Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions: Taming Her Italian Boss / The Uncompromising Italian / Secrets of the Playboy's Bride

As she got undressed in the semi-dark, careful not to wake the sleeping child, she thought about Max and all his quiet dedication and commitment. Maybe he was rubbing off on her, because suddenly she wanted to rise to the challenge in front of her.

She knew it seemed as if she’d come by this job almost by accident, but maybe that was just fate sending her a big, flashing neon sign? This way, Ruby... Maybe being a nanny was what she was meant to do. Hadn’t Max said she was exactly what he needed? And Sofia already seemed very attached to her.

She held her breath as she slid in between the cool cotton sheets and pulled the covers up over her chest. Maybe this was her calling. Who knew? But for the next week—possibly two—she’d have her chance to find out.

* * *

Max looked up from his plans and papers and noticed a club sandwich sitting on the edge of the desk. How long had that been there? His stomach growled and he reached for it and devoured it in record time.

Ruby must have put it there. He frowned. Something about that felt wrong.

And not just because taking care of him wasn’t part of her job description. He just wasn’t used to being taken care of full stop, mainly because he’d carefully structured his life so he was totally self-sufficient. He didn’t need anyone to look after him. He didn’t need anyone, at all. And that was just as well. While his father had been his rock, he hadn’t been the touchy-feely sort, and work had always kept him away from home for long hours. And his mother...

Well, he hadn’t had a mother’s influence in his life since he’d been a teenager, and even before the divorce things had been...explosive...at home.

A rush of memories rolled over him. He tried to hold them at bay, but there were too many, coming too fast, like a giant wave breaching a sea wall in a storm. That wall had held fast for so many years. He didn’t know why it was crumbling now, only that it was. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, paced across the living room of the suite in an effort to escape it.

This was why he hated this city. It was too old, full of too much history. Somehow the past—anyone’s past—weighed too heavily here.

He shook his head and reached for the half-drunk bottle of wine on the room-service trolley and went to refill his glass. The Pinot had been perfect, rich and soothing. Just what he’d needed.

He didn’t want to revisit any of those memories. Not even the good ones. Yes, his mother had been wonderful when she’d been happy—warm, loving, such fun—but the tail end of his parents’ marriage had been anything but happy. Those good times were now superimposed with her loud and expressive fits of rage, the kind only an Italian woman knew how to give, and his father’s silent and stoic sternness, as he refused to be baited, to be drawn into the game. Sometimes the one-sided fights had gone on for days.

He took another slug of wine and tried to unclench his shoulder muscles.

His relationship with his mother had never been good, not since the day she’d left the family home in a taxi and a cloud of her own perfume. He hadn’t spoken to her in at least a year, and hadn’t seen her for more than three.

He looked down at his glass and noticed he’d polished it off without realising. There was still another left in the bottle....

No. He put his glass down on the desk and switched off his laptop. No more for tonight. Because if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he’d need a clear head to deal with his mother come morning.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAX WALKED OUT of his bedroom then stopped, completely arrested by the sight in front of him. What the heck?

And it wasn’t the spray of cereal hoops all over the coffee table or the splash of milk threatening to drip off the edge. Nor was it the sight of his niece, sitting cross-legged on the carpet and eating a pastry, no sign of a tantrum in sight. No, it was the fact that the nanny he’d hired yesterday bore no resemblance to the one who was busily trying to erase the evidence of what had obviously been a rather messy breakfast session.

She froze when she heard him walk in, then turned around. Her gaze drifted to the mess in the middle of the room. ‘Sofia doesn’t like cereal, apparently,’ she explained calmly. ‘And she felt the need to demonstrate that with considerable gusto.’

He blinked and looked again.

The voice was right. And the attitude. But this looked like a different girl.... No—woman. This one was definitely a woman.

Gone was the slightly hippy-looking patchwork scarecrow from the day before, to be replaced by someone in a bright red fifties dress covered in big cartoon strawberries. With the full skirt and the little black shoes and the short hair swept from her face, she looked like a psychedelic version of Audrey Hepburn.

Hair! That was it!

He looked again. The purple streaks were still there, just not as apparent in this neater style. Good. For a moment there, he’d thought he’d been having a particularly vivid dream.

‘Good morning,’ he finally managed to mutter.

She raised her eyebrows.

Max covered up the fact that the sight of all those strawberries had made him momentarily forget her name by launching in with something she’d like—details. ‘After breakfast we’re going to visit Sofia’s grandmother.’ He paused and looked at the slightly milk-drenched, pastry-flake-covered child in front of him. ‘Would you be able to get her looking presentable by ten?’

The nanny nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Good.’ Max felt his stomach unclench. ‘My mother is not someone who tolerates an untidy appearance.’ And then he turned to go and fire up his laptop, but he could have sworn he heard her mutter, ‘What a shocker...’ under her breath.

* * *

The water taxi slowed outside a large palazzo with its own landing stage leading up to a heavy front door. They’d travelled for maybe fifteen minutes, leaving the Grand Canal behind and heading into the Castello district of the city.

The building was almost as large at the hotel they’d just left, but where its plaster had been pristine and smooth, this palace was looking a little more tired round the edges. Green slime coated the walls at the waterline, indicating the height of the high tide. Some of the pink plasterwork had peeled off at the bottom of the structure leaving an undulating wave of bare bricks showing.

There were grilles over the ground-floor windows, and the plaster was peeling away there, too, but up above there were the most wonderful stone balcony and window boxes overflowing with ivy and white flowers. The overall effect was like that of a grand old lady who’d had a fabulous time at the ball but had now sat down, a little tired and flustered, to compose herself.

Ruby’s eyes were wide as she clung onto Sofia to stop her scrambling ashore before the boat was properly secured.

Max must have read her mind. ‘This is Ca’ Damiani and, yes, my mother lives here. But she doesn’t occupy the whole thing, just the piano nobile.’

Ruby nodded, even though she had no idea what that meant.

‘A lot of these grand old buildings have been split up into apartments,’ he explained as he hopped from the boat and offered to take Sofia from her. ‘In buildings like these the floor above ground level was the prime spot, where the grandest rooms of the house were situated—the stage for all the family’s dramas.’ He sighed. ‘And there’s nothing my mother likes more than a grand drama.’

His voice was neutral, expressionless even, but she could see the tension in his jaw, the way the air around him seemed heavy and tense. This was not a joyful homecoming, not one bit.

Ruby clambered out of the boat and reached for Sofia’s hand, and then the three of them together walked off the dock and up to a double door with a large and tarnished brass knocker. Ruby swallowed as Max lifted it. When it fell the noise rang out like a gunshot, and she jumped. She did her best not to fidget as they waited.

After a short wait the door swung open. Ruby would have expected it to creak, from the age of it, but it was as silent as a rush of air. The woman who was standing there was also something of a surprise. Ruby had expected her to be tall and dark, like Max, but she was petite and her blond hair was artfully swept into a twist at the back of her head. She wore a suit with a dusky pink jacket and skirt and, just like every other Italian woman Ruby had ever met, carried with her an innate sense of confidence in her own style. Not a hair on her head was out of place.

Ruby looked down at her strawberry-patterned skirt. She’d chosen her best vintage dress for today in an attempt to emulate that effortless style, but now she feared she just looked like a sideshow freak instead of la bella figura. She held back, hiding herself a little behind Max’s much larger frame.

His mother looked at him for a long moment.

No, Ruby thought, she didn’t just look. She drank him in.

‘Well, you have finally come, Massimo,’ she said in Italian, her voice hoarse.

‘I’ve told you I prefer Max,’ he replied in English. ‘And it was an emergency. Gia needed me. What else could I do? I wasn’t going to run out on her, on my family, because things got a little difficult.’

The words hung between them like an accusation. Ruby saw the older woman pale, but then she drew herself taller.

‘Oh, I know that it is not on my account that you are here,’ she said crisply. ‘As for the other matter, I named you, Massimo, so I shall call you what I like.’ She glanced down and her face broke into a wide and warm smile. ‘Darling child! Come here to your nonna!’

Sofia hesitated for a second, then allowed herself to be picked up and held. Ruby guessed that Max’s sister must be a more frequent visitor here than he was. After a couple of moments Sofia was smiling and using her chubby fingers to explore the gold chain and pendant around her grandmother’s neck. She seemed totally at ease.

When she’d finished fussing over her granddaughter, Max’s mother lifted her head and looked at him. ‘You’d better come inside.’

She retreated into a large hallway with a diamond-tiled floor and rough brick walls. There were hints of the plaster that had once covered them, and most of the moulded ceilings were intact. However, instead of seeming tumbledown, it just made the palazzo’s ground floor seem grand and ancient. There were a few console tables and antiques, and a rather imposing staircase with swirling wrought iron banisters curved upwards to the first floor.

His mother started making her way up the staircase, but when she turned the corner and realised there was an extra body still following them, and it wasn’t just someone who’d helped them unload from the boat, she stopped and walked back down to where Ruby was on the floor, ballet-slippered foot hovering above the bottom step, and let Sofia slide from her embrace.

‘And who do we have here?’ she asked, looking Ruby up and down with interest. Ruby’s heart thudded inside her ribcage. Not the sort of girl who usually trailed around after her son, probably. Well, almost definitely.

‘This is Sofia’s nanny,’ Max said, this time joining his mother in her native language. ‘I hired her especially for the trip.’

‘Ruby Lange,’ Ruby said and offered her hand, hoping it wasn’t sticky, and then continued in her best Italian, ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’

Max’s mother just turned and stared at her son, tears filling her eyes, and then she set off up the staircase again, this time at speed, her heels clicking against the stone. ‘You have insulted me, Massimo! Of all the things you could have done!’

Max hurried up the stairs after his mother. ‘I’ve done nothing of the sort. You’re making no sense at all.’

He’d reverted to English. Which was a pity, because when he spoke Italian he sounded like a different man. Oh, the depth and tone of the voice were the same, but it had sounded richer, warmer. As if it belonged to a man capable of the same passion and drama as the woman he was chasing up the stairs.

Ruby turned to Sofia, who was looking up the staircase after her uncle and grandmother. Once again, she’d been forgotten. Ruby wanted to pull her up into her arms and hug her hard. She knew what it was like to always be left behind, to always be the complication that stopped the adults in your life from doing what they wanted. ‘What do you say, kiddo? Shall we follow the grown-ups?’

Sofia nodded and they made their way up the stairs. It was slow progress. Sofia had to place both feet on a step before moving to the next one. Her little legs just weren’t capable of anything else. When they got halfway, Ruby gave up and held out her arms. The little girl quickly clambered up her and let her nanny do the hard work.

Well, that was what she was here for. Or she would be if Signora Martin didn’t think she was so much of an insult that she threw Ruby out on her ear. Max hadn’t been wrong when he’d mentioned drama, had he?

When she got to the top of the stairs the decor changed. There was wood panelling on the walls and the ceilings were painted in pastel colours with intricate plasterwork patterns. Every few feet there were wall sconces, dripping with crystals. If this explosion of baroque architecture and cluttered antique furniture was what Max had meant when he’d called Venetian style ‘fussy’, she could see his point.

The ‘discussion’ was still raging, in a room just off the landing. The space must have been huge, because their voices echoed the same way they would in a church or a museum. His mother’s was emotive and loud, Max’s steady and even. Ruby was glad her soft shoes didn’t make much noise and she crept in the direction of the raised voices, Sofia resting on her hip.

‘You’re never going to forgive me, are you?’ his mother finally said softly.

Ruby crept a little closer. The room had double doors, which were still standing where they’d been flung open, and she peeked at the interior through the gap next to the hinges.

Max’s mother closed her eyes and sadness washed over her features. ‘That’s why you brought the nanny, wasn’t it? You think I’m not fit to look after my granddaughter on my own. Was I really such a terrible mother?’

This was getting too personal, Ruby realised. It was time to back away, leave them to it. She’d just have to find somewhere to hide out with Sofia until the whole thing blew over. Surely there must be a kitchen in this place somewhere?

She retreated a couple of steps, but she’d forgotten that she was much less nimble with Sofia increasing her bulk and she knocked into a side table and made the photo frames and lamp on it jangle.

There was silence in the room beyond. Ruby held her breath. A moment later Max appeared in the doorway and motioned for her to come inside. Ruby would rather have drunk a gallon of lagoon water, but she really didn’t have much choice. She hoisted Sofia up into a more comfortable position, tipped her chin up and walked into the room.

It was a grand Venetian salon, with a vast honey-coloured marble fireplace and trompe l’oeil pillars and mouldings painted on the walls in matching tones, with mythic scenes on the walls in between. A row of arched windows leading onto a stone balcony dominated the opposite side of the room, and three large green sofas were arranged in a C-shape, facing them. But the sight that Ruby was most interested in was the stiff figure in the pink suit standing in the middle of the room.

‘Ruby isn’t here to usurp you, Mamma. I hired her partly to help me bring Sofia over here with minimum fuss, but also because I thought she could help you. Why should you have to cancel your social engagements, alter your plans, for the next couple of weeks because of Gia’s work problems?’

The other woman’s features softened a little, and she looked a little ashamed. She turned to face Ruby and held out her hand. Ruby let Sofia down and the little girl ran to the window to look at a speedboat that had just shot down the medium-sized canal beyond.

‘Serafina Martin.’ She smiled warmly and shook Ruby’s hand firmly but very briefly. ‘But everybody calls me Fina. I apologise most sincerely for not welcoming you to Ca’ Damiani when you first arrived, but I do so now.’

Ruby replied in her best Italian. ‘Thank you, Signora Martin, for your welcome and for opening your home to me, if you do decide you could do with my help. I’m afraid this is my first job as a nanny so I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.’ She glanced at Max, who was watching her carefully. ‘You’ll probably have to help me more than I’ll help you.’

A small flicker of approval, and maybe relief, passed across the other woman’s features. Fina tilted her head. ‘Your Italian is very good.’

Ruby kept her smile demure. ‘Thank you.’

Fina’s gaze swept over her dress and then up to her head. ‘But your hair is not. Purple?’

She shrugged. ‘I like it.’

For the longest moment Fina didn’t move, didn’t say anything. She didn’t even blink, but then she smiled. It started in her eyes and moved to just lift the corners of her mouth. ‘Bene. What do I know? I am old and out of touch, probably, and I like a woman who follows her own path.’ And then she turned and swept out of the room. ‘Come, Massimo! We have to decide what you are going to do about this child.’

* * *

Max stared at his mother. ‘What do you mean you want me to stay here, too?’

That hadn’t been the plan at all. The reason he’d brought Sofia here was because now was definitely not the moment to take an impromptu holiday. He couldn’t let everything he and his father had worked for slide.

His mother did that infuriating little wave of her hand, suggesting he was making a mountain out of a molehill. ‘You made a very good point,’ she said airily. ‘I do have plans this week, including earning a living. I can’t take time off at this short notice.’

Max’s jaw dropped. ‘You have a job?’

She turned her head to look at him. ‘Why is that so hard to believe? Yes, I have a job. I work for a real estate company in the mornings, helping them dress and present their luxury properties.’

He shook his head, hardly able to believe it.

‘You are straying from the point, Massimo. It is not important where I work, but how we are going to do the best for Sofia.’

He frowned. ‘I know that, Mamma. That’s why I came to you in the first place. It just isn’t possible to keep her in London with me. There’s a work issue that’s at a very crucial point and I can’t give her the time and attention she deserves.’

‘You know I adore having Sofia with me, but do you think I keep this place running because money falls from the sky? I also have urgent work to do.’

He shot a glance across at his travelling nanny. She was kneeling on the carpet, helping Sofia build a house out of colourful blocks. Max didn’t know where they’d come from. His mother must have had them stashed away somewhere. ‘But that’s why I brought Ruby.’ He’d thought of everything, made it simple and easy. Why was his mother turning this into a problem when there was none?

‘The poor child is upset and away from her mother. When I’m not here, she needs to be with someone she knows.’

She looked the picture of innocence, perched on the edge of a green damask sofa. The high windows let in the soft light of the May morning, basking her in an almost saintly glow.

‘But she doesn’t know me, either.’

His mother frowned. ‘I thought Gia had said that you were in regular contact now.’

‘We text, mainly,’ he mumbled. ‘And she comes into the city to have lunch every couple of months, but she doesn’t usually bring Sofia with her.’

He rather suspected she deliberately chose the days Sofia was at nursery, so she could come up to town and have a few hours to herself. She very kindly always picked the best places, and always let her brother pay.

‘Texting is not communicating! It is not the same as a smile or a hug or a warm word. One cannot build relationships through one’s phone.’

He shrugged and his mother did another one of her famous hand gestures. Not the little elegant hand-flap, this one. Both arms flew above her head and she stood up and walked over to stare out of the windows onto the canal below. ‘Then this is the perfect opportunity for you to get to know her. You really should. She is your only niece, after all.’

If that wasn’t an example of his mother’s own brand of circular logic, he didn’t know what was.

‘But she cries every time I look at her,’ he said, more than a little exasperated. ‘I try to talk nicely to her but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I’d stay if it were different, but it’s hardly the best thing for Sofia to leave her with me on my own if that’s the case.’

‘But you won’t be on your own,’ his mother said, far too silkily for his liking. ‘You’ll have Ruby.’

They both transferred their gazes to the travelling nanny. Ruby, who must have sensed two pairs of eyes on her, stopped what she was doing and looked up at them from under her fringe. Max had a lightning stab of revelation. Ruby had already proved very useful when it had come to Sofia, perhaps she could be more useful still. Perhaps he could enlist her as an ally. He sent her a silent message with his eyes.

Ruby’s lips twitched. ‘It’s true,’ she said, looking at his mother. ‘She does cry most of the time when she’s near him. They don’t know each other at all. He’s not even sure how old she is.’

His mother reached across and slapped his leg. Quite hard, actually. ‘Massimo! Honestly!’

She turned to look at Ruby, and Max had the feeling he was being pointedly ignored for the moment. ‘She’ll be three in a month,’ his mother said in Italian, and then she and Ruby had a brief exchange about when Sofia’s birthday was and what sort of things she liked to do. He was quite surprised at how good the nanny’s Italian was, to be honest. He hadn’t even known she spoke it. Just went to show his instincts about her had been right, even if she did make each day look as if she’d raided a different fancy dress shop.

However, when Ruby and his mother started getting into what time was bedtime and favourite snacks, he decided that enough was enough. He stood up and walked closer to them. ‘Can we just get back to the matter in hand?’ he said, maybe a little abruptly.

Both women stopped talking and looked at him. They wore identical expressions. Max had the horrible sinking feeling that maybe he’d been right about Ruby being a good ally. He just wasn’t sure she was his.

‘I need to know this kind of stuff, actually,’ she told him. ‘And you weren’t much help.’

Details.

He could almost hear Ruby’s mental whisper that followed.

That was enough to set his mother throwing her hands in the air again. When she’d calmed herself down by walking over to the fireplace and back again, she fixed him with a determined expression. Max knew that look. It meant she’d made up her mind about something, and budging her from that viewpoint was going to be about as easy as asking the whole of Venice to pick up her skirts and move a little further out into the lagoon.

‘I have made a decision,’ she announced. ‘I would like nothing more than to have my lovely granddaughter here for a visit.’

He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. ‘Thank you, Mamma.’

His mother drew herself up and put on her most regal air. ‘But I will allow it on one condition.’

What?

‘I won’t take Sofia unless you stay, too,’ his mother told him, folding her arms across her chest. ‘You cannot live your life cloistered away in that stuffy office of yours, communicating to those you love through bits of technology. It’s high time you lived up to your family responsibilities, Massimo.’

Max almost choked. His family responsibilities? That was rich!

He opened his mouth to argue, but didn’t get very far. He became aware of a small but insistent tugging on the left leg of his trousers and looked down to find his niece standing there. She was trying to pull him in the direction of the pile of blocks on the rug near the fireplace.

His mother just smiled at him. ‘She’s not crying now, my darling son, and you said you’d stay if she stopped.’ She looked over at her granddaughter. Warmth and joy flared in her eyes. ‘It seems I am not the only one who has made my mind up about this—Sofia has, too.’