Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals: Seduced into Her Boss's Service / Wearing the De Angelis Ring / The Surprise De Angelis Baby. CATHY WILLIAMS
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eyelashes were so long they brushed her cheeks, the eyes staring right back at her were huge, almond-shaped and as dark as night.
‘I don’t want to be here either.’ Flora scowled and folded her arms. ‘It’s not my fault Nana had to drop me off.’
A surly, rebellious child was more what Sunny felt she could deal with and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. ‘You’ve brought all your toys to play with?’ She eyed the collection of high-end gadgets and wondered how many other children of eight or nine walked around with thousands of pounds’ worth of electronics to amuse them.
Faced with this unexpected job, she had had no time to ponder over the weird fact that the billionaire Stefano Gunn had a child. He might feature in the Financial Times with the regularity of a subscription holder but she had to concede that he was very private when it came to his personal life because, as far as she knew, no one was aware of the fact that he had a daughter.
For that she owed him more credit than she had otherwise thought.
‘I’m bored with them.’ Flora yawned extravagantly without putting her hands over her mouth.
‘How old are you?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘You may think you’re tough but you can never outdo me when it comes to being tough,’ Sunny said honestly, which provoked a fleeting spark of interest. ‘How old are you?’
‘Nearly nine.’
‘Good.’ She beamed and walked towards the files she had lugged into the room with her. ‘In that case, if you’re bored with your toys you can help me with my work...’
* * *
Long legs stretched out at an angle, Stefano did his utmost to stifle a yawn.
This entire situation could have been handled by one of his employees. In fact, had it not been for his mother, this entire situation would not have been happening in the first place.
He had a perfectly competent team of in-house lawyers and had they not been up to the job of dealing with this particular slice of intricate patent law then he would have immediately gone to the biggest and the best.
Instead, here he was, at his mother’s instigation, sitting in the offices of a company that was so new that it had barely left the embryo stage.
‘Jane’s daughter works there. You remember my friend Jane, don’t you?’
No, he didn’t. With those opening words three weeks ago, Stefano had been able to second-guess where his mother was going and Jane’s daughter, whoever she was, was going to feature in the scenario.
It wasn’t the first time Angela Gunn had tried to set him up. Ever since his ex-wife had died, driving too fast, having had too much to drink in a car that was way too sporty for winding New Zealand back roads, his mother had been keen to find him a suitable woman who could provide, as she was fond of telling him, a stable, nurturing maternal influence in his daughter’s life.
‘A girl needs her mother,’ she had repeatedly said in a wistful voice. ‘Flora barely knows you and she misses Alicia...that’s why she’s finding it so hard to adjust...’
Stefano had had to agree with his mother on at least one count and that was that he barely knew his daughter, although he always made sure to refrain from telling his mother just why that was the case.
His marriage to Alicia had been brief and disastrous. Having met young, what should have been no more than a passing fling had turned into a marriage of necessity when she had fallen pregnant. On purpose? That was a question he had never directly asked, but was there really any need? Alicia had come from New Zealand to study and had decided to stay on to work in one of the larger London hospitals as a nurse. He had met her there when he had suffered three broken ribs while playing rugby and the rest, he had always thought, was history. He had lusted after her, she had played coy and hard to get and then, when he had eventually got her into bed, safe in the knowledge that she was taking the Pill and, as a nurse, would be only too aware of the importance of making sure she stuck to the rigid regime, she had had an accident.
‘I remember having a tummy upset,’ she had told him, winding her arms around his neck and snuggling against him while he felt the bottom of his world drop away, ‘and I don’t know if you know but sometimes, if you have a stomach bug, the Pill doesn’t work...’
He had married her. He had walked up the aisle with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to meet his executioner. They hadn’t been married for five minutes before he realised the enormity of his mistake. Alicia had changed overnight. With free rein to more money than she could ever know in a lifetime, she had taken to spending with an exuberance that bordered frenetic. She had begun demanding that he spend more time with her. She had complained incessantly about the hours he worked and thrown hissy fits if he was late back by more than two minutes.
He had gritted his teeth and told himself that pregnancy hormones were to blame, even though he knew that they weren’t.
When Flora was born, her demands had become more insistent. She needed constant, round the clock attention. Their London mansion became a battleground and the less he wanted to return to it, the more spiteful she became in her verbal attacks.
And then she began, as she took great pleasure in telling him, to find stuff to do because she was bored and he was never around.
He found out what that stuff was when he returned to the house early one afternoon and caught her in bed with another man. The fact that he had not felt a shred of jealousy had been the clearest indication that he needed a divorce.
What should have been a straightforward separation of ways, for he had been more than willing to give in to her strident, excessive demands for the sake of his daughter, had turned into a six-year nightmare. She had grabbed the money on the table and fled back to New Zealand, from where she had imperiously controlled his visiting rights, which, from the other side of the world, had been difficult, to say the least.
He had done his utmost to fight her for more reasonable custody but it had been impossible. She had thwarted him in every way conceivable and only her premature death had granted him the child he had fought so hard to know, but in reality had only seen a handful of times.
Now he had Flora but the years had returned him a daughter he didn’t know, a daughter who resented him, who was sullen and uncooperative.
A daughter who, having now lived with him for nearly a year, needed, as his mother kept insisting, a mother figure.
He looked at Katherine Kerr, who was frowning at the various company accounts he had brought with him.
‘You mustn’t worry about your daughter.’ She caught his eye and smiled warmly. ‘I’ve left her in the capable hands of one of our brightest stars.’
Katherine Kerr was intelligent, attractive and empathetic. His mother would be hoping that they would click, that his next step would be to ask her out to dinner. It wasn’t going to happen.
‘I’m not worried about Flora,’ he drawled. ‘I’m worried that if we don’t put this one to bed soon I’m going to miss my five-thirty meeting at the Savoy Grill.’
‘It all looks fairly straightforward.’ Katherine closed the file and sat back. ‘If you’re happy to leave it with us, then I can assure you we’ll do an excellent job for you, Mr Gunn.’
Stefano looked at his watch and stood up. If the woman was looking for things to go further, then she was going to be disappointed. ‘If you tell me where I can find my daughter, Miss Kerr, then I won’t keep you any longer. I take it you now have all the relevant information you need to proceed with this patent case?’
Yes, she did. Yes, it was a pleasure doing business with him. She hoped that should he need any further legal work, he would consider their firm.
Leaving the office, Stefano decided that he would have to gently tell his mother that she would have to curb her desire to find him