by Kim Lawrence
Her brows twitched into a frown as she glanced into the mirror, connected with her overbright eyes and looked away again quickly.
What was he doing now? she asked herself when there was another loud bang. Mingled with the dismay she experienced at the thought of any breakages was a stab of real concern. Kitchens could be dangerous places for little boys.
The kitchen in the cottage was at the back of the house. It opened out on to the courtyard of stone outbuildings. She had spent a happy hour exploring the large room the night before, discovering that the free-standing rustic-looking units hid some very unrustic state-of-the-art shiny appliances that had not come cheap. Clearly money was not an issue for Lucy Fitzgerald; though there was no clue in the place as to how she made her living, the woman herself had offered no information and Miranda had not liked to ask.
‘I don’t cook,’ the beautiful blonde had admitted when Miranda had expressed her admiration for the room.
Miranda, secretly scandalised by the indifference—it seemed a criminal waste of a kitchen she would have lived in, given the chance—admitted she enjoyed cooking.
‘Well, the freezer’s full of ready meals, but if you want to cook anything from scratch go for it,’ her employer had offered, pulling open the door of a well-stocked store cupboard that made Miranda’s eyes widen and saying vaguely, ‘There’s stuff here. A friend brought in some things—I was going to teach myself the basics.’ She gave an attractive self-deprecating grimace and admitted, ‘But I never actually … well, anyway, feel free. There’s a local farm shop and a terrific fruit and veg man who calls … Quite cute actually, if you’re not spoken for …?’
Miranda admitted she was not but did not go into detail and the other woman, respecting her privacy, had not pushed it.
Pushing away the memory of the conversation with a lot more success than she had had with the surreal events of this morning, Miranda squared her shoulders and reached for the door handle.
She walked in at the moment Gianni Fitzgerald tipped a dustpan full of broken crockery into one of the neatly labelled recycling boxes set beside the open stable door. Liam was sitting on a kitchen chair swinging his legs and patting the head of one of the dogs, a shaggy lurcher.
The child’s dark hair was damp, his cherubic face shiny and clean. He looked wholesome and delicious. His father, who also had damp hair, did not look wholesome, but he did look delicious.
Rampantly delicious, she decided, taking the opportunity while unobserved to work out what it was beside his startling male beauty that made her skin prickle when she looked at him—and she didn’t even like all that macho stuff! Miranda told herself that it was simple scientific curiosity that made her want to study him, though it was hard to call the hollow achy feeling in the pit of her stomach scientific.
She swallowed to ease the tightness in her dry throat. She couldn’t think she was the only female whose brain shut down in his vicinity—presumably Gianni Fitzgerald produced a similar visceral response in any female with a pulse. Was it the Latin thing …? Half Italian, he’d said, but she could see precious little of the Celtic heritage he had claimed in his dark toned features. His dark hair slicked back from his broad brow was still wet. The sleek style emphasised the beautiful severity of his lean, hard-boned, classically proportioned face.
Dressed casually in a loose-fitting black tee shirt—the loose cut did nothing to disguise the lean, muscular torso she knew it covered—and faded jeans that clung to his long, muscular thighs, he oozed a raw sexuality that had nothing to do with what he was wearing and everything to do with the man himself.
As if feeling her gaze, Gianni turned his head. Caught staring at his bottom, Miranda lifted her chin to an angle of mute defiance and adopted a ‘so hang me’ expression that made his mouth quirk slightly at the corners as he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement of the gesture and allowed his dark, long-lashed eyes to travel in a slow, comprehensive sweep up from her toes until he reached her face.
At this point their glances connected and Miranda, who had been enduring the scrutiny, glimpsed something that moved like silvered fire deep in his midnight-dark eyes.
She could not define what she had seen, it had only been there for a fraction of a second, but her body wasn’t dealing in names. It reacted indiscriminately, sending a wave of scorching heat through her body.
Whatever this man had, clothes were no protection, she mused as she tugged fretfully at the neck of her shirt, unwittingly loosing the top two mother-of-pearl buttons.
Gianni’s eyes went to the deep vee of milk-pale smooth skin revealed, hardly what could be termed provocative, but his body responded with a disproportionate pulse of hunger that slammed through his body before concentrating in a hard ache of frustrated desire in his groin.
He swallowed hard, annoyed by his lack of self-control, and tipped his head in exaggerated approval, resorting to strained banter in an effort to disguise his reaction while recognising an equally strong need to rationalise it.
‘I hardly recognised you with your clothes on, cara,’ he drawled, and watched the angry colour fly to her smooth cheeks.
A man woke up next to a beautiful woman and the inevitable happened. It was no mystery, nothing more complicated than physical hunger, nothing a cold shower … another cold shower would not cure.
Before Miranda could respond with a suitable degree of scorn to this worn-out cliché—it was always harder to deliver scorn when your face was the colour of a post box; this man was dangerous—Gianni’s attentions switched abruptly to his son.
‘No, stay where you are, Liam, until I check out the floor …’ The rest of the sentence was delivered in Italian and Miranda was fascinated to hear the child clearly as bilingual as his father, reply in the same tongue.
Unexpected emotion tightened in Miranda’s throat as she watched them, the sternness leaving Gianni’s face as he bent down to the chair, spanned the child’s waist with his big hands and lifted him down, pushing him in the direction of the open door.
‘I’m hungry!’
Gianni, whose routine meant he was out of the house before his son took breakfast—he rarely had time for anything himself other than a double espresso and a bagel—paused before reaching for the tin that he recalled sweet-toothed Lucy kept filled with biscuits. It was empty.
‘Dio.’ His long fingers beat out an impatient tattoo on the granite work surface as he experienced an unaccustomed stab of indecision and doubt. For a man who stayed cool while those around him went into meltdown it was an uncomfortable experience.
Small wonder, he reflected grimly, Clare had looked aghast when he’d told her he planned to spend some time alone with Liam. The nanny had probably wondered if she’d get the child back in one piece. It might have been better for everyone concerned if she’d come right out and said he didn’t have a clue.
He sighed through his nose and squared his shoulders. His time might be better spent proving her wrong rather than feeling sorry for himself. For once he had the quality time with his son that always seemed in short supply.
‘Where are the biscuits … bread …?’
Miranda watched as he looked around the room with the air of a man who expected someone to materialise and produce what he required out of thin air.
Seeing this self-assured man look at a loss actually made her feel a little less antagonistic towards him. Perhaps in his world that was what happened, Miranda speculated. He certainly had the arrogance of someone who was accustomed to giving orders and expecting people to jump.
Miranda didn’t jump, but she did walk across to the well-stocked fridge and pull out a carton of milk from the shelf. Not because she felt the need to rush to his rescue, but she could hardly let the little boy go hungry just because his father was a bossy, ungrateful control freak with, admittedly, a very nice bottom and a way of looking at her that made her feel jittery and defensive.
She found the plastic tumbler she was looking for in the second cupboard she t
ried and, filling it, handed it without a word to Gianni.
‘Perhaps that will keep him going until breakfast?’
Gianni waited for the lecture on child nutrition. In his experience it was a rare woman who could resist the opportunity to display her superior knowledge, and when it didn’t come he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement.
He stood guard until Liam had finished the glass of milk before wiping the milky moustache from his upper lip and nodding his permission for him to go outside into the yard.
Positioning himself by the door so that he could keep one eye on his son, he folded his arms across his chest and watched while Lucy’s house sitter began to prepare breakfast.
‘Can I do anything to help?’
Miranda adjusted the flame on the grill and, still holding her hair from her face with her forearm, lifted her head. ‘No.’ Then, conscious of the occasions she had been accused, with some justification, of being a bit of a prima donna in the kitchen, she softened the refusal by glancing his way and adding, ‘Thank you, I’m fine. I like to cook.’ The least she could do was feed them; she had no idea how far they had to go.
Gianni pressed his back against the exposed stone wall, crossed one foot over the other and watched her.
‘You look like you know what you’re doing.’ It was a strange kitchen but her body language was relaxed and she was actually humming softly under her breath.
The women he knew did not cook; hell, they did not generally eat, though they liked to sit and push food around a plate in fashionable restaurants! He was, Gianni realised, attracted to this redhead more than he had been attracted to a woman in a long time. Recognise it and move on because it’s not happening, he told himself, unless his instincts about her were totally wide of the mark …? He studied her soft profile, hoping to pick up on something that would suggest he was wrong about her, that she was actually a woman who wanted just sex from a man and not a piece of him.
He didn’t. Desirable or not, Lucy’s house sitter was the sort of female he actively avoided. He was a single parent, he worked long hours in a demanding job—he thought he juggled the twin roles pretty well, but romance and all that went with it were not on his agenda.
‘Yes, I do,’ she admitted, not feeling the need to display any false modesty on this subject. ‘But I’m making scrambled eggs,’ she pointed out, trying not to be pleased by his comment. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science or, for that matter, Michelin-star stuff.’
‘That kind of depends on your perspective. The last woman who cooked for me put a takeaway in her microwave still in the foil tray—set the microwave on fire.’
She laughed, her eyes flying wide. ‘Seriously?’
He nodded.
Fighting the urge to respond to the charm in his smile, she lowered her gaze and muttered, ‘I’m making breakfast, you’re here—I’m not cooking for you.’
And who was she cooking for? Miranda wondered. She knew his name, she knew he was related to her employer, but what was Gianni Fitzgerald other than a man prone to dizzying mood swings and owner of more charm than was good for him? He was a man with so many contradictions that it was hard to put him in a neatly labelled box—a man who drove a vehicle that looked one wheel bolt from the grave while his clothes might be casual but the labels said expensive. Not that he couldn’t have made cheap look good, she acknowledged, wondering a little at her curiosity as her eyes swept upwards from his boot-shod feet, pausing when she reached the metal-banded watch that gleamed against the golden skin of his hair-roughened wrist.
‘Yes, it’s the right time.’
‘What? Oh!’ Her eyes flew to his face. ‘I was just checking out …’
Amusement sparkled in his dark eyes. ‘I noticed.’
‘Not you! That is the time,’ she gritted, feeling the flush working its way up her neck. She bit her lip, silently cursing the fair redhead’s skin that came with the double curse of freckles and blushing. The blush deepened when he glanced from his wrist to the clock that had to be three feet in diameter positioned on the wall directly above her head.
‘It’s a nice watch …’
And if it was genuine, and he didn’t act like a man who was interested in fakes, it was also worth as much as she earned in a month, maybe more.
He gave a non-committal grunt. ‘Is this what you do for a living?’
She shook her head and thought, Is this what you call changing the subject? ‘What?’
‘The cooking-is-the-way-to-a-man’s-heart thing.’ His gesture took in the utensils neatly arranged on the butcher’s block, but in his head he was seeing her pale back, the skin smooth and flawless. It would not, he conceded, matter if she burnt water. This innately sexual little redhead would never have any problem accessing if not men’s hearts, certainly their libido.
She lifted her chin and tossed a smile up at him. ‘Relax, I am not interested in your heart, Mr Fitzgerald,’ she retorted.
‘It’s not my heart you have an effect on, cara.’
Miranda compressed her lips, not caring to be the butt of his warped humour. The annoyance in her eyes was dramatically extinguished as she encountered the smouldering heat in his ebony stare.
Not a joke!
She snatched a startled breath and felt her stomach flip before going into free fall.
‘I’m flattered.’
Heart thudding, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep. No man had ever looked at her with such unvarnished lust before.
‘I studied domestic science at college.’
Miranda and her sister had been going together, though Tam’s chosen subject had been fashion design, then two weeks before the start of term a chance meeting had dramatically changed the course of Tam’s life.
Miranda’s thoughts drifted back to the day they had been standing with their mother on the platform waiting for their train home after a shopping trip.
They had laughed all the way back on the train about the man who had given Tam and their mother his card. He had barely glanced at Miranda, clearly not seeing any potential star quality, and explained he was a casting agent for a production company.
Back home Tam had retrieved the card from the rubbish where their mother had thrown it and, unbeknown to her parents, called the number. It had turned out to be genuine and three weeks later she had successfully auditioned for a part in an American soap. The show had never crossed the channel so her sister, although an instantly recognisable face in the United States even two years after the show was cancelled, could shop at the local supermarket at home without being asked for her autograph.
‘So you work in catering?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I teach … taught in the local comprehensive I went to as a kid.’ Too much detail if you want the man to stay awake, Miranda.
He wants you.
She closed her eyes for the duration of the primitive thrill that she felt all the way from her scalp to her toes.
‘Not very interesting, I know.’ She hated the vaguely apologetic note and could only hope he hadn’t picked up on it.
He had.
‘Isn’t it?’
Thrown again, this time not by his blunt declaration of lust but by the direct question, Miranda blinked, then dropped her gaze from his obsidian stare feeling totally flustered.
‘Not interesting compared to what?’
She was alarmed by the perceptive reasoning revealed behind his deceptively simple question and her head came up with a startled jerk. She said the first thing that came into her head, which, luckily, was not on this occasion, Your mouth is beautiful.
‘Does Liam like scrambled eggs?’
Gianni watched as she began to whip a bowl of eggs with a hand whisk. He had clearly touched a sensitive nerve. None of his business, he told himself.
‘Does he?’
Gianni looked at her blankly.
‘Like eggs?’
Gianni glanced down at his son, who had wandered back into the kitchen, and replied witho
ut thinking. ‘I don’t know.’
She didn’t say a word; she didn’t have to—the look she gave him made it perfectly clear what she thought of fathers who weren’t au fait with their sons’ dietary preferences before she dropped down to the boy’s level and put the same question to him.
Gianni’s son, after a brief questioning glance towards him, gave an identical reply in a loud childish treble.
‘How about if you try some and I’ll give you some bacon too?’ she said, cutting up a couple of crispy slices from the pan on the Aga. ‘How about some tomatoes …?’ The tomatoes in the greenhouse she had watered the night before had been groaning with fruit. She had picked some with the intention of making some chutney.
‘Aren’t you going to cut it up for him?’
Gianni, who had been about to do exactly that before his son managed to get the other half of his food on his clothes, found himself shaking his head. ‘He can manage.’
She glanced towards the little boy, who was better at handling a knife and fork than his terminally stubborn father was at taking anything resembling advice. ‘I hope you brought another change of clothes.’
Her amused smile made him want to … Actually even without the smile he had found himself wanting to kiss those luscious lips. He stabbed a piece of bacon with his fork and scowled. It was not the first time he had found himself attracted to an unsuitable woman. Unsuitable in his situation constituted any woman likely to want more than he was willing or able to give, but rarely, if ever, had his body responded with such immediate urgency to a woman the way it did to this redhead.
Of course he’d like to see her naked again but it wasn’t going to happen.
Dio, he saw little enough of his son as it was, and the pressure of his workload … He shook his dark head slightly as he banished the dangerous thoughts in his head—he was stretched thin enough without consciously adding emotional complications.
And she was.
