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The top button of his shirt was undone and his tie was nowhere to be seen.
It was odd. All day so far he’d seemed like a force of nature—albeit in a pristine suit—and now that just even the tiniest part of that armour had been discarded she was suddenly confronted by the fact that he was a man. And a rather attractive one at that.
His dark hair was short, but not severe, and now she knew he had Italian blood in him she could see it in the set of his eyes and his long, straight nose. The mouth, however, was totally British—tightly drawn in, jaw tense as he grimaced at some unwelcome news and hung up on the caller without saying goodbye. He brought the phone down from his ear and stared at it so hard that Ruby thought it might burst into flames.
That was when he looked up and spotted her, sitting where she’d been for the last ten minutes, and it took him by total surprise. She allowed her lips to curve into the barest of smiles and held his gaze. For some reason she liked the fact her presence sometimes ruffled him.
Taming Her Italian Boss
Fiona Harper
As a child, FIONA HARPER was constantly teased for either having her nose in a book or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.
Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues, because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.
MILLS & BOON
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Contents
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU WANT ME to give you a job?’
The woman staring across the desk at Ruby didn’t look convinced. The London traffic rumbled outside the first-floor office as the woman looked her up and down. Her gaze swept down over Ruby’s patchwork corduroy jacket, miniskirt with brightly coloured leggings peeking out from underneath, and ended at the canvas shoes that were almost the right shade of purple to match the streaks in her short hair.
Ruby nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Humph,’ the woman said.
Ruby couldn’t help noticing her flawlessly cut black suit and equally flawlessly cut hair. She’d bet that the famous Thalia Benson of the Benson Agency hadn’t come about her latest style after she’d got fed up with the long stringy bits dangling in her breakfast cereal and convinced her flatmate to take scissors to it.
‘And Layla Babbington recommended you try here?’
Ruby nodded again. Layla had been one of her best friends at boarding school. When she’d heard that Ruby was looking for a job—and one that preferably took her out of the country ASAP—she’d suggested the top-class nannying agency. ‘Don’t let old Benson fool you for a moment,’
