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Thalia nodded, but Ruby knew she hadn’t taken her seriously at all. From the smile on the other woman’s face, she could tell Thalia was wondering how much cachet it would bring her business if she could wheel Ruby out at the annual garden party to impress her clientele, maybe even get national treasure Patrick Lange to show up.
That wasn’t Ruby’s style at all. She’d been offered plenty of jobs where she could cash in on her father’s status by doing something vastly overpaid for not a lot of effort, and she’d turned every one of them down. All she wanted was for someone to see her potential for once, to need her for herself, not just what her family connections could bring. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask. Unfortunately, Ruby suspected Ms Thalia Benson wasn’t that rare individual. She rose from her side of the desk, opened the office door and indicated Ruby should return to the waiting area. ‘Why don’t you take a seat outside, and I’ll see what I can do?’
Ruby smiled back and nodded, rising from her chair. She’d give Thalia Benson fifteen minutes, and if she hadn’t come up with something solid by then, she was out of here. Life was too short to hang around when something wasn’t working. Onwards and upwards, that was her motto.
Everything in the waiting area was shades of stone and heather and aubergine. The furniture screamed understated—and overpriced—elegance. The only clue that the Benson Agency had anything to do with children was a pot of crayons and some drawing paper on the low coffee table between two sectional sofas. When Thalia’s office door closed, Ruby shrugged then sat down. She’d always loved drawing. She picked up a bright red crayon and started doodling on a blank sheet. Maybe she’d go for fire engine–red streaks in her hair next time they needed touching up....
She spent the next five minutes doing a pretty passable cartoon of Thalia Benson while she waited. In the picture, Thalia dripped sophistication and charm, but she was dressed up like the Child Catcher from the famous movie, locking a scared boy in a cage.
As the minutes ticked by Ruby became more and more sure this was a waste of her time. The only thing she needed to decide before she left was whether to fold the drawing up and discreetly stick it in her pocket, or if she should prop it on the console table against the far wall so it was the first thing prospective clients saw when they walked in the door.
She was holding the paper in her hands, dithering about whether to crease it in half or smooth it out flat, when the door crashed open and a tall and rather determined-looking man strode in. Ruby only noticed the small, dark-haired girl he had in tow when he was halfway to Thalia Benson’s office. The child was wailing loudly, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth wide open, and the only reason she didn’t bump into any of the furniture was because she was being propelled along at speed in her father’s wake, protected by his bulk.
The receptionist bobbed around him, trying to tell him he needed to make an appointment, but he didn’t alter his trajectory in the slightest. Ruby put her cartoon down on the table and watched with interest.
‘I need to see the person in charge and I need to see them now,’ he told the receptionist, entirely unmoved by her expression of complete horror or her rapid arm gestures.
Ruby bit back a smile. She might just stick around to see how this played out.
‘If you’ll just give me a second, Mr...er...I’ll see whether Ms Benson is available.’
The man finally gave the receptionist about 5 per cent of his attention. He glanced at her, and as he did so the little girl stopped crying for a second and looked in Ruby’s direction. She started up again almost immediately, but it was half-hearted this time, more for show than from distress.
‘Mr Martin,’ he announced, looking down at the receptionist. He stepped forward again. Ruby wasn’t sure how it happened—whether he let go of the girl’s hand or whether she did that tricksy, slippery-palm thing that all toddlers seemed to know—but suddenly father and child were disconnected.
The receptionist beat Mr Tall and Determined to Thalia’s door, knocking on it a mere split second before he reached for the handle, and she just about saved face as she blurted out his name. He marched into the room and slammed the door behind him.
Once he was inside, the little girl sniffed and fell silent. She and Ruby regarded each other for a moment, then Ruby smiled and offered her a bright yellow crayon.
* * *
Max looked at the woman behind the desk. She was staring at him and her mouth was hanging open. Just a little. ‘I need one of your travelling nannies as soon as possible.’
The woman—Benson, was it?—closed her jaw silently and with one quick, almost unnoticeable appraising glance she took in his handmade suit and Italian shoes and decided to play nice. Most people did.
‘Of course, Mr Martin.’ She smiled at him. ‘I just need to get a few details from you and then I’ll go through my staff list. We should be able to start interviewing soon.’ She looked down at a big diary on her desk and started flipping through it. ‘How about Thursday?’ she asked, looking back up at him.
Max stared back at her. He thought he’d been pretty clear. What part of ‘as soon as possible’ did she not understand? ‘I need someone today.’
‘Today?’ she croaked. Her gaze flew to the clock on the wall.
Max knew what it said—three-thirty.
The day had started off fairly normally, but then his sister had shown up at his office just before ten and, as things often did when the women in his family were concerned, it had got steadily more chaotic since then.
‘Preferably within the next half hour,’ he added. ‘I have to be at the airport by five.’
‘B-but how old is the child? How long do you need someone for? What kind of expertise do you require?’
He ignored her questions and pulled a folded computer printout from his suit pocket. There was no point wasting time on details if she wasn’t going to be able to help him. ‘I came to you because your website says you provide a speedy and efficient service—travelling nannies for every occasion. I need to know whether that’s true.’
She drew herself up ramrod straight in her chair and looked him in the eye. ‘Listen, Mr Martin, I don’t know what sort of establishment you think I run here, but—’
He held up a hand, cutting her off. He knew he was steamrollering over all the pleasantries, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘The best nanny agency in London, I’d heard. Which is why I came to you in an emergency. Have you got someone? If not, I won’t waste any more of your time.’
She pursed her lips, but her expression softened. He hadn’t been flattering her—not really his style—but a few timely truths hadn’t hurt his case. ‘I can help.’ She sighed and Max relaxed just a little. She’d much rather have told him it was impossible, he guessed, but the kind of fee she was measuring him up for with her beady little eyes was hard to say no to. ‘At the very least, let me know the sex and age of the charge,’ she added.
Max shrugged. ‘Girl,’ he said. ‘Older than one and younger than school age. Other than that I’m not quite sure. Why don’t you take a look and see what you think?’
The woman’s eyes almost popped out of her head. ‘She’s here?’
Max nodded. Where the hell else did the woman think she’d be?
‘And you left her outside? Alone?’
He frowned. He hadn’t thought about that for one second. Which was exactly why he needed to hire someone who would. Anyway, he hadn’t left Sofia completely alone. There had been the flappy woman...
Ms Benson sprang from the desk, threw the door open and rushed into the waiting area beyond her office. There, colouring in with the tip of her tongue caught at one side of her mouth, was Sofia. Max suddenly noticed something: the noise had stopped. That horrible wailing, like an air-raid siren. It had driven him to distraction all day.
‘Here...try purple for the flower,’ a young woman, kneeling next to Sofia, was saying. Sofia, instead of acting like a child possessed with the spirit of a banshee, just calmly accepted the crayon from the woman and carried on scribbling. After a few moments, both woman and child stopped what they were doing and lifted their heads to look at the two adults towering over them. The identical expression of mild curiosity they both wore was rather disconcerting.
Max turned to the agency owner. ‘I want her,’ he said, nodding at the kneeling woman who, he was just starting to notice, had odd-coloured bits in her hair.
Benson gave out a nervous laugh. ‘I’m afraid she doesn’t work here.’
Max raised his eyebrows.
‘Not yet,’ she added quickly. ‘But I’m sure you’d be better off with one of our other nannies who—’
He turned away and looked at the strange pixie-like woman and the little girl again. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, although it had probably only been hours, Sofia was quiet and calm and acting like the normal child he vaguely remembered. ‘No. I want her.’
Something deep down in his gut told him this woman had what he needed. To be honest, he really didn’t care what it was. It was twenty-five to four and he had to get going. ‘What do you say?’ he asked the her directly.
The woman finished colouring in a pink rose on the sheet of paper she and Sofia were sharing before she answered. She flicked a glance at the agency owner. ‘She’s right. I don’t even work here.’
‘I don’t care about that,’ he told her. ‘You have all the skills I want. It’s you I need.’
She blinked and looked at him hard, as if she was trying to work out whether he was serious or not. Normally people didn’t have to think about that.
‘What if the job isn’t what I need?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think I should accept without hearing the terms.’
Max checked his watch again. ‘Fine, fine,’ he said wearily. ‘Have it your way. We’ll interview in the car. But hurry up! We’ve got a plane to catch.’ And then he marched from the offices of the Benson Agency leaving its proprietor standing open-mouthed behind him.
CHAPTER TWO (#u44d6f22c-62d1-5fe1-a7f7-6e203a18167f)
IT TOOK RUBY all of two seconds to drop the crayon she was holding, scoop up the child next to her and run after him into the bright sunshine of a May afternoon. God did indeed move in mysterious ways!
And so did Mr...whatever his name was.
Those long legs had carried him down the stairs to street level very fast. When she burst from the agency’s understated door onto one of the back roads behind Oxford Street, she had to look in both directions before she spotted him heading towards a sleek black car parked on a double yellow.
She was about to run after him when she had a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture? moment. Hang on. Why was she holding his child while he waltzed off with barely a backward glance? It was as if, in his rush to conquer the next obstacle, he’d totally forgotten his daughter even existed. She looked down at the little girl, who was quite happy hitched onto her hip, watching a big red double-decker bus rumbling past the end of the road. She might not realise just how insensitive her father was being at the moment, just how much it hurt when one understood how extraneous they were to a parent’s life, but one day she’d be old enough to notice. Ruby clamped her lips together and marched towards the car. No child deserved that.
She walked up to him, peeled the child off her hip and handed her over. ‘Here,’ she said breezily. ‘I think you forgot this.’
The look of utter bewilderment on his face would have been funny if she hadn’t been so angry. He took the girl from Ruby and held her out at arm’s length so her legs dangled above the chewing-gum-splattered pavement. Now it was free of toddler, Ruby put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows.
He was saved from answering by the most horrendous howling. It took her a few moments to realise it was the child making the sound. The ear-splitting noise bounced off the tall buildings and echoed round the narrow street.
‘Take it back!’ he said. ‘You’re the only one who can make it stop!’
Ruby took her hands off her hips and folded her arms. ‘It has a name, I should think.’
He offered the screaming bundle of arms and legs over, but Ruby stepped back. He patted the little girl’s back, trying to soothe her, but it just made her cry all the harder. The look of sheer panic on his face was actually quite endearing, she decided, especially as it went some way to softening that ‘ruler of the universe’ thing he had going on. He was just as out of his depth as she was, wasn’t he?
His eyes pleaded with her. ‘Sofia. Her name is Sofia.’
Ruby gave him a sweet smile and unfolded her arms to accept the little girl. She still didn’t know whether following this through was a good idea, but the only other option was working for her dad. He’d flipped when he’d found out she’d given in her notice at the vintage fashion shop in Covent Garden.
Considering that her father didn’t pay an awful lot of interest the rest of the time, Ruby had been shocked he’d noticed, let alone cared. He was usually always too busy off saving the planet to worry about what his only child got up to, but this had lit his fuse for some reason.
According to him, Ruby needed a job. Ruby needed to grow up. Ruby needed to stop flitting around and settle to something.
He’d laid down a very clear ultimatum before he’d left for the South Pacific—get a proper job by the time he returned, or he’d create a position for her in his production company. Once there, she’d never escape. She’d never get promoted. She’d be doomed to being What’s her name? You know, Patrick Lange’s daughter...for ever.
Sofia grabbed for Ruby as her father handed her back over, clinging to her like the baby lemurs Ruby had got used to seeing in the Madagascan bush. A rush of protective warmth flooded up from her feet and landed in her chest.
She looked up at the man towering above her. ‘And, before I get in that car, we might as well continue with the information gathering. I’d offer to shake your hand but, as you can see—’ she nodded to Sofia, who’d burrowed her head in the crook of her neck ‘—it’s in use at the moment. I’m Ruby Lange. With an e.’
He looked at her blankly, recognising neither her name nor the need for a response. ‘And you are?’ she prompted.
He blinked and seemed to recover himself. ‘Max Martin.’
Ruby shifted Sofia to a more comfortable position on her hip. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Martin.’ She looked inside the dark interior of the limo. ‘Now, are we going to start this interview or what?’
* * *
Max sat frowning in the back of the limo. He wasn’t quite sure what had just happened. One minute he’d been fully in charge of the situation, and the next he’d been ushered into his own car by a woman who looked as if she’d had a fight with a jumble sale—and lost.
She turned to face him, her eyes large and enquiring as she looked at him over the top of Sofia’s car seat, which was strapped between them. ‘Fire away,’ she said, then waited.
He looked back at her.
‘I thought this was supposed to be an interview.’
She was right. He had agreed to that, but the truth of the matter was that, unless she declared herself to be a drug-addicted mass murderer, the job was hers. He didn’t have time to find anyone else.
He studied his new employee carefully. The women he interacted with on a daily basis definitely didn’t dress like this. It was all colour and jarring patterns. Somehow it made her look very young. And, right there, he had his first question.
‘How old are you?’
She blinked but held his gaze. ‘Twenty-four.’
Old enough, then. If he’d had to guess, he’d have put her at a couple of years younger. Didn’t matter, though. If she could do the job, she could do the job, and the fact that the small bundle of arms and legs strapped into the car seat was finally silent was all the evidence he needed.
He checked his watch. He really didn’t have time to chit-chat, so if she wanted to answer questions, he’d dispense with the pleasantries and get on with the pertinent ones. ‘How far away do you live?’
For the first time since he’d set eyes on her, she looked surprised.
‘Can we get there in under half an hour?’
She frowned. ‘Pimlico. So, yes... But why—?’
‘Can you pack a bag in under ten minutes?’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘In my experience, most women can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t actually understand why, though.’ It seemed a simple enough task, after all. ‘I believe it may have something to do with shoes.’
‘My parents dragged me round the globe—twice—in my formative years,’ she replied crisply. ‘I can pack a bag in under five if I have to.’
Max smiled. And not just the distant but polite variety he rolled out at business meetings. This was the real deal. The nanny stopped looking quite so confrontational and her eyes widened. Max leaned forward and instructed the driver to head for Pimlico.
He felt a tapping on his shoulder, a neatly trimmed fingernail made its presence known through the fabric of his suit sleeve. He sat back in his seat and found her looking at him. ‘I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.’
She wasn’t one to beat about the bush, was she? But, then again, neither was he.
‘Will you?’
She folded her arms. ‘I need to ask you a few questions first.’
For some reason Max found himself smiling again. It felt odd, he realised. Not stiff or forced, just unfamiliar. As if he’d forgotten how and had suddenly remembered. But he hadn’t had a lot to smile about this year, had he?
‘Fire away,’ he said.
Was that a flicker of a smile he saw behind those eyes? If it was, it was swiftly contradicted by a stubborn lift of her chin. ‘Well, Mr Martin, you seem to have skipped over some of the details.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as: how long will you be requiring my services?’
Oh, those kinds of details. ‘A week, hopefully. Possibly two.’
She made a funny little you-win-some-you-lose-some kind of expression.
A nasty cold feeling shot through him. She wasn’t going to back out already, was she? ‘Too long?’
She shook her head. ‘I’d have been happy for it to be longer, but it’ll do.’
