A Nanny for Christmas Read Free Page B

don't you?'
    And she walked past them both, opened the study door and went in.
    It was a room she remembered only vaguely, with its book-lined walls and the large desk standing in the centre of the room.
    He was standing with his back to her, intent on a fax machine delivering a message on a side table.
    When he spoke, his voice was clipped with impatience. 'Carrie, I thought I said—'
    "It's not Carrie, Mr Vane.' The anger which had been seething in Phoebe came boiling to the surface. 'I've just brought your daughter back from Westcombe, where she'd been abandoned, and I'd like to know whether you're just totally selfish or criminally irresponsible.'
    He turned slowly. The grey eyes travelled over her without haste. Like ice that burned. She had thought it then. She knew it now.
    She gave a gasp, and stepped backwards.
    'I don't know who the hell you are, bursting in and abusing me like this.' Every word was like the slash of a whip. 'But you've made a big mistake, young woman.'
    He paused, taking in every detail from the top of the smooth brown head, down over her working uniform of white shirt and brief black skirt, to her slender feet in their sensible shoes. Registering it all, then dismissing it with the contempt that she remembered so vividly from six years before.
    He said softly, 'My name is Ashton. Dominic Ashton. Now, give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw you out.'
     

CHAPTER TWO
    P HOEBE wanted to run away, harder and faster than she'd ever done in her life. But for dazed seconds she wasn't able to move, or think. She could only stare at him. At the nightmare made flesh, and standing in front of her.
    He'd hardly changed at all. She was capable of recognising that, at least. The thick dark hair, untouched by grey, still waved untidily back from its widow's peak. He would never be handsome. His nose was too beaky, his mouth and chin too firmly uncompromising, and the grey eyes under the cynically lifted eyebrows too piercing. But he was even more of a force to be reckoned with than at their last disastrous encounter.
    She was the one who'd changed, she realised with a reviving jolt of the same anger which had driven her into this room. She wasn't a naive, betrayed sixteen- year-old any longer.
    The real vulnerable child was upstairs, and she was all that mattered in this situation.
    She lifted her chin and prayed her voice wouldn't let her down. She probably couldn't equal his own level of contempt in the look she sent him, but, by God, she was going to try.
    'The reason—Mr Ashton—is called Tara, and for the past week she's been spending a regular part of the day totally unsupervised in Westcombe.'
    The dark brows snapped together. 'What kind of dangerous nonsense is this?'
    Phoebe shook her head steadily. 'No nonsense at all. I only wish it were. The girl who looks after her has been allowing her to have tea on her own in the cafe where I work while she meets her boyfriend.' She paused. 'He has a motorcycle,' she added without expression.
    There was a heavy silence. Dominic Ashton was still staring at her, but Phoebe had the feeling that he wasn't seeing her at all.
    He said, half to himself, 'I'm going to get to the bottom of this,' and strode towards the door.
    Phoebe put up a detaining hand. 'If you're going to look for Cindy, she's not here. At least I don't think she is. She didn't turn up to collect Tara as arranged. And her car is still in the market car park.'
    He stopped. Looked down at her. Aware and refocusing, his face suddenly haggard.
    She had hated him for six years, for his lack of understanding—and compassion. She had never in the whole of her life expected to feel sorry for him, yet, somehow, she did.
    Here he was, in the middle of some business empire, with computers, modems and machinery as far as the eye could see, and just briefly he'd lost his power. He too was naked and bewildered, in a situation he couldn't control.
    His voice was quiet. 'I accept what you say—everything