‘That’s a shame. I expect cooking for other people is a bit like gardening is for me. Something restful that takes the stress out of everyday life.’
‘I find a chef can do that just as well.’
He expertly threw ingredients into a frying pan, smelling and seasoning as he went, flicking the pan with his hand so that the chopped vegetables somersaulted in the olive oil and butter.
‘It’ll be ten minutes.’ Niccolo turned to her and for a few seconds their eyes tangled, and he drew in a sharp, unsteady breath.
She’d admitted to a lot, he realised, probably a lot more than either of them had expected. He had inadvertently opened a door to an outpouring of emotion that had been bottled up for months while she dealt with the material fallout from her parents’ death.
So much revealed and yet...on one matter she had been conspicuously silent.
What about the guy who’d made her bitter enough to be cautious when she had first met him? Where did he figure in this whole scheme of things?
And suddenly there it was again...curiosity. The last thing he needed...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SHALLWECOUNTthe number of floors?’
But that was never going to be possible. Neither she nor Annalise stood any chance of working out how many storeys made up the glass skyscraper that towered above them.
She looked down at the little girl’s rapt expression and grinned. ‘Are you looking forward to taking the lift to your dad’s office, or are you scared? I’m scared. You have to promise to hold my hand and not let go.’
Actually, there was an element of truth in that remark.Scaredmight not be the right word but she was certainly nervous, and it wasn’t because the lift would be whizzing them up to one of the offices in the building, but because of who would be waiting to greet them and take them both out to lunch.
After days of seeing Niccolo only in passing, he had unexpectedly arrived back to the house three hours ahead of schedule one day to find them in the kitchen, where Sophie was sitting at the table while, opposite her, Annalise worked at tracing a picture of a flower, her face scrunched up with concentration.
Sophie had looked up and there he’d been, looming in the doorway, filling it and in the act of cuffing the sleeves of his white shirt.
Her throat had gone dry, and she’d been conscious of a slow burn that spread from the inside out, firing up nerve-endings she hadn’t known even existed.
What had he been thinking? It had been a hot day and he had surprised her as she’d relaxed after a morning with her little charge at Kew Gardens followed by a picnic under a spreading tree, which had been absolutely idyllic.
She’d been wearing a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt and no bra, her hair all over the place. She’d felt grubby and she’dlookedgrubby, and even though the dark eyes that had briefly rested on her flushed face had revealed nothing, she’d taken less than two seconds to fill in the blanks and speculate at what had been going through his head.
A kid in charge of a kid.
Since she’d started working for him, Sophie had more than once berated herself for ever imagining that she might find herself in the awkward position of having to fend off unwanted advances.
When she remembered how she had practically warned him off, she cringed with embarrassment.
Memories of Scott had been in charge of her response, but even so...how on earth could she ever have imagined that someone like Niccolo Ferri would ever be tempted to behave in an inappropriate way towards her?
He was the very essence of gentlemanly decency. He was scrupulously polite without being stand-offish with her. Because he rattled her didn’t mean that he was the slightest bit interested in her aside from judging her ability to look after his daughter.
He was nothing like Scott.
From nowhere, that thought flitted through Sophie’s head as she held Annalise’s hand and they made their way into the impressive foyer of the skyscraper.
He was nothing like Scott and she wasn’t nervous now because of how he might react to her, but because of how she would react to him...
She feared her own responses, which were wildly out of sync whenever she was in his presence. Her head kept telling her how she should behave but something wayward and disobedient kept letting the side down.
She didn’t want any wayward anything letting down any sides.
She didn’t care if it was all down to chemistry. She didn’t care that it meant nothing in the great scheme of things. What she cared about was that she should be immune to him after her miserable time with Scott.
She’d let herself trust Scott. He’d pursued her in the past but something about him, something about the fact that he seemed a little too charming and a little too good-looking and a little too sincere, had turned her off.
