'Is Kathleen coming back?'
'She hasn't yet decided.'
'I thought you said my month-long contract was not up for negotiation,' Eliza said with a little frown. 'If she decides not to return, does that mean you'll offer me the post?'
'That also depends.'
She arched her brow. 'On what?'
'On whether you want to stay longer.'
Eliza chewed at her lip. If things had been different, of course she would stay. She would live with him as his lover, as his mistress, his daughter's nanny-whatever he wanted, she would do it because she wanted him so much.
But things weren't different.
They were exactly the same as they had been four years ago. It didn't matter what she wanted. It was the shackles of her guilt that would always make her forfeit what she wanted. How could she stay here with Leo and leave her other life behind? It was a fanciful dream she had to erase from her mind, just as she'd had to do in the past.
Eliza thought of little Alessandra, of how attached the child had become to her in such a short time. It wasn't just that the little girl was looking for a mother substitute. Eliza had latched onto her with equal measure. She looked forward to their time together. She felt excited about the ways in which Alessandra was growing and developing in confidence and independence. It wasn't just the teacher in her that was being validated, either. It was the deep-seated maternal instinct in her that longed to be expressed. Alessandra was responding to that strong instinct in her to love and protect and nurture.
If things were different, she would have been Alessandra's mother.
There was still a fiendish pain inside her chest at the thought of another woman sharing that deeply bonding experience with Leo. She so desperately wanted to be a mother. Each birthday that passed was a painful, gut-twisting reminder of her dream slipping even further out of her grasp.
Eliza brought her gaze back to his once she was sure she had her emotions hidden behind a mask of composure. 'Staying longer isn't an option … '
'Driving up the price, are we, Eliza?' A ripple of tension appeared along his jaw, his dark eyes flashing at her with disgust. 'That's what you're doing, isn't it? You want me to pay you a little extra to stay on as my mistress. How much do you want? Have you got a figure in mind?'
She took a steadying breath against the blast of his anger and turned away. 'There's no point talking to you in this mood.'
A hard hand came down on her forearm and turned her back to face him. His eyes blazed with heated purpose. She felt it ignite a fire in her blood where his fingers were wrapped around her wrist like a convict iron.
The tension in the air crackled like sheet lightning over a wide open plain.
'Don't turn away from me when I'm speaking to you,' he rasped.
Her chin went up and her eyes shot him their own fiery glare. 'Don't order me about like a child.'
His dark eyes glinted menacingly as they warred with hers. 'I'm paying you to obey my orders, damn it.'
Eliza felt a trail of molten heat roll down her spine but still her chin went even higher. 'You're not paying me enough to bow and scrape to you like a simpering servant.'
Those fingers burned her flesh like a brand. That hard-muscled body tempted her like an irresistible lure. Those dark eyes wrestled with hers until every nerve in her body was jangling and tingling with sensual hunger.
Heat exploded between her legs.
She could almost feel him there, that pounding surge of his body that triggered something raw and earthy and deeply primitive inside her.
'How much?' His eyes smouldered darkly. 'How much to have you in my bed for the rest of the month? How much to have you bowing and scraping and simpering to my every need?'
A reckless demon made her goad him. 'You can't afford me.'
'Try me. I have my limit. If you go over it I'll soon tell you.'
Eliza thought of the small house where Ewan and his mother lived in Suffolk. She thought of how much the bathroom needed renovating to make showering him easier for Samantha. She thought of the heating that needed improving because Ewan, as a quadriplegic, had no way of controlling his own body temperature. And then there were the lifting and toileting and feeding aids that always seemed to need an upgrade.
It all cost an astonishing amount of money.
Money Leo Valente was willing to pay her to be his mistress for the rest of the month.
Her heart tapped out an erratic tattoo. Maybe if she took the money it would make her feel less guilty about sleeping with him while she was engaged to Ewan. It would make it impossible to treat their relationship as anything but a business deal.
Well, perhaps not impossible … but unlikely.
He would have her body but she wouldn't sell him her heart.
Eliza met his hardened gaze with her outwardly composed one even as her stomach nosedived at the extraordinary step she was taking. 'I want two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.'
His brows lifted a fraction but, apart from that, his expression gave nothing away. 'I'll see that you get it within the next hour or two.'
'So-' she hastily disguised a tight little swallow '-it's not … too much?'
He brought her up against the trajectory of his arousal, the shock of the contact sending a wave of heat like a furnace blast right through her body. 'I'll let you know,' he said and sealed her mouth with the blistering heat of his.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN ELIZA WOKE the following morning her body tingled from head to foot. She turned her head but the only sign of Leo having shared the bed with her was the indentation on his pillow beside her.
And his smell …
She breathed in the musk and citrusy scent of him that clung to the sheets as well as her skin. His lovemaking last night had been as spine-tingling as ever, maybe even more so. For some reason the fact that he was paying her to sleep with him had made her stretch her boundaries with him. It had been heart-stopping and exciting, edgy and wonderfully, mind-blowingly satisfying.
The door of the bedroom opened and he came in carrying a cup of tea and toast on a tray. He was naked except for a pair of track pants that were slung low on his lean hips. 'I've already checked on Alessandra. Marella's giving her breakfast downstairs.'
'I'm sorry … ' Eliza frowned as she pulled the sheet up to cover her naked breasts. 'I overslept … I didn't hear her on the monitor.'
'It didn't go off.' He put the tray down on her side of the bed. 'I took it with me. She woke up while I was down making the tea.'
She pushed a matted tangle of hair off her face with a sweep of her hand. This cosy little domestic scene was not what she was expecting from him. It caught her off guard. It made her feel as if she was acting in a play but she had been given the wrong script. She didn't know what was expected of her. 'You seem to be having some problems with your human resources department,' she commented dryly.
His dark glinting eyes met hers as he sat on the edge of the bed beside her. 'How so?'
She gave him an ironic look. 'Your housekeeper is acting as the nanny and your nanny is acting like the lady of the manor-or should I say lady of the villa?'
He trailed the tip of his index finger down the length of her bare arm in a lazy, barely touching stroke that set off a shower of sparks beneath her skin. 'Marella enjoys helping with Alessandra. And I quite enjoy having you playing lady of the villa.'
Eliza shivered as that bottomless dark gaze smouldered as it held hers. 'Wouldn't lady of the night be more appropriate?' she asked with a pert hitch of her chin.
A line of steel travelled from his mouth and lodged itself in his eyes. 'What do you want the money for?'
She gave a careless shrug and shifted her gaze to the left of his. 'The usual things-clothes, jewellery, shoes, salon treatments, a holiday or two.'
He captured her chin and made her look at him. 'You do realise I would have paid you much more?'
Her stomach quivered as his thumb grazed the fullness of her bottom lip. 'Yes … I know.'
He measured her gaze with his for endless, heart-chugging seconds. 'But you didn't ask for it.'
'No.'
'Why not?'
She gave another careless little shrug. 'Maybe I don't think I'm worth it.'
His thumb caressed her cheek as he cupped her face in his hand, his gaze still rock-steady on hers. 'Why would you think that?'
Eliza felt the danger of getting too close to him, of allowing him to see behind the paper-thin armour she had pinned around herself. She had to stay streetwise and smart-mouthed. She couldn't allow him to see any other version of herself.
The real version.
'You get what you pay for in life, wouldn't you agree?' She didn't pause for him to answer. 'Say my price was a million pounds. I figure this way you only got a quarter of me.'