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‘If I make enough fuss will I get a bedtime story too?’
Slade was standing just behind her to one side of the bed. She hadn’t heard him enter the room and for such a big tall man he moved very quietly, Daisy told herself resentfully as her heart continued to race.
‘I always told my sisters a bedtime story when they were small,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster considering the position she was in. Until this moment it hadn’t been a problem that she had nothing on under the robe, but now—in spite of the thick towelling folds—she felt as naked as the day she was born.
She wanted to pull the belt tighter round her waist and adjust the lapels more securely over her breasts, but she just knew the black gaze would sense how she was feeling and so she restrained herself, merely rising to her feet very carefully, her cheeks pink.
‘Lucky sisters,’ murmured Slade softly, and then, his eyes going to his son, his countenance changed into father mode and he bent and ruffled the black curls before dropping a kiss on the small forehead. ‘Daisy is going to get ready for dinner now.’ The dark, glittering glance that swept over her for one moment made her feel acutely hot all over, and Daisy found she resented it bitterly. ‘So say goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Daisy.’ This was followed by a big yawn as Francesco wriggled deeper into the covers, Leonardo tucked under one small arm. ‘Thank you for my story.’
‘That’s all right, Francesco. Sleep well.’ Daisy’s voice and face were soft as she turned back to the child—something that was not lost on Slade as he took her arm and led her out of the room into the sitting room beyond where Angelica was sitting reading.
‘You can put the night light on now, Angelica,’ Slade said quietly as the girl jumped up at their entrance. ‘And no more drinks or visits to the bathroom or anything else to delay bedtime; he has to learn to do as he is told.’
‘Sì, signore,’ the Italian girl murmured nervously.
Slade hadn’t checked his pace as he had spoken and once they were on the landing outside her rooms, the door to the nursery suite closed, Daisy stiffened her back for what was to follow. And then he completely took the wind out of her sails as he said quietly, ‘You handled him very well, Daisy.’
‘What?’ Her head jerked up in surprise.
She looked at him to find him slanting a glance at her under half-closed lids, his dark face unreadable. ‘You find my opinion surprising?’ he asked coolly.
‘No—Yes—’ She took a deep breath and forced her brain into gear. ‘I got the impression you thought I wasn’t firm enough,’ she managed fairly coherently, and now she did pull the belt of the robe tighter. He looked very big and very dark standing there, his mouth slightly curved in a cynical smile—that same mouth that had kissed her just an hour or two before… No, no, she couldn’t think of that now, not with him so close and only a layer of thin towelling between her and nakedness.
‘Did you?’ he murmured thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing still more until they became slits of black light in the handsome face. ‘How strange. But then you don’t know me…yet, do you?’ he stated softly, the brief pause causing her toes to curl in her towelling mules.
Oh, help. Considering she had been a married woman, borne a daughter, survived the holocaust of her baby’s death, Ronald’s treachery and a bitter divorce, she had never felt so naive and adolescent in all her life. But it was him, Slade Eastwood—he was unnerving. Was he flirting with her? She stared back at him, her honey-gold eyes betraying her confusion to the dark man watching her so intently. She wasn’t sure. She thought he was—especially after that scene in the drawing room earlier—but she wasn’t sure. He was so…foreign.
Daisy took as deep a breath as her healing ribs allowed. ‘Look, Slade, I feel I need to make one thing perfectly clear,’ she said quickly before she lost her nerve. She was probably going to make an even bigger fool of herself than she had earlier—although that would be difficult, she reflected unhappily. ‘I…I’m here in the capacity of nanny for Francesco, aren’t I? Just that, nothing else.’
‘Of course you are,’ he returned with silky smoothness, his voice trickling over her overwrought nerves like warm cream. ‘I thought I had made it perfectly clear that I have Isabella and her husband who see to the running of the house and the grounds?’
It wasn’t what she had meant and she had a feeling he had known quite well what she was trying to say.
‘Of course there are two women who come in to clean every week day, and Mario has a man who helps him with the gardens,’ Slade continued helpfully.
She didn’t care about the two women and she didn’t care about Mario’s little helper either! Daisy gritted her teeth and swallowed hard as she warned herself not to rise to his bait. The swine knew exactly where she was coming from. ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ she said carefully as she felt herself flush still pinker.
‘No?’ Slade relaxed back against the far wall of the corridor, crossing muscled arms over his broad chest as he surveyed her easily from under dark brows. ‘What, exactly, did you mean, Daisy?’ he asked softly.
‘I meant…’ Oh, he was no gentleman, despite his outward good manners and polished urbanity, she told herself desperately. ‘I meant earlier— I don’t want you to think— Oh!’ The last was a furious little grunt and in the same moment she turned and wrenched open her door, shooting inside the room and closing the door behind her in one angry movement.
She thought she heard a dark chuckle but she could have been wrong, and now she hurried across the outer room and into the bedroom, the towel falling from her damp hair as she lifted her hands to her burning cheeks.
H
e was a pig, a real pig of a man! She paced up and down a few times and then stopped because it was hurting her ribs too much. She hated him, she really, really hated him—arrogant didn’t even begin to describe Slade Eastwood.
She continued in the same vein until she ran out of adjectives and her temper began to die down, and it was then that she caught sight of herself in the big ornate arched mirror on the far wall.
She looked awful! What on earth had happened to her hair? It was sticking up all over her head like a banshee’s! And her face was all shiny without any make-up…
The next hour was spent in creaming and conditioning and painting and titivating, and at a quarter to eight, when Daisy prepared to leave the dubious security of her suite, she knew she looked her best. Not that she wanted to look her best for Slade Eastwood, she told herself firmly as she stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind her. Of course she didn’t! But neither did she want to give him the idea that he had hired someone the cat wouldn’t deign to be seen dragging in either.
The stairs seemed endless as she picked her way downwards with respect for her precariously high-heeled strappy sandals—the last thing she needed was a headlong dive to complete what had been a far from perfect day, she thought caustically—and once in the vast hall she stood for a moment, unsure of where she should be.
‘Don’t tell me you are that rare and precious thing—a woman who knows how to tell the time?’
