His Final Bargain(5)

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.

But 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.