by Maggie Cox
She’d heard it said that an Italian man’s face told the story of his life. If that was so, Dante di Andrea had a lifetime of experience and confidence and knowing written across his. Along with his smooth bronzed skin and piercing green eyes, he had an allure that could captivate a woman in an instant, and no doubt an inbuilt arrogance that he took as his God-given right. Yes, Bliss had already seen ample signs of that arrogance. She sighed.
Renata was asleep. When Bliss experienced the full weight of that little warm body sagging against her, she capitulated to an instinctive urge to smooth those whisper-soft curls away from her velvet forehead, then planted a tiny kiss on the child’s dampened cheek. If she didn’t hand her back to her intoxicating uncle very soon, Bliss would be in danger of being charged with kidnapping. Why did her maternal instincts have to kick in now with a child who was completely unrelated to her? Why couldn’t they have waited until she was in love and expecting a child of her own? Feeling an almost overwhelming upsurge of emotion inside her, she swallowed to ease the sudden painful cramping in her throat. Where is your head, Bliss Maguire? You know that will never happen!
‘What happened to your sister’s husband…if you don’t mind me asking?’
Dante didn’t want to talk about that now. The pain of Tatiana’s loss was so great that it had affected every one of them like the aftermath of an earthquake. Dante, his brother Stefano, and their parents, Antonio and Isabella—they were all disorientated, like shocked survivors dazedly picking over the remnants of what used to be their homes. One minute Matt Ward had been celebrating a considerable promotion at work, and the next he had been ploughed down by a drunken driver while on his way home to Tatiana and his baby. II mio Dio! His baby sister had been so happy and in love.
Dante had been envious of the joy she had found with the young Englishman, and considered it highly unlikely that he would ever find the same joy with a woman. Not when his considerable fortune and dedication to his work threw up obstacles that seemed insurmountable. Dante wasn’t interested in women who were attracted by his wealth and position as head of the family business. But it seemed gold-diggers were the only type of women who came into his sphere. It had made him wish sometimes that he could have been as carefree as Tatiana, allowed to come to the UK to study and live an ordinary life that didn’t require great responsibility and the level of commitment that Dante had had to contend with. But now he had no cause for envy, only pain and regret that the great happiness Tatiana had enjoyed had been cruelly snatched away and this lovely child would never know her father.
As he momentarily dug his fingers into his brow to try and stifle his distress Dante was startled to feel the consoling press of the Englishwoman’s hand through his suit sleeve. Along with the scent of vanilla and honey, her touch sent ripples of seductive sensations along his already highly sensitised nerve endings.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said softly. ‘You must be anxious to see your sister. Here, take the baby. She’s asleep now.’
Wordlessly Dante took the child, tucking her in close to his broad chest in his exquisitely designed jacket and shirt, feeling his heart swell at the soft, warm body and dreading the anxiety on his sister’s face when he appeared at her bedside. Tatiana had always been so open and so trusting. Now her joy in life was gone. Dante longed for a way to bring it back.
Suddenly distracted by a pair of shimmering eyes the astonishing colour and vivid hue of violets, he willingly focused all his attention on the beautiful girl seated beside him. Her white silk blouse was damp and crumpled at the front where Renata had lain her head against her chest and her rich black hair was slipping strand by silky strand loose from her ponytail. The hotly sensuous charge that surged through his body like a streak of sultry summer lightning as a result of his intense examination was too disturbing for words.
‘Grazie. I was told that you work in the store and that you travelled in the ambulance with my sister. You must allow me to pay for a taxi so you can return.’
‘I can get myself a taxi, but I really don’t want you to pay.’ Bliss got to her feet and, disturbingly, Dante did likewise. As he towered over her once again she couldn’t help feeling consumed by his presence. The man was so attractive and so impossible to be ambivalent towards that it wasn’t funny. To counteract the effect, she deliberately focused all her attention on the sleeping child in his arms, secretly thinking that they made a touching tableau—the handsome, indomitable uncle and his beautiful baby niece. It cut her to the quick to realise she would probably not set eyes on either of them ever again.
‘At least leave me your address, Miss Maguire. My sister will no doubt want to get in touch with you to thank you for all your help.’
Bliss shrugged to hide her sudden awkwardness. ‘She doesn’t have to thank me. It was my pleasure to be able to help. If I want to ring and find out how she’s doing, it’s Mrs Ward, isn’t it?’
‘Tatiana.’
‘What a lovely name.’
‘And Bliss? Where did that come from?’ Raising one dark eyebrow with an almost roguish air, Dante smiled. A wave of heat sailed through Bliss’s body and back again.
‘Maybe it’s what my parents were looking for at the time.’ Her deadpan humour clearly didn’t amuse him. His raised eyebrow was replaced by a distinct frown.
’Felicità.’
‘Pardon?’
‘That is “Bliss” in my language. Felicità. But I think I prefer it in English.’
Oh, my Lord! Do you have to smile at me like that? Bliss felt as if she’d been locked in a pitch-black room only to be let out blinking into the blinding gaze of the sun. What on earth was God thinking of when he made a man as devastatingly irresistible as Dante di Andrea? What he’d said was perfectly innocent, but in that sexy Italian intonation it had sounded to Bliss as if he were making love to her with words. Crossing her arms in front of her shirt, she anxiously strove to conceal the fact that her nipples had shockingly peaked to shameful steel buds inside her bra and the sharp tingling sensation that ensued in them was almost bordering on pain. ‘Well. I wish both you and your sister and little Renny all the best. I’ll be going now.’
‘Your address, Miss Maguire. Please?’ He’d juggled the child against his chest and produced a small notepad and pen from his inside jacket pocket. Wordlessly Bliss took it and scribbled down her address and phone number, though it was only after she handed back the notepad that she wondered why she’d capitulated so easily. She’d told him thanks weren’t necessary and she’d meant it. Now she’d gone back on her word and maybe Dante would think that she expected something because of it? She hoped not. She’d hate him to imagine that she’d helped his sister in the hope of some kind of reward.
‘Well…goodbye.’
With an awkward little smile that a shy teenager would surely have despaired of, Bliss allowed herself one final glance at the stunning Italian and the equally beautiful little girl, then turned and walked quickly away towards the double-doored exit.
CHAPTER TWO
ALTHOUGH Bliss was convinced that the repetitive ringing sound that permeated her subconscious was a referee blowing the half-time whistle on a soccer match, it quickly transformed into the more insistent peal of a ringing telephone, and she rubbed at her eyes and dazedly sat up in bed. Reaching for the cordless receiver on the small oak cabinet beside her, she stifled a yawn before uttering a weary ‘yes’ into the mouthpiece.
‘Bliss Maguire?’
All drowsiness was banished in an instant and her violet eyes pinged wide open. If she wasn’t mistaken, that deeply knee-trembling pronunciation of her name belonged to the Italian hunk she’d met yesterday in the hospital. Dante di Andrea. Pushing her fingers shakily through her hair, Bliss concentrated hard on getting her jaw to work in order to reply. ‘This is she.’
‘It is Dante di Andrea speaking…you remember? From yesterday at the hospital?’
Did she remember? She’d replayed their meeting over and over in her he
ad like a videotape stuck on rewind. Especially when she’d rung the hospital only to be told that Tatiana Ward had been discharged to go home and was not being admitted as an in-patient or even transferred to a private hospital.
‘I remember.’ Somehow her voice had acquired a disturbingly husky quality and Bliss coughed a little to clear her throat. ‘Excuse me,’ she quickly apologised. ‘I found out that your sister was sent home. How is she today?’
‘Depressa ed afflitta. I am sorry…depressed and heartsick. I have ordered her to stay in bed for today. She has not been getting a lot of sleep lately under the circumstances. That is why she passed out in the store. Her husband died only six weeks ago and she is finding life very difficult at the moment.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘Can we meet?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Her heart had started to throb alarmingly and Bliss wondered for a moment if her brain were so addled, she’d simply misheard him.
‘I will be blunt with you, Miss Maguire. My sister needs some help. Matt—her husband—had no living parents and until my mother can get here from Italy again, she will be on her own with Renny and myself. I have taken some time off from my business to be with Tatiana, but I am no expert with children and until she fully recovers, she will need some help taking care of my niece.’
Pushing up the defiant shoestring straps on her silky cotton nightie, Bliss took a few moments to absorb what he was saying, surprise and trepidation vying equally for precedence inside her chest. Where was this leading? Was he asking her to come and help take care of Renata? Did he not realise she already had a job? Of course he did! He knew she worked at the store where his sister had fainted, which was how she had come to be at the hospital in the first place.
‘Mr di Andrea, if you are asking what I think you are asking, I’m afraid it’s impossible. Much as I think the little girl is utterly adorable, I have to work for my living. If your sister needed some help in the evening I might be able to—’
‘If you come and stay with Tatiana and Renny for a while until my mother comes from Italy, I will pay you a more than generous fee for your services and the disruption to your schedule. If your place of work will not grant you time off, then I will endeavour to acquire a better position for you somewhere else. I have lots of contacts in the business world, Miss Maguire. It will not be difficult.’
Bliss didn’t doubt that he had contacts, and that he could get her any job he damn well pleased. One brush with Dante di Andrea’s confident, self-assured persona and you knew straight away that he was a man who could move mountains if he had to. But did she really want to give up her job and her livelihood on the word of a man she had only just met, albeit only briefly? If things didn’t work out she could always temp, she supposed. She was used to using temporary work as a fall-back when things didn’t turn out as she’d hoped. If she was honest, retail really wasn’t her thing anyway, and if push came to shove she had just about enough money in the bank to tide her over for a very short while until she found another position. Her palm felt clammy where it clung too tightly to the phone.
‘You said “stay” with your sister. Could I not just come over in the mornings and stay until the evening, and then go home?’
‘Since her father has been gone, Renny wakes in the night sometimes. Tatiana is not in a fit state to see to the child properly on her own. Therefore it would be best if you packed a few things and came to stay indefinitely.’
‘Mr di Andrea…this may sound obvious, but have you thought about approaching a child-care agency for help?’
‘I do not want a stranger taking care of my niece!’ came back the vexed reply.
Puzzled, Bliss frowned. ‘But I’m a stranger. You only met me yesterday, remember?’
‘I could tell from the moment I saw you with her that you are a person my niece feels drawn to. Because you comforted her yesterday, she will remember you.’
‘But she didn’t seem to remember you, if you don’t mind my saying.’
There was a harsh indrawn breath at the other end of the phone. ‘I have not spent a lot of time with Tatiana since she had the child and therefore, yes…I am a virtual stranger to Renny. I have been busy with my business in Italy. Yesterday was the first time we were together since the funeral a month ago. I had to return almost immediately to Milan, along with my parents. My father is not in good health himself and my mother worries about leaving him on his own. None of us like the fact that Tatiana has basically had to cope with this tragedy by herself and I am working on finding a solution to that, believe me. In the meantime, until my mother can arrange acceptable nursing care for my father and travel to England, Renny and Tatiana need all the help I can provide for them.’
‘So you want to know if I will help?’ Shoving off the mulberry-coloured duvet, Bliss restlessly swung her legs off the edge of the bed and pushed her feet into her sheepskin-lined moccasins, still holding firmly onto the phone.
‘Sì. Will you help us, Miss Maguire…Bliss?’
He really didn’t have to ask again because Bliss had already made up her mind to accept the task. And if they made things difficult for her at the store to take the time off, she would see it as a clear sign that she really wasn’t meant to be there in the first place. God only knew what she was meant to be doing and she hoped that one day soon she would get a clue. In the meantime she would look forward to seeing the adorable Renata again. And if her thoughts leaned longingly towards seeing her handsome uncle again as well, then Bliss made no apology for that.
Tatiana Ward lived in a ground-floor apartment in Chelsea Harbour. When Dante had given her the address, Bliss had sucked in her breath and released a long, low whistle. It was a location that had at least a million-pound price tag just to sniff the air in that hallowed place—never mind live there! Thinking of her own one-bed flat in a notoriously run-down area, Bliss was suddenly struck with trepidation at the idea of accepting this unexpected job of nanny to a little girl whose connections were clearly in a different stratosphere from her own humble origins.
Bliss’s parents had never had much money. Her mother had suffered from serious bouts of depression all her life that had impeded her ability to work, and when Bliss was just sixteen her mother’s depression had finally shockingly driven her to take her own life. With her father already drinking his own life away, Bliss had gone out to work at sixteen to help support the two of them, but one day not long after her eighteenth birthday he had packed his bags and gone. He’d left no forwarding address, just a scrappy little note saying he was sorry for not turning out to be the father Bliss deserved and begging her not to try and find him. She’d long ago decided she had to make some sort of shaky settlement with her devastating past, but situations like the one she now found herself in were apt to test that decision to the hilt where her self-confidence was concerned. Her childhood had been an unmitigated disaster and nearly every memory she had of it hurt.
Now standing outside the front entrance to the apartment in Chelsea Harbour, Bliss determinedly reached down inside herself for some fresh courage, flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sleeve of her short leather jacket, then, without further ado, pressed the button on the intercom.
’Ciao!’
‘Mr di Andrea? It’s Bliss Maguire.’
‘Wait a minute, will you?’
Even though he’d answered the intercom, she was unprepared for the sight of Dante di Andrea with a serious-faced toddler hoisted on his hip, answering the door with what looked like a very strained smile. Noting some kind of cereal congealing on the front of his beautiful white shirt where the lovely Renata had obviously decided to share her breakfast with her uncle, Bliss seriously struggled to prevent the twitching of her lips into becoming a full-blown grin. She was pretty sure Dante would not appreciate it. But even though he was a little less than immaculate this morning, with his arresting green eyes and darkly brooding male beauty, the man could still engender a small riot of appreciatio
n from the opposite sex just by walking down the street.
‘Hello. Clearly a fan of oatmeal, I see. Shall I take her?’ Adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder, Bliss reached out for Renata. When the child willingly went into her arms, Dante murmured something in Italian that could have been either surprise or relief or both. ‘Come in, Miss Maguire. You have not arrived a moment too soon.’
The apartment was lovely—flooded with natural light, with maple wood floors and some very tasteful antiques that Bliss knew would have to look out once Renata really started getting into her stride. Leading her to a pair of long low leather couches with a glass coffee-table with wrought-iron legs positioned between them, Dante bade his visitor sit down. ‘I will change my shirt, then I will be back.’ With a wary glance at the little girl who was coiling her chubby fingers into Bliss’s shoulder-length dark hair with obvious fascination, he went out of the door again and left them alone.
Bliss occupied herself with amusing the child while she waited for Dante to return, her heart rate a little calmer now that she didn’t have to contend with glancing into those daunting green eyes. Lifting Renata onto her hip, she strolled across the wide expanse of beautiful maple floor to the window, gazing out at the vista of yachts and cruisers bobbing on the water with a soft sigh of appreciation.
‘What a lovely view you have, Renny. Aren’t you a lucky little girl?’ Then immediately remembering that the child’s father was dead, Bliss silently cursed her own tactlessness. But Renata was smiling up at her with those big innocent brown eyes, totally unaware of any dilemma, her chubby cheeks dimpling adorably as Bliss smiled back at her. Unable to resist, Bliss dropped a small butterfly kiss at the side of her pretty rosebud mouth and sighed.