to dash out on her own and see a few things she hadn’t been able to see with the children, knowing they’d be bored. Like the magnificent paintings at the Accademia, or the breathtaking views from the top of the Campanile in St Mark’s Square.
‘Well...’ Adam leaned back in his chair, nursing his coffee cup in his strong, long-fingered hands. ‘I guess you’re happy that now you’ll be able to go back to Australia a few days earlier than planned?’
The question was like a dousing of cold water.
‘I won’t be going back to Australia. At least not for a while.’ Not now, she brooded. Thanks to Hugo Dann. She thought of her sister, pregnant and sick and miserably in debt, and silently cursed all roving-eyed Englishmen.
‘Oh? Why the change of mind?’
‘I haven’t changed my mind. I...can’t afford it. Not now, anyway.’ She glowered at him from under her thick lashes. He wouldn’t understand what it was like not to be able to afford things. The man reeked of success and affluence.
‘You’re saying your employers let you go without paying you? And now you won’t have enough money to afford your air fare back to Australia?’ He looked as affronted as she felt.
She shrugged. ‘Something like that.’ No need to tell him that they’d originally promised to pay her entire air fare home, and now she was broke—or close to it.
She’d used up most of what she’d managed to save in London from her job with Nigel to pay off some pressing bills of her sister’s, debts that Sally’s useless husband, as usual, hadn’t been able to meet.
Poor Sally had been frantic with worry, knowing that the phone and power were about to be cut off and having no hope of earning the money herself. She’d been too ill with morning sickness to keep up her work as a model, which was just about all that had been keeping them afloat since their marriage last year. Sally had actually rung Claire and begged her for help, which she’d always refused to accept before.
And now—the last straw for poor Sally—her brute of a husband was urging her to terminate the pregnancy!
Claire pushed her bowl aside and reached for her coffee. Sally needed her. She’d even admitted it, which was so different from six months ago when she’d all but told her big sister to butt out of her life.
And now, thanks to Hugo Dann, she couldn’t fly home to offer Sally the sisterly support she needed. Not until she’d saved up enough for her air fare back to Australia. And once she did get back to Melbourne she’d have to find another job—a permanent job. She wouldn’t be able to help Sally in any material way until she started earning a salary. A good salary at that.
Damn Ralph Bannister, she cursed silently. Damn the lying, gambling, heartless good-for-nothing! Sally deserved better. And if she wasn’t. so besotted—still—she would see it.
‘Look, I have a proposition,’ Adam Tate said.
Claire jolted back to earth. A proposition? Her eyes flared in suspicion. I’ll just bet you have, she thought nastily, her mind still on Ralph Bannister and how he’d propositioned her sister a year ago with extravagant promises, gifts and lies about his family and past. Not that Sally knew about the lies...yet. Claire had discovered the truth while she was in London and hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her sister... at least not from so far away.
‘Forget it,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘You wrong me, Claire.’ The handsome mouth curved. ‘I’m offering you a job.’ He paused. ‘Another child-minding job.’
‘Child-minding?’ She stared at him. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
‘That’s right. My two-year-old son.’
‘You have a son?’ Her eyes widened. Somehow she’d imagined him to be fancy-free and without ties or responsibilities. And then she remembered Hugo Dann, father of those two little angels. This man could be another Hugo. Having a child didn’t make him safe.
Who else did he have tucked away at home? A wife? A jealous wife?
‘His name is Jamie. He’s in London with my mother at present. His last nanny...well, let’s just say she proved unsatisfactory.’
Unsatisfactory? She stabbed him with a piercing look. That was what Hugo Dann would say about her. That she had proved unsatisfactory. The slimy wolf.
Were all Englishmen the same?
His lips stretched wider as understanding flashed in his eyes.
‘Relax...I didn’t come on to her, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was nothing like that. She simply couldn’t cope with an over-active two-year-old. My mother’s been interviewing nannies for the past week but I’m to have the final say when I get back.’
Still been no mention of his wife. Were they separated? Divorced? Or was his wife a full-time career woman...like Sonia Dann?
She frowned across the table at him. ‘You’re leaving your son at home with a nanny when you go to Australia? A brand-new nanny?’ Her teeth tugged at her lip. ‘Your mother can’t look after him?’ Or your wife?
He murmured approval. ‘I can see you care about my son already. I could see yesterday that you care for children and know how to handle them.’
Had he been thinking of offering her a job when they’d met yesterday? Was that why he’d approached her? Not simply to chat her up because she was a reasonable-looking female who just might be willing to give him a good time? Had he known all along that she was the children’s nanny, not their mother? He could have easily found out from the hotel staff.
‘No. I won’t be leaving my son at home with a nanny or with my mother or with anyone else.’ His answer came easily. ‘I’ll be taking him with me to Australia. Assuming I can find someone to help me look after him for the next three months... possibly longer.’
‘Oh.’ She let that sink in, conscious that her heart was pounding like a wild jungle drum in her chest. If he meant what she thought he meant...
‘Your mother can’t fly to Australia with you?’ Find out all you can about him before you start even thinking about what he might be proposing.
‘Unfortunately not. She hates flying. Refuses to fly. And, anyway, she’ll have the farm to look after. She’s anxious to get back there.’
‘The farm? You mean...she doesn’t live in London?’
‘No. She’s only staying at my London apartment this week while she’s interviewing nannies and preparing Jamie for his trip to Australia. Normally she lives at our family farm in the Cotswolds. She’s helped me look after Jamie since...my wife died. With the help of various nannies.’
Claire inhaled slowly and deeply. So...he was a widower. Her heart softened a trifle. ‘You’re saying that Jamie has been living on a farm in the Cotswolds with your mother while you live and work in London?’ She couldn’t keep a note of censure from her voice.
‘I try to divide my time between both places. Jamie is a very active child and is happier living on the farm than in town. I spend as much of my time there as I can.’
But he wasn’t there all the time. Poor Jamie. No mother...and only a part-time father. But at least Adam intended taking his son to Australia with him. He must have some parental feeling.
‘Just what exactly do you want from me?’ she asked bluntly.
He put down his cup and smiled. Rather too complacently for her liking.
‘It seems we each have something to offer the other. I’m offering you a free flight back to Australia—hopefully within the next couple of days—and an extremely well-paid job within easy reach of Melbourne for the next three months or so. I’ll pay part of your salary up front to establish my bona fides. In return you’ll help me look after Jamie during the flight and afterwards at my sheep property in Victoria’s Western District.
‘And, since I know you’re a qualified accountant and that you wish to keep your hand in, I’ll ask you to do the farm accounts for me and possibly some auditing, for which I’ll pay you accordingly. Well?’
She flicked her tongue over her lips. ‘There’s just one thing...’ She hesitated. There were lots of things, actually, but one thing was uppermost in her mind right now.
‘And that is?’
‘The reason I’m so anxious to get back to Melbourne...’ She swallowed, sure that he’d withdraw his offer the moment he heard it.
‘You have...an attachment back in Melbourne?’ he assisted delicately. ‘A lover waiting for you?’
She recoiled. ‘I certainly do not!’ A spark of contempt turned the grey of her eyes to pure silver. ‘I have no...attachments, as you call them.’ Her tone was icy. ‘And I don’t intend to.’ She drew in a breath. ‘Ever again.’
Rather than looking shocked or surprised—or uttering the usual platitudes about possibly meeting someone else one day and changing her mind—his mouth twisted, almost in approval. Or...empathy? ‘You’re through with love and all that stuff, are you?’ he asked, looking more curious than concerned.
Her gaze fluttered away. ‘I can live without another man in my life... yes.’
Nigel’s betrayal, and the misery Ralph Bannister was putting her sister through, had been more than enough to make her vow never to get emotionally involved with any man ever again. Least of all with an Englishman. Love left you weak and vulnerable—at the mercy of your emotions. She never intended to lose control of her life and emotions the way poor Sally had lost control of hers. She’d come close to it with Nigel, and she didn’t intend to come close ever again.
He didn’t press her. ‘So if it’s not a man, why are you so anxious to get home?’
She sighed. ‘It’s...my sister.’
‘Your sister?’ Now he did look surprised.
‘My sister isn’t well. She’s pregnant. She’s been so sick she’s had to give up her work...as a model. And—and her husband isn’t any help. Financially or in any other way.’
Now that she’d started, the rest tumbled out. ‘Ralph—her husband—has no job. He gets involved in wild schemes that come to nothing. When he does make some money—usually with a win at the casino, or the races—he gambles it away again so they’re always struggling to pay off their debts. And—and now he’s actually urging her to get rid of the baby! It—it’s so unfair. All Sally’s ever wanted is a normal, happy home life. A husband, a home and babies. The poor thing’s at her wit’s end.’
She flushed as she stopped for breath, sure he must be regretting now that he’d ever offered her a job.
‘And you feel responsible for her?’ Rather than trying to back off, he actually leaned forward. ‘What about the rest of your family? Your parents? Other members of the family?’
‘There’s only Sally and me.’ She gulped, finding the dark, quizzical gaze disconcerting. To avoid it she concentrated on his mouth instead, her eyes tracing the firm sensual outline of his lips. Another mistake!
She let her gaze veer away altogether and reached for her coffee—even though the cup was already empty.
‘No one else?’ he pressed.
She snatched in a quick breath. ‘No. Our mother died when Sally was only three—I was eight—and our grandmother helped Dad bring us up. But Gran died before Sally was ten, and our father died while Sally was in her last year at school...I was at university. So I’ve really been a mother to Sally for most of her life—and I’ve had sole responsibility for her since Dad died.’
‘And you still feel responsible for her, even now that she’s married?’
She heaved a deep quivering sigh. ‘I’ve tried not to interfere but it’s been hard not to when I’ve seen what her husband’s been doing to her. He swept into her life like some shining knight and offered to lay the world at her feet. He had money then—a big win at the casino, I suppose—but. in fact—’
She stopped, sucking in a fraught breath. What was she doing, pouring out her troubles—worse, her sister’s private problems—to a man who for all she knew might be no better than Ralph or Nigel?
But—her chin came up—there was one big difference. This man was offering her the chance to get back to Australia within the next couple of days, and he was offering her a well-paid job once she was back in Victoria for at least three months. She’d be crazy to throw an offer like that back in his face.
‘I...I’ll need a couple of days in Melbourne first with my sister,’ she told him, wanting to be honest with him, even if it meant waving goodbye to a free flight home. ‘I want to make sure she’s all right...and do what I can to help her get back on her feet.’ She looked up at him expectantly. Hopefully.
‘Not a problem. I’ll be spending two or three days in Melbourne myself before this wedding I have to go to. I want to check up on the information technology centre I set up in Melbourne last year. It’s being run by Australians—very successfully. I’m in electronics,’ he explained, ‘with my brother, Luke, who’s based in London. Our business has been profitable enough to help finance our farming interests. So, Claire...’
His eyes were darkly persuasive as they caught and pinned hers. ‘Would three days in Melbourne be sufficient for you to sort things out with your sister? And remember, this property you’ll be going to—Yangalla—will only be a phone call away from her and less than three hours away from Melbourne by car. It’s not as if you’ll be going to the remote Outback.’
She drew in a deep, lung-filling breath. Was she crazy to be even considering working for this man? This dangerously sexy, cocksure, breathtakingly persistent Englishman? And how would his ‘over-active’ son take to her? Or she to him?
There was only one way to find out.
“I’m sure three days would give me ample time with my sister,’ she said primly. Sally might even tell her to go off and mind her own business after the very first day. She’d done it before.
Or Ralph might. He must have a fair idea of what she thought of him—she’d hardly been able to hide it.
‘So...you’ll take the job?’ Adam asked before she could spell out her rules and conditions. He was already sitting back—oh, so sure of himself—with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his hip-hugging jeans, his long legs sprawled loosely in front of him under the table and his great feet almost tangling with her own.
She made him wait a full three seconds. ‘I’m prepared to meet your son,’ she said cautiously. ‘And your mother.’ To make sure they actually exist, her eyes told him. ‘I’ll give you my final answer then.’
‘Fair enough.’ He flashed his megawatt smile. ‘Great.’
CHAPTER THREE
ENCHANTING as Venice was, Claire wasn’t disappointed to see it receding into the misty distance as the water taxi sped away across the lagoon towards the airport. Venice was for lovers, for romance, for people with leisure time... none of which had a place in Claire Malone’s life any more.
She flew back to London in unexpected comfort. Adam Tate had managed somehow to have her upgraded to Club Class—into the seat beside his. With his confident bearing and dark good looks—and with money and power no doubt playing a part—he would get his way in most things, she suspected.
He’d managed to talk her into working for him, hadn’t he? With the offer of a free flight home and a job for three months if she agreed...
She thought of Hugo Dann, who’d offered her a similar deal—a temporary job and a free flight home, which had come to nothing—and her eyes clouded. I won’t believe it until I’m actually on a plane back to Australia.
They took a taxi from the airport to Adam’s town house in Mayfair, stopping briefly on the way to pick up her few remaining belongings which she’d stored at a youth hostel in Earl’s Court. She’d already told him that she’d given up her lodgings in London, and he’d invited her to stay at his house, assuring her that there was plenty of room and that it would give her a better chance to get to know his mother and Jamie.
She hadn’t actually committed herself to staying the night. Or even to staying more than five minutes. She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of exactly. That she would find, once inside his front door, that his mother and son were sheer fabrications? That he had bars on all the windows and locks on all the doors?
She stifled a nervous giggle.
‘You said something?’ Adam turned to her.
She jumped at the sound of his voice, sobering in an instant. Glancing round, she became aware—acutely aware—that he’d shifted closer and that his thigh was now brushing against hers.
‘No.’ She gulped, her entire body going rigid. ‘I was just... thinking.’
‘I know. You’ve been so deep in thought I didn’t want to disturb you. Is it the thought of being with your sister again? Or the thought of taking on a strange little boy whom I’ve already admitted is a handful... and having to live on a sheep farm for the next few months?’
She swallowed again, not wanting to admit that she’d been thinking of him—that her thoughts over the past few minutes hadn’t even touched on his son or her sister or what lay ahead back in Australia.
‘A bit of both,’ she lied. And shot a question back at him. ‘You’re looking forward to seeing your son again?’
‘Naturally. Very much.’ He answered without hesitation, and yet...his face, his eyes, lacked the tender, loving spark—the proud glow—she would have expected from a doting father. Was he just clever at hiding his feelings... or had he no deep feelings for his son?
She heard herself asking curiously, ‘Did Jamie go with you to Australia last year when you bought your sheep station and set up your business in Melbourne?’
He gave a curt shake of his head. ‘He stayed with my mother. It was best. I was on the go the whole time. And he was barely eighteen months old at the time.’ There was something in his tone now, a guardedness in his eyes, that warned her not to pursue the subject.
But if she were to take care of Jamie she would have to know more about both child and father, and particularly about Adam’s relationship with his son. She moistened her lips, and forced out another question.
‘How old was your son when...his mother died?’
