CHAPTER ONE

      IT HAD been a dream of Claire’s to visit Venice one day. Magical, romantic Venice...the fairy-tale city floating on the sea.

      Now she was here, and after only two days of a planned week in Venice, working as a nanny, the dream trip of a lifetime had turned to disaster.

      She was broke, she’d lost her job and her employers were sending her back to London in disgrace!

      Worse, she’d missed out on a free flight back home to Australia.

      It was her own stupid fault for taking on the job in the first place. She’d had reservations from the start about the Danns, her English employers. The husband’s lingering gaze and the wife’s cold-eyed scrutiny should have warned her. But they’d been desperate for a temporary nanny at short notice, and she’d been desperate for her air fare back to Australia—which had been the lure they’d dangled—so she’d agreed.

      The two children, three-year-old Holly and four-month-old Edward, had clinched it. Their big blue eyes and adorable smiles would have melted the most steely heart.

      Her first two days in Venice had passed without warning of what was to come. Her employers—both London doctors—had attended conference sessions each day at their waterfront hotel overlooking the Venetian Lagoon while she’d cared for their two children.

      She’d taken them for leisurely walks along the bustling boat-lined promenade, explored the Grand Canal by water-bus and had wandered round St Mark’s Square, where the impressive arcaded buildings and the Byzantine splendour of the Basilica had taken her breath away. Holly, naturally enough, had been more interested in the pigeons.

      They’d even had a short gondola ride with the children’s parents, which she would have enjoyed far more if Hugo Dann hadn’t been surreptitiously eyeing her up and down from his seat opposite.

      It had been in St Mark’s Square on her second day, as Holly had been waving her arms around to keep the fluttering pigeons from landing on her head and shoulders, that Claire had first met the other Englishman. The one she’d noticed at breakfast the past two mornings at the hotel, sitting at a table by himself.

      On both occasions she’d tried her best not to stare at him, knowing he must be used to women ogling him and was probably conceited enough already. With his dark-eyed good looks, perfect physique and his air of easy self-confidence, he looked just the type who’d expect it.

      She’d come to loathe and despise those cool ladykiller types. Nigel had been a man like that, though he’d been fair and blue-eyed—a golden Apollo with dancing eyes and a devastating charm who’d made her feel that she was the only woman in the world. Only she hadn’t been. More fool Claire Malone for falling for his slick English charm in the first place!

      As the sexy Englishman had boldly approached her in the square later that second morning, she’d eyed him warily, her body tensing, stiffening in rejection. Or was it self-protection?

      It had annoyed her that she had to tilt her head back and look up a considerable way to meet him eye to eye. No doubt he loved that feeling of superiority and raw macho power. She’d drawn herself up to her full height of five feet seven inches. No man, least of all this lethal-eyed English Adonis, was going to make her feel all helpless and feminine!

      ‘I’ve seen you at breakfast at the hotel,’ he offered as an opening gambit, a far too friendly sparkle in his wide-set dark eyes. From Quadri’s famous café nearby the outdoor orchestra struck up with gusto, the wail of violins swirling round them in the limpid morning air.

      ‘Oh, really?’ There was no way she was going to admit that she’d noticed him. She didn’t want to notice him now, but she couldn’t very well avoid it. He was wearing the same shirt and jeans he’d been wearing at breakfast, a casual denim shirt that showed off his broad chest and impressive shoulders and thigh-hugging jeans that showed off—

      She snapped her gaze away. This man was dynamite! He positively radiated raw sexuality and strength.

      She wondered what he was doing alone here in Venice.

      Not that she cared. Men were out of her life from now on... Nigel had seen to that.

      From the opposite side of the piazza, the orchestra from Florian’s, the equally famous rival café, sprang to life with a rousing tune of its own, flooding the square with sound.

      ‘You’re here in Venice on your own? Apart from your children, I mean?’ The Englishman’s gaze flicked curiously to the sleeping baby strapped to Claire’s back and to the little girl who was now clinging to her skirt. Was he wondering how she could afford a trip to Venice with two kids? Or...did he have something else in mind?

      Her