Harlequin Presents--April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Dani Collins

  She extracted several sheets of art paper, showing the top one to Evandro.

  ‘Look how good this is! Oh, not necessarily in terms of technical execution—that will come in time—but in imagination and use of colour. And this one too.’ She slid out the next one to hold it up. ‘And this—’

  She let her employer’s dark-eyed gaze peruse—impassively—the fruits of his daughter’s artistic labour, which depicted a mix of multitowered fairy-tale castles, populated by fantastical animals and opulently dressed princesses.

  ‘Any and all ability and enthusiasm should always be encouraged and fostered,’ she went on resolutely, suddenly urgently wanting to defend Amelie from her father’s potential criticism. Wanting him not to be critical at all.

  Jenna’s chin went up, and she looked straight at him. She refused to be cowed by his forbidding expression, and was determined to have her say...to make him see. This was for Amelie, a little girl whose father should praise her and value her.

  As mine never did.

  Remembered pain bit at her. She did not want that for Amelie.

  ‘It’s vital—essential—for children to be encouraged, to know there is something they have a flair for. No child should ever be made to feel worthless or useless.’

  There was a passion and a vehemence in her voice she could not hide as memories scythed through her mind. Bad memories—of her father’s dismissive criticism, his impatient indifference...

  She became aware that she was under perusal. Not the employer-employee kind of perusal, to discover whether she was adequately performing the job for which she had been hired; there was something different in his assessment of her.

  Then it was gone.

  He sat back in his chair—a large, modern, leather, executive-style chair, at odds with the antique desk and leather-bound gold trimmed books lining all the walls. Making no comment on what she’d urged, he simply said, with a brief nod, ‘Very well—thank you for your report. Continue with what you are doing. That said...’ his gaze flicked over her ‘...you must be prepared to rearrange lessons on the fly and without notice. They are not a priority while I am here. My time with Amelie is the priority. Now, have you any questions of me? If not, then go back to your pupil.’

  Jenna got to her feet, gathering up Amelie’s schoolwork. She wanted to get one more vital message across, to fight Amelie’s corner for her.

  ‘Though it isn’t my place to say so, Signor Rocceforte, I completely agree that lessons aren’t a priority for Amelie right now. It’s far better, with your having been away for so long, that she has extensive quality time with you—’

  ‘You are quite right, Miss Ayrton,’ he cut across her, his voice brusque, his expression closed. ‘It isn’t your place to say so.’

  For a second she froze, feeling the force of his displeasure at her intrusive comment just as she’d felt the force of his fury last night. But just as she had last night, she rallied. What she’d said had been for her charge’s sake—for the sake of a little girl who reminded her so much of herself, wrenched from all she knew to be abruptly taken to live with her father, a stranger to her.

  Please let it be better for Amelie than it was for me. Let her father want to bond with her, spend time with her, become a good, loving father to her.

  The silent plea was strong and heartfelt.

  She looked across at Evandro. His expression was forbidding, but for Amelie’s sake she had to get through to him—make him see how vital it was for his daughter that, however much of a stranger he was to her, he must reach out to her. She would not shy away from telling him so.

  She stood in front of him, her shoulders squared. ‘My place, Signor Rocceforte, as Amelie’s teacher, is to look out for the best interests of my pupil,’ she said, quietly but unflinchingly, unapologetically, her eyes steadily on him.

  He was a man of power and wealth, but to her, right now, he was merely her charge’s father—the man who had a responsibility for his daughter’s emotional well-being, a responsibility not to blight her childhood any more than it already had been.

  ‘My responsibility,’ she went on, never taking her eyes from him, ‘is only and always to Amelie. She is a fractured child, a child from a broken home and, however affluent her upbringing has been, it has lacked what she needs most—stability, constancy and security. The security not just of routine and predictability, but also, far more essentially, the security of knowing she is valued, wanted...and loved.’ A low, compelling insistence filled her voice now, and her gaze was resolute on Evandro. ‘That last above all.’

  She turned away, not caring what his reaction might be, and walked to the door and opened it, leaving the room and the formidable Italian behind.

  * * *

  As the door closed, shutting her away from sight, Evandro looked at the place where she had been. His expression flickered. If he’d had to go into a witness box to give evidence of the clothes she’d been wearing, what height she was, what her eye colour was, he’d have no idea at all.

  Yet he could have repeated, word for word, what she’d just said to him in her quiet, pointed address.

  ‘Valued, wanted...and loved.’

  The triad echoed in his mind. Well, the first, surely, he could testify to—the grim face of his lawyer as he’d perused the sum his client had been prepared to hand over to Amelie’s mother was proof of that. And the second he could also testify to—as evidenced by the bitter year-long custody war.

  But the third...?

  He felt himself shying away from the word, remembering instead the deliberately cruel words hurled at him by his jibing wife.

  Abruptly, he pushed back his chair, getting to his feet, walking to the French doors and pushing them open. He suddenly needed fresh air.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JENNA AND AMELIE were left to lunch on their own, but it was served in the schoolroom, not out on the terrace where, presumably, they might have disturbed her father at work in the library.

  Amelie’s mood was still unsettled, and Jenna decided diversion was needed. She could do with diversion herself, as her final words to Evandro that morning were still echoing in her mind. Had he taken offence, been angered by them? She did not care if he had—only if he chose to ignore them. For she stood by every single word she’d said to him.

  ‘We’ll go on a nature walk!’ she announced, and Amelie’s little face brightened.

  They went out to the terrace, ready to set off across the extensive gardens.

  ‘Where I taught in London,’ Jenna said, ‘there were no fields, no woods—so think how lucky you are to have all this beautiful countryside and these beautiful gardens,’ she said, gesturing expansively with her arms at their surroundings as they headed off.

  A voice behind her spoke. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  She turned, surprised and taken aback. Evandro was approaching them, rapidly closing in on them with his long strides.

  ‘I saw you through the library window. Where are you off to?’ he asked.

  Aware of Amelie slipping her little hand into hers, as if for reassurance, Jenna said, as composedly as she could, ‘A nature walk through the gardens.’

  ‘May I come with you?’

  Jenna looked at him in surprise. Not just because of what he’d asked. But because his tone of voice was so different from the brusqueness of her interview with him that morning. Then she realised why. It was for his daughter—not for her.

  And she was glad of it. Glad to see him—the first time she’d seen him with Amelie—being so different from the forbidding way he’d been with her that morning. He was addressing his daughter directly now, still with the same genial tone of voice.

  ‘What do you think, Amelie? I’m sure there are things about nature that Miss Jenna could teach me, as well as you. I know very little, for example, about the domestic habits of slugs.’

&nb
sp; Was there some deadpan humour in his declaration? Jenna could not decide—just as she couldn’t know whether he’d intended humour in his remark to her that morning about adults, too, preferring play to work.

  She could still feel the little hand in hers, and knew that it meant Amelie felt, as she did herself, unsure about Evandro’s sudden presence. A little ache formed in her. Every child needed to be wanted by their father—not to be ignored by them. Invisible to them.

  Amelie was looking wary. ‘I don’t like slugs,’ she said.

  ‘Fortunately,’ her father observed, his voice dry, ‘slugs like each other. So there will be lots of baby slugs in the spring.’

  ‘Slugs are hermaphrodites. So are snails,’ Jenna heard herself saying.

  The new word had caught Amelie’s curiosity. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Every slug is both a girl and a boy,’ Jenna explained. ‘So they make babies with each other. It can sound odd to us, but it’s natural to them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be a boy as well,’ Amelie declared. ‘I wouldn’t want to be a boy at all!’

  ‘You’re exactly right just as you are,’ Evandro said decisively. ‘And I’m very glad,’ he went on, ‘that you’ve come here to live with me.’

  Jenna heard the warmth in his voice as he spoke to Amelie, and felt her own uncertainty ease a fraction. He was saying the right things—making his daughter feel welcome, making it clear that she belonged here in the palazzo with him—and that had to be good.

  He gestured towards the gardens, speaking in the same good-humoured tones. ‘Now, what about this nature walk—where are we off to?’

  ‘I thought we might go into the rose garden and watch the bees collect nectar, and find out how that helps the roses and the other flowers,’ replied Jenna.

  She found herself noticing what a difference it made when Evandro unbent. A welcome difference, definitely. But it was not, she reminded herself, on her account. She knew why he’d joined their little expedition, and knew her role now was to act as bridge between father and daughter. The nature walk would be an occasion for the two of them to spend time together that need not be focused entirely on each other, but on a shared activity, so they could get used to being around each other.

  She led the way onwards, deliberately letting Amelie’s fingers casually slip from hers as they went into the circular rose garden. The afternoon sun beat down, and Jenna hoped it would not be too hot. She and Amelie were in summery clothes, but her employer was in a business suit. Although, it was lightweight, in a superbly cut dark grey material—that matched, she thought irrelevantly, his dark, slate-grey eyes.

  She led them to a beautiful dark red rose, carefully folded back its velvet petals, and started to explain pollination. ‘Now let’s see if we can spot any bees visiting the roses,’ she ended.

  ‘There’s one,’ she heard Evandro observe, pointing to another rose that a fat bee was investigating.

  ‘So it is! And look, Amelie, you can see the yellow pollen from a previous flower on its legs.’

  They watched the bee at work for a while, then it buzzed away, and Jenna led the way out of the rose garden. She was pleased to see that Amelie was beside her father now, as they took the path to the ornamental pond in the centre of the gardens. He was talking to her, still in that good-humoured, reassuring fashion, describing how these gardens had been laid out over two hundred years ago, when the palazzo had been built.

  ‘One day this week,’ Evandro was saying, ‘we’ll get the fountain in the middle of the pond working. The water comes from a spring higher up the hill, beyond the woods.’

  He kept talking, explaining the rudiments of the fountain’s mechanism. Just how much of the science Amelie was taking in, Jenna wasn’t sure. But the important thing was that she was paying attention—and that she was with her father.

  Her eyes went to the tall figure perched, like Amelie, on the stone rim of the pond. She’d avoided looking directly at him since he’d emerged to join them, but now, as he and Amelie talked together, she found her gaze stealing to him. It was extraordinary, she thought, how different he was being now that he was with his daughter. Oh, the gravitas was still there, but it was leavened...lightened. She found her gaze wanting to linger...

  Then, thankfully, he was standing up. ‘Shall we head back?’ he suggested.

  Jenna nodded, letting them take the lead, walking behind. She tried to focus on how good it was that Amelie and her father were together like this rather than on how broad his shoulders were, how sable his dark hair, how deep his voice...

  As they regained the terrace, she made to lead Amelie back to the classroom, but she was halted.

  ‘Amelie, please go and ask Signora Farrafacci for refreshments to be brought out here. You must be thirsty—I know I am. And Miss Jenna, too, no doubt.’ He turned to her and raised an eyebrow in a quizzical, sardonic manner. ‘Being an Englishwoman, you must surely think it’s time for afternoon tea?’

  Amelie skipped off, glad to postpone any resumption of lessons, and Jenna suddenly felt awkward, self-conscious at being left on her own with her employer like this.

  But why am I being like this about him? she wondered. He’s just the father of my pupil.

  And that, surely, was no reason to feel awkward and self-conscious...

  ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, pulling out one of the chairs at a table under a wide parasol.

  The shade was distinctly welcome to Jenna and she did as she was bade, hoping Amelie would return quickly.

  Evandro settled himself down at the table, too, opposite her, pausing only to shrug off his jacket and hook it around the back of a spare chair, loosening his tie thereafter. The casual way in which he did it made the atmosphere informal in a way that contrasted starkly with his brusque, businesslike formality from the library that morning.

  * * *

  ‘So,’ Evandro said, easing back into the padded chair, ‘am I making progress, do you think? Being a good father?’

  He let his eyes rest on the woman who had stood up to him without hesitation or diffidence to make it clear what fatherhood was all about.

  She held her ground now, too, as she answered him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said plainly. ‘Amelie became noticeably more at ease with you as our walk progressed.’

  He saw her pause for a moment, and take a breath.

  ‘She is bound to be a little shy at first, but if you draw her out, praise her, encourage her, she will blossom, I know she will.’

  He heard the warmth in her voice—and something more than warmth. He frowned inwardly. It had almost been a plea.

  Now, why should that be?

  The musing question hung in his head for a moment, and then she was speaking again.

  ‘I hope,’ she said, more hesitantly now, ‘that you don’t object to the idea of my teaching Amelie outside of the schoolroom sometimes?’

  He waved a hand—not to silence her, but in an expansive gesture. ‘If today is an example of your approach, I’m fine with that.’ He paused, then continued, ‘Overall I’m fine, Miss Ayrton, with what you are doing and achieving with Amelie.’

  He paused again, conscious that there was something he must say. Something he owed her.

  ‘I apologise if I was...brusque...this morning. You must understand...’ He felt a frown form on his face. ‘I am new to all this.’ He fastened his eyes on hers, intent on getting his next point clearly across to her. ‘My absence from Amelie’s life so far has not been with my consent. She has finally come here to live, however, and I shall be doing my best to give her the safe and happy childhood she deserves—the kind of childhood you so eloquently urged me to provide.’

  He saw her colour slightly, noticing almost absently that it brought a discernible improvement to her pale cheeks. Out of nowhere, he found himself wishing she was wearing someth
ing less nondescript than the beige knee-length skirt and indifferently styled matching blouse which did nothing for her.

  No one should be allowed to look so dowdy, he thought with passing disapproval.

  Then she was speaking, and his thoughts went from her lacklustre appearance to what she was saying.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was stating the obvious,’ she replied, in a quiet, but far from diffident way, ‘but you see the children of divorced parents can often become—’

  She stopped abruptly, and Evandro frowned. ‘Become what?’ he prompted.

  ‘Invisible,’ she answered flatly.

  She dropped her eyes, looking down at her hands, folded in her lap, the knuckles suddenly white.

  His frown deepened. Clearly this was not just about Amelie...

  ‘You say that,’ he said slowly, his eyes not leaving her, ‘as if you have experience of it yourself?’

  Hazel eyes lifted suddenly to his.

  No, not hazel alone. Hazel with a flash of forest green in the depths.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in that plain way she had. But only that one word.

  ‘Tell me more,’ he commanded.

  It was important, he told himself, that he understood what might be affecting Amelie.

  Then he gave a quick shake of his head. ‘I apologise—I do not mean to speak so brusquely. But I am used to giving orders.’ His face twisted. ‘I am not a man of airs and graces—I speak as I find. But for all that...’ he drew breath ‘...please explain, if you will. For Amelie’s sake.’

  He saw her expression flicker, but whether it was at his words or memories of her own he could not tell. Then she was speaking again, and he could see her fingers tighten in her lap.

  ‘Children know when they are not wanted,’ she said, her voice low. ‘And they learnt to...to adapt their behaviour accordingly. So—’

  She broke off, and for a moment Evandro assumed she was reluctant to say more. Then he realised she had seen Amelie, as he now had, emerging from the palazzo, followed by one of the maids carrying a tray of refreshments.