by Kim Lawrence
‘Come on, Liam.’
‘Oh, he’s fine with me.’ It was the father who she was anxious to avoid; the child was a joy.
Gianni took his son’s hand. His eyes were inexplicably cold as they brushed her face. ‘I don’t need a babysitter. Liam is with me.’
Mirada watched him stride away, almost dragging the reluctant boy, fuming at his rudeness. What was his problem? The way he had acted you’d have thought she was about to steal the boy!
Well, as far as she was concerned he could go … well, go anywhere where she wasn’t.
Having stretched her chores outside as far as lunchtime, she went indoors, but only to get her car keys. Lucy had mentioned the weekly farmer’s market in the nearby town. Miranda had planned to visit it and the idea of escaping the house at the moment was an extra incentive to bring forward her plan.
There was no sign of her house guests, though she did not look too hard. Instead she left a note on the kitchen table explaining where she’d gone.
The market was every bit as good as Lucy had said and she spent a few pleasant hours wandering around the colourful stalls.
It was after six by the time she returned to find the remains of a supper were on the kitchen table and there were sounds coming from the adjoining sitting room.
She dropped her bags, pulled out the sweets she had bought for Liam and went into the sitting room. For a few moments she stood unobserved in the doorway feeling a quiver in the region of her heart as she watched Liam, already in his pyjamas, shrieking with excitement, being chased around the room by his dad, who was on all fours pretending to be a bull.
When Liam saw her he ran to her, wrapping his arms around her legs in a hug in a gesture of childish spontaneity. ‘Come play, let Daddy catch you, Mirrie!’
‘Not just now, Liam,’ Miranda said, glancing towards the older Fitzgerald, who was not looking so pleased to see her.
He dragged dark hair back from his broad brow with an impatient hand. ‘Not now, Liam, go upstairs. It’s bedtime.’
Miranda watched the little boy bounce from the room and held out the bag of sweets to Gianni. ‘I thought he might like these? You know, he might go to sleep a little easier if—’
‘I’m sure your knowledge of childcare is second to none, but I know Liam and he doesn’t eat sweets.’ He pushed them back at her, his fingers brushing her arm.
Miranda jumped as the light contact sent an electric surge through her body. Stepping backwards with a gasp, she knocked a half-full coffee cup off the dresser. She caught it but the contents tipped over her top.
His dark eyes brushed hers. The predatory gleam in the dark depths sent her stomach into a diving spin. His manner as cold as his eyes had been hot, Gianni made no comment as he left the room.
To the casual observer, she realised, the scene would be one of cosy domesticity: a woman washing up the supper dishes while the dogs played around her feet.
What the casual observer would not see was the general turmoil in her head. The ‘cosiness’ did not even go skin deep, she reflected, glancing at her forearm—it still tingled. She gave a shiver and plunged her hands deep into the hot water.
‘Down!’ None of the dogs responded to her half-hearted rebuke.
It was never going to work, she decided, wishing she had not given in to the spontaneous impulse that had made her agree to this crazy house share.
For all she knew her instincts might be totally off. It wasn’t as if he came across as some sort of charity case.
Would she have been quite so keen to have him around if he hadn’t been, on a scale of one to ten, a solid fifteen?
‘No!’ Miranda said, rejecting the idea with a firm shake of her head as she lifted her hands from the water and blew the suds from her pink fingers. ‘I am not that shallow.’
But I am talking to myself.
It was true, though, and the knowledge that she had never been a person influenced or attracted by a pretty face made her feel moderately better about her motivation, if not the situation.
She closed her eyes and saw the gleam of raw male appreciation glittering in those dark depths and felt her stomach flip. She opened her eyes and thought, I felt like a woman, a pretty woman.
When was the last time that happened?
Did he manage to make every woman he met feel as if she were the only woman on the planet? If so it was quite a gift and the fact he had seemed to like what he saw when he looked at her had been soothing to someone whose ego had taken several rounds of bashing recently.
The memory of the hungry, predatory gleam she had seen in his eyes surfaced and before she could push it away a rash of goose bumps erupted on the surface of her suddenly too hot skin. She felt a flash of shame, guiltily aware that she was getting turned on by the thought of a man she didn’t even like.
She wasn’t even sure that her half-baked suspicions were true. She’d invented an entire tragic back story on the flimsiest of evidence … It wouldn’t be the first time her soft heart—or soft head, according to her less gullible twin—had got her taken for a ride.
This could be like the time she had opened her purse to give the homeless guy with the sweet dog some change and been mugged, her purse and phone taken all over again. The homeless guy turned out not to be homeless and he’d stolen the dog.
Now it wasn’t a dog, it was a cute kid. At least on this occasion the kid wasn’t stolen. She glanced at her watch and frowned. He’s here and you’ll just have to work with it, Mirrie, she told herself, adopting a brisk expression as she folded the damp tea towel. Her expression morphed into annoyance as she registered the time. Another hour and Joe would be here. She glanced down at her soiled shirt, her lips moving in a moue of distaste. She needed to change and move her things, which were still in the bedroom adjoining Liam’s.
Feeling an extreme reluctance to enter the room while Gianni was liable to walk in any moment, she chewed the plump curve of her lower lip, wondering if she should clear out her stuff now or wait until he had finished settling Liam.
How much longer was he going to be?
A bang on the ceiling above followed by the unmistakable sound of small running footsteps and childish laughter overlaid by a deeper base tone suggested that the answer was not any time soon.
She struggled to feel any sympathy for the man who was having trouble persuading his son it was time to go to bed. Even though she was not normally a person who took pleasure from the trials of others, Miranda did feel a small—all right, quite large—stab of ‘I told you so’ satisfaction … Only she hadn’t had the chance to tell him anything—he had cut her off at the knees when she had dared to offer advice.
When Miranda entered the bedroom she had used the previous night a few minutes later, the laughter had been replaced by sobs, so loud and inconsolable she gave a grimace of sympathy. Ashamed of her previous spite, she even felt a flash of admiration. She couldn’t hear what Gianni was saying, but she was able to recognise the even-tempered soothing quality in his deep voice.
She stood for a moment listening to the soft rumble. There was no denying Gianni did have a particularly attractive voice, deep accented and smoky. She wondered if he’d ever thought of getting voice-over work. With his ability to make the most innocent of comments sound like an indecent proposal he’d never be short of work … Or is that me hearing what I want to?
The additional thought sent a sliver of shocked alarm through Miranda as she shook her head in a firm negative motion. The thought that she’d want a man like him to proposition her was laughable!
Because he’s got nothing going for him beside a beautiful face, a perfect body and bucketloads of sex appeal.
She gave a tiny sigh of defeat … All right, she was not totally immune to his charms, when he chose to be charming, but he didn’t always choose to be so. In fact he could be totally obnoxious!
An image of the bold bronzed features lingering stubbornly in her head, she tiptoed over to the wardrobe, her furtive technique more
instinct than necessity. She could have blown a bugle and nobody would have heard her above the battle royal going on in the next room.
Flinging open the wardrobe door, she grabbed the first thing that came to hand. It happened to be the only skirt she had packed. Scrunching it carelessly into a ball, she dashed over to the big scrubbed pine chest. She slid open one of the big heavy drawers, wincing as it made a loud squeaking sound, and snatched up the folded blouse that lay on top.
Objective achieved, she made a breathless dash to the bathroom where behind the locked door she performed a lightning change. Peeling off her coffee-soaked jeans and tee shirt, she stuffed them with a grimace of distaste into the linen hamper. Resisting the lure of the shower, she fought her way into the clean clothes and glanced at herself in the mirror.
Amazingly the things she had grabbed didn’t clash. The pale apple-green of the silky sleeveless top with the loose cowl neck actually picked out a contrasting darker green in the swirly pattern of the long skirt that swished against her bare legs as she moved.
Back in the bedroom Miranda worked quickly, first sweeping all her cosmetics off the dressing table into her open case before lugging it to the bed and cramming everything from the drawers inside. Aware that things had gone very quiet next door, she emptied the wardrobe, not bothering to remove anything from the hangers as, casting frequent worried glances towards the connecting door, she piled them on top, responding to the blind instinct that was telling her she had to get out.
Miranda had no idea why logically the need to vacate the room before Gianni reappeared had taken on the form of something approaching compulsion, but it had and she didn’t question it.
The way her luck was running today it was no real surprise that Gianni appeared in the doorway just as she was cramming the last of her possessions in her suitcase.
She could feel his eyes on her back but pretended not to be aware of his presence. She was though. Her skin prickled with it; the air in the room seemed charged with the sexual aura that he exuded. She had never met a man who was this overtly masculine.
Gianni, his thoughts on the brandy that Lucy kept in the dresser for emergencies—today definitely qualified—paused in the doorway when he saw Miranda.
As he pulled the door quietly to behind him she tucked a swag of vibrant hair behind her ears. Gianni’s chest lifted in a silent sigh of appreciation as his heavy-lidded eyes moved to the swanlike curve of her pale neck; he was fascinated by the almost opalescent sheen of her satiny skin. He studied her profile, considering the extreme delicacy of her fine-boned, almost elfin features. Her jaw was rather firm, the pointed chin suggesting an obstinate nature.
Shifting his position slightly so that he could have a decent view of her full, soft mouth—a man who had just been through what he had deserved the odd treat—he leaned back against the door jamb, pressing a hand to the back of his neck when the muscles there cramped.
It struck him as ironic that a small child had been able to do what being put in the driving seat of a publishing empire had not. People frequently remarked on his stamina and ability to stay cool when those around him were in meltdown … If they could only see him now!
He could work thirty-six hours at a stretch in what most people would have considered a high-powered and stressful environment, but when he walked away he had never felt quite as exhausted as he did now, after spending sixty minutes trying to get a tired and extremely cranky four-year-old to sleep.
He glanced down at his watch. No, it had only been thirty minutes; it felt like a lot longer!
It had come as a nasty surprise, and didn’t gel with his mental image of himself as a pretty clued-up, hands-on dad. He still couldn’t figure out why his previously angelic son was acting out. On the previous occasions when he read his son his bedtime story—Gianni tried to make it home before his son went to bed at least three times a week—the little boy, already bathed and in his pyjamas, cuddled up and was invariably asleep before the third page.
Gianni felt his mood take an upward swing as he noticed the gauzy skirt she had changed into and the way it clung to the slight but feminine curves of her bottom and thighs. She knew he was there but she was stubbornly ignoring him. Amusement moved at the backs of his dark eyes, mingling with the predatory gleam.
CHAPTER SIX
‘ARE you sulking?’
Miranda’s head turned sharply at the accusation, causing her hair to flick across her face. As he watched her push it away with an impatient hand Gianni remembered how it had looked spread out on the white pillow that morning.
Miranda’s response to the charge was icily indignant. ‘I do not sulk.’ As their eyes connected she felt her indignation slip away.
He looked tired, she thought, noting the lines bracketing his sensually sculpted mouth. The gleam in his dark watchful eyes as they captured hers was not tired; it was hungry; it was … combustible … Miranda felt a stab of undiluted breath-robbing lust.
Bemused and deeply alarmed by the strength of her reaction, she turned her head sharply, allowing her hair to fall in a bright fiery shield around her flushed face as she tried to slow her rapid breathy inhalations.
‘I’m busy.’ She flashed him a dismissive look, taking care not to meet his eyes, and turned back to her task.
Gianni, long accustomed to women making the running, was astounded. It was one thing to decide regretfully to keep her at arm’s length; it was another to be rebuffed.
‘I suppose you heard that?’ he drawled, tipping his head in the direction of the room he had just left.
‘Hard not to,’ Miranda said, trying to cram the lid on the case while studiedly ignoring the tingling feeling on the nape of her neck and the aching sensitivity of her breasts.
‘I can’t understand it. He usually goes out like a light …’ he mused, his voice trailing away as his interest was captured by the seductive sway of her hips.
Nobody would have described her as voluptuous, but she was in her sleek way one of the most naturally feminine women he had ever met.
Miranda reached the limit of her tongue-biting and straightened up with a snap, the ringlets of her fiery hair settling with an energetic bounce around her shoulders.
‘Is part of his bedtime routine normally a rough-and-tumble game that has him wound up tighter than a spring?’
His brow furrowed. ‘Bedtime routine?’
Miranda was torn between amusement and disbelief at his bemused expression. ‘A quiet time to help him wind down; milky drink, warm bath …’ She arched a questioning brow and tilted back her head to look him in the face.
The furrow between his dark brows smoothed before it appeared again, only deeper, as now he was struck by the possibility that his model father status had more to do with the expert help he received than his own natural talent for parenting.
Not only did he have the services of a full-time nanny and a housekeeper who was always willing to lend a hand, but his mother took Liam most weekends. This practice began when Liam was a baby and had only ever been intended to be short term, but it had become something of a routine.
‘Clare has normally done that stuff by the time I get in—’
‘So Clare is your girlfriend? Sorry—it’s none of my business.’
‘That has never stopped any woman I know sticking her nose in. Clare is Liam’s nanny. She’s been with us since he was born.’ His brow furrowed. ‘I think he’s missing her.’
And now he’d had to let the nanny go, along with his car and, for all she knew, his home. ‘You’ve got the essentials right.’ If parenting was, as she believed, about caring, Gianni Fitzgerald could not be faulted. ‘The other things you can learn. I suppose this is all pretty new to you.’
He reacted with visible suspicion to her unthinking comment. ‘Why would you suppose that?’
‘Look, there’s no need to pretend.’
On the receiving end of a look of warm, sympathetic understanding, not familiar ground for him, Gianni shook his head an
d struggled to stop his eyes straying to the plump swell of her small but perfectly formed breasts underneath the silky green top.
He put down his uncharacteristic lack of control to the long and trying day.
It had begun well, though. A reminiscent smile tugged at the corners of his lips as the memory of waking up next to her naked warm body took hold. He looked at her pink lips and thought about their tongues tangling, the heat and moisture, the taste … A stab of lust sent a lick of hungry heat through his body.
The silence stretched uncomfortably. Miranda read the tension in his taut, edgy expression. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she admitted remorsefully.
Gianni hardly heard. ‘You look nice,’ the man famed for his charm and smooth lines with the opposite sex heard himself say.
Nice …? Had he been taken over by an alien life form? ‘Very …’ his eyes made a sweep of her supple curves before he swallowed and added with a nod in the direction of her skirt ‘… feminine.’
Miranda saw through this supposed interest in her outfit. ‘You don’t have to change the subject.’
‘I didn’t know I was.’ Making a fool of himself was another matter; on that score, he thought irritably, he had no doubts at all.
His jaw tightened as he considered his behaviour. He had not struggled to think above waist level since he was a teenager, but for some reason he was unable to look at this woman without thinking of her minus clothes. This was a long way from the harmless appreciation of an attractive woman’s shape. Given he was a mature, moderately intelligent male able to control his appetites, he could only assume that his continuing fixation was connected with their extremely unconventional meeting.
It wasn’t a mystery: he’d seen her naked and he wanted to again.
‘I understand. I really do.’ She lowered her gaze and looked up at him through the mesh of her lashes. ‘My dad lost his job two years ago.’
His dark eyes narrowed fractionally at this seemingly disconnected piece of information and he allowed himself a cautious, ‘Sorry.’ He tipped his dark head and wondered where this was going. It crossed his mind that she might see him as some sort of potential employer for her father … but realised almost immediately that didn’t work unless she knew who he was …
