His Final Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Her blue-green eyes widened in surprise or affront, he couldn’t be quite sure which. ‘You’re very certain of yourself, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m used to getting what I want. I don’t allow minor obstacles to get in my way.’

  Her chin came up a notch and her eyes took on a glittering, challenging sheen. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been described as a “minor obstacle” before. What if I turn out to be a much bigger challenge than you bargained for?’

  Leo had already factored in the danger element. It was dangerous to have her back in his life. He knew that. But in a perverse sort of way he wanted that. He was sick of his pallid life. She represented all that he had lost—the colour, the vibrancy and the passion.

  The energy.

  He could feel it now, zinging along his veins like an electric pulse. She did that to him. She made him feel alive again. She had done that to him four years ago. He was aware of her in a way he had never felt with any other woman. She spoke to him on a visceral level. He felt the communication in his flesh, in every pore of his skin. He could feel it now, how his body stood to attention when she was near: the blood pulsing through his veins, the urgent need already thickening beneath his clothes.

  Did she feel the same need too?

  She was acting all cool and composed on the surface, but now and again he caught her tugging at her lower lip with her teeth and her gaze would fall away from his. Was she remembering how wanton she had been in his arms? How he had made her scream and thrash about as she came time and time again? His flesh tingled at the memory of her hot little body clutching at him so tightly. He had felt every rippling contraction of her orgasms. Was that how she responded to her fiancé? His gut roiled at the thought of her with that nameless, faceless man she had chosen over him. ‘I think it’s pretty safe to say I can handle whatever you dish up,’ he said. ‘I’m used to women like you. I know the games you like to play.’

  The defiant gleam in her eyes made them seem more green than blue. ‘If you find my company so distasteful then why are you employing me to look after your daughter?’

  ‘You have a good reputation with handling small children,’ Leo said. ‘I was sitting in an airport gate lounge about a year ago when I happened to read an article in one of the papers about the work you do with unprivileged children. You were given an award for teaching excellence. I recognised your name. I thought there couldn’t be two Eliza Lincolns working as primary school teachers in London. I assumed—quite rightly as it turns out—that it was you.’

  Her look was more guarded now than defiant. ‘I still don’t understand why you want me to work for you, especially considering how things ended between us.’

  ‘Alessandra’s usual nanny has a family emergency to attend to,’ he said. ‘It’s left me in a bit of a fix. I only need someone for the summer break. Kathleen will return at the end of August. You’ll be back well in time for the resumption of school.’

  ‘That still doesn’t answer my question as to why me.’

  Leo had only recently come to realise he was never going to be satisfied until he had drawn a line under his relationship with her. She’d had all the power the last time. This time he would take control and he would not relinquish it until he was satisfied that he could live the rest of his life without flinching whenever he thought of her. He didn’t want another disastrous relationship—like the one he’d had with Giulia—because of the baggage he was carrying around. He wanted his life in order and the only way to do that was to deal with the past and put it to rest—permanently. ‘At least I know what I’m getting with you,’ he said. ‘There will be no nasty surprises, sì?’

  She arched a neatly groomed eyebrow. ‘The devil you know?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  She hugged her arms around her body once more, her eyes moving out of the range of his. ‘What are the arrangements as to my accommodation?’

  ‘You will stay with us at my villa in Positano. I have a couple of developments I’m working on which may involve a trip abroad, either back here to London or Paris.’

  Her gaze flicked back to his. ‘Where is your daughter now? Is she here in London with you?’

  Leo shook his head. ‘No, she’s with a fill-in girl from an agency. I’m keen to get back to make sure she’s all right. She gets anxious around people she doesn’t know.’ He handed her his business card. ‘Here are my contact details. I’ll send a driver to collect you from the airport in Naples. I’ll send half of the cash with an armoured guard in the next twenty-four hours. The rest I will deposit in your bank account if you give me your details.’

  A little frown puckered her forehead. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring that amount of money here. I’d rather you gave it straight to the school’s bursar to deposit safely. I’ll give you his contact details.’

  ‘As you wish.’ He pushed his sleeve back to check his watch. ‘I have to go. I have one last meeting in the city before I fly back tonight. I’ll see you when you get to my villa on Friday.’

  She followed him to the door. ‘What’s your daughter’s favourite colour?’

  Leo’s hand froze on the doorknob. He slowly turned and looked at her with a frown pulling at his brow. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I thought I’d make her a toy. I knit them for the kids at school. They appreciate it being made for them specially. I make them in their favourite colour. Would she like a puppy or a teddy or a rabbit, do you think?’

  Leo thought of his little daughter in her nursery at home, surrounded by hundreds of toys of every shape and size and colour. ‘You choose.’ He blew out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. ‘She’s not fussy.’

  Eliza watched as he strode back down the pathway to his car. He didn’t look back at her before he drove off. It was as if he had dismissed her as soon as he walked out of her flat.

  She looked at his business card in her hand. He had changed it since she had been with him four years ago. It was smoother, harder, more sophisticated.

  Just like the man himself.

  Why did he want her back in his life, even for a short time? It seemed a strange sort of request to ask an ex-lover to play nanny to his child by another woman. Was he doing it as an act of revenge? He couldn’t possibly know how deeply painful she would find it.

  She hadn’t told him she loved him in the past. She had told him very little about herself. Their passionate time together had left little room for heart to heart outpourings. She had preferred it that way. The physicality of their relationship had been so different from anything else she had experienced before. Not that her experience was all that extensive given that she had been with Ewan since she was sixteen. She hadn’t known any different until Leo had opened up a sensual paradise to her. He had made her body hum and tingle for hours. He had been able to do it just by looking at her.

  He could still do it.

  She took an unsteady breath as she thought about that dark gaze holding hers so forcefully. Had he seen how much he still affected her? He hadn’t touched her. She had carefully avoided his fingers when he had handed her the paper and the pen and his card. But she had felt the warmth of where his fingers had been and her body had remembered every pulse-racing touch, as if he had flicked a switch to replay each and every erotic encounter in her brain. He had been a demanding lover, right from the word go, but then, so had she.

  She had met him the evening of the day he had buried his father. He had been sitting in the bar of her hotel in Rome, taking an extraordinarily long time to drink a couple of fingers of whisky. She had been sitting in one of the leather chairs further back in the room, taking much less time working her way through a frightfully expensive cocktail she had ordered on impulse. She had felt in a reckless mood. It was her first night of freedom in so long. She was in a foreign country where no one knew who she was. That glimpse of freedom had been as heady and intoxicating as the drink she had bought. She had never in her life approached a man in a bar.

  Bu
t that night was different.

  Eliza had felt inexplicably drawn to him, like an iron filing being pulled into a powerful magnet’s range. He fascinated her. Why was he sitting alone? Why was he taking forever to have one drink? He didn’t look the type to be sitting by himself. He was far too good-looking for that. He was too well dressed. She wasn’t one for being able to pick designer-wear off pat, but she was pretty sure his dark suit hadn’t come off any department store rack in a marked down sale.

  Eliza had walked over to him and slipped onto the bar stool right next to him. The skin of her bare arm had brushed against the fine cotton of his designer shirt. She could still remember the way her body had jolted as if she had touched a live source of power.

  He had turned his head and locked gazes with her. It had sent another jolt through her body as that dark gaze meshed with hers. She had brazenly looked at his mouth, noting the sculptured definition of his top lip and the fuller, sinfully sensual contour of his lower one. He’d had a day’s worth of stubble on his jaw. It had given him an aggressively masculine look that had made her blood simmer in her veins. She had looked down at his hand resting on the bar next to hers. His was so tanned and sprinkled with coarse masculine hair, the span of his fingers broad—man’s hands, capable hands—clever hands. Her hand was so light and creamy, and her fingers so slim and feminine and small in comparison.

  To this day she couldn’t remember whose hand had touched whose first…

  Thinking about that night in his hotel room still gave her shivers of delight. Her body had responded to his like bone-dry tinder did to a naked flame. She had erupted in his arms time and time again. It had been the most exciting, thrilling night of her life. She hadn’t wanted it to end. She had thought that would be it—her first and only one-night stand. It would be something she would file away and occasionally revisit in her mind once she got back to her ordinary life. She had thought she would never see him again but she hadn’t factored in his charm and determination. One night had turned into a three-week affair that had left her senses spinning and reeling. She knew it had been wrong not to tell him her tragic circumstances, but as each day passed it became harder and harder to say anything. She hadn’t wanted to risk what little time she had left with him. So she had pushed it from her mind. Her life back in England was someone else’s life. Another girl was engaged to poor broken Ewan—it wasn’t her.

  The day before she was meant to leave, Leo had taken her to a fabulous restaurant they had eaten in previously. He had booked a private room and had dozens of red roses delivered. Candles lit the room from every corner. Champagne was waiting in a beribboned silver ice bucket. A romantic ballad was playing in the background…

  Eliza hastily backtracked out of her time travel. She hated thinking about that night; how she had foolishly deluded herself into thinking he’d been simply giving her a grand send-off to remember him by. Of course he had been doing no such thing. Halfway through the delicious meal he had presented her with a priceless-looking diamond. She had sat there staring at it for a long speechless moment.

  And then she had looked into his eyes and said no.

  ‘Have you heard the exciting news?’ Georgie said as soon as Eliza got to school the following day. ‘We’re not closing. A rich benefactor has been found at the last minute. Can you believe it?’

  Eliza put her bag in the drawer of her desk in the staffroom. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘You don’t sound very surprised.’

  ‘I am,’ Eliza said, painting on a smile. ‘I’m delighted. It’s a miracle. It truly is.’

  Georgie perched on the edge of the desk and swung her legs back and forth as if she was one of the seven-year-olds she taught. ‘Marcia can’t or won’t say who it is. She said the donation was made anonymously. But who on earth hands over a million pounds like loose change?’

  ‘Someone who has a lot of money, obviously.’

  ‘Or an agenda.’ Georgie tapped against her lips with a fingertip. ‘I wonder who he is. It’s got to be a he, hasn’t it?’

  ‘There are female billionaires in the world, you know.’

  Georgie stopped swinging her legs and gave Eliza a pointed look. ‘Do you know who it is?’

  Eliza had spent most of her childhood masking her feelings. It was a skill she was rather grateful for now. ‘How could I if the donation was made anonymously?’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’ Georgie slipped off the desk as the bell rang. ‘Are you heading down to Suffolk for the summer break?’

  ‘Um…not this time. I’ve made other plans.’

  Georgie’s brows lifted. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Abroad.’

  ‘Can you narrow that down a bit?’

  ‘Italy.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Eliza said. ‘It’s kind of a busman’s holiday. I’m filling in for a nanny who needs to take some leave.’

  ‘It’ll be good for you,’ Georgie said. ‘And it’s not as if Ewan will mind either way, is it?’

  ‘No…’ Eliza let out a heavy sigh. ‘He won’t mind at all.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN ELIZA LANDED in Naples on Friday it wasn’t a uniformed driver waiting to collect her but Leo himself. He greeted her formally as if she were indeed a newly hired nanny and not the woman he had once planned to spend the rest of his life with.

  ‘How was your flight?’ he asked as he picked up her suitcase.

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ She glanced around him. ‘Is your daughter not with you?’

  His expression became even more shuttered. ‘She doesn’t enjoy car travel. I thought it best to leave her with the agency girl. She’ll be in bed by the time we get home. You can meet her properly tomorrow.’

  Eliza followed him to where his car was parked. The warm air outside was like being enveloped in a thick, hot blanket. It had been dismally cold and rainy in London when she left, which had made her feel a little better about leaving, but not much.

  She had phoned Ewan’s mother about her change of plans. Samantha had been bitterly disappointed at first. She always looked forward to Eliza’s visits. Eliza was aware of how Samantha looked upon her as a surrogate child now that Ewan was no longer able to fulfil her dreams as her son. But then, their relationship had always been friendly and companionable. She had found in Samantha Brockman the model of the mother she had always dreamed of having—someone who loved unconditionally, who wanted only the best for her child no matter how much it cost her, emotionally, physically or financially.

  That was what had made it so terribly hard when she had decided to end things with Ewan. She knew it would be the end of any further contact with Samantha. She could hardly expect a mother to choose friendship over blood.

  But then fate had made the choice for both of them.

  Samantha still didn’t know Eliza had broken her engagement to her son the night of his accident. How could she tell her that it was her fault Ewan had left her flat in such a state? The police said it was ‘driver distraction’ that caused the accident. The guilt Eliza felt was an ever-present weight inside her chest. Every time she thought of Ewan’s shattered body and mind she felt her lungs constrict, as if the space for them was slowly but surely being minimised. Every time she saw Samantha she felt like a traitor, a fraud, a Judas.

  She was responsible for the devastation of Ewan’s life.

  Eliza twirled the ring on her hand. It was too loose for her now. It had been Samantha’s engagement ring, given to her by Ewan’s father, Geoff, who had died when Ewan was only five. Samantha had devoted her life to bringing up their son. She had never remarried; she had never even dated anyone else. She had once told Eliza that her few short happy years with Geoff were worth spending the rest of her life alone for. Eliza admired her loyalty and devotion. Few people experienced a love so strong it carried them throughout their entire life.

  The traffic was congested getting out of Naples. It seemed as if no one knew the rules, or if they
did they were blatantly ignoring them to get where they wanted to go. Tourist buses, taxis, cyclists and people on whining scooters all jostled for position with the occasional death-defying pedestrian thrown into the mix.

  Eliza gasped as a scooter cut in on a taxi right in front of them. ‘That was ridiculously close!’

  Leo gave an indifferent shrug and neatly manoeuvred the car into another lane. ‘You get used to it after a while. The tourist season is a little crazy. It’s a lot quieter in the off season.’

  A long silence ticked past.

  ‘Is your mother still alive?’ Eliza asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you ever see her?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘So you’re not close to her?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a wealth of information in that one clipped word, Eliza thought. But then he wasn’t the sort of man who got close to anyone. Even when she had met him four years ago he hadn’t revealed much about himself. He had told her his parents had divorced when he was a young child and that his mother lived in the US. She hadn’t been able to draw him out on the dynamics of his relationship with either parent. He had seemed to her to be a very self-sufficient man who didn’t need or want anyone’s approval. She had been drawn to that facet of his personality. She had craved acceptance and approval all of her life.

  Eliza knew the parent-child relationship was not always rosy. She wasn’t exactly the poster girl for happy familial relations. She had made the mistake of tracking down her father a few years ago. Her search had led her to a maximum-security prison. Ron Grady—thank God her mother had never married him—had not been at all interested in her as a daughter, or even as a person. What he had been interested in was turning her into a drug courier. She had walked out and never gone back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s very painful when you can’t relate to a parent.’

  ‘I have no interest in relating to her. She left me when I was barely more than a toddler to run off with her new lover. What sort of mother does that to a little child?’