LITMIR.BIZ

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up beneath her feet.

      While this jumble of thoughts was chaotically running through her head, they took the stairs and he let them into the flat with the key, which she had failed to take from him.

      It was a very small two-bedroom flat with barely room to swing a cat. The décor was shabby and the furniture looked as though it had mostly been reclaimed from a skip somewhere. Not even the cheerful prints Blu-tacked to the walls could lift the place into something more cheerful. But it worked for both of them. They got along very well and, because Amy worked nights most of the month, they tended to see one another only in passing.

      Looking around him, Stefano realised that he had never been anywhere like this before in his life. He knew that by anyone’s standards his life had been one of unsurpassed privilege. The only child of a wealthy Scottish landowner and an Italian mother who, herself, had inherited a tidy sum of money when her parents had passed away, he had never had any occasion to find himself slumming it. Alicia, of course, had not had money but he had rarely ventured into the quarters she shared with her friends.

      Here, amidst this drab, unappealing ordinariness, Sunny was the equivalent of an orchid in a patch of weeds. He could almost understand why she had misinterpreted his intentions, although that did nothing to detract from the umbrage he felt.

      Although, a little voice whispered in his head, hadn’t he looked at her with sexual interest? It wasn’t going to happen.

      Stefano swept that unwanted thought aside as fast as it had come.

      ‘My daughter liked you,’ he said without preamble.

      ‘Did she? I have no idea why. I gave her work to do and I don’t suppose many eight-year-olds would have appreciated that.’ But she felt a rare bloom of pleasure at his words.

      Released from the discomfort of thinking that he was just someone else attracted to her because of the way she looked, Sunny knew that she should be able to relax, but she was still as tense as a piece of elastic stretched to breaking point. He had sprawled out on one of the chairs in the tiny sitting room and he was just so wildly exotic that she could scarcely look at him without her breath catching in her throat and a weird tension invading her body.

      ‘I had to bring Flora in with me because she managed to successfully see off the last nanny and my mother had to go unexpectedly to Scotland...’

      ‘Oh.’ Where was this going? Sunny was bewildered. ‘When you say see off the last nanny...’ This for no other reason than to fill the silence.

      ‘Flora enjoys making life as difficult for her nannies as she humanly can.’ Stefano sighed and raked his fingers through his hair.

      ‘I don’t see what this has to do with me.’ His wife wasn’t around. He was an eligible bachelor. The office gossip mill had made that perfectly clear from day one, when speculation had been rife that he was only handing them business because of Katherine. She perched on the edge of a chair and looked at him steadily.

      ‘My mother will be up in Scotland for the next month. I have a nanny to cover for Flora during the day, as she’s on holidays, but not even the most long-suffering of nannies, and Edith is about as long-suffering as they come, is willing to do day and night cover. I’m wrapped up in some pretty important deals over the next fortnight and my proposal was for you to work for me between five and ten every evening, Monday to Friday.’

      ‘I’m sorry but that’s out of the question.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I don’t have to give long explanations,’ Sunny told him stiffly. Something about the prospect of being inside his house sent shivers through her. No matter that she now knew that he had no interest in her aside from babysitter for his daughter. ‘But, in case it’s missed you, I actually already have a job after work and it’s a job I enjoy and wouldn’t want to lose. Also...’

      Stefano tilted his head to one side. Flora had been animated on the drive back to the house. In fact, she had been the most animated he’d seen her since she had arrived in London. She had actually spoken to him, as opposed to sitting in surly silence and answering his questions in monosyllables.

      ‘Also...?’ he prompted softly.

      Sunny shrugged and reddened. ‘Nothing. I... I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.’

      ‘But you don’t know what the terms and conditions are,’ he murmured. He wondered what else she had been about to say. She was guarded and that was something he never saw in the women he met. And the way she had rushed into the assumption that he’d been after her for sex. Was she accustomed to having to fend off men? Had she suffered from office pests? They were out there, no question of it, and she had the looks to provoke over-enthusiasm in most red-blooded men, he would have thought.

      Or maybe one pest in particular had made her suspicious of all men...

      He was a little unnerved at the amount of time he was wasting in pointless speculation.

      ‘Unless, of course, you have a boyfriend...someone who might not want you to spend time away from the flat when you’re not at work...’

      Sunny laughed shortly. ‘I wouldn’t let any guy tell me what I could or couldn’t do.’ The words were out before she could take them back. ‘By which,’ she continued lamely, ‘I mean that I’m...my own person...not that it’s any business of yours whether I have a boyfriend or not anyway... I just... I’m sorry...’

      ‘I’m sure the restaurant could spare you for a couple of weeks. In fact, I don’t see that as a problem at all. I’ll personally arrange for a replacement and cover the costs myself. And with regard to what you earn there...’ He paused, allowing speculation to take root in her head and spout tendrils. ‘I’ll quadruple it.’ He sat back and watched her narrowly. ‘I’d like you to work for me and I’m prepared to pay you far, far more than you would earn in the restaurant, including tips...’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Sunny stammered, thoroughly taken aback. ‘Why can’t you just go and employ someone from an agency?’

      ‘Flora averages a nanny a fortnight and, during that fortnight, I’m bombarded with complaints from whatever nanny happens to be working for me. I don’t need that. She’s taken a liking to you and I’m prepared to take a gamble.’

      ‘I have no experience of looking after children, Mr Gunn.’

      ‘For God’s sake, there’s no need to keep calling me Mr Gunn.’ He paused and watched her, trying to read behind the cautious exterior.

      Agitated, Sunny looked away. ‘Don’t you have a...um...a partner?’

      ‘Partner?’

      ‘A girlfriend? Someone who could step in and help out?’ She had no idea from whence the rumour had sprung that he was interested in Katherine. Maybe the rumours had been wrong. Maybe there was someone else in the background, although it beggared belief that he would bring work to a new, small company and not use one of the top guns to handle his business.

      ‘Now, now, Sunny—or shall I call you Miss Porter as you seem determined to stick to the formalities?—would you say that you’re entitled to ask that question considering you’ve surrounded yourself with No Trespassing signs?’ He watched her squirm for a few seconds. ‘There’s no handy woman ready to jump in and help out.’ He thought of Katherine and his mother’s fine intentions to set him up. Nice enough woman but he certainly couldn’t picture her in the role of surrogate mother. Indeed, she had seemed distinctly uncomfortable when presented with Flora.

      ‘What about Flora’s mother?’ It seemed an obvious enough question and she was surprised when the shutters snapped down, coldly locking her out. As No Trespassing signs went, she’d just stumbled into an almighty giant-sized one.

      ‘Flora’s mother died several months ago,’ Stefano said abruptly. ‘Now, are you willing to take the job or not? I’ve given you my offer and, from the looks of it, you could do with the money. You can bring your work to the house

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