Italian Bachelors: Ruthless Propositions. Fiona Harper

Italian was, to be honest. He hadn’t even known she spoke it. Just went to show his instincts about her had been right, even if she did make each day look as if she’d raided a different fancy dress shop.

      However, when Ruby and his mother started getting into what time was bedtime and favourite snacks, he decided that enough was enough. He stood up and walked closer to them. ‘Can we just get back to the matter in hand?’ he said, maybe a little abruptly.

      Both women stopped talking and looked at him. They wore identical expressions. Max had the horrible sinking feeling that maybe he’d been right about Ruby being a good ally. He just wasn’t sure she was his.

      ‘I need to know this kind of stuff, actually,’ she told him. ‘And you weren’t much help.’

      Details.

      He could almost hear Ruby’s mental whisper that followed.

      That was enough to set his mother throwing her hands in the air again. When she’d calmed herself down by walking over to the fireplace and back again, she fixed him with a determined expression. Max knew that look. It meant she’d made up her mind about something, and budging her from that viewpoint was going to be about as easy as asking the whole of Venice to pick up her skirts and move a little further out into the lagoon.

      ‘I have made a decision,’ she announced. ‘I would like nothing more than to have my lovely granddaughter here for a visit.’

      He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. ‘Thank you, Mamma.’

      His mother drew herself up and put on her most regal air. ‘But I will allow it on one condition.’

      What?

      ‘I won’t take Sofia unless you stay, too,’ his mother told him, folding her arms across her chest. ‘You cannot live your life cloistered away in that stuffy office of yours, communicating to those you love through bits of technology. It’s high time you lived up to your family responsibilities, Massimo.’

      Max almost choked. His family responsibilities? That was rich!

      He opened his mouth to argue, but didn’t get very far. He became aware of a small but insistent tugging on the left leg of his trousers and looked down to find his niece standing there. She was trying to pull him in the direction of the pile of blocks on the rug near the fireplace.

      His mother just smiled at him. ‘She’s not crying now, my darling son, and you said you’d stay if she stopped.’ She looked over at her granddaughter. Warmth and joy flared in her eyes. ‘It seems I am not the only one who has made my mind up about this—Sofia has, too.’

       CHAPTER FIVE

      MAX AND HIS MOTHER had had a long conversation out on the balcony, ironing out the details of her ultimatum. When they returned, Fina knelt down on the carpet beside Ruby and Sofia and joined in their game of piling up bricks into tall towers for Sofia to knock down again.

      Fina smiled and laughed, totally absorbed in her granddaughter, while her son stood, towering and silent on the fringes of the room. Ruby shot him a sideways look and found him staring back at her. She swallowed. She felt a little guilty that she’d ended up unwittingly providing Fina with leverage to use against him, but not guilty enough to regret she’d done it.

      Despite Fina’s superior manner and haughty words, Ruby had seen the way she’d looked at Max. That was a mother hungry for her son’s company and, just like a child who’d settle for negative attention when they couldn’t get praise, in desperation she’d taken whatever she could get.

      Funnily, Ruby warmed to Fina for that. She wished her own father looked at her that way sometimes, but she’d never once got the impression from him that he was hungry for more of her company. No, he’d seemed perfectly content to push her out of the nest at an early age.

      ‘I’d better go and check out of the hotel and get our bags,’ Max finally growled.

      Ruby stood up and brushed her skirt down. ‘I’ll help you.’ That was the least she could do.

      He scowled at her, indicating she’d done enough already. She ignored it and followed him as he headed out of the door. She had to trot to keep up with him as he marched down the corridor and down the sweeping staircase.

      ‘So, what’s going on?’ she finally asked. ‘I presume we’re staying, for a short while, at least.’

      Max sighed. ‘My mother and I have come to an...arrangement.’ He shuddered slightly, as if the idea of compromise was an abhorrent concept.

      He was doing it again: failing to fill her in on the important stuff. ‘Which is?’

      Max stopped on the stairs and turned, hands still in pockets. ‘My mother has agreed she will care for Sofia when she’s free, with your help, of course, but only if I stay for a minimum of seven days. Otherwise she’s happy to escort us all to the airport where we can catch the next plane back to London.’

      Ruby’s face crumpled into a bemused smile. ‘She’d really do that?’

      He grunted and set off again. ‘You have no idea how stubborn my mother can be when she puts her mind to it.’

      Ruby didn’t reply to that. The only response that came to mind was that maybe he was more like his mother than he realised, and she’d got herself into enough trouble already with him this morning.

      She studied the back of his head carefully as she followed him down the stairs. Did he really not get that this ultimatum had nothing to do with his sister’s childcare issues and everything to do with Fina wanting to repair the gaping breach in her family? Ruby had also gone to extreme lengths to get just a crumb of her father’s attention in her teenage years, and she understood completely why Fina had done it.

      ‘And what about the Institute of Fine Art? The plans?’

      He turned as he reached the ground floor, looking surprised.

      ‘Couldn’t help overhearing you on the phone last night. And then there are the drawings littered all over the suite...’

      Max ran a hand through his hair as they emerged from the palazzo onto the dock and wearily took in the grand and crumbling buildings around them. ‘I’m in Venice...’ he said, and she sensed he was quoting his mother verbatim. ‘The most beautiful city in the world. What better inspiration could I have?’

      * * *

      Thankfully, Max discovered his mother hadn’t disposed of the little motor launch that had once been his grandfather’s. By the looks of it, she’d kept it in immaculate condition. The varnish wasn’t peeling and the navy paint on the sides was fresh and thick. He jumped in, stood behind the small windscreen and slid the key into the ignition to start it up. Ruby, unmissable in that damn strawberry dress, clambered in hesitantly then plopped down on the seat at the back. He put the boat in gear and set off through some of the narrower canals.

      He’d spent every summer here as a boy, even before his parents’ divorce, and it amazed him that, even though he hadn’t driven a boat here in more than two decades, the old routes and back-doubles came to him easily. His passenger didn’t say much. She spent most of the journey to the Lagoon Palace looking up at the tall buildings, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide. It was only when they moored the boat a short distance from the hotel’s private jetty, where only the dedicated shuttles from the bus and train stations were allowed to dock, that Ruby began to talk again.

      ‘So, what are the finer points of your agreement with your mother? You can’t have spent that long arguing about it without going into details.’

      He sighed as he led her up a narrow cobbled calle between buildings and out onto a wider one that led to the foot entrance of the hotel. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to win his mother over to his plan from the moment he’d stepped out onto the balcony with her. He had, however, managed to broker