hardly recognised warning bells were beginning to ring—although what that meant she had no idea.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WELL? Well? What did you think? Have you got the job?’
Claire was waiting for her. Tess had barely had time to insert her key into the front door and there she was, pulling open the door, her face alight with curiosity.
What did she think of Matt Strickland? Tess tried her best to sum up a guy who represented everything she so studiously avoided. Too rich, too arrogant, too stuffy. When her mind strayed to the peculiar way he had made her feel, she reined it back in.
‘Can you believe he didn’t want me showing up in tight clothing?’
‘He’s your boss. He can dictate your wardrobe. Do you think we’re allowed to show up to work in ripped jeans?’ Claire pointed out reasonably. ‘Move on. Impressions of the apartment?’
‘Barely had time to notice.’ Tess sighed. ‘I’ve never had such a long interview. I could tell you all about his office, but that’s about it. Oh—and the kitchen. I did notice that his apartment is the size of a ship, though, and I’m not sure about his taste in art. There were lots of paintings of landscapes and random strangers.’
‘That would be his family,’ Claire surmised thoughtfully. ‘Classy.’
‘Really? You think?’
‘And finally impressions of the daughter?’
No one had known that he even had a daughter, so private was Matt Strickland, and so far he hadn’t brought her into the office once!
Tess wondered what there was to tell—considering she hadn’t actually met the child. She had waited in the kitchen for what had seemed an unreasonable length of time, and Matt had finally returned in a foul temper and informed her that Samantha had locked herself in her bedroom and was refusing to leave it.
Tess had sipped her tea, distractedly helped herself to her fifth biscuit, absentmindedly gazed at her feet, which had been propped up on a kitchen chair in front of her and pondered the fact that, however powerful, self-assured and downright arrogant Matt Strickland was, there was still at least one person on the face of the earth who was willing to ignore him completely.
‘You shouldn’t have locks on the doors,’ she had informed him thoughtfully. ‘We were never allowed to when we were growing up. Mum was always petrified that there would be a fire and she would have no way of getting in.’
He had looked at her as though she had been speaking another language, and only later had she realised that he would have had no real experience of all the small details involved in raising a child.
‘So, Monday looks as though it’s going to be fun,’ she finally concluded now. ‘Samantha doesn’t want to know, plus I have to be there by seven-thirty. You know how hopeless I am at waking up early…’
Which earned her a look of such filthy warning from Claire that she decided to back off from further complaints on the subject. Of course she would do her very best to wake at the crack of dawn. She would set her alarm, and she would set her phone—but she knew that she might easily sleep through both. What if she did?
She still remembered all the choice words he had used to describe her, and her fact was still worrying at the problem when, the following evening, she answered the landline to hear Matt’s dark, smooth voice at the other end of the phone.
Immediately Tess was hurled back to his apartment and that first sight of him, lounging against the doorframe, looking at her.
‘You’ve probably got the wrong sister,’ Tess said as soon as he had identified himself—as though there had been any chance of her not recognising that voice of his. ‘Claire’s having a bath, but I’ll tell her you called.’
‘I called to speak to you,’ Matt informed her smoothly. ‘Just to remind you that I’ll be expecting you at seven-thirty sharp tomorrow morning.’
‘Of course I’m going to be there! You can count on me. I’m going to be setting a number of gadgets to make sure I don’t oversleep.’
At the other end of the line Matt felt his lips twitch, but he wasn’t about to humour her. He got the distinct impression that most people humoured Tess Kelly. There was something infectious about her warmth. However, when it came to his daughter, a stern angle was essential.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’
‘I am, and to help ease you into punctuality I’ll be sending a car for you. It’ll be there at seven. You forgot to leave me your mobile number.’
‘My mobile number?’
‘I need to be able to contact you at all times. Remember, you’ll be in charge of my daughter.’
Unaccustomed to being reined in, Tess immediately softened. Of course he would want to have her mobile number! He might not be demonstrative when it came to his daughter—not in the way that her parents had always been demonstrative with her—but keeping tabs on the nanny showed just how important it was for him to know the whereabouts of Samantha at all times.
She rattled it off, and turned to find Claire looking at her with a grin.
‘Step one in being a responsible adult! Be prepared to be answerable to someone else! Matt’s a fair guy. He expects a lot from the people who work for him, but he gives a lot back in return.’
‘I don’t like bossy people,’ Tess objected automatically.
‘You mean you like people who don’t lay down any rules to speak of and just allow you to do whatever you want. The joys of being the baby of the family!’
Tess had always been perfectly happy with that description in the past. Now she frowned. Wasn’t the unspoken rider to that description irresponsible? Her parents had shipped her out to New York so that she could learn some lessons about growing up from her sister. Was it their way of easing her out of the family nest? Had Matt been unknowingly right with his observations? Taking on the job of looking after someone else’s child—a child who had already been through a lot and clearly had issues with her father—was not the job for someone who refused to be responsible. Matt Strickland was prepared to give her a chance in the face of some pretty strong evidence that she wasn’t up to the task. Being labelled the baby of the family no longer seemed to sit quite right.
She had half expected to arrive the following morning and find herself taking orders from one of those mysterious people he had mentioned who would be there to pick up the slack, but in fact, after her luxurious chauffeured drive, during which she’d taken the opportunity to play tourist and really look at some of the sights from air-conditioned comfort, she found herself being greeted by Matt himself.
The weekend had done nothing to diminish his impact. This time he was dressed for work. A dark suit, white shirt and some hand-tailored shoes—a combination that should have been a complete turn off, but which instead just seemed to elevate his sexiness to ridiculous levels.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to be here,’ Tess said, immediately taken aback.
‘I live here—or had you forgotten?’ He stood aside and she scuttled past him, weirdly conscious of her body in a way that was alien to her.
Under slightly less pressure now, she had her first opportunity to really appreciate her surroundings. It was much more impressive than she could ever have dreamt. Yes, the place was vast, and, yes, the paintings were uniformly drab—even if the portraits were of his family members—but the décor was exquisite. Where she might have expected him to err in favour of minimalism, with maybe just the odd leather sofa here and there and lots of chrome, his apartment was opulent. The patina of the wooden floor was rich and deep, and the rugs were old and elaborate. A galleried landing looked down on the immense space below, and stretching the full height of the walls were two windows which, she could now see,