‘It is Dante di Andrea speaking…you remember? From yesterday at the hospital?’
Did she remember? She’d replayed their meeting over and over in her head like a videotape stuck on rewind. Especially when she’d rung the hospital only to be told that Tatiana Ward had been discharged to go home and was not being admitted as an in-patient or even transferred to a private hospital.
‘I remember.’ Somehow her voice had acquired a disturbingly husky quality and Bliss coughed a little to clear her throat. ‘Excuse me,’ she quickly apologised. ‘I found out that your sister was sent home. How is she today?’
‘Depressa ed afflitta. I am sorry…depressed and heartsick. I have ordered her to stay in bed for today. She has not been getting a lot of sleep lately under the circumstances. That is why she passed out in the store. Her husband died only six weeks ago and she is finding life very difficult at the moment.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘Can we meet?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Her heart had started to throb alarmingly and Bliss wondered for a moment if her brain were so addled, she’d simply misheard him.
‘I will be blunt with you, Miss Maguire. My sister needs some help. Matt—her husband—had no living parents and until my mother can get here from Italy again, she will be on her own with Renny and myself. I have taken some time off from my business to be with Tatiana, but I am no expert with children and until she fully recovers, she will need some help taking care of my niece.’
Pushing up the defiant shoestring straps on her silky cotton nightie, Bliss took a few moments to absorb what he was saying, surprise and trepidation vying equally for precedence inside her chest. Where was this leading? Was he asking her to come and help take care of Renata? Did he not realise she already had a job? Of course he did! He knew she worked at the store where his sister had fainted, which was how she had come to be at the hospital in the first place.
‘Mr di Andrea, if you are asking what I think you are asking, I’m afraid it’s impossible. Much as I think the little girl is utterly adorable, I have to work for my living. If your sister needed some help in the evening I might be able to—’
‘If you come and stay with Tatiana and Renny for a while until my mother comes from Italy, I will pay you a more than generous fee for your services and the disruption to your schedule. If your place of work will not grant you time off, then I will endeavour to acquire a better position for you somewhere else. I have lots of contacts in the business world, Miss Maguire. It will not be difficult.’
Bliss didn’t doubt that he had contacts, and that he could get her any job he damn well pleased. One brush with Dante di Andrea’s confident, self-assured persona and you knew straight away that he was a man who could move mountains if he had to. But did she really want to give up her job and her livelihood on the word of a man she had only just met, albeit only briefly? If things didn’t work out she could always temp, she supposed. She was used to using temporary work as a fall-back when things didn’t turn out as she’d hoped. If she was honest, retail really wasn’t her thing anyway, and if push came to shove she had just about enough money in the bank to tide her over for a very short while until she found another position. Her palm felt clammy where it clung too tightly to the phone.
‘You said “stay” with your sister. Could I not just come over in the mornings and stay until the evening, and then go home?’
‘Since her father has been gone, Renny wakes in the night sometimes. Tatiana is not in a fit state to see to the child properly on her own. Therefore it would be best if you packed a few things and came to stay indefinitely.’
‘Mr di Andrea…this may sound obvious, but have you thought about approaching a child-care agency for help?’
‘I do not want a stranger taking care of my niece!’ came back the vexed reply.
Puzzled, Bliss frowned. ‘But I’m a stranger. You only met me yesterday, remember?’
‘I could tell from the moment I saw you with her that you are a person my niece feels drawn to. Because you comforted her yesterday, she will remember you.’
‘But she didn’t seem to remember you, if you don’t mind my saying.’
There was a harsh indrawn breath at the other end of the phone. ‘I have not spent a lot of time with Tatiana since she had the child and therefore, yes…I am a virtual stranger to Renny. I have been busy with my business in Italy. Yesterday was the first time we were together since the funeral a month ago. I had to return almost immediately to Milan, along with my parents. My father is not in good health himself and my mother worries about leaving him on his own. None of us like the fact that Tatiana has basically had to cope with this tragedy by herself and I am working on finding a solution to that, believe me. In the meantime, until my mother can arrange acceptable nursing care for my father and travel to England, Renny and Tatiana need all the help I can provide for them.’
‘So you want to know if I will help?’ Shoving off the mulberry-coloured duvet, Bliss restlessly swung her legs off the edge of the bed and pushed her feet into her sheepskin-lined moccasins, still holding firmly onto the phone.
‘Sì. Will you help us, Miss Maguire…Bliss?’
He really didn’t have to ask again because Bliss had already made up her mind to accept the task. And if they made things difficult for her at the store to take the time off, she would see it as a clear sign that she really wasn’t meant to be there in the first place. God only knew what she was meant to be doing and she hoped that one day soon she would get a clue. In the meantime she would look forward to seeing the adorable Renata again. And if her thoughts leaned longingly towards seeing her handsome uncle again as well, then Bliss made no apology for that.
Tatiana Ward lived in a ground-floor apartment in Chelsea Harbour. When Dante had given her the address, Bliss had sucked in her breath and released a long, low whistle. It was a location that had at least a million-pound price tag just to sniff the air in that hallowed place—never mind live there! Thinking of her own one-bed flat in a notoriously run-down area, Bliss was suddenly struck with trepidation at the idea of accepting this unexpected job of nanny to a little girl whose connections were clearly in a different stratosphere from her own humble origins.
Bliss’s parents had never had much money. Her mother had suffered from serious bouts of depression all her life that had impeded her ability to work, and when Bliss was just sixteen her mother’s depression had finally shockingly driven her to take her own life. With her father already drinking his own life away, Bliss had gone out to work at sixteen to help support the two of them, but one day not long after her eighteenth birthday he had packed his bags and gone. He’d left no forwarding address, just a scrappy little note saying he was sorry for not turning out to be the father Bliss deserved and begging her not to try and find him. She’d long ago decided she had to make some sort of shaky settlement with her devastating past, but situations like the one she now found herself in were apt to test that decision to the hilt where her self-confidence was concerned. Her childhood had been an unmitigated disaster and nearly every memory she had of it hurt.
Now standing outside the front entrance to the apartment in Chelsea Harbour, Bliss determinedly reached down inside herself for some fresh courage, flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sleeve of her short leather jacket, then, without further ado, pressed the button on the intercom.
’Ciao!’
‘Mr di Andrea? It’s Bliss Maguire.’
‘Wait a minute, will you?’
Even though he’d answered the intercom, she was unprepared for the sight of Dante di Andrea with a serious-faced toddler hoisted on his hip, answering the door with what looked like a very strained smile. Noting some kind of cereal congealing on the front of his beautiful white shirt where the lovely Renata had obviously decided to share