* * *
Ruby knew she should have frozen, knew she should have slipped out of his arms and retained some degree of decorum. Unfortunately, she wasn’t that sensible. Instead of reminding him of the barrier between them, the one that no proper nanny would cross, she let him sledgehammer through it as he ran hot kisses down the side of her neck.
She’d never been one for holding back and she certainly didn’t do so now. She ran her hands up his chest, grabbed his shirt collar and lifted herself closer, abandoning herself to the feel of his skin upon hers, his body pressed so tight against her own she felt breathless.
He slid his hands down the curve of her back to her waist, emphasising her femininity against his hard, straight masculinity. He kissed her again and she felt them both teeter on the edge of something, threatening to topple headlong into goodness knew what.
Oh, sweet heaven. She’d been right. When Max Martin let loose there was sizzle and passion and consuming fire, and all of that force was concentrated on her now, at the point where his lips were urgently seeking hers again. It was glorious.
It was also very stupid.
Max must have had an identical revelation at the same time, because he froze, his hands circling her waist, and then he stepped back, effectively dropping her back from her tiptoes onto her flat feet. She swayed, the sudden lack of solid, Max-shaped support and the cold air rushing between their bodies putting her off balance.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he almost stuttered, a look of complete horror on his face. ‘That was totally inappropriate.’
Ruby’s lips were still throbbing and her hormones still singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. She blinked and stared back at him. Inappropriate? That was not a word a girl wanted to hear after the hottest kiss of her life.
He shook his head and strode past her and back into the salon. She watched him go, a gnawing feeling growing in her stomach. She couldn’t let him leave like this. This wasn’t his fault. She had to let him know that she’d been just as much a part of it as he had been. She heaved in a much-needed lungful of night air and ran after him. ‘Max!’
He turned as he passed through the double doors into the corridor.
‘You don’t have to... I mean, it wasn’t just...’ She trailed off, unable to find the words. He looked so thoroughly wretched. Part of her sank, but another part wanted to reach out to him, to soothe that crumpled expression from his face.
She’d pushed him too far, when he’d been feeling too raw, and he’d lost control. She got that. But maybe it was a good thing. Maybe loosening up in one area of his life would have a knock-on effect?
But it wasn’t just that. The way he’d kissed her, hard and hungry, verging on desperate. He had to feel it, too, this weird attraction, crush...whatever. She wasn’t alone in this.
She opened her mouth to speak, hardly knowing how to form the question, but at that moment Fina appeared at the top of the stairs and spotted them farther down the corridor. The atmosphere had been thick around her and Max anyway, but now it became so dense it turned brittle.
Fina walked up to them and looked at her son. Any hint of the distress she’d shown earlier was gone, replaced by a brisk and prickly demeanour. ‘It’s your last night tomorrow, Massimo.’
With what looked like supreme effort, Max dragged his gaze from Ruby and turned it to Fina. ‘I know that,’ he replied.
Ruby looked between mother and son. In an earlier century, an atmosphere like this would have been dispersed by cocking pistols and marching twenty paces in opposite directions. She hoped that Fina would say something conciliatory, forgiving her son his outburst instead of nursing her own pain into hardness.
Tell him you love him, Ruby wanted to yell. Tell him he’s everything in the world to you. Max might not see it, but she did. It was evident in every breath Fina took.
But Fina stared back at her son. It seemed she’d learned a thing or two from her buttoned-up husband about staying granite-like in the face of pain. She nodded. ‘Good. Just don’t forget you promised to take Ruby out to see the city at sunset. It’s her last chance.’
And then she turned and walked down the corridor to her bedroom.
RUBY WAITED IN THE SALON in her carefully chosen outfit. She’d changed three times, veering between ‘boating casual’, which made her look as if she were going out for a country walk with her grandparents, and Roman Holiday, which made her look as if she was trying a little bit too hard. Maybe it had been the thick liquid liner and the red lipstick.
In the end she’d settled for a boat-necked navy cotton dress with a full enough skirt for clambering, her ballet pumps and a little black cardigan. The eyeliner stayed, but the lipstick was replaced by something in a more natural colour. Something that didn’t scream ‘Come and get me!’, because she had a feeling there was no way Max was going to, even if it did.
While he hadn’t answered the question she’d wanted to ask last night in words, his actions had done a pretty effective job for him. He wasn’t in the grip of the same fairy-tale crush she had been, that was for sure.
If he had been, he wouldn’t have avoided her all day. He certainly wouldn’t have taken Sofia out for ice cream on his own that morning, saying that even trainee travelling nannies needed some time off. She knew a brush-off when she heard one. She’d been getting them from her father all her life.
She checked the ornate gold clock on the marble mantelpiece. Ten to seven. Fina had decreed they should leave here on the hour to catch the whole glory of the sunset, which was supposed to be closer to eight.
She wandered over to the long windows and took in the golden light hitting the front of a pink and white palazzo on the other side of the canal. Max had been right. This city spun a spell, making you believe things that weren’t real, making you hope for things that could never be. She understood why so many people loved it now. And why he hated it.
She stayed there, watching the light play on the water, for what seemed like only a few minutes, and Fina startled her when she swept into the room and turned on the light. Ruby hadn’t realised it had got that dark yet.
‘Where’s Max?’ Fina asked, looking round, her brows drawn together.
Ruby shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We’re supposed to be leaving at—’
The clock on the mantelpiece caught her eye. It was five past seven. He’d be here soon, though, she didn’t doubt that. Whatever else Max was, he was a man of his word.
She almost wished he weren’t. It was going to be awkward. She’d back out if she could, but she sensed Fina would blame Max somehow if she did, and the last thing Ruby wanted was to cause more trouble between mother and son.
Fina tutted and swept from the room before Ruby could say anything else.
Ruby walked over to an armchair at the edge of the seating area and dropped into it. It was one of those old seats that accepted her weight with a ‘poof’ then slowly sank until her bottom rested fully against the cushion.
She stared into the empty fireplace and waited. A few moments later she heard Fina clip-clopping back up the corridor. She entered the room and sighed dramatically. ‘He has a very important phone call, apparently. The whole of London will fall down if he doesn’t speak to this man at this precise minute.’ She shook her head. ‘I shall go and read to Sofia, but he says he will be out in only a few minutes.’
Ruby nodded, and placed her hands in her lap. She rested back against the armchair instead of sitting up poker straight. No point in getting a stiff back waiting for him.
There