Читать книгу The Millionaire's Baby - Diana Hamilton - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

‘JUST one more spoonful, there’s a good girl!’ Caro registered the pleading whine in her voice and was horrified. Where had her Nanny-knows-best-and-won’ t-be-thwarted voice disappeared to? But Finn had opted for a quick shower and she’d so wanted to give the baby her supper and prove to him that she could do something right.

‘Lovely onion soup!’ she cried more bracingly, remembering how she had doted on the stuff as a child. But she must have had depraved taste buds, she decided glumly as Sophie blew a monster raspberry and showered her with the despised offering.

‘Having trouble?’ Finn, tucking the tails of a crisp white shirt into the waistband of narrow-fitting slate-grey trousers, walked into the sitting room of her suite, eyeing the cross red face of his infant daughter.

Sophie’s mouth went square as soon as she saw her father, and Finn plucked her out of the high chair to take her mind off onion soup and nip the wailing session in the bud. ‘She usually has a boiled egg followed by fruit for her supper.’ He looked unbearably smug, as if he’d given her a test, knowing she’d fail, and felt superior because he’d proved himself right.

Caro wanted to hit him for walking in and discovering her ineptness—for walking in at all when she’d imagined she’d seen the last of him for the evening after their return from the park—quality time, he’d called it. Before disappearing he’d told her, ‘Sophie has supper around now. Ring Room Service. You’ll find the kitchen staff very accommodating.’

At a huge disadvantage, covered in onion soup as she was, Caro tried to salvage something and managed to find some dignity as she told him, ‘Onions cleanse the blood.’ Everyone knew that, didn’t they? And she watched him tuck the baby more securely into the crook of his arm as he went to the phone in the main living room, and wondered whether the snort he gave denoted scorn or amusement at her expense.

Deciding she didn’t give a damn either way, she began to tidy away the mess Sophie had made, making herself stay calm because in the not too distant future he would be the one who was cringing.

He’d showered and changed so he’d be going out for the evening, which was lovely. She’d bath the baby and put her to bed and spend her own evening plotting the best way to hurt his conscience.

But she immediately felt mortified when the waiter carried through the revised supper on a tray. A boiled egg in a cup decorated with rabbits wearing blue bonnets, a similarly decorated bowl of diced fresh fruit and a plate of thinly sliced bread and butter.

It was worse still when Finn followed through with Sophie. She was wearing a fresh bib and her sunniest smile and Caro, feeling ridiculous, just standing there clutching the toast soldiers she’d gathered up from the floor where the baby had flung them, realised that Mary had been right when she’d said she was crazy.

She should never have got herself in so deep. More at home with balance sheets, with interviewing nannies who were anxious to be adopted by the now prestigious Grandes Familles Agency or wealthy parents from the UK and America, as well as France, who wanted only the very best for their offspring, than dealing with offspring, she felt like an idiot.

For the first time in her life she felt like giving up on a project. She could contact Mary and ask her to send that replacement, the one who was probably already on the starting-block. And bow out.

She couldn’t alter the way he was. Nothing she could say to him, no matter how stinging, would make a scrap of difference. He would go on using women all through his life, never giving them a second thought once he had tired of them, never looking back or wondering what had happened to them. How could she hurt his conscience if he didn’t have one?

‘Why don’t you go and freshen up? I can feed this little monster,’ Finn suggested lightly, smiling to show he wasn’t about to put on his outraged employer’s hat.

She looked vulnerable, beaten, her soft mouth drooping, the eyes that had swept momentarily to his as he’d spoken spangled with tears. He found he couldn’t bear that. He hated it. Deeply.

Something was wrong and he wanted to help put it right and he couldn’t do that unless she opened up and talked to him, told him what the problem was. Whatever her grandmother’s opinion, she wasn’t Wonderwoman. His shoulders were broad enough to carry the burden that was so clearly dragging her down. And with a woman as lovely as Caroline Farr that would be no problem. In fact, he decided suddenly, it would be a pleasure.

With Sophie secured in her high chair and munching on bread and butter he moved quickly to the forlorn yet graceful figure in her soup-spattered cotton dress. She was no more a nanny than he was, knew much less about child care—and he was no expert. He just muddled along as best he could, taking his daughter’s happiness as the yardstick and to hell with timetables and theories.

‘Give yourself a break.’ The gruffness of his voice surprised him. So far she hadn’t moved. This close, he could smell the fresh floral fragrance of her—the perfume she used, he supposed. Or was it the essence of the woman herself?

He cleared his throat. ‘Give me that.’ He meant the discarded pieces of toast she held in her hands. His fingers brushed the slender length of hers and something happened. Something wild and sweet and unrestrained.

She felt it, too. He saw the shaft of surprise in the golden gleam between tangled dark lashes and heard the harsh sound of her swiftly sucking in her breath. And then her chin came up, her head turning sharply on the graceful line of her neck and shoulders, small hands decisive as they snatched away from his.

Unrestraint was ruled out of play. Which was probably just as well, he thought, watching the sway of her hips as she went to dispose of the mangled toast in the waste bin. He needed to uncover the truth, find out why she was here, doing a job she was patently untrained for, before—

Before? That implied that something would come after. And that, surely, was nonsense.

Or was it? .

Caro closed the bathroom door behind her and leaned against it, mourning the lack of a lock. She needed a shower. She felt hot and bothered, sticky all over.

The thought of him walking in on her was terrifying. He was potent stuff and if she’d learned anything in the few hours she’d been here it was that she was no more immune to him than the rest of womankind.

She remembered the way she’d felt when he’d touched her hands, standing so close she would have melted into him had she swayed on her feet by the smallest fraction. The brush of his skin against hers had made her want to do just that, as if something deep inside her was answering a call as old as time.

But—and it was a very big but—she knew exactly what an unprincipled womaniser he was. She wasn’t about to walk into the jaws of a smiling tiger. She might be as crazy as Mary had said, but she wasn’t that crazy!

And he wouldn’t walk in on her while she was in the shower, she rationalised. It would be classified as sexual harassment and she could get him blacklisted by all the agencies around.

Heartened by the resurgence of her fighting spirit, she stripped off and turned on the shower head. It wasn’t like her to throw in the towel.

When she recalled how her eyes had filled with stupid tears because of the kindness of his smile, the gentle warmth of the suggestion that she go and freshen up while he saw to Sophie, along with her own unusual and abhorrent feelings of ineptitude, she could scarcely believe she was capable of such weakness. How could she have been such a wimp?

No, the plan was still on, all systems go. She’d muddle through as best she could until she decided what form her retribution would take, or her name wasn’t Caroline Farr!

Twenty minutes later, dressed now in a white T-shirt and black cotton trousers, her hair freshly blow-dried, she walked out of the bathroom, feeling brisk.

He could accuse her of not knowing much but he couldn’t prove she wasn’t a bona fide nanny.

She found Finn in the main sitting room, sprawled out on one of the sofas watching the news on TV, his mother-naked baby sitting right beside him, all big brown eyes, bouncy curls and seraphic smile.

‘We used my bathroom for her ablutions.’ His drawl was laid-back, lazy. ‘It’s bedtime, but we didn’t want to invade your privacy.’

She supposed she should be a good little hireling and thank him nicely for his thoughtfulness. But didn’t. And couldn’t help noting the way he and his daughter were always a definite ‘we’, as if the baby had as much say in what went on as he did.

Before that could soften the way she regarded him, she responded coolly, ‘Very well, Mr Helliar. I’ll get her ready.’ She scooped the baby up and hoped to heaven the child wouldn’t volubly object because she wouldn’t know what to do if she did.

Panic subsided as a chubby pair of arms went around her neck, the baby’s head snuggling comfortably beneath her chin. Caro walked to the set of rooms she shared with Sophie, her back straight and her head held high with the pride of achievement, as if she’d worked a minor miracle, no problem.

Further miracles became manifest. One, she managed to put the nappy on properly. Two, she also slid the seemingly boneless little body snugly into the cotton sleeper she’d found stashed in one of the drawers without any hassle worth the name. And three, the baby’s eyes were already drooping as she laid her in her cot.

Such was the power of positive thinking, she told herself. Then peace blew up in her face as Finn murmured from behind her, ‘Shall I sing her to sleep, or would you rather do it?’

Her breath froze in her lungs with shock. Why did he have to creep up on her like that, making her jump out of her skin? He seemed to find it impossible to leave her alone with his daughter for more than a few minutes at a time. Tension bunched up her shoulder muscles until they hurt. And why did he have to stand so close?

‘She’ll want her daddy.’ She had her voice back, but only just. ‘I’m still a virtual stranger.’ She walked out of the room then, quickly, softly, and stood in front of the now blank TV screen, staring at it, wondering how Fleur could leave her gorgeous little daughter for as much as a minute.

‘She went out like a light.’

He was doing it again, creeping up behind her, his voice too darn soft, too warm and honeyed.

‘Good.’ What else could she say? She moved a few paces away from him and her heartbeats slowed a little. Then everything inside her dropped—heart, lungs, lights and liver—right down to the soles of her feet; it was a miracle that she stayed upright at all, she marvelled as she wallowed in the agitated aftermath of his simple words:

‘We’ll eat dinner here. Room Service will deliver any time now.’

‘You’re going out,’ she managed at last. She wanted him out. She needed time on her own to plot and scheme, didn’t she? She couldn’t think straight when he was around. He muddled her and she was totally unused to being muddled. She couldn’t bear it!

‘News to me.’ He flipped through the television listings then tossed the magazine back on a low coffee table. He didn’t look like a man who would contentedly spend a night in flicking through the channels to find something he wanted to watch then going to bed early with a good book when he couldn’t.

From what she’d heard of him he would want to be out and about, seeing friends. Female friends. Hadn’t Sandra opined that he could now get himself a life? And the way she’d looked at him when she’d said it meant she would willingly be in on the action.

So why wasn’t he taking the opportunity? Because he wasn’t as black as her second-hand knowledge had painted him or because—and this seemed far more likely—he didn’t want to leave her alone with his baby daughter?

That was logical. She was comfortable with logic. For all he was a callous, heartless brute where women were concerned, no one could deny he adored his child. And the new nanny had been here for less than twenty-four hours and had shown herself to be largely incompetent.

She gave him a good attempt at a reassuring smile and said calmly, ‘Sophie will be fine with me, if that’s what’s troubling you. I’m perfectly capable of attending to her should she wake. Didn’t your secretary—’ she invested that word with heavy emphasis, quite deliberately ‘—say you could now get yourself a life? So why don’t you? I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help you get back in the swing of things.’

Gross impertinence, given her subordinate position; she knew that and didn’t give a fig. She wanted to draw him out, hear him add to the list of his sins with his own far too sexy mouth.

And he did. In a way he did. He said, looking at her with enigmatic silver eyes, ‘Oh, yes, I’m quite sure she would. But not tonight.’

Tonight he had plans. Tonight he meant to delve and dig and discover why she was here. He found he had a sudden urgency to get to know her a great deal better, find out what made this woman tick. This oddly prickly, supremely lovely, breath-catchingly graceful woman.

Then, as a discreet tap on the door heralded the arrival of the room-service waiter with his trolley, he added, ‘Neither am I troubled. Once she’s asleep Sophie never wakes. But as we’re going to be practically living in each other’s pockets for the next few months I thought we should spend an hour or so getting to know each other better. Hitting the town can wait.’

Caro, watching the waiter set out the covers on the table in the window, felt her stomach lurch, twist and contract. He meant to quiz her about her credentials; a little late in the day of course, but doubtless brought on by her obvious and total lack of experience.

She’d fudge her way through that somehow; she could have done without it but the prospect didn’t bother her too much. What was really churning her up was the way he’d as good as admitted he had something going with that secretary of his.

‘Not tonight’, he’d said, implying that there were plenty of other nights when he’d take the opportunity to play away from home. What kind of normal married man would have made such an admission to the newly hired nanny?

But he wasn’t a normal married man. He’d made his wedding vows but he didn’t mean to keep them. The type of man who could treat Katie the way he had was capable of anything.

‘Shall we eat?’ His warm, dark voice made her spine prickle in none too subtle warning. Inadvertently, she glanced up and met his eyes. If his mouth was sexy, his eyes were more so. They pulled her into the softly gleaming silver depths with an invitation that was hard to resist.

‘I’m not really hungry.’ She found her voice; it was strangely husky. That intimate, come-to-bed look was carefully cultivated, part of his stock-in-trade, guaranteed to set female hearts fluttering.

But not this female’s heart. Sweet, naive Katie with her fragile self-esteem had been a pushover. Two years ago, at barely eighteen, her little sister had met this man and been blown away like a leaf in a hurricane, had believed every rotten lie he’d told her and suffered the shattering consequences.

‘It’s the heat,’ he sympathised. ‘But you must try to eat something.’

His words penetrated the dark fog of her rage, pushed her into getting a grip on herself.

‘I’ll do my best.’ Her voice was empty, her movements brisk and businesslike as she walked to the table, seated herself and glanced at what was on offer.

Cold poached salmon, slices of chicken breast in a lemon sauce, a multiplicity of salads. She barely listened to his idle comments about the heatwave, the noise and air pollution of the never-sleeping capital, the undesirability of bringing up a child in a city. She kept her eyes on her plate or on the tree-lined street beyond the window, the dusty leaves at eye-level.

Only when he put in, ‘How’s the agency doing? From what I was told, Grandes Families was an overnight success,’ did she allow herself to look at him.

There was a subtle challenge there somewhere. He didn’t strike her as the type of man who would be interested in idle gossip and she knew that his father had helped her gran set up those convoluted trust funds after her grandpa had died.

Would he be aware that capital from one of the funds had been used by the agency? Hardly likely. Such small beer would be beneath the notice of the powerful chief executive; the release would have been dealt with at a much lower level.

And he wouldn’t connect her surname with the name of the barely ex-schoolgirl he had seduced and abandoned two years ago. Farr was a fairly common name. He probably couldn’t remember Katie’s name in any case.

In any case, had he leaped to the conclusion that because her surname was Farr she had to be connected to Katie, then surely he would have mentioned it by now? She was, she assured herself staunchly, getting away with it!

So it was just idle conversation and her cover wasn’t blown. She picked up her as yet untouched glass of wine and twirled it slowly round by the stern.

‘How should I know? It gets a good press. I only signed on with them recently.’ It was a blessing she wasn’t Pinocchio or by now her nose would have reached right over the table, probably poking holes in the crisp white shirt that covered those mightily impressive shoulders.

‘I see. How long have you been working as a nanny?’ Finn leant back in his chair, watching the film of colour rise beneath her skin. He didn’t need that, or the way she suddenly buried her nose in her wine glass, to tell him she was hiding something. Telling lies to cover the truth.

Which was? His narrowed eyes lingered on the attenuated line of her throat as she tipped her glass, drinking deeply. That she had no idea he knew who she was and had already guessed she’d turned her hand to nannying to bring in desperately needed extra funds.

She and her partner, the pleasant, capable-seeming middle-aged woman who’d interviewed him initially, wouldn’t want it known that their high-flying agency had taken a nose-dive.

‘Not long.’ She answered his question when her glass was empty and she could no longer find an excuse to keep silent. But at least it was the truth. Less than twenty-four hours, in fact. A sudden urge to giggle had her wondering if swallowing that wine had been one of the best ideas she’d ever had.

So she wasn’t going to come clean. He could wait. Finn refilled her glass from the bottle of Moselle he’d ordered. She barely knew him, after all. She would hardly take him into her confidence so soon, and he was reluctant to force it out of her by telling her he knew she was the other half—the driving half—of the partnership.

He wanted her to trust him enough to share her problems with him, and so allow him to help her get to grips with them. He wanted those problems, and the subterfuge, out of the way. And he knew the perfect way to hasten that happy event. He had already made up his mind. To gain her trust he needed a more intimate atmosphere than an impersonal hotel suite could provide.

‘I’d like you to pack for you and Sophie first thing in the morning.’ Her attention was back on him again, her eyes wide and golden, completely without artifice, mildly questioning. Beautiful. He held them, his voice soft as he told her, ‘We’re moving to the country. A cottage just big enough for the three of us. Secluded, peaceful, a good place to draw breath.’ His eyes were drawn without his say-so to her mouth. A soft mouth, the colour of crushed strawberries and probably just as sweet.

Or sweeter. And open now. The parted, berry-sweet lips held him fascinated as he said in a voice he barely recognised as his own, ‘You’d like that?’