The Billionaire's Christmas Cinderella. Carol Marinelli

best friends, Merida was far more of Naomi’s world than the other way around.

      And that said nothing against Merida. But she had parents, albeit awful ones, and a half-brother and half-sister, and cousins and grandparents.

      Naomi had...

      Merida.

      Her birth mother had wanted nothing whatsoever to do with her and Naomi had no clue who her father was. There had been a foster mum when she’d been a teenager that had been amazing but she’d taken a well-earned retirement in Spain, though they still corresponded. And there was another foster family that she still sent a Christmas card to.

      And of course, there were friends she had made along life’s way, but there was no family.

      None.

      Zip.

      ‘My mother gave me up for adoption,’ Naomi said, ‘but it never happened.’

      She tensed as she awaited the inevitable ‘Why?’ that even virtual strangers felt compelled to ask.

      It just made her feel worse.

      There were millions of families who wanted babies, surely?

      Or, ‘What about your grandparents, didn’t they want you?’

      It was hell having to explain that, no, her mother hadn’t fully relinquished her rights for a few years, which had held Naomi in the foster system. And, no, her grandparents hadn’t wanted to clear up their daughter’s mess.

      And that, no, there would be no tender reunion between mother and daughter.

      At the age of eighteen Naomi had tried.

      But her mother had remarried and wanted no reminder of her rebellious past.

      Thankfully, though, Abe didn’t ask.

      Instead, he watched her pinched face and two lines deepen between her dark blue eyes like a castle gate drawing up in defence. He thought of his own loud, brash family and the dramas and fights at times. He even thought back to his mother, and while there were no warm memories there, still there was history.

      He couldn’t fathom having no one.

      Yet he did not pry.

      And she seemed incredibly grateful for that.

      He watched as she visibly shook off dark thoughts and pushed out a smile.

      ‘So what sort of an uncle do you want to be?’ Naomi asked.

      Given what she’d just told him, he didn’t dust off the notion, instead he told her the truth. ‘I really haven’t given it much thought.’ Now he did. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t imagine that she’d want for anything...’ He’d made very sure of that. But as he’d combed through the contract and ensured decent chunks of access for his brother, there had been no thought of where he himself might fit in.

      ‘I’d like to be...’ Who examined it? Abe wondered. Who actually gave consideration to the type of uncle they wanted to be?

      She had made him do just that.

      He could hear the spit and crackle of the fire as he gazed into it. Maybe he was feeling maudlin. It would be his father’s funeral soon after all, but on this cold December night, the most guarded and closed off of all the Devereuxes paused a while and thought of the uncle he would like to be.

      ‘I could take her for pizza now and then,’ he said.

      ‘And show her how to eat it?’

      ‘Yes,’ he agreed, but then shook his head. ‘I can’t think of anything else.’

      ‘That’s plenty to be going on with.’ Naomi smiled and when he tore off another slice, it seemed easier, rather than have him hand it to her, to join him on the floor. It simply did. And they sat side by side and spoke, not a lot but enough.

      ‘So,’ he asked, ‘you’re going to be looking after Ava?’

      ‘For a little while.’ She saw his frown. ‘I’m a maternity nanny.’

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘I generally stay between six and eight weeks with a new family before the permanent nanny takes over. I try to allocate four weeks between jobs, but it never really works out. Babies come early, as we saw today.’

      ‘Do you go home between jobs?’

      ‘No, I generally have a holiday. Sometimes if there’s a decent gap I might house-sit.’

      ‘Where’s home?’

      ‘The next job.’

      ‘So you’re a nomadic nanny.’

      ‘I guess.’ That made her laugh, she’d never really thought of describing it like that. ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you only look after newborns?’

      She nodded.

      ‘That sounds like constant hard work.’

      ‘Oh, it is,’ Naomi agreed. ‘But I completely love it.’

      Or she had.

      Naomi didn’t share that with him, of course. She didn’t tell him that she was tired in a way she’d never been before. Not just from lack of sleep but from the constant motion of her lifestyle.

      There was one slice of pizza left and both their hands reached for it at the same time.

      ‘Go ahead,’ Abe said.

      ‘No, we’ll share it.’

      And when he tore it and there was one half a bit bigger, instead of not noticing, she looked at him until he tore a piece off the bigger half. ‘That’s fair now,’ Abe said.

      ‘Hmm.’

      She was so full it shouldn’t matter, but she had never, ever tasted something so delicious, Naomi thought. Or was it the open fire keeping them warm as the snow fluttered outside the window, or was it adult company in the middle of the night that made it all so nice?

      ‘Do you ever have,’ Abe asked, ‘er, issues with the fathers?’

      ‘Gosh no.’ Naomi laughed. ‘I dress like this for work. I don’t think the mothers have anything to worry about.’

      He begged to differ.

      Scantily dressed Naomi wasn’t, but for Ethan there was no doubting her sensuality. It wasn’t just her curves or the very full mouth or ripple of dark hair and how it fell in her eyes, it was more subtle than that. Little things, like the way she covered herself when her robe gaped, and how she closed her eyes after each and every sip of cognac as she held it on her tongue for a moment, and the lick of her lips when she’d first glimpsed the pizza.

      Yet, he mused, the mothers wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

      She was nice.

      Moral.

      The sort you would trust your baby to.

      And for Abe she had made this hellish night so much better.

      ‘Do you ever get asked to stay on?’ Abe asked.

      ‘All the time.’ Naomi nodded and then took the last bit of her pizza and he waited, watching the column of her pale throat as she swallowed, before asking another question.

      ‘And do you ever consider it?’

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Ever?’ he checked, for she sounded so adamant.

      ‘Never, ever.’

      ‘Why not?’

      She looked into the fire and wondered how to answer him. Naomi never told her employers her real reason for declining.

      She would never even