Читать книгу Alessandro and the Cheery Nanny - Amy Andrews - Страница 7

ALESSANDRO spotted Nat at the dining room checkout the next day and hurried towards her. He was just in time to hear the waitress say, ‘Eight dollars and twenty cents, please.’

He fished out his wallet and handed over a twenty before Nat had even zipped open her purse. ‘Take it out of this,’ he said.

Nat felt every nerve ending leap at his unexpected appearance. She glanced back at him, her heart doing a funny shimmy in her chest at his sheer masculinity. She frowned, both at her unwanted response and his motivation to pay for her lunch. ‘Thanks. I pay my own way,’ she said, presenting her own twenty.

The waitress looked from her to Alessandro and Nat couldn’t help but notice that when he wanted to, Alessandro Lombardi could indeed pull a hundred-watt smile. His face went from darkly handsome, deeply tortured widower to blatantly sexy, Roman sex god. His curved lips utterly desirable.

After another stifling night with only a fan that seemed to do nothing other than push the hot air around and little sleep, it was especially irksome.

He pushed his money closer. ‘Keep the change,’ he murmured.

Nat rolled her eyes as the waitress practically swooned as she reached for his crisp orange note. She stuffed hers back into her purse, picked up her tray in disgust and left him to it. Within seconds she could sense him shadowing her.

‘Italian women may think it’s charming to be taken care of but I don’t,’ she said, steaming ahead to a table that overlooked the rose gardens St Auburn’s was famous for. ‘So don’t pull your macho rubbish with me.’

Last time she’d let a man pay for her, she’d been sucked in to wasting five years of her life on him.

Alessandro pulled out her chair for her as she angled herself into it and ignored her glare. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Julian. I thought the least I could do was buy you lunch while you listened.’

Nat eyed him across the table. She folded her arms. She was damned if the man didn’t already know her Achilles heel. She’d spent the morning with Julian and he hadn’t seemed any worse than normal. Not that that was much reassurance. ‘Is he okay?’

Alessandro’s gaze was drawn to the way her crossed arms emphasised the shape of her breasts. She was in crèche clothes today—shorts and T-shirt—and he noticed how her shirt displayed their full, round shape to perfection. He wondered for the hundredth time how they’d feel in his hands. In his mouth.

Damn it!

That wasn’t why he was here. He was here for Julian. Not for himself. But it was fair warning that gave him pause. Nat would be very distracting should she be crazy enough to agree to his plan.

‘Of course,’ he dismissed, annoyed at himself. Seeing her confusion, he hastily added, ‘I just wanted to ask you something.’

Nat opened up her packaged egg and lettuce sandwiches and took a bite, intrigued despite herself. ‘Ask away.’

If anything, he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. His hair look more tousled, like he’d been continually running his hands through it, and the furrows in his forehead were more prominent.

‘How come you work at both the crèche and the hospital?’

She quirked an eyebrow. Not quite what she’d been expecting. ‘You have to ask me that after Ernie?’

He regarded her for a moment. ‘So it’s a self-preservation strategy?’

‘I prefer to call it a happy medium. Too many hospital shifts and I get burnt out. But I miss it if I’m away too long.’

‘The best of both worlds?’

She shrugged. ‘I like to temper the Ernie days with the Julian days. Both workplaces let me have permanent shifts. No weekends, no night duty. Two days at St Auburn’s gives me my hospital hit, keeps my hand in, let’s me know I’m alive. Three days at the crèche restores my sanity. It keeps me Zen.’

Alessandro considered her statement. How many years had it been since he’d felt Zen? Definitely not for the last five years at least. Definitely not with her keeping him constantly off balance. ‘Do you have child-care qualifications too?’

She narrowed her eyes. Why did this suddenly feel like a job interview? ‘I’ve done my certificate and have a child health qualification.’ She cracked open the lid on her can of soft drink and eyed him over the top as she brought it to her mouth and took a swallow. ‘Why?’

Alessandro noticed the sheen to her lips and the way her tongue slid between them, lapping at the lingering moisture. He wondered what guava-and-mango-flavoured Nat tasted like.

Inferno! Concentrate, damn it!

He cleared his throat. ‘I think I have a solution to your eviction situation.’

Nat felt his gaze on her mouth as if he had actually pressed his lips to hers. Her eyes dropped of their own volition to inspect his. They were generous, soft. Lips made for kissing, made for whispering.

‘Oh, yes?’ she said cautiously, dragging her attention back to his eyes. Eyes that told her he knew exactly where hers had been.

‘You can stay with me.’ He watched her pupils dilate and her glance encompass his mouth once again. ‘And Julian.’

The canteen noises around them faded as his suggestion stunned her. Live under his roof? A man who, fully clothed, grim faced and utterly inaccessible, made her heart flutter like an epileptic butterfly? What the hell could he do to her in his own place, where the pretence of professionalism didn’t exist? Where he’d be all relaxed and homey and…wearing less. What did he wear to bed? She had the feeling he’d be a nothing kind of guy.

‘Just until you’re unit is built, of course.’

Nat blinked as her mind shied away from images of Alessandro in bed. Naked. ‘But…why? I barely know you.’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘I have the room, you need a place. And you’d be doing me a favour, helping with Julian. I haven’t been able to find a suitable live-in nanny and Julian adores you.’

She frowned. ‘You want me to be a…nanny? I already have a job. Two, actually. Which, by the way, I love.’

Alessandro shook his head. ‘No. I don’t expect you to give up your jobs. Julian can still go to the crèche but he could go and come home with you, which means he wouldn’t have such long days there. And he wouldn’t have to go on weekends and when I’m called in at night.’

Nat listened to his plan, which sounded very reasonable. So why did it seem so…illicit?

‘I’d pay you, of course. And it would be rent free.’

Of course. Nat reeled, her brain scrambling to take in his offer. She looked at him all big and dark and handsome and completely macho Italian with the added grimness that made him heart-breakingly attractive. She didn’t know much right at this second but she did know saying yes to Alessandro Lombardi was a very stupid idea.

‘No.’

Alessandro’s brows drew together. ‘You’ve had another offer?’

Nat contemplated lying. But it really wasn’t her way. Already her cheeks were growing warm just formulating a falsehood. ‘No.’

He shrugged. ‘Then it’s settled.’

Nat looked at the haughty set to his jaw and bristled at his arrogant assumptions. ‘No.’

‘I don’t understand. What’s the problem?’

The problem was that Alessandro Lombardi was a very attractive man. The mere thought of sharing a living space with him was breathtakingly intimate and already her pulse raced at the thought. She knew enough about herself to know she had a soft heart. And he was still in love with his dead wife. And she wasn’t stupid enough to get herself embroiled in that kind of scenario again.

‘Ah,’ he said as she averted her eyes from him. ‘You worry about what people will think? You have my word I have no ulterior motive. I have no…’ He searched for the right word, looking her up and down with as much dispassion as he could muster. ‘Agenda. Your virtue is safe with me.’

Because it was. His attraction was just physical, a combination of libido and abstinence. Easily tamed.

Nat felt his gaze rake her from head to toe and obviously found her wanting. She felt about as attractive as a bug. One of the really ugly ones. It wasn’t something she was used to. ‘Gossip does not bother me.’

‘Then what?’

She stared at him exasperated. The man was obviously not used to hearing no. ‘I don’t have to account to you, Alessandro,’ she said testily, placing her packaging back on her tray and rising. She wished she had any other reason for turning him down other than his irresistible sex appeal.

But she had nothing. ‘I’m sure you’re quite unused to hearing the word no. I’m sure you just snap your fingers and women fall all over themselves to do your bidding. But I’m not one of them. The answer is no. Just plain no. No equivocations, no justifications. Just no. Get used to it.’

Alessandro couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She was right, once upon a time he had been a finger snapper but that had all ended with Camilla. She turned to leave and he reached across, grabbing her arm. ‘Wait. I’m sorry, Nathalie, I didn’t mean to be so…’

Nat shivered. She didn’t know if it was from his touch or the way her name sighed from his lips like a caress. She turned back. He seemed so perplexed and she felt her anger dissipate as quickly as it had risen. ‘Italian?’