No loud television programmes, especially in the mornings.
No going anywhere near his bedroom suite.
And absolutely no touching any of his artwork or personal things.
In fact, Xander would prefer it if he wasn’t even made aware of the child’s presence in his apartment. Was that even possible with a five-year-old?
It would have to be. Ms Smith and her daughter weren’t his guests but employees, and Xander expected her, and her daughter, to behave accordingly.
‘Oh, look, Mummy, have you ever seen such a big television?’
Xander barely had a chance to register the presence of the woman and her young daughter, after the doors opened to his private lift, before a small red-haired whirlwind rushed past him down the hallway in the direction of the open door to the home cinema. She clipped his elbow as she passed, which knocked him off balance. Enough so that Xander felt himself falling.
Sam’s stricken gaze followed her daughter’s headlong flight down the carpeted hallway with all the horrified fascination of someone watching an unstoppable train wreck.
She closed her eyes with a wince as Daisy rushed past an open-mouthed Xander Sterne, opening them again just in time to see him swaying unsteadily on his feet.
Yep, definitely a train wreck!
Sam quickly dropped her shoulder bag onto the floor in order to run down the hallway, reaching Xander Sterne’s side just in time to put a supportive shoulder underneath his arm to prevent him from toppling over completely.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
Unfortunately, Xander weighed probably twice as much as she did. So that when he overbalanced completely he took Sam down with him, both of them ending up on the floor, the fall slightly cushioned by the thick carpet but still eliciting a grunt from Xander Sterne as he landed on his back, Sam sprawled inelegantly across him, her denim-clad legs entangled with his much longer ones.
This wasn’t just a train wreck, it was a disaster!
‘Well, that’s rule number one already null and void!’ he muttered through gritted teeth.
‘Sorry?’ Sam raised her head to look down at him.
‘Why are you and Mr Sterne lying on the floor, Mummy?’ a bewildered Daisy enquired curiously as she wandered back down the hallway to look down at them.
‘Will you tell her or shall I?’ Xander Sterne’s chest —his very muscled chest beneath another fitted black T-shirt—moved beneath Sam’s breasts as he bit the words out.
Sam felt the colour warming her cheeks as she realised her eyes were just inches away from the censorious brown ones now glaring up at her, and that her boss’s chiselled features were twisted in displeasure.
Or perhaps it was pain he was exhibiting rather than censure?
Daisy had just succeeded in knocking this man over when he was still recovering from a broken leg, the very reason that she and Daisy were in his apartment in the first place.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Sam mumbled as she moved carefully, to avoid hurting Xander further, lifting herself up and away from him before standing up. She wondered whether she ought to answer her daughter first or help him back up onto his feet.
She decided to do both as she noted that his face had paled in the last few minutes.