Taming Her Italian Boss (10 page)

CHAPTER TEN

I
F
R
UBY
HAD
THOUGHT
she’d felt a little breathless before, now she really struggled to pull oxygen into her body. Max needed her?

He doesn’t mean it that way. Don’t be stupid.

‘No, you just need a proper nanny. It isn’t me
specifically
that you need.’

No words left Max’s mouth, but she discovered his eyes contradicted her quite beautifully. Her heart literally stopped beating inside her chest, just for a second. When it started up again, her pulse thundered in her ears.

She let her rucksack slip off her shoulders and it landed behind her on the dock with a thud. The rain began to fall in earnest, soaking the thin wool of her cardigan, but she didn’t seem to feel the damp and cold seeping into her skin.

Him, too? It hadn’t just been a physical, knee-jerk kind of thing?

That made her feel as if the world had just done a somersault around her and she needed to find solid ground again. Pity she was stranded in a city where that was in short supply.

That didn’t mean she was about to commit emotional suicide by staying, though. She cleared her throat. ‘I meant what I said earlier, Max. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a nanny in the long term.’

He nodded. ‘I agree. But I’m not asking you to be a nanny for the rest of your life. I’m just asking you to be one for the next week or so. After that it’s up to you.’

She nodded. That all sounded very sensible.

‘If you don’t think I’m cut out to be a nanny, why on earth do you want me to stay and look after Sofia?’

Max gave her a weary look. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t think you could do the job.’ He smiled gently. ‘I said it because I didn’t think you should commit yourself to something when your talent clearly lies elsewhere.’

Ruby’s eyes widened. ‘You think I have talent?’

He frowned. ‘Don’t
you
? Your drawings are fabulous, and that doodle you did on my plans set ideas firing off in my head so fast I could hardly keep up with them.’ The smile grew into a grin. ‘I have my “wow factor” for the Institute now, Ruby, and it’s all because of you.’

She closed her eyes and opened them again, not quite able to believe what she was hearing. ‘Do you... Do you think I should be an architect?’

His eyes warmed, making her forget the salty lagoon breeze that kept lifting the shorter bits of her hair now and then. ‘I think you could do that if you wanted to, but there’s something about your sketches that’s so full of life and personality. I think you’ve got something there. They’re quirky and original and full of...’

You.
His eyes must have said that bit, because his mouth had stopped moving.

‘They’re captivating.’

Ruby felt the echo of his words rumble deep down inside her. Or maybe it was the crack of thunder that shook the sky over their heads.

Oh, heck. She really was in trouble, wasn’t she? How could she leave now?

And maybe Max was right. Maybe it was time to stop running. She might not have to see being a nanny through to the bitter end, but she could see this job through. How could she leave them all in the lurch like this? Sofia wouldn’t understand where she’d gone and feel abandoned all over again, Fina would be saddled with looking after a toddler full time, and Max wouldn’t have time to work on his plans, and she really wanted him to do that.

She still didn’t believe there was much in the future for them, even if some bizarre chemistry was popping between them, but she’d like to visit the National Institute of Fine Art on a rainy afternoon in a few years’ time and sit under Max’s atrium and feel happy—and maybe a little sad—to know that she’d had something to do with it, that in some lasting way she had a tiny connection to him.

She looked down at the rucksack threatening to pitch off the dock and into the canal. The taxi driver, whom she’d forgotten all about, coughed and mumbled something grumpily about being made to hang about in this kind of weather. She shot him a look of desperation.

He shrugged in that fatalistic Italian way, his expression saying,
Are you coming or not?

Ruby looked back at Max. He was waiting. Not shouting. Not bulldozering. It was totally her choice and she knew he would hold no grudges if she got on this boat and told the driver to take her to the Piazzale Roma to catch a train.

She swallowed and twisted to face the driver and rummaged in her pocket and gave him a tip for his trouble.
‘Mi dispiace, signore.’

* * *

Ruby woke up to sunshine pouring into her bedroom the next morning. She stumbled over to the window, which overlooked a narrow little canal that ran down the side of the palazzo. It almost felt as if the night before had never happened. There was no hint of the storm. The sky was the clear pale blue of a baby’s blanket, hardly a cloud to mar it, and where the sun hit the canal it was a fierce and glittering emerald.

Things were just as surreal at breakfast, with Fina bustling around and fussing over Sofia, never once mentioning that Ruby had packed her bags and tried to leave last night.

Max had been in the library since before she’d got up, and that had been pretty early. She half expected him to bury himself away all day, working on his plans until it was time to pack up and leave for the airport. She didn’t know what would be worse: not seeing him most of the day or spending a bittersweet last few hours with him before he returned to London. She’d forgotten all about that last night when she’d agreed to stay. So when the salon door opened at ten o’clock and Max walked in, Ruby’s heart leapt and cowered at the same time.

‘What do you want to do this morning?’ he asked his niece, glancing briefly at Ruby and giving a nod of greeting.

‘Fishing!’ Sofia yelled and ran off in the direction of the cupboard where the crabbing gear was kept.

Both Ruby and Max charged after her, knowing just how tightly that cupboard was packed and just how much mischief an unattended two-year-old could get up to inside it. They managed to beat Sofia to the lines and hooks, but Max gave her a bucket and a small net to carry to keep her happy. And then they bustled around, getting into the boat, coaxing Sofia into a life jacket, making sure she didn’t let go of her bucket and leave it floating down a canal somewhere.

She and Max worked as a team, exchanging words when needed, passing equipment to each other, but it wasn’t until they were standing at Max’s favourite crabbing spot, the little boat moored up and bobbing about a short distance away, that they slowed down enough for Ruby to get a sense of his mood.

She watched him gently helping Sofia wind an empty line back up without getting it tangled. He’d been polite this morning, almost friendly.

Had she imagined it? Had it all been some weird dream, a spell cast by this contrary city?

She let out a long sigh. Maybe it was better if that was the case. It was sheer craziness. Even if she’d seen what she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes last night, what did she think was going to happen? A wild fling in his mother’s house, with a toddler running around?

Once again, get real, Ruby.

She knelt down and took interest in what Sofia was doing. She’d plopped the crab line into the water for the fourth or fifth time, but so far no luck. The little girl heaved out a sigh. ‘Fish go ʼway,’ she said slightly despondently.

Ruby couldn’t help but smile. Despite her self-contained manner, Sofia had a little bit of her grandmother’s flair for drama in her. She forgot herself, looked up at Max to share the joke. He was crouching the other side of Sofia, who was sitting on the edge of the
fondamenta
where the railings parted, her little legs swinging above the water, and their eyes met across the top of her head.

Ruby almost fell in the canal.

It was all there, everything he hadn’t said last night and everything he had.

Oh, heck. Just when she’d almost managed to talk some sense into herself.

And it still all did make sense. He was her boss. He was going back to London in a matter of hours. He was her total polar opposite. In what world was that anything but a recipe for disaster?

Everywhere but Venice, she discovered as a slow smile spread across her lips. She felt she must be glowing. Actually radiating something. It would probably scare the fish away.

She wanted to lean across, press her lips to his, wind her arms around his neck and just taste him. Feel him. Dive into him.

‘Fish!’ Sofia yelled, and it was almost her who did the diving. She got so excited she almost toppled off the edge into the canal. It was only Max’s quick reflexes that saved her.

After that they made sure they had their eyes on Sofia instead of each other at all times. It didn’t matter, though. It was pulsing in the air around them, like a wonderful secret, a song carried on a radio wave that only they could tune into.

She felt it as they ended their crabbing expedition, a weary Sofia rubbing her eyes and complaining about being hungry. She felt it as they stood mere inches apart at the front of the boat, Max steering, her holding Sofia so she could see over the top of the little motorboat’s windscreen. Felt it as they passed buckets and nets and bags to each other from boat to dry land.

As they pulled the last of the luggage from the boat and headed into the large downstairs hall of the palazzo Ruby turned to Max, made proper eye contact in what seemed the first time in decades. ‘What time’s your flight?’ she asked, plainly and simply.

It was all very well dreaming on the canals, but their feet were back on solid ground now. It was time to anchor herself back in reality, remind herself of what really was happening here.

‘Five o’clock,’ he said.

She nodded towards the first floor. ‘You’d better get going if you’re going to get any work done before you have to stop and pack.’ She held out her hand to take the nets from him.

Max looked at her for a long while, and an ache started low down in her belly. ‘Yes,’ he said, and then handed her the nets and set off up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time.

* * *

Ruby jiggled her leg while she waited for Sofia to finish brushing her teeth. Once she’d had a try herself, Ruby dived in and gave them another going-over. As mundane as the task was, she was glad of something to do. Sofia had had an extra-long sleep that afternoon. Ruby had gone into her room again and again, expecting to find her jumping on the bed, but each time Sofia had been sprawled on the mattress, her pink rabbit tucked in the crook of her arm and her thumb in her mouth.

She’d heard Max leave the palazzo around three. His plane was probably somewhere over the English Channel now.

He hadn’t even said goodbye.

A stab of something hit her in the stomach, but she forced it away. She bundled Sofia from the bathroom and back to her bedroom, where she found Fina sitting on the bed, waiting for them.

‘You are looking tired,
piccola
.’

Ruby ruffled Sofia’s hair. ‘I don’t know why, after that mammoth sleep she had.’

Fina smiled and tipped her head on one side. ‘I was talking about you, my darling.’

Ruby tried not to react. Was it really that obvious?

Fina waved her hand in a regal manner. ‘Well, it is all for the good. I came to say I would read Sofia her story and put her to bed tonight, so you go and relax in the salon.’

Ruby shook her head. More sitting around with nothing to do—the last thing she needed. ‘It’s my job, Fina—’

Fina stopped her with an imperious eyebrow lift. ‘But I wish to. So...off you go.’ And she dismissed Ruby with a gracious smile.

There wasn’t much Ruby could say to that, so she sloped off in the direction of the salon to do as she was told. The setting sun was streaming in through the windows when she entered the room, almost blinding her, and at first she didn’t see the dark shape by the window, but after a moment or two the dark smudge morphed into something more solid.

Ruby’s mouth dropped open. ‘B-but I thought you were going back to London!’

Max turned round. He was silhouetted against the ornate arches, and she couldn’t see his face, let alone read his features.

‘So did I.’

She shook her head. ‘What changed?’

‘Nothing...and everything.’

He stepped forward out of the light and Ruby could see he wasn’t wearing his suit, just dark casual trousers and a light sweater. Her heart began to beat faster.

‘But this afternoon, when I carried on using the ideas from your doodle and incorporating a pared-down Venetian style into my plans for the institute, I realised I need to be here, not in London. I need to get my inspiration from the source, not just inaccurate and misleading memories. I’ve spent all afternoon wandering around looking at buildings I’ve known all my life and seeing them with completely fresh eyes.’ He shook his head.

Ruby glanced over her shoulder towards the corridor, and Sofia’s bedroom. She could just about hear the warm tones of Fina’s voice as she read her granddaughter a fairy story. ‘There’s something to be said for stripping the preconceptions and prejudices of the past away and looking at things with fresh eyes.’

‘Did my mother put you up to saying that?’

She turned back, expecting him to be scowling, but his face was almost neutral, save for the barest hint of a smile.

One corner of Ruby’s mouth lifted. ‘No. I think I’m quite capable of irritating you without outside help.’

Max laughed, and it made something rise like a balloon inside Ruby and bump against the ceiling of her ribs.

He walked towards the door in the path of a long, golden shadow. ‘Come on,’ he said.

Ruby frowned, but she turned to follow anyway. ‘Where?’

He stopped and looked back at her. ‘You missed seeing Venice at sunset last night because I had an attack of stupid. It’s only right I should make it up to you tonight.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
S
THEY
WALKED
along the little wooden dock in front of his mother’s palazzo, Max couldn’t help but remember being there with Ruby the night before. He jumped down into the little speedboat, and Ruby followed him. Without even asking, she helped with the ropes and fenders.

She’d only been here a week, and no one had shown her what to do. She’d just picked it up, that quick mind of hers soaking up all the information and putting it effortlessly to use.

She sat in the stern as he drove the boat away, silent. The outfit tonight was the plainest one yet. No hippies. No rock chicks. No damn strawberries. All she wore was a cream blouse with soft ruffles, a pair of capris and a light cardigan thrown over her shoulders. He watched her drink in the way the setting sun made every façade richer and more glorious, harking back to the days when some had actually been covered entirely in gold leaf.

In fact, he found it hard to
stop
watching her.

But he needed to.

Ruby Lange seemed bright and sunny and harmless, but she was a dangerous substance. She dissolved through his carefully constructed walls without even trying. He really should keep her at a distance.

Then why did you invite her to come out with you this evening?

Because it was the right thing to do. He’d acted like a total idiot the previous evening and so he was making it up to her. And he’d given his word. He’d said he’d show her Venice at sunset and so he was going to show her Venice at sunset.

Yeah, right. You keep telling yourself that. It has nothing to do with wanting to be alone with her, with
wanting
her to melt those walls that have left you claustrophobic and breathless for too long.

Max steered the boat down the canal and busied himself doing what he’d come here to do—no, not spend time alone with Ruby, but offer his services as tour guide and boat driver. He beckoned for her to come up and stand beside him, pointed out a few landmarks, and they talked easily about history and architecture for at least ten minutes.

It wasn’t working.

Inside there was a timer counting down, ticking away the seconds until the sun slipped below the horizon and he and Ruby would be cocooned in the dark. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He needed to remember why this was a bad idea, remember why Ruby wasn’t right for him. As alluring as she might be, last night’s uproar had proved one thing quite firmly: Ruby Lange ran when things got too close, when things got too serious. And these days he was nothing but serious.

He slowed the engine a little and looked over at her. ‘Why do you move from job to job?’

She tore her gaze off the city and looked at him. ‘I told you the other night. I want to find my perfect fit, like my father has. Like you have.’

He took his eyes off her for a moment to steer past a boat going a little slower than they were. ‘Does it have to be perfect?’

Ruby gave him a puzzled smile. ‘Well, I’d like it to be. Who wants to do a job their whole life if they have no passion for it?’

‘Millions of people do.’

She shook her head. ‘I want more out of life. I’m tired with settling for crumbs. I want the whole banquet.’

He nodded. That part he understood only too well, but there was something else she hadn’t considered.

‘Whatever my mother says, I wasn’t sure about architecture, at least not when it came time to choose a profession,’ he told her, returning his gaze to the canal, as they’d turned into a busier, wider stretch and he needed to pay attention, but every now and then he glanced over at her. ‘I liked it. It fascinated me, but, like you, I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do with my life. I often wondered if I’d picked it because I wanted to impress my father.’

On his next glance across her eyes were wide. ‘It’s not your passion?’ she almost whispered. ‘Because if it isn’t, I’d be fascinated to see what you’re like when you really get into something!’

He smiled. ‘No. It is my passion, or at least it is now. What I’m trying to say is that what if there is no perfect job, not at the start? What if it’s the learning, the discipline of immersing yourself in it and scaling the learning curves that makes it a perfect fit?’

She frowned and her eyes made tiny, rapid side-to-side movements as she worked that one out in her head. She frowned harder. He guessed she hadn’t been able to neatly file that thought and shove it away out of sight.

‘But how do you do that and not lose your heart and soul to something that might not be the right choice?’ Her voice dropped to the scratchiest of whispers. ‘What do you do if you choose something and it doesn’t choose you back?’

He shrugged. Maybe he’d been lucky. ‘But there’s the irony—you may never know unless you try.’

She folded her arms, scowled and turned away to look at the buildings as he turned the boat onto the Grand Canal. ‘That’s a very Italian thing to say,’ she muttered darkly.

‘I
am
half Italian,’ he reminded her.

She shot him a saucy look. ‘And there was me, thinking you’d forgotten.’

Then she turned and just absorbed the scenery. They’d come from the relative quiet and muted tones of the smaller canals onto the wide strip of water that snaked through the centre of the city. Suddenly it was all light and colour.

Sunset seemed further away here, out of the shadows of the tall buildings, where the remaining light reflected off the water onto the palazzos and back into the sky. Awnings were pulled down over restaurants that lined the water’s edge, and the spaces inside were bustling, full of warm light and moving people.

She looked across at him. ‘Talking of trying, your mother is very pleased you’re staying on.’

He gave her a resigned look. ‘I know.’

‘So why won’t you let
her
try, Max?’

There she went again, tapping at his walls with her little pickaxe, testing them for weak spots.

‘Have you ever listened to her side of the story?’ she continued. ‘Or have you always gone on what your father told you?’

Ouch.

She’d found one. A chink in his perception of his life that he hadn’t even realised had been there. He tried to plug it up. ‘I saw enough with my own eyes,’ he replied gruffly. ‘And my father rarely spoke of her.’

But the damage had been done. Memories started spilling into his brain, scenes of his parents’ marriage. He’d always thought he’d understood what was going on so clearly, but it was as if this was another version of the same film, and different details sprang to life, tiny things that tipped everything on its head—the look of desperation in his mother’s eyes, the way she’d sobbed late into the night, the way she’d looked at his father, with such adoration, in both good times and bad.

He drowned them out by taking another, busier route with the boat, so he had to give driving it his full concentration. He steered the boat down the canal and out towards St Mark’s Square. It was full of gondolas of sighing tourists here, and he felt his irritation with the city, with its over-the-topness returning. Maybe Ruby had something in her idea of not wanting to give your heart and soul to something, only to be disappointed.

‘Can
you
try?’ she asked softly.

As always, she took what he was prepared to give and pushed him to cough up more. The sensation was one rather akin to having a particularly sticky plaster ripped off a tender patch of skin.

‘And that’s what happens in your family, is it?’ He glanced skyward, noticing neither the pink drifting clouds nor the orange sky behind them. ‘Last I heard, you were all for keeping parents at a safe distance.’

Ruby looked at her shoes. He couldn’t see her cheeks, but he’d bet they were warmer than they’d been a few seconds ago. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember that,’ she mumbled.

‘Well, I did.’ She could have been right, though. He managed to tune out most people most of the time, but there was something about Ruby that made him listen, even when he’d dearly like to switch everything off and sink into blessed silence. ‘So maybe you should practise what you preach before you start lecturing me.’

She shuffled her feet and looked up at him, arms still hugging herself. ‘Okay, maybe I should. But I’ve tried over the years with my father, Max, and he always keeps me at arm’s length, no matter what.’

That was hard to believe. Look at her, with her large, expressive eyes, her zest for life, which still seemed to be threatening to burst out of her, despite her slightly subdued mood. He was having trouble
maintaining
a distance of arm’s length.

‘Why?’ he asked, glad for a chance to swing the interrogation light her way.

Ruby sat down on one of the cushioned benches. Max slowed the motor and brought the craft to a halt, letting it bob on the canal as the pleasure boats,
vaporetti
and gondolas drifted past. He turned to lean against the steering wheel and looked back at her.

She shook her head, staring out across the dark green canal, now flecked with pink and gold from the setting sun. ‘It took me years to even come close to forming a theory on that one. It’s partly because he’s so absorbed in his work, and it’s got worse the older he gets. There are only so many weeks and hours left to educate the world about the unique habitats the human race is ripping through, the species we’re forcing into extinction. How can one “flighty” child compete against all of that?’

‘What’s the other part?’

Ruby looked up at him. ‘He has plenty of friends and colleagues who have wild children—celebrity offspring syndrome, I’ve heard him call it. Over-indulged, privileged, reckless. I think he wanted to save me from that.’

That was understandable, but surely anyone who knew Ruby knew she wasn’t that sort. She might be impulsive, but that came from her creativity, not out of selfishness or arrogant stupidity.

She sighed and stood up, walked to the back of the boat, even though it was only a few steps. ‘I came to understand his logic eventually. I think he thinks that if he rations out the attention and approval then he won’t spoil me.’ She sighed again. ‘It’s so sad, especially as I know he wasn’t like that with my mother. He’d have given her anything.’

Max didn’t say anything, mainly because he was rubbish at saying the right thing at the right time, but he also suspected she just needed room to talk.

‘I can’t live on the scraps he hands out,’ she said sadly. ‘He doesn’t understand it, but women, be they wives or daughters or sisters, need more than that.’

They both fell into silence. Max thought of his mother, and wondered if Ruby was thinking of her too. He’d never wanted for approval from his father—not that the old man had ever said anything out loud—but they’d been so alike. It had been easy to see the things beneath the surface, hear the words his father had never been able to say. For the first time ever it struck him that maybe not everyone had that ability.

They’d been so different, Geoffrey and Serafina Martin. His mother emotional and demonstrative, his father stoic and silent. He’d always thought their extreme personality types should make them the perfect complement for each other, but maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe that had been the reason for his mother’s midnight tears; she’d desperately needed to reap some of the tangible demonstrations of love she’d so generously sowed.

He nodded slowly. ‘I’m starting to understand that.’ He caught her eye. ‘And it makes sense why it’s easier to run away, rather than stay.’

He didn’t like to say that. It went against everything in him, but he couldn’t ignore the sense in it.

Ruby read him like a book. She laughed a soft little dry laugh. ‘And you think you don’t?’

Max stood up, his brows bunching together. No, he didn’t run. He was the one that was solid, stuck things out.

She walked towards him, until she was standing right in front of him. ‘You can’t be fully committed to something if you keep part of yourself back. It’s cheating—a bit like this lagoon.’ She stretched her arm out to encompass the water, including the tiniest glimpse of the open sea in the distance. ‘It looks like the deep blue sea, smells like it, tastes like it, but when you try and jump all the way in you find out how shallow it is. Commitment is easy when it’s only ankle deep.’

Max wanted to be angry with her. He wanted to tell her she was so very wrong, but he couldn’t. Instead he exhaled long and hard and met Ruby’s enquiring gaze. ‘That makes us two very similar creatures, then.’

She stared back at him, more than a hint of defiance in her expression. ‘Yes.’

On the surface he and Ruby were chalk and cheese. She was quirky and outspoken, where he was taciturn and strait-laced. She was emotional and effusive, where he...wasn’t. But underneath? Well, that was a whole different story.

Her eyes softened a little, but the hard-hitting honesty in them remained. ‘Okay, I admit it. I’m a coward when it comes to my family. And maybe I do flit from thing to thing because I’m nervous about committing to anything fully, but you have to face it, Max, despite all your fine words, the only thing you’re truly committed to when it comes to your family is your prejudice and lack of forgiveness.’

He turned and started up the engine again. The canals—even this wide, spacious one—we’re closing in on him, and the sun would slip below the horizon soon. He headed out of the end of the Grand Canal and into the lagoon, so they could see the painfully bright orange smudge settling behind the monastery on Isola di San Giorgio. Out here the salty wind soothed him. He felt as if he could breathe properly again.

Ruby hadn’t said anything since they’d set off again. She’d just sat down on the bench and crossed her arms. He slowed the motor and checked on her. She didn’t look happy. He had a feeling he’d have no trouble keeping her at arm’s length now. He might as well dig himself in further.

‘Have you forgiven
your
father?’

She chewed her lip for a while. ‘I hadn’t realised I needed to, but maybe I do.’ She looked up and noticed the sunset for the first time. ‘Oh,’ she said, her face lighting up, and Max couldn’t bear to tear his eyes from her and turn around.