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‘Cara, it’s true. And I wish to have this book very much. To turn its fragile pages and read of how love surpasses any glory, any tragedy...’ His voice choked once more and Talia bit her lip as guilt flooded through her.
How on earth could she even consider refusing her grandfather’s request, all out of her own selfish fear? How could she say no to Giovanni, her nonno who had taken care of her since she was a baby? Who had been as both mother and father, and lived with her these last seven years, accepting her limitations, loving her anyway?
‘I’ll try, Nonno,’ she said finally, and Giovanni leaned forward to rest his bony hand on top of hers.
‘I know you will, cara,’ he said, his voice hoarse as he smiled at her. ‘I know you will try your hardest. And you will succeed.’
* * *
‘There is one more woman to see you, Kyrie Mena.’
Angelos Mena looked up from his desk and the stack of CVs he’d scanned and then discarded. None of the young women he’d interviewed that afternoon had been remotely appropriate for the position. In fact, he suspected they’d been more interested in cosying up to him than getting to know his daughter, Sofia, just as the last three nannies had been.
His mouth thinning in disgust, he ran his hand through his hair and then shook his head. ‘One more? But that should be all.’ He tapped the discarded pile of papers on his desk. ‘I have no more CVs.’
His assistant, Eleni, spread her hands in helpless ignorance. ‘She has been waiting here for several hours, saying she needs to see you.’
‘She has tenacity, then, at least.’ He pushed away from the desk. ‘You might as well send her in.’
With a click of heels Eleni left his office and Angelos rose to stand by the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked Athens. Tension knotted the muscles of his shoulders and made his temples throb. He really hadn’t needed the complication of his new nanny delaying her start by six weeks. Finding an acceptable temporary replacement was a challenge he did not relish, especially considering that not one of the dozen women he’d interviewed today had been suitable.
Some had had experience, yes, but when he’d called Sofia in to see if his daughter approved, she’d resisted the women’s cloying attempts at friendship. Even Angelos had been able to see how patently false they were. He’d noticed how several of the women hadn’t wanted to look at Sofia; several others had stared. Both reactions had made his daughter shrink back in shame, and the injustice of it made Angelos seethe with fury. His daughter had nothing to be ashamed about.
Not like he did.
‘Mr Menos?’
Angelos turned around to see a slender young woman standing in the doorway. She looked pale but resolute, her sandy brown hair tousled, the simple pink cotton sundress she wore hopelessly wrinkled. Angelos frowned at the sight of her dishevelment. Clearly she did not dress to impress.
‘And you are?’ he asked, his tone deliberately curt.
‘I’m sorry...um...signomi...but I don’t speak...den...uh...milau...’ She stammered, a flush washing over her face, making her hazel eyes seem luminous in her freckled, heart-shaped face.
‘You don’t speak Greek?’ Angelos finished for her in flawless, clipped English. ‘And yet my daughter’s only language is Greek. How...interesting, Miss...?’ He arched an eyebrow, smiling coldly. He did not have time for another completely unsuitable candidate to witter her way through an interview. Better to have her scurry away now.
‘Miss Natalia Di Sione,’ the woman said. She straightened her spine, fire flashing in those golden-green eyes, surprising Angelos. The woman had spirit. ‘And actually, your daughter does speak a bit of English, if you are referring to the young girl who has been sitting outside the office all afternoon.’
Angelos’s eyebrows snapped together. ‘You have been talking to her?’
‘Yes.’ She eyed him uncertainly, the tip of her tongue coming out to moisten her lips. Angelos acknowledged the tiny gesture with an uncomfortable tightening in his insides that he resolutely ignored. ‘Was I not supposed to?’
‘That is neither here nor there.’ He tapped the pile of CVs on his desk. ‘You have not provided me with a CV, Miss Di Sione.’
‘A CV?’ She looked blank and irritation rose within him. She was clearly unsuitable and hopelessly unprepared. A change from the hard polish of the last few candidates, but irritating nonetheless.
‘I am afraid I do not have time to indulge you, Miss Di Sione,’ he said. ‘You are clearly completely unsuitable for the position.’
‘The position...’ For a moment she looked utterly flummoxed, her forehead crinkling, her mouth pursing. Angelos moved from around his desk and towards the door. As he passed her he caught a whiff of her scent, something clean and simple. Almonds, perhaps. He reached for the door handle. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Di Sione, but I prefer you don’t waste mine.’
‘But I haven’t even talked to you yet,’ she protested, turning around to face him. She tucked her unruly hair behind her ears, drawing his attention to the long, golden-brown strands, her small, perfectly formed ears.
Good grief. He was staring at her ears. What was wrong with him?
His gaze dropped from her ears to the shoulders that she’d thrown back, and now he noticed her slender yet gently curving body. He yanked his gaze back upwards to her face and determinedly kept it there.
‘I’ve learned enough from our brief conversation. You have no CV, you wear a crumpled dress to a job interview—’
‘I just got off a plane,’ she shot back, and her gaze widened. ‘A job interview...’
‘You are here,’ Angelos bit out, sarcasm edging every word, ‘to interview for the temporary position as nanny?’
‘Nanny? To your daughter?’
‘Who else?’ Angelos exploded, and she nodded quickly.
‘Of course, of course. I... I apologise for not having my CV with me.’ The tip of her tongue touched her lips again and Angelos looked away. ‘I only heard about this...position recently. Could you...could you tell me exactly what it entails?’
He frowned, wanting to dismiss her, needing to, because he knew she was completely unsuitable. And yet...something about her clear gaze, the stiffness of her spine, made him hesitate. ‘You would care for my eight-year-old daughter, Sofia. The nanny I hired has had to look after her ill mother, and she cannot start until the end of August. Therefore I require a replacement for the six weeks until then. This was all in the advertisement?’
She nodded slowly, her hazel eyes wide, sweeping him with that unsettlingly clear gaze. ‘Yes, of course. I remember now.’
His breath released in an impatient hiss. ‘Do you have any child-care experience, Miss Di Sione?’
‘Please, call me Talia. And the answer to that is no.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘None?’ She shook her head, her wavy hair falling about her face once more. She tucked it behind her ears, smiling at him almost impishly, and Angelos’s simmering temper came to a boil. She had an unfortunate amount of gall to demand an interview with absolutely no experience to recommend her. He shook his head. ‘You are, as I suspected from the moment you entered this office, wasting my time.’
Talia Di Sione blinked, recoiling a little bit at his tone. Angelos felt no sympathy. Why had the woman come here? She had no CV, no experience, no chance whatsoever. Surely she should have realised that.
‘Perhaps you should ask your daughter if I wasted her time,’ she said quietly, and then Angelos stilled.
* * *
Talia watched Angelos Mena’s pupils flare, his mouth tighten. Animosity and impatience rolled off the man in waves, along with something else. Something disturbing...a power like a magnetic force, making her realise how dangerous this man could be. And yet she didn’t feel remotely threatened, despite all the challenges she’d faced today, leaving her emotionally raw and physically exhausted.
Angelos folded his arms, the fabric of his suit stretching across impressive biceps. If he didn’t look so utterly forbidding, Talia would have considered Angelos Mena a handsome man. Actually, she would have considered him a stunning, sexy and potently virile man. His tall, powerful body was encased in that very expensive-looking suit, and the silver and gold links of a designer wristwatch glinted from one powerful wrist. Crisp dark hair cut very short framed a chiselled face with straight slashes of eyebrows and deep brown eyes that had been glowering at her like banked coals for the entirety of this unfortunate interview.
Not that she’d been expecting to be interviewed. She’d been waiting outside Angelos Mena’s office for four hours, hoping for a chance to meet him and ask him about Il Libro d’Amore. It had taken her several weeks of painstaking research to track down the precious book to the man standing in front of her, and she still wasn’t positive he had it in his possession. The Internet had taken her only so far, and when she’d called Mena Consultancy several times she’d been unable to reach the man himself. She’d left a few vague messages with his PA, wanting to explain what she was looking for in an actual conversation, but judging by Angelos Mena’s attitude now, she didn’t think he’d received any of them. Her name clearly hadn’t rung any bells, and it had only taken ten seconds in the man’s presence to realise that a simple conversation probably wouldn’t get her very far.
But was she really going to try to be hired as Angelos Mena’s daughter’s nanny?
‘I’ll go get her,’ he said in a clipped voice, and as he strode out of the room Talia sank into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Her knees were shaking and her head throbbed. Getting this far had taken all of her physical and mental resources. Nine hours in a plane, sweating and shaking the whole time, and then wandering through the crowded streets of Athens, flinching every time someone so much as jostled her shoulder, fighting back the memories she never let herself think about, the ones that could bring bile to her throat and send her heart rate crashing in panic.
It had been utterly exhausting. And yet... Talia rose from the chair and went to the huge window that overlooked the city. In the distance she could see the crumbling ruins of the ancient Acropolis underneath a hard blue sky, and the sight was powerful enough to make her feel a flicker of awe, a lick of excitement. For a second she could remember how it had felt to be eighteen years old and full of hope and vigour, the whole world stretched out in front of her, shimmering with promise, everything an enticing adventure...
‘Miss Di Sione?’
Talia whirled around, flushing guiltily at the look of disapproval on Angelos Mena’s face. Should she not have looked out the window? Goodness but the man was tightly wired.
‘This is Sofia.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Talia stepped towards the slight girl who blinked owlishly from behind her glasses. Her dark, curly hair framed a lovely, heart-shaped face; most of her right cheek was covered in the puckered red flesh of a scar. While waiting outside Talia had noticed how the girl would let her hair fall in front of her face to hide it, and her heart had twisted with sympathy. She knew what it was like to have scars. It just happened that hers were invisible.
‘Hello, Sofia,’ she said now, smiling, and just as before the girl bent her head forward so her hair slid in front of her face. Angelos frowned.
No, actually, he glowered. Talia quelled at the scowl on his face, and she could only wonder what his daughter felt. She’d watched Sofia covertly as she’d waited to see Angelos; she’d seen how the girl’s gaze followed each woman into the office, and then how her shoulders had slumped when each woman had come out again, usually looking annoyed or embarrassed or both. A couple of times Sofia had been ushered in, and Talia had watched how her slight body had trembled and she’d gripped her hands together, her knuckles showing bony and white, as she’d stepped into that inner sanctum.
After about an hour of waiting, Talia had tried to befriend her. She’d shown her the pad of paper and pack of coloured pencils she always kept in her bag, and for fun she’d done a quick sketch of one of the women who had been waiting, exaggerating her face so she was a caricature, but still recognisable. When Sofia had recognised the woman with her beaky nose and protuberant eyes, hands like claws planted on bony hips, she’d let out a little giggle, and then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and panicked.
Talia had grinned at her, reassuring and conspiratorial, and slowly Sofia had relaxed, dropping her hand and then pushing the pad of paper towards Talia, silently inviting her to draw another sketch. And so she had.
They’d whiled away a pleasant hour with Talia doing sketches of as many of the women as she could remember before she’d handed the pencils to Sofia and encouraged her to draw something.
Sofia had sketched a sunset, a stretch of golden sand and a wash of blue water.
‘Lovely,’ Talia had murmured.
‘Spiti,’ she’d said, and when Talia had looked blank, she’d translated hesitantly, ‘Home.’
‘Sofia?’ Angelos said now, his tone sharpening. He rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, gentle yet heavy, and spoke in Greek to her.
Sofia looked up, smiling shyly. ‘Yassou.’
Angelos spoke again in Greek and then glanced pointedly at Talia. ‘I am telling my daughter that you do not know Greek.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Talia replied lightly. ‘She already knows. We’ve been miming for most of the afternoon, but we’ve managed to get along. And Sofia knows more English than you think, Mr Mena.’
‘Kyrie Mena,’ he corrected, and she nodded, only just keeping from rolling her eyes.
‘Kyrie,’ she agreed, and she didn’t need Angelos Mena’s wince to know she’d butchered the pronunciation.
Angelos spoke again in Greek to Sofia, and his daughter said something back in reply. Although Talia didn’t know what either of them was saying, she could feel both Angelos’s disapproval and Sofia’s anxiety. She stood there, trying to smile even as exhaustion crashed over her again.
What was she doing here, really? She’d come all this way to find her grandfather’s precious book, not interview for a nanny position. If she had any sense she’d stop this farce before it went any further, and explain to Angelos Mena the real reason why she’d come.
And then, no doubt, have him boot her out the door, and any chance to recover Giovanni’s book would be gone for ever.
Angelos was talking to Sofia again in Greek and Talia could feel her vision blur as the headache that had been skirting the fringes of her mind threatened to take over. The room felt hot, the air stale, and her legs were starting to tremble again.
‘Do you mind...’ she murmured, and sank into the chair, dropping her head into her hands as she took several deep breaths.
Angelos broke off his conversation with his daughter to enquire sharply, ‘Miss Di Sione? Are you all right?’
Talia took another deep breath as her vision started to swim.
‘Miss Di Sione?’
‘Talia,’ she corrected him. ‘And no, actually, I think I’m going to faint.’
CHAPTER TWO (#u672c490c-99f8-5410-897b-0ac9286011a3)
ANGELOS SWORE UNDER his breath as the woman in front of him went limp, her head drooping down between her knees.
He shouted for Eleni and then went over to Talia, crouching down by her chair as he put an arm around her shoulders and attempted to prop her up.
‘Sorry,’ she managed as her head lolled against his arm. She felt like a rag doll in his arms, boneless and light. Her hair brushed his cheek.
‘Papa, is she going to be all right?’ Sofia asked anxiously, and Angelos nearly swore again. The last thing his daughter needed was to worry about some stranger.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, more tersely than he intended. ‘She’s just come over faint for a moment.’
His assistant came hurrying into the room, and Angelos barked out an order for a glass of water. ‘Make it juice,’ he snapped as Eleni headed out to the reception area. ‘Her blood sugar might be low.’
He glanced back at Talia, whose eyes were closed, her once rosy face now pale and bloodless. Her golden lashes fanned her cheeks and her lips parted slightly on a shaky breath. Then her eyes fluttered open and her gaze clashed with Angelos’s. For a second he felt jarred, as if he’d missed the last step on a staircase. He was suddenly conscious of his arm around her shoulders, her breasts pressed against his chest. Then she struggled to sit upright and he let his arm fall away.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t normally do that.’
‘Don’t you?’ he bit out, and she glanced at him uncertainly.
‘No...’
‘The thing is,’ Angelos said, his voice still hard, ‘I don’t know the first thing about you, Miss Di Sione. And yet you want me to entrust my daughter into your care.’
She gazed at him for a moment, the hazel of her eyes so clear he felt a sudden flicker of shame at his curt tone and implied accusation. Then she looked away from him, to Sofia.
‘I’m all right, Sofia,’ she said softly, and Angelos saw his daughter’s expression brighten as she gave Talia a trembling smile.
She was the first woman today, Angelos acknowledged, who had actually cared what his daughter was feeling. Had concerned herself with Sofia at all. And he realised that from the moment Sofia had entered his office, Talia had not made anything of his daughter’s scarred face. She hadn’t overcompensated either way; she’d simply acted as if it hadn’t mattered at all. The realisation made him feel both glad and completely wrong-footed, because it was still obvious to him that Talia Di Sione was utterly unsuitable to be a nanny. No qualifications, no references...he didn’t even know how she’d heard of the job or why she’d shown up for it.
And yet he felt on a gut level that she was the right choice, the only choice. Because she cared about his daughter.
Eleni came in with a crystal glass of apple juice on a tray and Talia took it with a murmured thanks. ‘I’m sorry to be a bother,’ she said, glancing at Angelos from under her lashes as she took a sip of juice. ‘I’m fine now, really.’
‘It’s no bother.’ Angelos paused. Talia was clearly the best choice for the position, and yet still he resisted. He liked things to be clear-cut, to make sense. He appreciated quantitative qualifications, experience over instinct. God knows his instincts had been wrong in the past. He trusted facts now, hard and solid and certain. Emotion, instinctual or otherwise, had no place in his life.
And yet... He watched as Talia smiled at Sofia and said something that made his daughter smile shyly back. Sofia caught his frowning gaze and gave him a hesitant smile and a discreet thumbs-up. This was the first woman she’d approved of. Should he trust his daughter’s instinct as well as his own?
His resolve hardened along with the set of his jaw. He had no choice. He needed to hire a nanny today, so he could return to work and Sofia could be cared for. He turned to Talia. ‘Can you be ready to leave in an hour?’
* * *
Talia blinked, her vision starting to swim again as she took in Angelos’s request. ‘Leave...?’ she repeated, and he gave an impatient nod.
‘I’d like to return to Kallos within the hour.’
Knowing she was sounding stupid, Talia couldn’t keep herself from repeating him yet again. ‘Kallos...?’
‘My home,’ Angelos clarified. ‘Did you not read the advertisement I placed, Miss Di Sione?’
