Contracted For The Spaniard's Heir. CATHY WILLIAMS
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and gave him a little half-shrug.
‘You seem to imply that you’re familiar with children.’ The dark eyes watching her were careful and speculative as he continued to command the conversation, thinking on his feet as he talked, observing—something he was extremely good at. ‘Have you any of your own?’
‘I’m twenty-five. I would have to have started very early.’
‘And you’re not married...’
‘How on earth do you know that?’
‘No ring on your finger. Jake took to you as well as the dogs. If he hadn’t, he would never have allowed you to walk him back to the house. He would have scarpered. It’s obvious he trusted you. He was also holding your hand when he returned.’ He tilted his head to one side and inspected her in silence for a few long seconds. ‘None of this may seem like much of a big deal to you, Ellie, but I can assure you that it is. Since he came over here, he has found it difficult to...settle.’
‘Can I ask what happened?’
Luca’s initial response to that was to shut down, because answering questions posed by other people was seldom within his remit, unless those questions were work-orientated. Personal questions were off-limits. This was a personal question, but for once he wasn’t going to drop the shutters, because he was in a jam and he was beginning to think that part of the solution could be sitting right there in front of him.
‘His parents were killed in a car accident,’ he intoned flatly. ‘Freak situation. They left Jake an orphan. By virtue of the fact that I was Johnny’s closest blood relative—his cousin, to be precise, not to mention Jake’s godfather—and the fact that Ruby, his wife, had no close family members, I inherited Jake.’
‘So you’re Jake’s second cousin as well as his godfather...’
Luca frowned. ‘As I have just said.’
‘And yet, despite that connection, things must be a bit strained between you for him to have run away.’
Was he being called to account? For a few seconds, Luca’s mind went blank because being called to account was not something with which he was familiar.
‘A bit strained?’ he questioned in a voice that would have had grown men quaking, a voice he had perfected over the years, one which was very handy when it came to controlling anyone who had the temerity to breach his barriers.
The slender, dark-haired gamine sitting opposite him wasn’t quaking.
‘It happens,’ she said, her voice rich with sympathy. ‘Just because you’re family doesn’t always mean that the relationship is close.’ She thought of her own relationship with her sister, which was anything but close even though, once upon a time, they had been far closer than they were now.
‘Jake and his parents,’ Luca said heavily, ‘went to America to live. Keeping in touch was difficult.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘I’m an extremely busy man.’ Luca heard the irritation in his voice and was exasperated with himself for launching into explanations that were, frankly, unnecessary.
‘It wasn’t meant as a criticism,’ Ellie murmured, lowering her eyes and thinking that that was exactly how it had been meant—because what she was deducing was that Luca would have been way too busy making money to remember some cousin on the other side of the world.
‘The fact is that we have both found ourselves in a situation where adjustments have had to be made and Jake has found those adjustments somewhat difficult.’
‘Poor, poor kid. No wonder he’s had trouble settling down. I’ve come across that sort of thing a couple of times, usually involving kids who have come to London from another country, and in one instance to stay with a distant relative they really didn’t know very well. Adjusting was an issue.’
She sat up straighter, on more solid ground now that she was in possession of a few facts. ‘I don’t suppose...’ she had nothing to lose by speaking her mind ‘...it’s helped that he’s been farmed out to a nanny and a housekeeper, and heaven only knows who else, when all he probably needs is one-on-one time with you as the adult responsible for his welfare.’
‘Is that a criticism?’ Luca asked coldly. ‘Because I’ve been sensing a few of those under the demure replies and the polite questions.’
Ellie dug her heels in and shrugged. ‘I can tell you don’t appreciate it,’ she said eventually, when the silence threatened to become too tense, ‘but I’m just speaking my mind. I’m a teacher, and I have quite a bit of experience when it comes to young kids.’
‘So you’re a teacher? That’s very interesting.’ Luca dropped his eyes and doodled something on the pad in front of him.
‘Is it? Why?’
‘I feel I would have worked that out eventually,’ he murmured, and she reddened.
‘Why is that, Mr Ross?’
‘Luca.’
Ellie stared at him, lips tightly pressed together, and just like that Luca smiled.
Her expression—thorough disapproval even though she was let down by having such a delicate, feminine face, all huge green eyes, short, straight nose and a mouth that was a perfect Cupid’s bow. The more defiantly she tilted her chin, narrowed her eyes and aimed for severe, the more amused he was.
‘I’m not seeing the joke.’ Ellie’s heart was slamming against her rib cage, and not just because she knew that he was laughing at her. That smile was so sexy and, just like that, she glimpsed someone other than the ice-cold billionaire who had rubbed her up the wrong way the second she had met him and who represented everything she had no time for.
And this someone other was dangerous. She felt it. This someone other wasn’t just drop-dead gorgeous. He was sinfully sexy, the sort of sexy that should come with a health warning.
‘You should see your face,’ Luca drawled. ‘Tight lips, pursed mouth, disapproving eyes. Could you be anything but a school teacher?’
He made that sound like a source of amusement instead of consternation, which somehow made his criticism all the more offensive.
‘Maybe most of them are too scared,’ she snapped with reckless abandon.
‘I don’t care for that tone of voice.’ Cool eyes fastened on her flushed face. He realised that she had signally made no effort to try and impress him from the second she had walked into his house, just as he realised that most people did, which was something he took for granted.
‘And I don’t care for the fact that you think it’s okay to sit there and laugh at me. I’m a teacher, an excellent teacher, and if you think that it’s hilarious that I speak my mind then too bad.’
‘Not hilarious,’ Luca said slowly, speculatively. ‘Refreshing.’
His mobile buzzed and he took the call, which lasted a matter of seconds. Not for a second did his eyes leave her face.
Ellie had the strangest sensation of intense discomfort under that scrutiny. It was as if her body was on hyper-alert, sensitive in ways she couldn’t quite understand. She felt restless in her own skin and yet frozen to the spot, barely able to breathe.
‘The dogs have gone. I’m sure their owners will be overjoyed to have them home.’ He sat back and inclined his head to one side. ‘Can I ask you something, Ellie?’
Ellie felt that he would anyway, whatever answer she gave, so she tilted her head to one side and didn’t say anything.
‘Why are you walking dogs when you have a job?’
That wasn’t what she had been expecting and she went bright red.
‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything,’