She drew herself up ramrod straight in her chair and looked him in the eye. ‘Listen, Mr Martin, I don’t know what sort of establishment you think I run here, but—’
He held up a hand, cutting her off. He knew he was steamrollering over all the pleasantries, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘The best nanny agency in London, I’d heard. Which is why I came to you in an emergency. Have you got someone? If not, I won’t waste any more of your time.’
She pursed her lips, but her expression softened. He hadn’t been flattering her—not really his style—but a few timely truths hadn’t hurt his case. ‘I can help.’ She sighed and Max relaxed just a little. She’d much rather have told him it was impossible, he guessed, but the kind of fee she was measuring him up for with her beady little eyes was hard to say no to. ‘At the very least, let me know the sex and age of the charge,’ she added.
Max shrugged. ‘Girl,’ he said. ‘Older than one and younger than school age. Other than that I’m not quite sure. Why don’t you take a look and see what you think?’
The woman’s eyes almost popped out of her head. ‘She’s here?’
Max nodded. Where the hell else did the woman think she’d be?
‘And you left her outside? Alone?’
He frowned. He hadn’t thought about that for one second. Which was exactly why he needed to hire someone who would. Anyway, he hadn’t left Sofia completely alone. There had been the flappy woman...
Ms Benson sprang from the desk, threw the door open and rushed into the waiting area beyond her office. There, colouring in with the tip of her tongue caught at one side of her mouth, was Sofia. Max suddenly noticed something: the noise had stopped. That horrible wailing, like an air-raid siren. It had driven him to distraction all day.
‘Here...try purple for the flower,’ a young woman, kneeling next to Sofia, was saying. Sofia, instead of acting like a child possessed with the spirit of a banshee, just calmly accepted the crayon from the woman and carried on scribbling. After a few moments, both woman and child stopped what they were doing and lifted their heads to look at the two adults towering over them. The identical expression of mild curiosity they both wore was rather disconcerting.
Max turned to the agency owner. ‘I want her,’ he said, nodding at the kneeling woman who, he was just starting to notice, had odd-coloured bits in her hair.
Benson gave out a nervous laugh. ‘I’m afraid she doesn’t work here.’
Max raised his eyebrows.
‘Not yet,’ she added quickly. ‘But I’m sure you’d be better off with one of our other nannies who—’
He turned away and looked at the strange pixie-like woman and the little girl again. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, although it had probably only been hours, Sofia was quiet and calm and acting like the normal child he vaguely remembered. ‘No. I want her.’
Something deep down in his gut told him this woman had what he needed. To be honest, he really didn’t care what it was. It was twenty-five to four and he had to get going. ‘What do you say?’ he asked the her directly.
The woman finished colouring in a pink rose on the sheet of paper she and Sofia were sharing before she answered. She flicked a glance at the agency owner. ‘She’s right. I don’t even work here.’
‘I don’t care about that,’ he told her. ‘You have all the skills I want. It’s you I need.’
She blinked and looked at him hard, as if she was trying to work out whether he was serious or not. Normally people didn’t have to think about that.
‘What if the job isn’t what I need?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think I should accept without hearing the terms.’
Max checked his watch again. ‘Fine, fine,’ he said wearily. ‘Have it your way. We’ll interview in the car. But hurry up! We’ve got a plane to catch.’ And then he marched from the offices of the Benson Agency leaving its proprietor standing open-mouthed behind him.
CHAPTER TWO
IT TOOK RUBY all of two seconds to drop the crayon she was holding, scoop up the child next to her and run after him into the bright sunshine of a May afternoon. God did indeed move in mysterious ways!
And so did Mr...whatever his name was.
Those long legs had carried him down the stairs to street level very fast. When she burst from the agency’s understated door onto one of the back roads behind Oxford Street, she had to look in both directions before she spotted him heading towards a sleek black car parked on a double yellow.
She was about to run after him when she had a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture? moment. Hang on. Why was she holding his child while he waltzed off with barely a backward glance? It was as if, in his rush to conquer the next obstacle, he’d totally forgotten his daughter even existed. She looked down at the little girl, who was quite happy hitched onto her hip, watching a big red double-decker bus rumbling past the end of the road. She might not realise just how insensitive her father was being at the moment, just how much it hurt when one understood how extraneous they were to a parent’s life, but one day she’d be old enough to notice. Ruby clamped her lips together and marched towards the car. No child deserved that.
She walked up to him, peeled the child off her hip and handed her over. ‘Here,’ she said breezily. ‘I think you forgot this.’
The look of utter bewilderment on his face would have been funny if she hadn’t been so angry. He took the girl from Ruby and held her out at arm’s length so her legs dangled above the chewing-gum-splattered pavement. Now it was free of toddler, Ruby put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows.
He was saved from answering by the most horrendous howling. It took her a few moments to realise it was the child making the sound. The ear-splitting noise bounced off the tall buildings and echoed round the narrow street.
‘Take it back!’ he said. ‘You’re the only one who can make it stop!’
Ruby took her hands off her hips and folded her arms. ‘It has a name, I should think.’
He offered the screaming bundle of arms and legs over, but Ruby stepped back. He patted the little girl’s back, trying to soothe her, but it just made her cry all the harder. The look of sheer panic on his face was actually quite endearing, she decided, especially as it went some way to softening that ‘ruler of the universe’ thing he had going on. He was just as out of his depth as she was, wasn’t he?
His eyes pleaded with her. ‘Sofia. Her name is Sofia.’
Ruby gave him a sweet smile and unfolded her arms to accept the little girl. She still didn’t know whether following this through was a good idea, but the only other option was working for her dad. He’d flipped when he’d found out she’d given in her notice at the vintage fashion shop in Covent Garden.
Considering that her father didn’t pay an awful lot of interest the rest of the time, Ruby had been shocked he’d noticed, let alone cared. He was usually always too busy off saving the planet to worry about what his only child got up to, but this had lit his fuse for some reason.
According to him, Ruby needed a job. Ruby needed to grow up. Ruby needed to stop flitting around and settle to something.
He’d laid down a very clear ultimatum before he’d left for the South Pacific—get a proper job by the time he returned, or he’d create a position for her in his production company. Once there, she’d never escape. She’d never get promoted. She’d be doomed to being What’s her