The Nanny and the Millionaire: Promoted: Nanny to Wife / The Italian Tycoon and the Nanny / The Millionaire's Nanny Arrangement

‘They must have died very young?’ His gaze pinned her like a laser.

She had to be careful here. ‘Yes,’ she replied briefly.

‘Okay.’ Clearly he thought she was running away from something. ‘So where do you come from? Married, engaged, any involvement?’

She looked out the window at the blossoming jacarandas, realising she was shaking a little inside. ‘I was born and reared in Brisbane.’

‘Surely Riley was, too?’ he asked in a dry, almost mocking voice.

She felt very much on edge yet strangely more vividly aware than she had ever been in her life. ‘Of course.’ She wasn’t about to discuss hers and Riley’s dysfunctional childhoods. ‘I’m not involved with anyone except Riley. He’s quite enough. He’s asthmatic as you’ve seen. The dry air out here is supposed to be beneficial to asthmatics.’

He had removed his akubra when they came in the door, so now she had learned he had a fine head of hair, black and shiny as a crow’s wing. It was brushed straight back from a distinctive widow’s peak that lent a surprising rakishness to balance out the severity. She started to panic thinking perhaps she was giving him too much attention.

He didn’t appear to notice, so she relaxed a little. ‘I’ve seen cases of a complete cure,’ he was saying. ‘I don’t know, but it seems to me Riley’s condition has an emotional component. He’s a fine-looking boy, but he’s on the frail side.’

It was perfectly true. Even so, her blue eyes flashed. ‘I’m hoping to change that. I’ve had him with me since our father died but it wasn’t working out. I taught at a private girl’s school. I often had early and after-school commitments. It was difficult with Riley, difficult to find minders. Then there was his asthma. People don’t like the responsibility.’

‘One can understand that. So you decided to come a thousand miles West to see if you could find a job as a governess on a station?’

‘That was the general idea,’ she said wryly. Did he have to make it sound as though she had applied for two seats on a space shuttle?

‘But surely being a schoolteacher, Ms Devlin, you know hiring is unlikely in vacation time? It’s almost that.’

She had been shooting glances at him, now she actually allowed her eyes to rest openly on his face; at his remarkable eyes, at his mouth, at his nose and sculpted chin. It was an exciting face, if a bit on the imperious side. He looked what he was, a powerful man. She judged him around thirty-two—thirty-four? ‘I’d heard station folk like their children tutored vacations or not,’ she said, trying to make it sound like she was one jump ahead. ‘It really does pay to be ahead of the curriculum, especially when it’s time to go off to boarding school.’

‘Come on, you took a big risk.’ He cut through to the truth.

She shrugged. ‘Maybe, but I had to do it. Can you help me?’

His face assumed a considering expression. ‘How old is Riley?’ he asked. ‘Seven? He seems very intelligent for his age.’

‘He is,’ she said, showing her pride. ‘My father …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Yours and Riley’s father, yes?’ he prompted, giving her another one of his assessing looks.

‘I find it pretty upsetting to talk about—our father,’ she said. His eyes had such a piercing brilliance she felt they sliced through all her defensive layers.

‘I don’t know your surname, Marissa.’

‘It’s Devlin. I thought I told you.’

‘So you did.’ There was a lick of mockery in his voice.

‘Were you trying to catch me out at something?’ she challenged.

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, the name of Riley’s real father,’ she said, a little bitterly. ‘I repeat. Riley is my half brother.’

‘You’re remarkably alike.’

‘Why wouldn’t we be?’

‘May I ask how old you are?’ His gaze was very straight.

‘Would you believe twenty-eight?’ She felt very tightly wound. He was having that effect on her. Worse, he knew it.

‘No, I wouldn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t look like you’re all that long out of high school.’

‘University,’ she corrected. ‘I have a B.A. and Bachelor of Education. I taught at Saint Catherine’s College for Girls in Brisbane, grades 10 and 12. Easily checked out. Besides I have on my person at least in my bag a glowing reference from the Headmistress, Dr Eleanor Bell, a leading educationalist. Do you want to see it?’

‘Why not?’ He held out his hand, a very elegantly formed hand, darkly tanned, lean and strong, able to transmit electric charges at will.

She reached into her satchel bag and produced the reference from a zipped side pocket where she kept papers.

He took it, dark eyes hooded as he scanned the lines. ‘Very impressive,’ he said finally. He had the sort of voice that captivated the ear; dark, resonant, classy accent, no western drawl. ‘I do hope you didn’t write it yourself?’

‘You shouldn’t say things like that.’ She didn’t try to hide her little flash of hostility.

He looked deep into her blue eyes. ‘Women lie about all sorts of things.’

‘People lie.’ His corresponding flash of antagonism registered. It would do no good at all to offend him. ‘I was a good teacher,’ she said, more respectfully. ‘I’m teaching Riley as we go. I think I’m safe in saying his general knowledge for his age is remarkable. My father.’ Once again she faltered.

‘Why is it you begin and can’t go on?’

‘Pain,’ she shot back, still not able to fully control the flare of hostility, that alarmingly had a sexual component. ‘Pain can annihilate. It can come at you right out of the blue. It can hit you with such force—’ She broke off. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

‘None that I’m going to talk about,’ he answered, his voice clipped.

‘Then you’re like me.’ She glanced out of the window at the broad sun baked street.

Instead of answering, he asked another question. ‘So you’re twenty … three?’

‘Yes.’ She was so busy trying to absorb all her impressions of him, she hadn’t considered what impression she was making.

An irresistible lure, had been Holt’s first thought. A lone young woman Outback with a small child, her looks quite enchanting; soft, tender, very refined. She was hopelessly out of place. She looked like the heroine of some romantic novel, undeniably a beauty and he enjoyed beauty. Her tumble of silky blue-black curls pleased him, the vivid, black lashed blue eyes, the flawless complexion that would need a good deal of protection from the sun. Her aura had a special innocence that stirred unfamiliar feelings, vaguely tender. At the same time she was powerfully, effortlessly, seductive but seemingly unaware of it.

Though she couldn’t be, he thought cynically. The birth of a child hadn’t changed her body. Taller than average and very slender, it had a virginal look to it. But then he had heard the boy call her Ma. He had seen the way the boy looked up at her. Then there was the big age difference. Either Riley was an afterthought or Ms Marissa Devlin’s teenage mistake. Either way she had had a hard time. But she and the boy had a valiant look. He liked that. That lecher, Pearson, had been about to add to her traumas, only he had happened along. Pearson was a good stockman but he would have to go if he ever again stepped out of line.

Marissa, for her part, had never experienced anything like his scrutiny. With his eyes on her, it was akin to losing herself. Something not easy to cope with. ‘I’ll be twenty-four next April,’ she said crisply, in an effort to sound more professional. ‘Do you think you can help me, Mr McMaster?’ There was a glimmer of desperation in her eyes.

‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘I have a child.’ His voice didn’t soften.

Wasn’t that a bit odd?

‘Her name is Georgia. She’s six going on sixty, an old soul. Her previous governesses, two in quick succession, weren’t a big success. I had to terminate their services. At the moment her aunt is supervising her lessons, but her aunt’s home is in Sydney. She’ll want to be moving on. I’m divorced by the way.’ He spoke as if his memory of his marriage was pretty hazy.

Marissa, of course, knew about the divorce, but she wasn’t fool enough to mention she and Deidre had had a fairly in-depth conversation about him.