Gianni's Pride. KIM LAWRENCE

scandalised by the indifference—it seemed a criminal waste of a kitchen she would have lived in, given the chance—admitted she enjoyed cooking.

      ‘Well, the freezer’s full of ready meals, but if you want to cook anything from scratch go for it,’ her employer had offered, pulling open the door of a well-stocked store cupboard that made Miranda’s eyes widen and saying vaguely, ‘There’s stuff here. A friend brought in some things—I was going to teach myself the basics.’ She gave an attractive self-deprecating grimace and admitted, ‘But I never actually … well, anyway, feel free. There’s a local farm shop and a terrific fruit and veg man who calls … Quite cute actually, if you’re not spoken for …?’

      Miranda admitted she was not but did not go into detail and the other woman, respecting her privacy, had not pushed it.

      Pushing away the memory of the conversation with a lot more success than she had had with the surreal events of this morning, Miranda squared her shoulders and reached for the door handle.

      She walked in at the moment Gianni Fitzgerald tipped a dustpan full of broken crockery into one of the neatly labelled recycling boxes set beside the open stable door. Liam was sitting on a kitchen chair swinging his legs and patting the head of one of the dogs, a shaggy lurcher.

      The child’s dark hair was damp, his cherubic face shiny and clean. He looked wholesome and delicious. His father, who also had damp hair, did not look wholesome, but he did look delicious.

      Rampantly delicious, she decided, taking the opportunity while unobserved to work out what it was beside his startling male beauty that made her skin prickle when she looked at him—and she didn’t even like all that macho stuff! Miranda told herself that it was simple scientific curiosity that made her want to study him, though it was hard to call the hollow achy feeling in the pit of her stomach scientific.

      She swallowed to ease the tightness in her dry throat. She couldn’t think she was the only female whose brain shut down in his vicinity—presumably Gianni Fitzgerald produced a similar visceral response in any female with a pulse. Was it the Latin thing …? Half Italian, he’d said, but she could see precious little of the Celtic heritage he had claimed in his dark toned features. His dark hair slicked back from his broad brow was still wet. The sleek style emphasised the beautiful severity of his lean, hard-boned, classically proportioned face.

      Dressed casually in a loose-fitting black tee shirt—the loose cut did nothing to disguise the lean, muscular torso she knew it covered—and faded jeans that clung to his long, muscular thighs, he oozed a raw sexuality that had nothing to do with what he was wearing and everything to do with the man himself.

      As if feeling her gaze, Gianni turned his head. Caught staring at his bottom, Miranda lifted her chin to an angle of mute defiance and adopted a ‘so hang me’ expression that made his mouth quirk slightly at the corners as he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement of the gesture and allowed his dark, long-lashed eyes to travel in a slow, comprehensive sweep up from her toes until he reached her face.

      At this point their glances connected and Miranda, who had been enduring the scrutiny, glimpsed something that moved like silvered fire deep in his midnight-dark eyes.

      She could not define what she had seen, it had only been there for a fraction of a second, but her body wasn’t dealing in names. It reacted indiscriminately, sending a wave of scorching heat through her body.

      Whatever this man had, clothes were no protection, she mused as she tugged fretfully at the neck of her shirt, unwittingly loosing the top two mother-of-pearl buttons.

      Gianni’s eyes went to the deep vee of milk-pale smooth skin revealed, hardly what could be termed provocative, but his body responded with a disproportionate pulse of hunger that slammed through his body before concentrating in a hard ache of frustrated desire in his groin.

      He swallowed hard, annoyed by his lack of self-control, and tipped his head in exaggerated approval, resorting to strained banter in an effort to disguise his reaction while recognising an equally strong need to rationalise it.

      ‘I hardly recognised you with your clothes on, cara,’ he drawled, and watched the angry colour fly to her smooth cheeks.

      A man woke up next to a beautiful woman and the inevitable happened. It was no mystery, nothing more complicated than physical hunger, nothing a cold shower … another cold shower would not cure.

      Before Miranda could respond with a suitable degree of scorn to this worn-out cliché—it was always harder to deliver scorn when your face was the colour of a post box; this man was dangerous—Gianni’s attentions switched abruptly to his son.

      ‘No, stay where you are, Liam, until I check out the floor …’ The rest of the sentence was delivered in Italian and Miranda was fascinated to hear the child clearly as bilingual as his father, reply in the same tongue.

      Unexpected emotion tightened in Miranda’s throat as she watched them, the sternness leaving Gianni’s face as he bent down to the chair, spanned the child’s waist with his big hands and lifted him down, pushing him in the direction of the open door.

      ‘I’m hungry!’

      Gianni, whose routine meant he was out of the house before his son took breakfast—he rarely had time for anything himself other than a double espresso and a bagel—paused before reaching for the tin that he recalled sweet-toothed Lucy kept filled with biscuits. It was empty.

      ‘Dio.’ His long fingers beat out an impatient tattoo on the granite work surface as he experienced an unaccustomed stab of indecision and doubt. For a man who stayed cool while those around him went into meltdown it was an uncomfortable experience.

      Small wonder, he reflected grimly, Clare had looked aghast when he’d told her he planned to spend some time alone with Liam. The nanny had probably wondered if she’d get the child back in one piece. It might have been better for everyone concerned if she’d come right out and said he didn’t have a clue.

      He sighed through his nose and squared his shoulders. His time might be better spent proving her wrong rather than feeling sorry for himself. For once he had the quality time with his son that always seemed in short supply.

      ‘Where are the biscuits … bread …?’

      Miranda watched as he looked around the room with the air of a man who expected someone to materialise and produce what he required out of thin air.

      Seeing this self-assured man look at a loss actually made her feel a little less antagonistic towards him. Perhaps in his world that was what happened, Miranda speculated. He certainly had the arrogance of someone who was accustomed to giving orders and expecting people to jump.

      Miranda didn’t jump, but she did walk across to the well-stocked fridge and pull out a carton of milk from the shelf. Not because she felt the need to rush to his rescue, but she could hardly let the little boy go hungry just because his father was a bossy, ungrateful control freak with, admittedly, a very nice bottom and a way of looking at her that made her feel jittery and defensive.

      She found the plastic tumbler she was looking for in the second cupboard she tried and, filling it, handed it without a word to Gianni.

      ‘Perhaps that will keep him going until breakfast?’

      Gianni waited for the lecture on child nutrition. In his experience it was a rare woman who could resist the opportunity to display her superior knowledge, and when it didn’t come he tipped his head in silent acknowledgement.

      He stood guard until Liam had finished the glass of milk before wiping the milky moustache from his upper lip and nodding his permission for him to go outside into the yard.

      Positioning himself by the door so that he could keep one eye on his son, he folded his arms across his chest and watched while Lucy’s house sitter began to prepare breakfast.

      ‘Can I do anything to help?’

      Miranda adjusted the flame on the grill and, still holding her hair from her face with her forearm, lifted her head. ‘No.’ Then,