Fiona Harper - Italian Bachelors - Ruthless Propositions - Taming Her Italian Boss / The Uncompromising Italian / Secrets of the Playboy's Bride

He’d give her half an hour. Then he’d go and find her, make her see sense.

He looked down at the stack of papers in his hands. His scribbled-on plans were on top. Just the sight of them made his temperature rise a couple of notches. He turned and headed for the library. At least he’d be able to distract himself for a short while trying to see if anything was salvageable. Once he was there, he dropped the stack of papers on the desk and sank into the chair.

It had to have been her fault. She must have come and got more paper from his makeshift office at some point, despite what she’d said, because how else could his pristine plans have ended up on Sofia’s drawing-paper pile? They hadn’t been outside the library all week.

A cold feeling washed through him from head to toe.

Except...

Last night, when he’d taken some papers into the salon as a cure for insomnia, and the plans had been amongst them. It had worked, too. After an hour and a half of poring over them, going over every detail, he’d woken himself up, his head lolling against his chest, and then he’d stumbled back to bed.

Oh, hell.

And he had no idea if he’d stumbled back into the library first and replaced the plans.

He stared at the clean, narrow printed-out lines of his plans, with Ruby’s thicker doodlings over the top. It was his fault, wasn’t it? Not hers. While he hadn’t exactly put them on Sofia’s paper stack by leaving them lying around in the salon he’d opened up the way for them to get muddled into it during the course of the day.

Max exhaled heavily and let his forehead drop so it rested on the pile of papers.

Damn.

And he’d lost his temper. Something he never did. He’d always hated losing control like that. Not just because when his really long fuse went, it tended to verge on apocalyptic, but because of how he was feeling right now. Raw. Open. Weak.

If it had been Sofia that had done the drawing he knew he wouldn’t have reacted the same way. Oh, he’d have been cross, but he wouldn’t have exploded like that, and not just because she was only two and he would have scared the living daylights out of her.

There was something about Ruby that just got under his skin.

He sat up, ran his hand through his hair and stared at the dark green wallpaper.

He should let her leave, shouldn’t he?

She wanted to. It would certainly be better for him.

But he needed her.

He shook his head. No. He didn’t need anyone. Especially not a woman who ran at the first sniff of trouble, which was exactly what Ruby had done, proving his point very nicely for him.

He needed a nanny. That was all.

The choice was up to her. If she still wanted to go he wouldn’t stop her, but there was one thing he needed to do first—apologise.

In a bit, though. Ruby was probably still spitting fire, and if he tried to knock on her door now, he’d probably get a few more of those wonderfully eloquent hand gestures.

A smile crept across his face, even though he knew it wasn’t really funny at all.

She was a pill, that one.

He sighed and turned his attention back to the plans in front of him, unfolding the paper and having a good look. It was interesting what she’d drawn. She’d taken his plain, square arch and added some traditional Venetian style to it. She really had been paying attention to the shapes and patterns of the buildings, hadn’t she? Here was an ogee arch, and here a lobed one. She’d reproduced them perfectly, even when she’d only been doodling.

That was when something smacked him straight between the eyebrows.

The shapes.

Ruby had been talking about the geometric shapes, the other day, the way simple ones interlocked to make more complicated ones. All he’d been able to see when he came to Venice was the fuss, the frilliness. He’d forgotten that even the most of ornate fasciae were constructed of much simpler, cleaner elements.

If he took Ruby’s idea and pared it back, using simpler shapes, overlapping and juxtaposing them to create something, not exactly elaborate, because that wasn’t his style, but something more intricate that still kept that essence of simple elegance.

He grabbed one of Sofia’s scrap-paper sheets and a pen and began to scribble. Semicircular arches here and here, intersecting to create a more pointed version, with slender pillar for support. His hand flew over the paper, sketching shapes and lines, at first for the arches in the atrium, but then taking the same idea and applying it to other aspects of the space, giving it all a cohesive feel.

He could see it so clearly. Just a hint of gothic style, built in glass and steel. Modern materials that echoed back to classic design. It was just what he needed to tie the new wing and the existing institute building together and make them feel like one space.

He kept going, filling sheet after sheet, until he suddenly realised he’d been at this for ages.

Ruby!

He still hadn’t gone and apologised.

He shoved away from the desk, sending a stack of Sofia’s colourful drawings flying, and then sprinted down the corridor in the direction of her and Ruby’s rooms. He didn’t bother knocking when he got there, just flung the door open and raced inside, expecting to find her shoving clothes into her rucksack, a scowl on her face.

Wrong again, Max.

She can pack in under ten minutes, remember? Sometimes five.

Where Max had expected to find Ruby stewing and muttering insults under her breath, there was nothing but empty space.

Ruby Lange was gone.

* * *

Ruby shivered as she waited on the little creaky dock outside Ca’ Damiani. The clouds had sunk closer to the water and coloured everything a murky grey. A drop of rain splashed on her forehead. Great.

Her rucksack was at her feet, leaning against her lower legs, and she craned to see if the light bobbing towards her, accompanied by the sound of a motor, was the taxi she’d ordered. She needed to get out of here and she needed to do it right now.

This was so not how she’d imagined seeing Venice by water this evening.

More raindrops, one after the other. She could hear them plopping into the canal near her feet.

The approaching craft turned out to be a private boat that puttered past and stopped outside one of the buildings opposite. Ruby felt her whole body sag.

Stupid, stupid girl. You take on a job you know nothing about—just because some random guy says he needs you—and you think he’s going to see past all of your inexperience and believe you’re something special? Get real. The only thing Max Martin believed about her was that she was a flaky screw-up, just like everyone else on this planet.

She hugged her arms tighter around her, wishing she hadn’t packed her jacket in the very bottom of the rucksack.

Not everyone believes you’re a screw-up.

Okay, maybe she was being a little dramatic. A number of her bosses over the years had begged her to stay when she’d realised the job wasn’t for her and had given in her notice. They’d said she was competent and organised and they’d love to promote her, but she hadn’t been able to ignore that itchy feeling once it started. The only way to stop the intense restlessness, the only way to scratch it enough so it went away, was to move on. But Max was wrong. She didn’t run away. She ran to the next thing. There was a whole world of difference.

The rain began to fall harder now. She pushed her fringe out of her eyes. It was already damp. Where was that taxi?

There was a creaking behind her as the boat door that led to the dock opened. Ruby’s blood solidified in her veins. She refused to turn round.

She expected another angry tirade, braced herself against it, but when his voice came it was soft and low. ‘Ruby?’