Page 5 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

‘Well, I learned to drive in the States, so there’s the whole right-side, left-side thing to contend with. And on top of that, I’ve been in Dubai for five years. I didn’t drive there, either. In the interest of safety—’

‘Fine. Reg will continue to drive her.’ Then, with a furrowed brow and a concession to civility she hadn’t expected, ‘And he can take you anywhere throughout the day, if you need anything. There’s a town—Mamili—about twenty minutes away, near the school.’

‘Are there any tasks I can do, while she’s at school? Usually I help out around the house...’

‘No.’ His flat refusal was another immediate rejection. ‘We don’t need that. We’re fine. Just keep yourself busy...’

‘And stay out of your way?’ she couldn’t help prompting, surprised to find one corner of her lips lifting in a cynical smile.

His eyes narrowed and his Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. ‘My days are busy.’

But he didn’t need to explain anything about his life to her. Paige’s interaction with parents was usually kept to a minimum. He had offered her the use of a chauffeur, which was a courtesy that wasn’t necessary.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, surprised that her voice trembled slightly, but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘The bedrooms are upstairs,’ he said. ‘Amanda’s and mine at the top of the stairs. You can choose any other room for yourself.’

It was a dismissal and Paige’s nerves were frazzled enough that she was glad for the reprieve. With a small nod of her head, she left Max alone in the stunning kitchen, moving up the beautiful wide staircase as though the devil were at her back.

He was surprisingly grateful when she disappeared quickly, and the moment she left the kitchen he expelled a long, deep sigh. What was it about this woman that unnerved him? Was it simply that she was a nanny, hired to care for his daughter? Of course that was a part of it, but Max wasn’t an idiot. There was only one way to explain the surge of adrenalin pounding through his body, the direction his mind kept wandering in, as she spoke and her lips parted breathily and her chest puffed out with indignation, drawing his attention to her gentle curves, to the graceful way she moved, almost like a ballerina. She was attractive and fascinating and he could already tell that it was going to require monumental effort to ignore the way she made him feel.

With a sense that a thundercloud had formed directly above him, he began to walk upstairs, sure he’d given her enough time to have disappeared into a room and keen to grab his pullover for a trip to the farm.

He rounded the corner of the landing and strode to his own room right as Paige stepped out, a guilty flush on her cheeks. ‘Oh, Mr Stone!’ Her eyes thudded to his. ‘I’m sorry. When you said your room and Amanda’s were here, I thought you meant those two, I didn’t think—’

She waved blithely over her shoulder, in the direction of his bedroom, which she’d evidently just been in.

He realised now how vague his instructions had been; he couldn’t really blame her, and yet something like anger fizzed inside him because he didn’t want to think of her in his bedroom, while it was just the two of them alone in the house.

‘I’m sorry again,’ she breathed huskily, so close he could feel her breath, and ancient, long-forgotten, repressed nerves began to fizz and burst beneath his veins. How long had it been since he’d touched a woman?

That was an easy question to answer.

Since Lauren had died.

Since well before Lauren had died, in fact, because their relationship had been messy for some time prior.

Six years? In the back of his mind, he registered the fact with shock, and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before this.

‘I misunderstood,’ she responded with a small shake of her head. But the same awareness flooding his veins was apparently making it hard for Paige to focus as well, because her cheeks were flushed and her breathing rushed and, beneath the fine cotton of her shirt, her nipples had hardened to form two perfect shapes, silhouetted by neat, round breasts. He could feel their weight in his palms without touching them, he just knew they’d be satisfying to hold. His jeans strained as the idea of doing exactly that lodged in his brain and refused to go away.

Neither moved.

The air thickened, like at the end of a hot, sultry day when the humidity had reached breaking point and the sauna-like atmosphere meant the sky would need to burst at the seams and flood the earth with rain to stave off spontaneous combustion. But they were inside, there was no rain here, only him, and her, and one of them had to be strong enough to break the spell weaving around them.

‘Don’t misunderstand again,’ he growled, stepping back to let her pass. She startled, looking up at him as though he’d threatened to kill a cat, then quickly moved around him, and down the hallway, spine straight, magnificent auburn hair like flames cascading down her back.

He closed his eyes on a sigh of relief, but when he breathed in to fill his lungs back up, he could taste her in the air. Great. Just great.

Amanda, at eleven, was tracking about three years ahead of what Paige might have expected. She was sullen, moody, had a few spots on her face, and was clearly unimpressed with the idea of a stranger living in her home. Particularly when that stranger’s purview was her.

‘I don’t need a babysitter,’ Amanda, with eyes as startlingly clear blue as her father’s, had snapped, shooting Paige a withering glance. ‘I’m old enough to take care of myself.’ And with that, she’d slammed the door in Paige’s face.

There’d been no chance to form an expectation of how Amanda might behave. Paige had only Max’s warning to go off—that she was a handful at the moment. But he hadn’t elaborated on what that entailed, nor had he shared any insights into what was making Amanda behave this way. Paige had nothing to go on but her gut feeling, and it told her that something had happened, or was happening, to upset the girl, and she knew it was her job—more than her job, her responsibility—to get to the bottom of it. She owed nothing to Max Stone, but as a woman who’d once been a little girl in distress, who’d been saved by the kindness and interest of a kindly adult, she made it her business to pay that same kindness forward whenever she could.

And it was abundantly clear that Amanda needed kindness.

She also needed patience, something she wondered if Max Stone had any idea how to demonstrate.

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