He had no intention of returning to that place. Reproving dark eyes clashed with calm, serene violet ones.
‘How I choose to spend my time is of no concern to you and has no bearing on this job,’ he said coolly, and he was perversely even more furious when she shrugged.
‘Of course, I understand,’ Sophie murmured, dropping her eyes.
‘What exactly is it that you understand?’
‘I’ll be paid to do a job and part of that job is never to ask any questions. You give orders and I obey them.’
‘That’s not quite the situation as I see it,’ Niccolo inserted. ‘Whatever questions you ask about your duties will be welcomed. Beyond that, everything is off limits.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll expect regular briefings, but my plan, as I said, is to try and limit my working hours while my aunt is away.’ He felt restless, edgy. It wasn’t just that the woman wasn’t what he had been expecting. There was something about her that unsettled him, that derailed his usual cool, clear thought processes and encouraged wayward thoughts.
‘If I choose not to go out...er...when you’re around, would I be expected to...? I’m assuming that it would be okay for me to retire to my bedroom?’
‘Of course. This is a business arrangement, Sophie. I don’t expect you to hover in the background waiting for instructions when I’m in the house. I’ll take over the minute I return home and you’re then free to do whatever you want.’
He couldn’t have given a more clear-cut answer and yet there was something that didn’t feel quite as businesslike an arrangement as it should, and she wondered whether that was because she was soawareof him. He made every nerve in her body go into full alert mode, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. In every way he was compelling, and she wondered how this arrangement, which had seemed such a godsend at the time, was actually going to work.
She couldn’t possibly vacate the house every evening. She couldn’t afford to go anywhere, for a start. She’d also, in the aftermath of her unravelling life, discovered just how unreliable good friends could be. When they’d thought she had money, when she’d been one of them, they’d been there, happy to socialise, keen to drag her out to whichever club was the flavour of the month, even if she would rather have stayed in. And when everything had come crashing down and life as she’d known it had become a thing of the past, they had sympathised, but honestly, where were they now?
Invites had dried up and she would have struggled to find the cash to go anyway. When you mixed with the rich crowd, they quickly lost patience, she had found, with anyone who couldn’t keep up, and there was no way she could any more.
Only a handful of friends had stuck by her, for which she was grateful, but she knew that they tactfully avoided asking her to places that cost a lot, and there were only so many occasions when they wanted to entertain at home.
She had vacated one world and entered another and this new world did not accommodate lots of after-work activities. Even going solo to the movies would require thought because every penny saved was a penny towards paying off the bills that needed sorting.
So she would be confined to her bedroom, hesitant about venturing out when he was there because she didn’t want to bump into him, though it was likely inevitable. How big was his house going to be, after all?
When she thought about that, her head felt woozy at the series of uncomfortable images suddenly crowding in, jostling for space.
She pictured him relaxed, in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot and roaming at all hours of the day and night, turning her every waking moment into a cat-and-mouse game just to avoid the peculiar effect he had on her nervous system.
‘There’ll be no need for you to do anything of a household nature,’ he belatedly added. ‘I have someone who comes in daily for a couple of hours to clean and a dedicated chef on standby. Of course, my aunt would have nothing to do with anyone getting under her feet in the kitchen...’
Sophie smiled and relaxed when she thought about Evalina. ‘I know. I don’t think she appreciates anyone touching her homegrown produce on the allotment either. She’s very competitive when it comes to what everyone else grows. My beans never seemed to be quite as good as hers, as she very kindly pointed out on one occasion. Not as long and definitely not as fat and juicy. She offered to bring a measuring tape to prove it.’
Niccolo burst out laughing. ‘Evalina is never backward when it comes to speaking her mind.’
‘Has she always been like that?’
‘As far back as I can recall. Two sisters and they couldn’t have been more different. My mother was the dutiful wife and Evalina was the nomad who travelled the world.’
‘Yes, she’s told me a lot about her adventures.’ Curiosity crept stealthily through her, making a mockery of her vow to remain uninterested and detached. Ground rules, after all, had been laid down on both sides but the temptation to side-step them was too great. There was something about the depth of his eyes, the tug of the forbidden pulling her to go beyond the lines he had laid down. ‘I’m an only child so I wouldn’t know, but isn’t it odd that sisters can be so different? How lovely that your mum was there for you while Evalina travelled. She must have wafted in and brought lots of excitement when she came.’
Niccolo hesitated. ‘She did,’ he admitted. ‘My parents led a very...predictable life. Evalina brought the scent of adventure. To a young child like me, it was always a thrill having her around.’
‘Annalise adores her.’
‘She does.’
He wondered how they had made it to this topic. Her eyes were calm and interested but nothing about her manner suggested anything other than the sort of polite small talk that might happen at the tail end of a conversation.
He hadn’t shut the conversation down, as he normally would have, because she wasn’t trying to wheedle her way into his affections. She’d be living under his roof, he uneasily decided, so where was the harm in a bit of harmless chit-chat? They could hardly plan on spending the next few weeks in a state of freezing silence, interrupted only by exchanges about Annalise.
Even so...
