Page 1 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

PROLOGUE

AT NIGHT, when she slept, Max always checked on his daughter, then flicked out the neon-pink and purple lava lamp that adorned her bedside table, but not before he’d lingered a moment and studied her restful features. Lately, it had brought him a strange clutch of pain, because in sleep it was easy to believe she was the same little girl—gentle and funny—that she’d always been, until the last few months. Now, her temper was so quick to flare, her moods so unpredictable, there were times in the day when he barely recognised his Amanda.

But at night, he stood at her bedside and focused everything he had on her, willing her to return to a state of happiness, to be settled and content. Most of all, he hoped she understood how much he loved her.

His own childhood had made it difficult to express that love, but God knew he’d tried. Showing affection of any kind didn’t come easily to the reclusive billionaire, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

He wanted, most of all, to be better. Different. A far more active and involved father than his own had been, and his own mother, too. When it came to parenting, he used them as examples of what not to do, and until recently that approach had served him well.

But just as the seasons sometimes shifted without being noticed, so too had Amanda changed without Max’s being fully cognisant of it, at first. Little tantrums had been easily ignored—he’d even found them amusing initially. But the storm had kept building, and shifted from the horizon to the homestead, so he could barely remember the last time he’d had a conversation with his daughter that hadn’t ended in raised voices—usually hers but, to his shame, sometimes his.

Max had always been a success.

As a boy, he’d been the fastest, the smartest, the best and brightest, his natural competitive instincts stoked to a fever pitch by parents who always withheld their praise even when it was the thing he most badly wanted. While his motivations had changed—he no longer cared for anyone’s approval nor praise—he was no less determined to succeed in all aspects of his life.

Under Max’s guidance, the family’s luxury holdings business, which included his personal project—the pearl farms here in Australia—had gone from a respected yet boutique business to a global powerhouse, their various brands, be that jewellery or handbags or clothing, recognised the world over. That success was gratifying, but his primary focus was always Amanda. Succeeding at being a good parent was what mattered above everything else to him.

If the proof of the pudding was in the eating, then at the moment he was failing abysmally. Though it went against every grain in Max’s body to admit it, and he absolutely hated the necessity of what he was compelled to do, there was nothing for it. For the first time in Max’s life he needed help, and for Amanda’s sake he would damn well make sure he got it.

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS UNLIKE anything she’d ever seen. Still stiff from the long journey halfway across the world, and a little air sick from the shorter flight to the top end of Australia in a small, private aeroplane, Paige Cooper felt her eyes fill with red dust, but even through that orange haze she could still see, and she was mesmerised. A long way from the airstrip, the road was just a track cut through the desert, lined with sparse trees populated with about a million cockatoos, majestic against the afternoon sunlight. But as she went, the sleek black four-wheel drive bumping across unseen potholes and rocks, the trees thickened, grew greener, the air became darker as the canopy formed overhead, lustrous and sweet-smelling—mangoes, and something else, something indefinably tropical.

The road, which had been straight for miles and miles, began to weave, to twist and turn, each bend revealing more thick forest and tiny patches of blue sky, until there came a final bend and the ocean of Wattle Bay hit her in the face, glittering like a blanket of diamonds, turquoise, so beautiful, better than a postcard, and quite unlike anything she could have conceived of existing in real life. She thought of everything she’d left behind all those years ago in LA, the beach she’d come to associate with a life she would rather forget and parental mistreatment that had permanently shaped and sculptured Paige’s outlook on life, but this beach was different. It was more elemental, somehow. There were no high-rises here, no tourist shops. It was just white sand, crystal-clear water, so many trees it took her breath away.

The house itself was also completely different from what she’d expected. After all, the Stones were, Paige knew, one of the wealthiest families in the world, their high-end jewellery stores synonymous with luxury and wealth. Paige had even worn one of their diamond necklaces to the first glamorous awards ceremony she’d attended. Paige had been only twelve, but her mother had insisted she ‘look older’ and had chosen a revealing dress, sky-high heels and expensive jewellery—despite her success that night, Paige couldn’t think of it without a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, just like any of the times she’d been pushed by her parents into situations that had made her skin crawl.

What Paige hadn’t realised until accepting this job was that the Stone family empire had all started with pearl harvesting, that way back in the early twentieth century, they’d begun to cultivate south sea pearls, and that this property in the far north of Australia was their biggest operation.

So it wasn’t unreasonable for Paige to have expected some sort of modern, LA-esque testament to wealth, a showpiece home with miles of glass and visible ostentation dripping from every surface, but what she saw was, in many ways, the complete opposite. Her eyes, a shade of green almost identical to the tropical trees growing rampant overhead, skimmed the house and something like pleasure tugged at her heart—a pleasure she hadn’t expected to feel here in the wilderness of the world.

Or was it perhaps relief? She’d been running on instinct for the last month, since the announcement had been made about her parents’ tell-all book and Paige had broken out in a clammy sweat. Would she never be free of them? Despite having legally divorced them in her teens, the ghosts of her manipulative mother and father still haunted her. All Paige had wanted was to pretend the book wasn’t happening, but, sure enough, interview requests had found their way to her, paparazzi had even showed up near the school of one of her charges. With her cover blown, Paige had known she needed to flee to a new assignment, ideally as far from civilisation as possible.

Staring at the house, she took in the details without allowing her heart to respond, even when it was difficult to ignore the charms of this property. But Paige was resolutely unaffected: she was always hired for short-term roles—at her own insistence—and an essential part of what she did was provide help without getting emotionally attached to people or property.

There was a large area of neatly manicured lawn, signalling a small claim of man’s dominance over the abandon of this forested area, but the house seemed determined to surrender itself back to nature. It was made all of timber, except for the windows, of which there were many, and Paige’s first thought was that it was a tree house for grown-ups. It stood three stories high, but it was charming rather than grandiose, from the outside at least, with weatherboard painted a pale cream, a large wrap-around balcony on which, from her vantage point, Paige could just make out a day bed and table. She immediately pictured how nice it would be to sit on one of the cane chairs with a cup of iced tea and stare out at the view.

But she wasn’t here to relax. This was work—and she understood she’d have her hands full.

The agency who’d recruited Paige had warned her that the house was quite isolated, and so she’d expected silence—a silence her soul desperately needed after the din in her personal life over the last four weeks—only this was anything but! The birdsong was incredible, a true orchestra of nature, humming, buzzing, carolling all around her, so she had no choice but to stop and simply listen, to pay respect to the beauty of this land and its animal inhabitants, to allow herself to be enchanted by the wonder of it all.

And that was how he found her: Paige Cooper—pale, pearl-like skin luminescent in the afternoon sun, her large eyes transfixed, red lips parted, auburn hair pulled over one shoulder in a concession to the stifling humidity, unconsciously seeking a hint of ocean breeze against the skin of her neck, small, slender frame, in that moment of unguardedness, projecting a hint of the fragility she’d worked so hard to conquer over the years.

Max Stone stopped, mid-step, took one look at the woman the agency had sent and had to stifle a groan. Because while he knew he needed help, he’d fought against that necessity ever since placing the call to arrange a nanny.

Max hated the idea of having someone else living under his roof, taking ownership, in a strange kind of way, of his daughter. It made him feel like a failure. Worse, it made him feel like his own father, who’d outsourced whatever parts of Max’s life he possibly could, only taking an interest when it became clear Max had a head for business that would make Carrick Stone’s life easier.

He hadn’t given much thought to the nanny as a person, certainly not as a woman, but as he stared at the slim person in the middle of the lawn, something inside Max ignited that brought his body to a grinding halt. He stood perfectly still and stared at her, inexplicably angry to find that she was beautiful and attractive—for he’d known many women who were the former without being the latter—and he didn’t need the complication of desiring the woman he’d hired to care for his daughter.

He should send her away immediately, ask for someone else.

Only, he was truly desperate, and she was reported to be the best. Besides, this was only a three-month assignment, she was here temporarily. Besides, Max hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, and he had no intention of giving into temptation now, just because she’d be living under his roof. He formed one hand into a fist at his side, forced himself to focus.

‘Paige Cooper?’ His voice was gruff, and her eyes flared a little at the roughness to his words. The churning in his gut intensified. He ground his teeth, squared his shoulders then channelled every last inch of his legendary determination into each long stride that brought him across the dappled light on the lawn, towards the fragile-looking American.

The house was intriguing, filled, Paige was sure, with secrets and mysteries, a history that she was quite fascinated to learn, but even more intriguing was the man who stepped from the shadows and onto the grass, walking towards her with what could only be described as a brooding countenance. Paige was an actress by training; she’d landed her first advertisement as a toddler, gone on to star in feature films from a young age, and had grown up surrounded by actors and actresses. She was fluent in body language and the meaning of facial expressions, and yet this man was difficult to read. That he was irritated was obvious, but by what? She wasn’t late, and she’d barely spoken. What could it be?

Besides irritation, there was something else. A heaviness in his features, a look of stress, fatigue, weariness? But that was completely at odds with the sheer strength of him, the way he walked—as though he were some kind of wild animal in human form, each step like a lightning rod striking the ground so she almost felt a spark travel over the grass and into her own feet.

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