Too Scared To Love

Too Scared To Love
CATHY WILLIAMS

Passion Against All Odds… Roberta was looking for a fresh start - she wasn't looking for romance! But as soon as she arrived at Grant Adams's home in Toronto, she knew she was heading for trouble… As au pair to Grant's headstrong daughter, Roberta had a challenge to face - but coping with rebellious Emily was child's play compared to handling her devastatingly attractive father!For some reason, Grant resented Roberta. But when the sparks of anger turned to passion, life became complicated… . Roberta was scared to let herself fall in love with Grant, but the temptation was hard to resist!

Too Scared To Love

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#uabca476b-a622-5be7-a28e-7d539bad8c39)

CHAPTER TWO (#u49427473-dfa4-5392-84a3-4d3a0f27db2f)

CHAPTER THREE (#u992f13fb-787f-5b4e-adc1-dc098e0714c8)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

HERE at last. Dark, freezing cold, but for the first time in months Roberta felt some of that desperate unhappiness and awful, sickening sense of shame begin to lift from her shoulders.

She relaxed in the taxi, her eyes flickering interestedly over everything.

The taxi driver was chatting to her, capitalising on the fact that she was new to his city to boast about absolutely everything. And with good cause.

Toronto by night was marvellous. As the car weaved towards the heart of the city, there was something vital about the illuminated buildings that soared upwards, intent on reaching the stars.

In the distance, by the harbour front, he pointed out the magnificent CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the world, and Roberta gasped in awe at the slender column, rising upwards to its distinctive bubble before narrowing to needle-like slimness as it stretched upwards. Look at me, it seemed to be saying; in this concrete jungle I am the undisputed king.

There was nothing like this in London. Roberta frowned. She didn’t want to think about London. It made her depressed. She had come here in the hope of clearing her mind. The last thing she needed was to find herself pursued across the waters by her unhappiness.

‘How long you over here for?’ the taxi driver asked, and she dragged her attention away from the striking city skyline.

‘A month,’ she said. Would four weeks abroad really do anything?

‘Funny time of the year to pick for a long vacation,’ he responded, curiosity in his voice, and Roberta replied noncommittally, ‘I don’t mind the cold. It’s refreshing.’

He smiled and fell silent, leaving her with her thoughts.

It still seemed an incredible piece of good fortune that she had managed to land this job, even though she was well qualified for it.

She had been doing au pair jobs for the past two years. It had started out as a way of earning money while she considered various other options, but she had enjoyed it so much that those various other options had gradually faded into the background.

She was, she supposed, suited to it. She was a calm, self-possessed person, and she had quickly found that her capacity for patience had a quelling effect on even the most brattish of her charges.

Her friends all thought that she was mad. Why, they had uniformly asked her when she had first started, do you want to waste your university education on looking after spoilt two-year-olds?

But now she was glad that she had done so. How else would she have ever got an overseas job?

Of course, this was a slightly different one from those she had previously had. Emily was no toddler. She was a fourteen-year-old girl and, from what Roberta had read between the lines at her interview at the agency, a rather lonely little girl.

No mother, father hardly ever at home. The sort of domestic background that bred problems. She was doubtless terribly shy and insecure.

She found herself drifting off into speculation, only realising that they had reached their destination when the taxi stopped outside the house.

Roberta absent-mindedly paid the driver and stepped outside, gaping at the massive edifice facing her as he carried her luggage to the front door.

‘Well, have a good time,’ he said cheerfully, and she nodded distractedly. She had known that her employer was wealthy, but she certainly had not been prepared for this degree of wealth. No wonder the child’s father had no time for her, she thought wryly. He would have to work all the hours God made just to maintain a place of this size.

She tentatively rang the doorbell, hearing it reverberate distantly in the bowels of the house, and hoped that they wouldn’t be too long because it was cold outside. A dry, biting cold which seemed to work its way through her layers of clothing until she could feel its fingers pressed against her flesh.

She shivered and was about to ring the doorbell once again when the door was opened by a middle-aged woman wearing an ill-humoured expression.

Roberta ignored it and smiled.

‘Good evening,’ she said as warmly as she could through chattering teeth, ‘I’m—’

‘Yes, yes,’ the woman said, ‘I know who you are. You’re late. We expected you two hours ago.’

She ushered Roberta through, helping her with her cases, grumbling under her breath.

‘I should have been home by now,’ the woman muttered. ‘I had to stay here with Emily.’

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Roberta began. ‘Surely Mr Adams—’

‘Mr Adams works late most nights,’ the woman cut in with disapproval in her voice.

‘I see.’ She didn’t see at all. It was nearly ten o’clock, for heaven’s sake! Apart from anything else, had he no interest in meeting the woman employed to look after his daughter? Rude, Roberta thought. A workaholic with no manners.

‘I’m Glenda Thornson, by the way—the housekeeper,’ the woman introduced herself, slightly less ill-tempered now that she could sense departure imminent on the horizon.

‘Pleased to meet you.’

Mrs Thornson was already moving towards the staircase and Roberta followed her. ‘It’s a lovely house.’