Nanny Behaving Badly (2 page)

‘Threats about your boyfriend now?’ His eyes accused her. His scornful look told her he was getting it all wrong.

‘No, you’re mistaken,’ she refuted.

‘And you’re fired! You’re not just a control freak, you’re crazy.’ He grasped her wrists, multiplying chills as she pushed again and steered him away, shaking her head because things were getting out of hand.

‘No, Lyle. Listen …’

He probably didn’t deserve her to intervene. Maddie knew she should most likely be walking out and letting him suffer Rob Brewster’s scathing barbs alone – just desserts for the boss from hell.

But somehow she couldn’t. Maddie needed this job and didn’t want to see him look a fool, falling into a looming trap. She’d already been on the receiving end of a similar situation and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The way it made you want to curl up inside. Unable to see past it or move on.

‘I’m sacking you. Before you detonate my sanity,’ Lyle stated.

She pressed her hands more firmly against his chest. Like marble blended with granite, it played havoc with her hormones. Just thinking about the muscle beneath her fingers made neurons jump and react. Her knees felt different – liquefied – and her pulse was speeding circuits.

It was a shame about this misunderstanding blip because under the grumpiness she sensed an impressive, driven man. One with a sexy Scottish accent which caused the tiny hairs on her arms to raise, and a body that made her hormones go crazy. A guy intent on achieving his dreams. One who just needed to lighten up and open himself to new ideas.

Maddie adopted her most serious, pleading expression. ‘There’s someone important here and I can’t explain now, but you have to trust me and stop raging. This is too important to let you go and mess it all up.’

With a burst of strength, she forced him further back into the stockroom doorway. As strong as he was, she figured she’d upended him with her bravado and he wasn’t sure how to respond to her physical assertiveness. At least something was going in her favour.

Lyle’s eyes glared grey fury. ‘Trust you? No way. Get your coat, you’re going. Permanently.’

His cynicism sliced her efforts dead. So Maddie did the only thing she could think of under the circumstances.

She ignored the shocked expression on Lyle Sutherland’s face as his eyes widened to question her sanity. Instead she pushed him further into the stockroom with both trembling hands, her heart hammering.

She’d been sacked, but the café still needed to be saved.

‘Sorry, boss. You leave me no other option.’

Maddie slammed the door, locked it and pocketed the key. Employer crisis averted, next task – the hard-to-please but influential food critic.

With a deep breath for courage, she forced a smile and strode out to serve him.

Maddie looked at her wrist-watch. Lyle had been locked in the stockroom for more than thirty-six minutes.

She’d heard no bangs, no cursing, nothing: only silence. Thank heaven too, because Brewster the critic had been able to enjoy his order and leave without a hitch. He’d even tipped her well.

‘One problem down, one big one to go,’ she whispered, her fingers lingering on the door key.

She turned the handle, pushed the door open and found the boss staring intently at her, seated on an upturned crate, collar and tie sexily loosened. His face defined ruptured doom.

His combined dishevelment and attitude caused her adrenaline to rev even higher than when she’d first locked him in there. Fire and ice fought in the pit of her stomach as their eyes met.

‘Who did you think you were dealing with – Houdini?’

‘Um … there’s a few things I need to explain,’ she began tentatively.

But Lyle jumped to his feet and pushed past her, almost knocking her off balance in a whirlwind of riled male. The heat-inducing brush of his touch seared her skin like a torch.

‘You’re fired. No reference, no pay. Don’t insult either of us by pleading your case. Just go,’ he growled, and glowered at her. ‘No more stunts and attitude.’

Maddie stared. Her spirits plummeted. Wasn’t he entitled to feel irked? She’d holed him up in his own stockroom, pushed him in there and turned the key. What did she expect? A welcome to the company card with department store gift tokens?

‘I didn’t mean – ’ She went to explain but he ran right over her words, raising a stalling hand.

‘I suggest you leave swiftly before I return. I’m going out for some air. Because if I don’t, I’ll do something rash that we’ll both regret, and I pride myself in being an exemplary employer.’

His forceful tone and ramped-up breathing aroused her in confusing ways. Like a wild animal, Lyle fought capture and compliance tooth and nail. If only she could just stall him, hold him there, induce calm and make him listen. As much as he’d misjudged her, she still found him sexy, intriguing, worth hammering home her point to.

Maddie watched his disgruntled rush as his broad shoulders and ebony-haired head disappeared into the thrumming market crowds.

So much for succeeding with Brewster to save Lyle’s reputation.

Back to the drawing board – jobless again.

Fifteen minutes later, Jim came back, holding his cell phone screen in front of Maddie’s face so she could read it. His frown was a world-beater. Picture postcard perplexed.

‘Want to explain this text message from Lyle?’ he demanded. ‘He’s told me I’m to escort you off the premises. Had a bad day?’

The American woman’s
fired! I’ve already told her to go. I’m at the café near The Art Gallery mending my blown fuse. And escaping her. Lyle.

Maddie read it and winced. ‘Hate at first sight?’

Jim looked solemn. ‘One explanation. But how did it happen?’

‘We’ve just had a VIP customer and I had to take charge.’ Maddie grabbed her jacket and bag. ‘I’m going to see him and explain. Sheena and John are back from lunch so we’re covered. Okay if I go try some damage limitation?’

Jim shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not exactly sure there are any limiting opportunities in this particular damage package. Just promise me you had good reasons.’

‘Let me get my job back first.’

Maddie saw him sitting on the lower tier of the festive European-themed market. At a table in the
Ooh La La Creperie
courtyard, broodingly nursing a bottle of mineral water and a newspaper. His large frame was squeezed into an outdoor garden chair – a wild tiger in a white plastic cage.

Lyle’s hair was dark as charcoal, his shirt, crisp and white, set him apart. The location seemed incongruous with the man; a thundering entrepreneurial hero against a festive merriment backdrop. While a song about
peace and goodwill to all men
echoed from someone’s stall’s music system like audible irony.

The broadsheet newspaper Lyle was flicking through lay flat out on the table, sending out a clear message
. My territory. Get lost. No interlopers.
Just like his attitude to new arrivals in his café; he owned the world and it weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Maddie sank down into the chair opposite him. ‘Hi. It’s me. Calamity Coffee Waitress about to be dismissed. Only I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give up without a fight.’

Lyle looked up, his expression calm. ‘I already fired you. Technically the point is moot.’ Though he stared at her, not a ripple of emotion marred his features. He turned over the page, flicking his gaze to the print. ‘Not gone yet? Maybe you should go find another job?’

Maddie dumped her bag on the table in the middle of his newspaper. Like The Titanic, she wasn’t going down without a momentous splash.

‘You’re
so
not sacking me today. Not without mitigation.’ She leaned forward in her chair, knitted her brows, determined. She wasn’t a Boston legal eagle’s daughter for nothing. ‘Hear me out. You’ve just had a visit from the most important critic in the city – Rob Brewster from
The News
. He once slated my uncle, who now has laminated pics of him all over the kitchen wall so every waiter is ready. Consider that expertise enough to know him at ten paces.’

She left out the part about the pins sticking out of the noticeboard picture.

Lyle stared hard. ‘The foodie critic I’ve been calling for weeks?’

Maddie blinked her lashes at him. ‘Bludgeon Brewster, the very same. He had an Americano plus delicious feta and spinach quiche with salad. Served with extra care and a super large smile by yours truly. Though to be honest I thought you were going to blow us up in smoke. Pushing against you is like taking on a difficult bull at a Highland Show, Lyle.’

He smiled grimly. ‘I work out. There’s more to me than coffee and cakes. You should be grateful I chose to be a gentleman.’

‘What do Scottish gentlemen train with these days – pulling super trucks?’

Lyle glared. ‘Let’s stick to the point. You shoved me out of my own café. You’ve changed everything on a whim. Suddenly it’s like a magician’s been doing disappearing tricks in my office and I can’t find anything anymore. I’ve been demoted from boss to ‘he who shall obey the madwoman’. It all stops here, Maddie. You went too far.’

She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m sorry – I figured I had to do something. I felt like the situation was closing in on us and I didn’t want you to detonate your write-up.’

‘Couldn’t you have written a note? Alerted me discreetly?’

She shuffled in her seat while she rummaged mentally for justification. She also tried to ignore the way a supercilious expression only made him more handsome. Dark, chiselled features that begged to be photographed and watched.

Were all Scots café owners this good-looking?

Maddie chewed air. ‘There wasn’t time to think. But I guess that would have been sensible. Anyway, we’ve both got each other wrong. Can’t we just put the wrong ideas behind us?’

‘Not so easy when it all adds up to concerns about your impulsiveness.’

‘What I’m trying to explain is – the Ice Café deserves a brilliant review. I just tried to make sure it happens. Some people would call it saving your skin – you on the other hand will only use it to further damn me because you have it in your head that I’m a pain in the butt!’

Lyle reached across and grasped her shoulder, then pushed his forefinger to her mouth. His warm, soft skin gently met her lips, lingering lightly but with firm intent. He stayed silent but she clearly saw that firm chest rise and fall as he watched her.

For a gasp of a moment she wondered if he might kiss her.

Seconds in time stalled. Completely.

All the oxygen in Edinburgh suddenly evaded her lungs as she sat and blinked at Lyle Sutherland while he watched her.

‘For pity’s sake, shh!’

Sparks collided at the contact; him up close, touching her lips with his finger and the very edge of his thumb. Breathing close by and every inhalation causing inner trembles. Technically she’d treated him in the same fashion earlier to make him leave the café. She’d taken physical control, firmed her stance. But this …
this was different
. Things were going on inside her – crazy new chemical reactions that fired and scared and filled her with excited awe.

The angry boss continued to gently touch her lips, staring into her eyes. A big jump for a man she hadn’t met before lunchtime. She told herself to calm down. It was just fingers on skin. A fleeting moment – but so very much promise.

If the extreme tingles in her knees, shortness of breath and melting spine were anything to go by.

‘Enough.’ His voice sounded rusty as his accusing eyes skirted away.

She was still reeling from his touch, his gorgeous designer fragrance, the way his eyes danced when he was in the heat of action. The thought of the latter had her blushing crimson. And a bright red face with blue streaked hair wasn’t good when it was you modelling the look.

‘You’re not the only one who can act in haste,’ he said, and flicked shut then folded his paper. Lyle’s eyes were sparkling.

She watched as he screwed the cap on his water bottle, then pulled on his jacket. Boy, did those muscles make a girl notice.

‘Do I still have a job?’

‘You think you deserve one? The waitress who locks up the boss?’

‘I need this reference. I don’t want to job hunt again. I did what I did for all the right reasons. Bottom line, I’m trying to get a mortgage and I need regular pay and a track record to be approved.’

She knew her voice now had a pleading edge but she couldn’t help it. Too much was already at stake. The thought of going back to Paula at the agency and telling her she’d messed up this contract wasn’t good. She knew Paula had been angling for sole employment instructions for the rest of Lyle’s cafés and Paula was her best, long-time friend. Plus losing two jobs in a month was a pretty horrendous track record.

‘You’re still on a trial. Right now my primary concern is your assumptions, the tendency to act on impulse and the wild streak that extends further than your hair.’

She sighed. ‘There’s more to me than this. In fact, the hair was a mistake.’

‘Then why do it?’

She shrugged. ‘Rebellion. Shock.’

‘You did it on a whim?’ Lyle raised a quizzical dark brow that made her skin heat watching him close up. Smelling his scent and seeing every facial detail, the texture of his skin, the colour shade of his lips and eyes felt way too intimate way too soon. And something inside her responded to these details with surprising hunger.

‘The restyle was an impulse makeover when my blood was up. Someone turned all my plans upside down.’ Debilitating as well as dangerous. A bit like Lyle himself.

She recalled Paula’s horrified face when she’d walked through the doors at the agency with radical hair and an announcement about losing her job. Perhaps horrified was too mild – her loyal best friend had looked like she’d just arrived holding a giant wasps’ nest handbag.

‘I note you resigned from your last job due to ‘personal issues’. Want to explain that?’ Lyle pushed.

She’d known this would come up; she’d explained it all fully at interview. She repeated the stock phrases again for Lyle’s benefit. ‘A personal relationship that turned sour. My work and loyalty never came into question. I simply left because relationship-breakdowns can get awkward in the workplace.’