CATHY WILLIAMS - Contracted For The Spaniard's Heir

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, having admitted defeat with his father, had turned their attentions to him, even though Luca had been a mere boy of seventeen at the time.

His own experiences as an adult had hardly served to change his opinion that there wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t do whatever it took when the stakes were high.

Luca didn’t mind. He was happy to be lavish with the women he dated but he had no intention of settling down with any of them. He had no intention of settling down, full-stop.

He was fascinated by Ellie’s clear-eyed gaze as their eyes met.

Predictably, she was staggered by the sum he was willing to pay. Even more predictably, she hotly refused to allow him to part with such a vast amount of cash.

‘You’re overreacting,’ he dismissed, reaching to top her glass up. ‘I’m not offering you the crown jewels...’

‘As good as. It goes against my nature to accept a sum as large as that.’

‘And it goes against my nature to be stingy when it comes to a situation like this. You’ll be doing me a service, and I’m a man who rewards good service.’

A quiver of excitement rippled through her as their eyes met and tangled. This was a business arrangement, but right now it felt like an adventure...

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Ellie finally made contact with her sister.

Lily had called their father the night before and it hadn’t taken him long before he phoned Ellie to tell her all about their conversation. But by then Ellie was on her way out to meet Luca for dinner. He would have her contract of employment and had told her that it was essential she knew what was expected of her. Ellie thought that top of the agenda would be not making personal calls while her charge slipped out of the house.

‘Did she leave a number, by any chance?’ Ellie asked when there was a break in the conversation.

She was going to be late for dinner but if she didn’t talk to Lily now then there was no guarantee that she would talk to her at all. Over the years as Lily had pursued fame and fortune, using her incredible looks to open doors, she and Ellie had grown increasingly distant. It took a lot of will power to resist the temptation to let things slide until their contact was reduced to birthday cards and polite conversation over the turkey with their father on Christmas day.

Ellie had no time to beat about the bush.

‘Did Dad mention anything...er...about his situation over here?’ she asked bluntly, because the long-distance call was costing her money, and if she didn’t stop her sister in mid flow then she would have to spend the entire phone call listening to Lily wax lyrical about all the exciting things happening in her life and the agents who were hunting her down with scripts for movies.

‘What situation?’ her sister questioned cautiously, so Ellie explained.

She decided that throwing out hints wasn’t going to work. ‘I thought that since you’ve found your feet over there you might think about helping me out, Lily. I earn a teacher’s salary and I don’t have to tell you that it’s not much...’

‘ You chose to be a teacher,’ Lily snapped defensively. ‘So please don’t tell me to start feeling sorry for you because you haven’t got any money!’

‘This isn’t about me, Lily. It’s about Dad. I’ve had to take...er...another job to help raise money to clear his debts, but if you could contribute then it would give me some flexibility...when it comes to accepting the offer. Luca will clear the debt but obviously it goes against my pride to accept that level of generosity.’

‘What job?’ Lily asked curiously. ‘Luca? Who’s Luca?’

In a mad rush to leave, Ellie briefly explained the situation, that Luca was a Spanish businessman who had hired her to look after his godson for the summer. Lily knew where she stood when it came to money. She would know that accepting such a vast sum of cash would have been tough.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Lily said, although her voice was more thoughtful now. ‘Stop with the pride thing and just accept what’s on the table. Jeez, the guy is obviously loaded and he needs you to look after the kid. Instead of beating yourself up about it, you should be trying to suss whether you can’t get more out of him! Anyway, I can’t commit to anything, Ellie, and even if I could I’d be nuts to hand over hard-earned cash when there’s some rich guy willing to clear all Dad’s debts for a few weeks of playing happy families with his kid.’

So that was that.

Despite the fact that her sister was in the enviable position of having producers banging on her door, she was being true to who she was and refusing to help.

In a rush, Ellie barely glanced at herself in the mirror before flying out of the house.

She was meeting Luca at an Italian bistro in Covent Garden. He had only ever seen her in clothes used to walk dogs, but this was going to be a more formal meeting, and she had dressed accordingly, in the same outfit she pulled out of the wardrobe for parents’ meetings. A neat grey skirt, a white blouse and a pair of ballet pumps.

It was an outfit that reminded her of the businesslike nature of their relationship, and for that Ellie was grateful, because when she thought of him her mind started playing games, and what she saw in her head wasn’t someone in a suit discussing terms and conditions and holding a fountain pen, it was a man with smouldering sexiness and a smile that could give her goose bumps.

She was half an hour late by the time she stepped into the bistro and looked round her, spotting Luca instantly.

She smoothed down her skirt and took a few seconds to gather herself. The restaurant was busy, with every table filled, and despite the casual sense of waiters hurrying with trays, the open-plan kitchen and the unfussy furnishings, Ellie could tell that the food would cost a fortune.

The clientele was all well-heeled. The food passing her on plates was delicate, artistic creations.