His Final Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘You dated him?’ Laura probed.

  ‘Not for long. It wasn’t serious.’

  Laura gave her a streetwise smile. ‘Maybe you could have another crack at it. He’s got loads and loads of money. He’d be quite a catch if you could put up with the foul temper.’

  ‘I’m already engaged.’

  Laura glanced at her left hand. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise. Sorry. When’s the big day?’

  ‘Yes, when is the big day?’ Leo’s deep voice spoke from behind them.

  Eliza felt her face flood with colour as his gaze hit hers. She wondered how long he had been there. Long enough if that brooding look was anything to go by. ‘Laura is just leaving, aren’t you, Laura?’

  ‘Yes,’ Laura said and made a move for the door. ‘I’ll see myself out. Bye.’

  A prickly silence filled the room once the young woman had left.

  ‘I’d prefer you to refrain from gossiping with the hired help,’ Leo said in a clipped tone. ‘It’s in your contract.’

  ‘I wasn’t gossiping. I was simply answering her questions. It would’ve been rude not to.’

  ‘You’re not here to answer questions. You’re here to look after my daughter.’

  Eliza returned his hardened glare. ‘Is that really why I’m here? Or it is because you have an axe to grind? Revenge is a dirty word, Leo. It’s a dirty deed that could turn out hurting you much more than it hurts me.’

  His cleanly shaven jaw locked with tension. ‘I’d have to care about you for you to be able to hurt me. I care nothing for you. I only want your body and you want mine. Last night proved it.’

  Anger pulsed in her veins at his arrogant dismissal of her as a person. ‘Do you really think I would allow myself to be used like that? To be pawed over like some cheap two-bit hooker you hired off a dark alley?’

  There was a condescending glitter in his eyes as they warred with hers. ‘I’d hardly call a million pounds cheap. But you can forget about bargaining for more. I’m not paying it. You’re not worth it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m worth it, all right.’ She put on her best sultry come-to-bed-with-me look. ‘I’m worth every penny and more.’

  He grasped her so suddenly the breath was knocked right out of her lungs. She felt the imprint of his fingers on the bruises he had left the day before but her pride would not allow her to wince or flinch. ‘You want me just as much as I want you. I know the game you’re playing. You want to drive up the price. I’ve sorted out your school, but it’s your bank account you want sorted out now, isn’t it?’

  Eliza couldn’t stop herself from looking at his mouth. It was flat-lined and bitter now, but she remembered all too well how soft and sensual it could be when it came into contact with hers. Desire flooded her being. She felt the on-off contraction of it deep in her core. He was the only man who could reduce her to this—to this primal need that would settle for nothing less than the explosive possession of his body. Could she withstand this temptation? Could she work for him without giving in to this desperate longing?

  ‘I don’t need your money.’

  He gave one of his harsh laughs. ‘But you’d like it all the same. You’re starting to realise what you’ve thrown away, aren’t you?’

  ‘I always knew what I was throwing away.’

  His top lip curled. ‘Are you saying you have regrets?’

  She arched her brow pointedly. ‘Don’t we all?’

  He held her gaze in a stare-down that made the base of her spine fizz like sherbet. ‘My only regret is I didn’t see you for what you were at the outset. You’re a classic chameleon. You can change in the blink of an eye. I had you pegged as an old-fashioned girl who wanted the same things I wanted. But you were not that girl, were you? You were never that girl. You were a harlot on the hunt for sensory adventure and you didn’t care where you got it.’

  ‘Why is it such a crime for a woman to want sensory satisfaction?’ Eliza asked. ‘Why does that make me a harlot? What does that make you? Why are there no equally derogatory names for men who want to be satisfied physically? Why do women have to feel so bad about their own perfectly natural needs that you men seem to take for granted?’

  ‘What’s wrong with your fiancé that he can’t give you the satisfaction you want or need?’

  The question was like a punch to her chest. ‘I’m not prepared to answer that.’

  ‘Does he even exist?’

  Eliza looked at him numbly. ‘What?’

  ‘Is he a real person or just someone you made up to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card?’ His eyes were hard as they drilled into hers. ‘It’s a handy device to have a fiancé in the background when you want to get out of an affair that’s not going according to plan.’

  She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Ewan did exist, but not as he used to be. And it was her fault. His life was as good as over. He would never feel the things he used to feel. He could never say the words he used to say. He couldn’t even think the thoughts he used to think. He existed…but he didn’t. He was caught between the conscious world and the unconscious.

  ‘You’re so fiercely loyal to him. But is he as loyal to you?’

  Eliza lowered her gaze as she fought her emotions back down. ‘He’s very loyal. He’s a good person. He’s always been a good person.’

  ‘You love him.’

  She didn’t need more than a second to think about it. ‘Yes…’

  The silence hummed with his bitterness.

  How was she going to survive a month of this? What good was going to come out of his attempt to right the wrongs of the past? Nothing could be gained from this encounter. He was intent on revenge but they would both end up even more damaged than they already were. She couldn’t fix Ewan and she couldn’t fix Leo. She had ruined two lives, three if she counted Samantha.

  And what about her life—the plans she had made were nothing but pipe dreams now. She wouldn’t be able to have the family she wanted. She wouldn’t be able to have the love she craved.

  She was trapped, just like Ewan was trapped.

  Eliza turned to the nursery, desperate to get away from the hatred she could feel pouring out of Leo towards her. ‘I’m going to check on Alessandra. She should be awake by now.’

  ‘My daughter’s orientation and mobility teacher will be here at ten,’ he said. ‘Tatiana works with her until lunchtime twice a week. You can either have that time to yourself or observe some of the things she is helping Alessandra with. I don’t expect you to be on duty twenty-four hours a day.’

  Eliza looked at him again. ‘Aren’t you worried that she’s going to be upset by my being here for such a short time? It sounds like a lot of people are coming and going in her life. It’s no wonder she gets upset and agitated. She doesn’t know who is going to walk in the door next.’

  ‘My daughter is used to being managed by carers,’ he said. ‘It’s a fact of life that she will always need to have support around her.’

  She held his gaze for a beat that drummed with tension. ‘I meant what I said last night. I think you should get Kathleen to call her each day. It will give her something to look forward to and it might make the time go a little quicker for her.’

  His jaw seemed to lock for a moment but then he released a harsh-sounding breath. ‘I’m not sure if Kathleen will be back. I got an email from her this morning. Her family want her to move back to Ireland. She’s still thinking about it. She’s going to tell me what she’s decided in a couple of weeks’ time.’

  Eliza swallowed. ‘Does that mean you’ll want me to stay longer?’

  His gaze became steely as it nailed hers. ‘Your contract is for one month and one month only. It’s not up for negotiation.’

  ‘But what if your daughter wants me to stay?’

  ‘One month.’ The words came out clipped through lips pulled tight with tension, those bitter eyes hardening even further. ‘That’s all I’m prepared to give you.’

  ‘Would you really put your plans for revenge bef
ore the interests of your daughter?’

  ‘This is not about revenge.’

  She made a sceptical sound in her throat. ‘Then what is it about?’

  His eyes roved her body in a searing sweep that made her skin prickle with heat and longing. The memory of his bruising kiss was still beating beneath the surface of her lips. The need he had awakened was secretly pulsing in the depths of her body—an intense ache that refused to go away. She felt it travel from her core to her breasts as his gaze travelled the length and breadth of her body. ‘I think you know what this is about.’

  Lust.

  It wasn’t a word Eliza particularly liked, but how else could she describe how he made her feel? From the very first moment she had met him he had triggered this earthy response in her. She knew he was experienced—very experienced. She had come to the relationship with much less experience, but what she had lacked in that department she had more than made up for in passion. Her response to him had shocked her then and it still shocked her now. Didn’t that kiss last night prove how dangerous it was to get too close to him? He would dismantle her emotional armour within a heartbeat. Making love with him would unpick every stitch of her carefully constructed resolve. She could not afford to let that happen. Going back to her bleak and lonely life in England would be so much harder to bear if she experienced the mind-blowing pleasure Leo offered. How would she settle for the bitter plate of what fate had dished up to her if she got a taste of such sweet paradise again?

  Eliza threw him a contemptuous look born out of the fear that he would somehow see how terrifyingly vulnerable she was to him. ‘And just because you want something, you just go out and get it, do you? Well, I’ve got news for you. I’m not on the market.’

  He came up close with that slow, leisurely stroll he had perfected. She refused to back away but instead gave him the full wattage of her heated glare as she steeled herself for the firm grasp of his hands on her arms.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead he gently brushed the back of his bent knuckles down the curve of her cheek in a barely touching caress that totally ambushed her defences. She felt her composure crack as her throat closed over. Tears formed and stung at the back of her eyes. Her chest felt like an oversized balloon was inflating inside it, taking up all the space so her lungs could no longer expand enough to breathe.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Her voice was not much more than a thread of sound. ‘Why now? Why couldn’t you have let things be?’

  His expression had lost its steely edge and was now almost wistful. ‘I wanted to make sure.’

  ‘Sure of…of what?’

  ‘That I didn’t make the worst mistake of my life the night you told me you were engaged.’

  Eliza swallowed a walnut-sized knot of emotion. ‘You…you had a right to be upset…’ She couldn’t look at him. She lowered her gaze again and stared at her engagement ring instead.

  There was the sound of Alessandra waking in the nursery—the rustle of bedclothes and a plaintive wail.

  ‘I’ll go to her.’ Leo moved past and Eliza listened as he greeted his little daughter. He spoke in Italian but she could hear the love in his voice that was as clear as any translation. ‘Buongiorno, tesorina, come ti senti?’

  Was it wrong to wish he could look upon her as his treasure too?

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN ELIZA CAME into the nursery Leo had Alessandra in his arms. ‘I’ll carry her downstairs for you but I won’t be able to join you for breakfast,’ he said. ‘I have an online meeting in a few minutes.’

  ‘Good morning, Alessandra,’ Eliza said, reaching out to touch the child’s hand that was gripping her father’s shirt. ‘It looks like we’ve got a date for breakfast.’

  The little girl huddled closer to her father’s chest. ‘I want to have breakfast with Papà.’

  Eliza exchanged a brief glance with Leo before addressing the child again. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible today. But I’m sure Papà will make a special effort to have breakfast with you when he can.’

  Alessandra’s thin shoulders slumped as she let out a sigh. ‘All wight.’

  Once Leo had placed his daughter in her high chair in the breakfast room he kissed her on the top of the head and, with a brief unreadable glance at Eliza, he left.

  Marella, the housekeeper, came bustling in, cooing to the child in Italian. ‘Buongiorno, angioletta mia, tutto bene?’ She turned to Eliza. ‘You have to feed her.’ She nodded at the food in front of the child. ‘She can’t do it herself.’

  ‘But surely she’s old enough to do some of it on her own?’

  ‘You’ll have to discuss that with Signor Valente,’ Marella said. ‘Kathleen always feeds her. Tatiana, the O and M teacher, is trying to get Alessandra to do more for herself but it’s a slow process.’

  Eliza settled for a compromise by guiding Alessandra’s hands to reach for things on her plate such as pieces of fruit or toast. The little girl was reluctant to drink from anything but her sippy cup so Eliza decided to leave that battle for another day. She knew how important it was to encourage Alessandra to live as normal a life as possible, but pushing her too fast, too soon could be detrimental to her confidence.

  Tatiana, the orientation and mobility teacher arrived just as Marella was clearing away the breakfast things. After introducing herself, Tatiana filled Eliza in on the sorts of things she was doing with Alessandra while Marella momentarily distracted Alessandra.

  ‘We’re working on her coordination and spatial awareness. A sighted child learns by watching others and trying things for themselves, but a vision-impaired or blind child has no reference point. We have to help them explore the world around them in other ways, by touching and feeling, and by listening and using their sense of smell. We also have to teach what is appropriate behaviour in public, as they don’t have the concept of being seen by others.’

  ‘It all sounds rather painstaking,’ Eliza said.

  ‘It is,’ Tatiana said. ‘Alessandra is a bright child but don’t let that strong will fool you. When it comes to her exercises she’s not well motivated. That is rather typical of a vision-impaired child. They can become rather passive. Our job is to increase her independence little by little.’

  ‘She seems small for her age.’

  ‘Yes, she’s on the lower percentile in terms of height and weight, but with more structured exercise she should catch up.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help while I have her on my own?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Tatiana said. ‘I’ll write out a list of games and activities. You might even think of some of your own. Signor Valente told me you are a teacher, yes?’

  ‘Yes. I teach a primary school class in a community school in London.’

  ‘Then you’re perfect for the job,’ Tatiana said. ‘What a shame you can’t be here permanently. Kathleen is a sweetheart but she gives in to Alessandra too easily.’

  ‘The post is only for a month,’ Eliza said, automatically fingering the diamond on her left hand. ‘I have to get back, in any case.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Tatiana said. ‘Leo Valente is a loving father, but like a lot of parents of children with special needs, he is very protective—almost too protective at times. I guess it’s hard for him, being a single parent.’

  ‘Did you meet Alessandra’s mother before she died?’ Eliza asked.

  Tatiana’s expression said far more than her words. ‘Yes and I still can’t work out how those two ended up married to each other. I got the impression from Giulia it was a rebound relationship on his part.’ She blew out a breath as her gaze went to where Alessandra was sitting in her high chair. ‘I bet that’s a one-night stand he’s regretted ever since.’

  Eliza could feel a wave of heat move through her cheeks. I’m sure it’s not the only one, she thought with a searing pain near her heart. ‘Leo loves his daughter. There can be no doubt of that.’

  ‘Yes, of course he does,’ Tatiana said. ‘But it’s pr
obably not the life he envisaged for himself, is it? But then, lots of parents feel the same when they have a child with a disability. It’s hard to get specialised nannies. Children with special needs can be very demanding. But to see them reach their potential is very rewarding.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine it is.’

  ‘At least Signor Valente has the money to get the best help available,’ Tatiana said. ‘But it’s true what people say, isn’t it? You can’t buy happiness.’

  Eliza thought of Leo’s brooding personality and the flashes of pain she had glimpsed in his eyes. ‘No…you certainly can’t…’

  The morning passed swiftly as Tatiana worked with Alessandra in structured play with Eliza as active observer. There were shape puzzles for Alessandra to do as well as walking exercises to strengthen her muscles and improve her coordination. The little toddler wasn’t good at walking on her own, even while holding someone’s hand. Her coordination and muscle strength was significantly poorer compared to children her age. And, of course, what was difficult to the little tot was then wilfully avoided.

  Eliza could see how a tired and overburdened parent would give in and do things for their child that they should really be encouraging them to do for themselves. It was draining and exhausting just watching the little girl work through her exercises and, even though Tatiana tried to make the session as playful as possible, Alessandra became very tired towards the end. There was barely time for a few mouthfuls of lunch before she was ready for her nap.

  Eliza sat in the anteroom and read a book she had brought with her, keeping an ear out for any sign of the little girl becoming restless. An hour passed and then half of another but the child slept on. She could feel her own eyelids drooping when Marella came to the door with a steaming cup of tea and a freshly baked cup cake on a pretty flowered plate.