Sharon Kendrick - Italian Boss, Housekeeper Bride

‘Oh, Raffaele,’ she breathed, her blue eyes growing worried as she heard the cynicism which made his voice sound so harsh. ‘Poor Elisabetta! What’s happened?’

He tried to make sense of it. He wanted to tell Natasha not to look at him like that, or to say his name in that sweet, soft way, that her sympathy was making him feel all kinds of stuff that he didn’t need to feel right now. Like he wanted to go straight into her arms and put his head against her pure pale skin and just hold her. But he shook the thought away with a corresponding shake of his head.

He was supposed to be taking control—not sleepwalking into disaster by looking vulnerable in front of his damned housekeeper! He forced his mind back to the unpalatable facts.

‘You know that she never had a particularly stable upbringing,’ he said, swallowing down the bitter taste in his mouth. ‘She was born when my mother was trying desperately hard to please her new husband. She knew that he wanted a child—and even though she was in her early forties by then she moved heaven and earth to get pregnant.’ Raffaele had been a teenager at the time, and he remembered feeling pushed aside by his mother’s new obsession. But he had been protective of the baby girl when she’d arrived—though, shortly after that, he had been relieved to leave for university.

His eyes narrowed as he remembered. ‘Elisabetta once told me that they were disappointed she wasn’t a boy. Her father wanted someone to take over the business, and this artistic, fey girl was the antithesis of what he’d needed. Maybe that attitude sowed the seeds for her anxiety—or maybe it would have happened anyway.’ He shrugged, and his face darkened—for analysis was not in his nature unless it concerned a column full of figures. ‘Who knows what caused it? All I know is that it exists.’

‘But has something happened?’ Natasha questioned quietly. ‘To bring matters to a head?’

Raffaele’s black eyes pierced through her like dark lasers. ‘How did you guess?’

Because that was the way of the world, thought Natasha. ‘Was it a man?’

‘How perceptive of you, Tasha,’ he said softly, and then his mouth hardened. That wasn’t the word she would use to describe him. ‘A relationship,’ he corrected acidly. ‘Someone Elisabetta thought had fallen in love with her—but, of course, it was her enormous wealth which had seduced him. Damn the money!’ he exclaimed bitterly. ‘Damn it!’

Natasha bit her lip. Sometimes working for a man as powerful as Raffaele meant telling him things that they didn’t really want to hear—because no one else dared to. Except maybe for Troy, Raffaele’s lawyer. He never shied away from the facts.

‘That isn’t really fair, is it, Raffaele? I mean, you’re enormously wealthy and it doesn’t impact negatively on your life, does it? You enjoy your money,’ she pointed out, softening the home-truth with a smile. ‘So you can’t always say that money is the root of all evil.’

Raffaele’s mouth tightened. So this was what happened when you took someone like her into your confidence! His simmering rage was directed at Natasha now, his eyes sparking ebony fire. ‘You think to criticise me?’ he demanded. ‘You dare to do that?’

‘No,’ she replied patiently, ‘I’m just trying to help you see it more clearly, that’s all.’

‘She should not have been mixing with such lowlife!’ he stormed.

‘She is a young woman, Raffaele. You haven’t always—’

‘Haven’t always, what?’ he prompted dangerously.

‘You haven’t always displayed the greatest judgement with some of your choices of women, have you?’

‘What?’

She met the look of smouldering disbelief in his eyes without blinking, but somehow the thought of his doe-eyed half sister breaking her heart over some gold-digger gave Natasha the courage to stand up to him. ‘I draw your attention to the woman you’re currently suing.’

‘Madonna mia!’ he exclaimed. ‘I met her twice—and there was no intimacy. Am I to be held responsible for some lying actress who wants to use my money and my reputation to boost her career? And Elisabetta is my sister,’ he continued stubbornly. ‘It is different.’

Natasha sighed. It was that age-old double standard again, which some men—particularly the old-fashioned macho breed, like Raffaele—applied to all women. That there were two types. Madonna and whore. She bit her lip. Which category would she fall into?

Her behaviour since she’d first entered the de Feretti household had been beyond reproach—but she was still a single mother, wasn’t she? And, surely, that would score negatively when measured by Raffaele’s exacting standards?

‘Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?’ she said softly.

He shrugged his shoulders restlessly. Her voice was cajoling—it was like the warmth of the sun on a summer’s day—but, instinctively, he fought against its comfort. ‘What’s to tell? This scum bled her bank account until her attention was drawn to it—and then he ran.’ His face darkened. ‘But not before he had convinced her that she loved him and that she could love no other as much as him. She stopped eating. She stopped sleeping. Her skin is like paper and her arms—they are like this…’ He joined his forefinger and thumb together in a circle to illustrate Elisabetta’s emaciated limb, and another wave of pain etched its way across his features. ‘She’s sick, Tasha.’

His eyes narrowed as he saw the look of concern on her face. Thank God, this was only Natasha he was talking to, came one sane, fleeting thought. Nobody had ever seen Raffaele de Feretti even close to vulnerable before—and, surely, this came close. At least, Tasha didn’t count.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Natasha anxiously.

The image of Elisabetta came floating into his mind—with her huge eyes and the waterfall of black hair which fell in a heavy curtain to her waist. Clenching his fists together, he thought how much he would like to be able to protect his vulnerable half sister from the knocks that life had waiting in store. ‘I should have been able to protect her!’

Natasha opened her mouth to say that modern women were strong enough not to need protectors—but that wasn’t really true, was it? Hadn’t Raffaele done just that with her? Brought her in from the cold. And hadn’t he treated her son as…well, if not as his own, then certainly as some distant and fondly regarded relative?

Had she forgotten how despairing she had been when she had thrown herself onto him for mercy?

She had rung his bell one night in answer to an advertisement in the newspaper for a housekeeper, and he had opened the door himself. Some time in the hours between Natasha deciding that there was no way she could carry on living in a damp house and working like a slave, the heavens had opened and she had been soaked to the skin.

‘Yes?’ Raffaele had demanded, ‘What is it?’

Natasha had barely noticed the autocratic and irritated note in his voice—or that his black eyes had narrowed to something approaching astonishment as he took in the sodden mess she must have made.

‘I’ve come about the job,’ she’d said.

‘You’re too late.’

Her face’d crumpled. ‘You mean, it’s taken?’

He’d shaken his head impatiently. ‘I mean, that you’re too late. Literally. I’m not interviewing any more today. See the agency and I’ll try to fit you in tomorrow.’

But Natasha was desperate—and desperation could make you do funny things. It could fire you up with a determination you didn’t know you had until your back was against the wall. Particularly, if you were looking out for someone else.

‘No,’ she said firmly, and rushed on as she saw his expression of incredulity—because it was now or never.