wasn’t free.
She pushed against his chest without meeting his gaze. ‘I want to get up.’
He held her down with a gentle but firm press of his hand on her left shoulder. ‘Not so fast, cara. What’s wrong?’
Eliza couldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t look at him. She stared at the peppery stubble on the bulge of his Adam’s apple instead. ‘This should never have happened.’
He took her chin between his finger and thumb and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘Why is that?’
Her eyes smarted with the tears she resolved she would not shed in front of him. ‘How can you ask that?’
His gaze quietly assessed hers. ‘You still feel guilty about the natural impulses you have always felt around me?’
She lowered her lashes, chewing at her lip until she tasted the metallic sourness of blood. ‘They might be natural but they’re not appropriate.’
‘Because you’re still intent on tying yourself to a man who can’t give you what you want or need?’
She continued to valiantly squeeze back the tears, still not looking at him. ‘Please, let’s not go over this again. I’m here with you now. I’m doing what you asked and paid me to do. Please don’t ask me to do any more than that.’
He released a gusty sigh and got up, dressing again with an economy of movement Eliza privately envied. She felt exposed, not just physically—even though she had somehow managed to drag her discarded dress over her nakedness—but emotionally, and that was far more terrifying.
‘Contrary to what you might think, I didn’t pay you to sleep with me.’ His voice was deep and rough, the words sounding as if they had been dragged along a gravel pathway. ‘That is entirely separate from your position here as nanny to my daughter.’
She gave him a pointed look. ‘Both are temporary appointments, are they not?’
His eyes were deep and dark and unfathomable. ‘That depends.’
‘Is Kathleen coming back?’
‘She hasn’t yet decided.’
‘I thought you said my month-long contract was not up for negotiation,’ Eliza said with a little frown. ‘If she decides not to return, does that mean you’ll offer me the post?’
‘That also depends.’
She arched her brow. ‘On what?’
‘On whether you want to stay longer.’
Eliza chewed at her lip. If things had been different, of course she would stay. She would live with him as his lover, as his mistress, his daughter’s nanny—whatever he wanted, she would do it because she wanted him so much.
But things weren’t different.
They were exactly the same as they had been four years ago. It didn’t matter what she wanted. It was the shackles of her guilt that would always make her forfeit what she wanted. How could she stay here with Leo and leave her other life behind? It was a fanciful dream she had to erase from her mind, just as she’d had to do in the past.
Eliza thought of little Alessandra, of how attached the child had become to her in such a short time. It wasn’t just that the little girl was looking for a mother substitute. Eliza had latched onto her with equal measure. She looked forward to their time together. She felt excited about the ways in which Alessandra was growing and developing in confidence and independence. It wasn’t just the teacher in her that was being validated, either. It was the deep-seated maternal instinct in her that longed to be expressed. Alessandra was responding to that strong instinct in her to love and protect and nurture.
If things were different, she would have been Alessandra’s mother.
There was still a fiendish pain inside her chest at the thought of another woman sharing that deeply bonding experience with Leo. She so desperately wanted to be a mother. Each birthday that passed was a painful, gut-twisting reminder of her dream slipping even further out of her grasp.
Eliza brought her gaze back to his once she was sure she had her emotions hidden behind a mask of composure. ‘Staying longer isn’t an option…’
‘Driving up the price, are we, Eliza?’ A ripple of tension appeared along his jaw, his dark eyes flashing at her with disgust. ‘That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? You want me to pay you a little extra to stay on as my mistress. How much do you want? Have you got a figure in mind?’
She took a steadying breath against the blast of his anger and turned away. ‘There’s no point talking to you in this mood.’
A hard hand came down on her forearm and turned her back to face him. His eyes blazed with heated purpose. She felt it ignite a fire in her blood where his fingers were wrapped around her wrist like a convict iron.
The tension in the air crackled like sheet lightning over a wide open plain.
‘Don’t turn away from me when I’m speaking to you,’ he rasped.
Her chin went up and her eyes shot him their own fiery glare. ‘Don’t order me about like a child.’
His dark eyes glinted menacingly as they warred with hers. ‘I’m paying you to obey my orders, damn it.’
Eliza felt a trail of molten heat roll down her spine but still her chin went even higher. ‘You’re not paying me enough to bow and scrape to you like a simpering servant.’
Those fingers burned her flesh like a brand. That hard-muscled body tempted her like an irresistible lure. Those dark eyes wrestled with hers until every nerve in her body was jangling and tingling with sensual hunger.
Heat exploded between her legs.
She could almost feel him there, that pounding surge of his body that triggered something raw and earthy and deeply primitive inside her.
‘How much?’ His eyes smouldered darkly. ‘How much to have you in my bed for the rest of the month? How much to have you bowing and scraping and simpering to my every need?’
A reckless demon made her goad him. ‘You can’t afford me.’
‘Try me. I have my limit. If you go over it I’ll soon tell you.’
Eliza thought of the small house where Ewan and his mother lived in Suffolk. She thought of how much the bathroom needed renovating to make showering him easier for Samantha. She thought of the heating that needed improving because Ewan, as a quadriplegic, had no way of controlling his own body temperature. And then there were the lifting and toileting and feeding aids that always seemed to need an upgrade.
It all cost an astonishing amount of money.
Money Leo Valente was willing to pay her to be his mistress for the rest of the month.
Her heart tapped out an erratic tattoo. Maybe if she took the money it would make her feel less guilty about sleeping with him while she was engaged to Ewan. It would make
