A frown furrowed her brow. She wasn’t going to be able to keep going with this job for much longer, she knew. While Benji had been younger it had been simple enough to carry him round with her, propping him up in his folding lightweight baby chair while she cleaned other people’s luxury apartments, but now he was toddling he hated being strapped in and confined. He wanted to be out exploring—but in apartments like this, where everything from the carpets to the saucepans was excruciatingly expensive, that was just impossible.
She squirted cleaning fluid under the rim and sighed again. What kind of job could you do with a toddler in tow? Leaving him with a minder while she worked was pointless—what she earned would go to pay for the childcare. If she had any kind of decent accommodation she could be a childminder herself, and make some money by looking after other people’s children as well as her own little boy, but what mother would want to park her child in the dump she lived in? Even she hated Benji being in the drab, dingy bedsit, and took him out and about as much as she could. She’d grown adept at making the hours pass in places like libraries, parks and supermarkets—anywhere that was free.
A smile softened her tired face. Benji—the light of her life, the joy of her heart. Her dearest, dearest son…
He was worth everything, everything to her, and there was nothing she would not do, she vowed, for his sake.
Rafaello strode angrily across the wide landing towards the open-tread staircase that led down to the reception level of the duplex apartment. Damn Amanda for trying to hold him to ransom. And damn his father for putting him in this impossible position in the first place.
His jaw tightened. Why couldn’t his father accept there was no way he was going to be forced to marry his cousin Lucia and provide the rich husband she craved? Oh, she had looks, all right, but she was vain and avaricious and her temper was vicious—though she veiled it successfully enough from his father, who was now convinced she would make the perfect bride for his recalcitrant son. When orders and lamentations hadn’t worked, his father had stooped to the final threat—selling Viscenti AG from under his son’s nose. Dio, Lucia knew every weak spot a man had—from his father’s obsession with getting the next-generation Viscenti heir to his own determination to keep Viscenti AG in the family. She’d played on both like a maestro.
His father’s parting words rang in Rafaello’s ears. ‘I want you married or I sell up. And don’t think I won’t. But—’ the older man’s voice had turned cunning ‘—present your bride to me before your thirtieth birthday and I make the company over to you the same day.’
Well, thought Rafaello grimly, he would, indeed, present his bride to his father on his thirtieth birthday. But not the bride his parent had in mind…
A bride that would meet the letter of his father’s ultimatum, but nothing more.
Anger spurted through him again. Amanda Bonham would have been the perfect bride to parade in front of his father—a fitting punishment for forcing his son to this pass. She’d have sent the old man’s blood pressure sky-high. A born bimbo, with hair longer than her skirts and nothing between her ears except conceit in her own appearance and a total devotion to spending her innumerable lovers’ money.
And now she’d blown it and he was back to square one. Looking for a bride who would infuriate his father and wipe the smirk off Lucia’s face. A frown crossed his brow. It had been all very well calling Amanda’s bluff just now, but getting hold of a bride in a handful of weeks was going to be a challenge—even for him.
He walked down the stairs with a lithe, rapid step, a closed, brooding look on his face—and stopped dead.
There was a baby asleep in the middle of the hallway.
Magda gave a final wipe to the pedestal, and reached into her cleaning box for the bottle of toilet freshener. At least bathrooms in luxury apartments were a joy to clean. All the fittings were new and gleaming—and top quality, of course. On the other hand, in luxury apartments there were always an awful lot of bathrooms—one per bedroom plus a guest WC like this one, tucked discreetly off the huge entrance hall.
For a moment she wondered what it must be like to live in an apartment like this. To be so rich you could have a two-storeyed flat as big as a house, overlooking the River Thames, with a terrace as big as a garden. The rich, Magda thought wryly, really were different.
Not that she ever saw the inhabitants. Cleaners were only allowed into the apartments when the owners were absent.
She flicked open the cap of the toilet freshener bottle and upended it, ready to squirt the contents generously into the bowl.
‘What are you doing here?’
The deep, displeased voice behind her came out of the blue, and made her jump out of her skin. The reflex action made her squeeze the bottle prematurely, and turquoise fluid spurted out of the bottle onto the marble floor.
With a cry of dismay Magda fell on the blue puddle and mopped it furiously with her cleaning sponge.
‘I spoke to you—answer me!’
The voice behind her sounded even more displeased. Hurriedly Magda swivelled round, and stared up.
A man stood in the doorway of the bathroom, looking down at her. Magda stared back, blinking blindly. Her dismay deepened into horror. The apartment was supposed to be empty. The caretaker had told her so. Yet here, obviously, was someone who definitely did not use service lifts.
And he was quite plainly furious. With dismay etched on every feature, she just went on kneeling beside the toilet pedestal, cleaning sponge in her hand.
‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ she managed to croak, knowing she had to sound servile for someone like this, even though it was not her fault that she was where she apparently should not have been. ‘I was told it was all right to clean in here this morning.’
The man’s mouth tightened.
‘There is a baby in the hall,’ he informed her.
With one part of her brain Magda registered that the man could not be English. Not only was his skin tone too olive-hued, but his voice was definitely accented. Spanish? Italian? Too pale to be Middle-Eastern, he must definitely be Mediterranean, she decided.
‘Well?’ The interrogative demand came again.
Clumsily Magda scrambled to her feet. She could not go on kneeling on the floor indefinitely.
‘He’s mine,’ she blurted.
Something that might have been a flash of irritation showed in the man’s dark eyes.
‘So I had assumed. What is it doing there? This is no place for a baby!’
A child that age should be at home, not being dragged around at this hour of the day? What kind of mother was this girl? Irresponsible, obviously!
‘I’m very sorry,’ she said again, swallowing, hoping some more abject servility would soften his annoyance at finding her cleaning when he was in residence. Clearly he was furious his pristine apartment was being cluttered up by something as messy as a baby. She bent to pick up her cleaning box, cast a swift glance around the bathroom to make sure it was decent, and said, as meekly as she could manage, ‘I’ll go now, sir. I’m very sorry for having disturbed you.’
She made for the door and he stood aside to let her pass. It was uncomfortable passing him so close. He was so immaculately attired, obviously freshly washed and showered, and she had just spent several hours cleaning. She was dirty and sweaty, and she had a horrible feeling she smelt as bad as she felt. She hurried out to Benji, who, blessedly, was still asleep, and made to scoop up his chair.
‘Wait!’
The order was imperative, and Magda halted instinctively, Benji a heavy weight on her arm. Hesitantly she turned round.
The man was looking at her. Staring at her.
Magda froze, as if she were