Suspicion poured out of every pore in Ellie’s body but that question, tacked on at the end, made her hesitate, even though she suspected that he was a man who would work the cards in his hand any way he chose if it could get him what he wanted.
You didn’t get to the top by being kind and caring and making allowances for the weak and feeble. You got to the top by being ruthless, and he was at the very top.
‘It’s the first conversation I think I’ve had with Jake since he came over here. Or, at least, the first conversation that wasn’t like squeezing blood from a stone.’
Ellie opened her mouth to inform him that she wasn’t interested, and besides she resented the fact that he had been investigating her behind her back, but instead she heard herself say, ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’ve barely spoken. I’ve had reports from the nannies but the times we’ve sat down together over a meal, he’s only managed to mutter a few monosyllabic answers to the questions I’ve asked. This morning, he asked after you, and after those mutts you introduced him to. He wanted to know whether he would be able to return to the park so that he could walk with you.’
His expression was shuttered but Ellie was good at reading body language and what she was seeing was genuine emotion from a man who probably found it difficult to express himself in terms of feelings and who was at a loss with a situation he couldn’t control.
‘This would not be a permanent position,’ he told her softly, shifting, because a car was not the most comfortable of places in which to have a protracted conversation. ‘It would be a matter of a few weeks, no more than the duration of the summer holidays, during which time you could perhaps help source a replacement nanny for Jake. I think your input would be helpful on that front. It’s clear you have an instinctive empathy with children, which is something I clearly lack.’
Ellie opened her mouth and he raised his hand.
‘No, allow me to finish before you start digging your heels in.’ He shot her a crooked smile and Ellie blinked because, shorn temporarily of that authoritarian streak in him that she had previously glimpsed, he was curiously human. It was unnerving.
‘I could have found out the details of whatever commitment you may have towards your father, but I stopped short of that because it doesn’t matter, and I also felt that if you wanted to fill me in then you would. I will pay you enough to more than cover the entire debt your father has incurred.’
‘That’s a crazy assurance,’ Ellie said shakily. Her eyes dropped to where he was resting his hand lightly on the gear shaft and she inconsequentially thought what shapely hands he had.
‘My pockets are shockingly deep,’ Luca returned without a trace of false modesty. He paused and inclined his head to one side. ‘What happened? Do you want to talk about it?’
The vision of being released from the stranglehold of a debt that would take her years to clear dangled in front of Ellie’s eyes like an oasis in the desert.
‘If you’d rather not go into the details, then that’s fine. All I want to know is this: are you prepared to consider my offer? In return for a handful of weeks working for me, your father will never have to worry about his debts again. You don’t have to like me to agree to this. That doesn’t enter the equation. All you have to do is ask yourself whether you’re willing to prolong your father’s unhappy situation because of misplaced pride.’
As trump cards went, Ellie knew that he had pulled out the ace of spades. Her father was stressed beyond belief and frankly so was she.
Did she want him to know the situation? Ellie already knew that she would agree to what he wanted. He’d somehow managed to find the precise spot where his appeal would hit pay dirt.
‘It would be a relief to clear my father’s debts,’ Ellie said stiffly.
‘Before you continue, do you want to carry on this conversation in your house? I’m too big to sit in this car indefinitely. I need to stretch my legs.’
‘I share the place with other girls.’ She involuntarily grimaced. ‘But I guess we could go to a pub. There’s one not far from here. I could direct you.’
Having secured the deal, Luca had no intention of letting the grass grow under his feet. They were in the pub with a bottle of chilled wine in front of them within fifteen minutes.
‘So...?’ he pressed urgently.
‘My dad has found himself in a bit of a pickle.’ She opened up, because she did want him to know more than just the bones of why she was taking this job. He’d found out so much about her that he could easily have found out the entire story and the fact that he hadn’t softened her impression of him. Just a little. If she chose not to explain anything, she knew that he wouldn’t try to find out off his own bat but, for some reason, she didn’t want him to be left with the suspicion that her father had blown away his savings on rubbish.
‘He got taken in by a scam on the Internet. He didn’t admit to what had happened for a while. In fact, I only found out because I happened to come across a letter from the bank he had left on the console table in the sitting room. When I asked him what was happening, he admitted to everything. The bills have been piling up and he hasn’t been able to meet his mortgage payments for the past few months. He’s been having panic attacks.’
She looked down quickly. ‘Apologies,’ she said huskily. ‘My dad and I are very close and I can’t bear to think what he must have been going through. Anyway, of course I earn enough to keep body and soul together, but I’ve had to move into somewhere smaller temporarily. It’s been very stressful and you should know that if it weren’t for...this situation there is no way I would be sitting here having this conversation.’ She looked at Luca, her green eyes challenging.
The clarity of her gaze was so disconcerting that for a few seconds words failed him.
He was staring at someone from another planet. He had offered her an easy, hassle-free job and instead of biting his hand off and naming her price she had turned him down. She was only accepting the offer now because she would have been insane to refuse it.
Luca was accustomed to women who accepted his generosity without batting an eyelid. He was made of money and he had never yet come up against any woman who didn’t enjoy spending some of it when it was on offer.
He hadn’t cared why she’d needed money when he had first suggested the job. He’d been confident that she would snap at the chance to get her hands on some to fund whatever lifestyle had left her in debt. He’d assumed a credit card crisis and had banked on her trying to manoeuvre to get the maximum out of him.
He was quietly pleased that he hadn’t been able to buy her.
‘Tell me how much your father owes,’ he said, not beating around the bush, and Ellie reddened and hesitated.
‘Do you think I’m going to laugh because he’s been the victim of a scam?’
She didn’t answer that, instead naming a figure that seemed so huge to her that she looked away in embarrassment.
‘Naturally I don’t expect you to cover that stupid amount...’
Luca told her what he was willing to pay her, and for once in his life he wasn’t interested in driving a hard bargain.
The woman had such fundamental integrity that he was surprised to discover a side to him that wasn’t utterly cynical. Born into wealth, Luca had seen from the sidelines how ugly the pursuit of money could be after his mother had died. As an eligible middle-aged widower, his father had become a magnet for women from the ages of twenty to seventy. Many of the women,