Had he loved Fleur so very much? Could the mere mention of her name, even after this length of time, still affect him so deeply?
The bleak look he gave her as he took the baggage from her to stow in the back of the off-roader told her she must have hit on the truth and she whispered impulsively, 'Finn, I'm sorry!'
Despite the hurt he had dished out to Katie, she really meant it; she was sorry. Sorry to have misjudged him to such an extent, sorry to have given him pain by forcing him to mention the tragic loss of his wife at such an early age.
The depth of her regret both puzzled and worried her. As did his curt, 'As soon as we've cleared up at the cottage we'll head back to London.' He had already strapped the still sleeping Sophie into her car seat and was holding the passenger-side door open, waiting with barely concealed impatience for her to clamber up.
She shot a perplexed look into his stony face, learned absolutely nothing, so shrugged, just slightly, and climbed up into her seat and stared blankly out of the windscreen until he swung up into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition.
He didn't give what would hopefully be his future home the merest flicker of a glance as he swung the chunky vehicle in a half circle then headed off down the drive, and Caro, deciding to give it one more shot, said, 'I hadn't realised you were a single parent—I wasn't told that was your reason for wanting a nanny for Sophie. I wouldn't have mentioned your wife the way I did—' To her dismay she felt her face go pink. 'I had no idea she was dead.'
'So I gather.' His tone was dry, cutting. 'However, on consideration, this single parent can cope. As of this evening—when we get back to the hotel—your employment is terminated. You can scurry back to your agency and get down to the paperwork, or whatever it is you normally do when wearing your director's hat. Though, if you're as bad at that as you are at knowing one end of a baby from another, then the ignominious and early demise of the Grandes Families Agency would come as no surprise whatsoever.'
Caro's eyes went wide. 'So you knew,' she muttered as soon as she could gather sufficient breath to speak.
'Of course.'
'And you said nothing?' There she'd been, merrily plotting her plots and scheming her schemes, stupidly thinking he didn't know her from Adam and would never connect her with Katie—oh, what a fool that made her feel!
'I was waiting for you to tell me why you were trying to earn extra bucks by pretending to be a nanny. I take it the agency is in trouble?'
She ignored that. It didn't seem to be important. 'You mean I'm sacked?'
Just like that? No proper reason given, certainly not incompetence because if that had been the case she would have been fired five minutes into her employment!
She'd taken this job with one objective in mind— to make him pay for what he had done to Katie, and then walk out. But the situation had been turned on its head. She was the one who'd been made a fool of, and she wasn't walking out, she was being thrown out!
'I've already said so. But I'll drive you back to London rather than leave you to find your own way.'
'Big of you!' she snapped out sarcastically, then suddenly couldn't say another word; she felt too choked, tears clogging her throat and stinging behind her eyes. She turned her head, staring out of the window at the tranquil rural landscape, pretending to be absorbed in it rather than let him see how much he could upset her.
He hadn't thrown her out because he'd suddenly discovered she wasn't a clone of Mary Poppins. He'd known that all along, apparently. And he hadn't suddenly decided she was too incompetent to be allowed anywhere near his child.
He wanted to get rid of her because she'd had the temerity to mention his wife. And it didn't make the remotest sense! She couldn't imagine what she'd done to make him this angry.
One minute he'd been kissing her as if the taste of her, the feel of her body beneath his hands was an essential part of his life, telling her he thought he was falling in love with her and sounding as if he really meant it. The next, he was acting as if he was her sworn enemy.
Which meant, of course, that he'd been shooting a line when he'd spoken of love. He'd obviously believed that that kind of lie would give him an easier passage into her bed.
And the worst, the very worst part of all of it was the way she'd been starting to think about him. As if he mattered to her, as if his presence in her life was deeply important. And that, believe it or not, had been when she'd thought he was a married man!
It didn't bear thinking about; none of it did. She couldn't condone her own folly and the only excuse she could come up with was a rush of hormones to the head, blocking out her judgement, and the only way she could understand his weird behaviour was to put it down to insanity!
He wasn't crazy, though. Far from it. But she surely would be if she tied her brain in knots much longer, trying to work it out.
'If you'll see to your own packing I'll look after everything else,' Finn imparted coolly as he braked outside the borrowed cottage, his comment bringing her head round, her golden eyes fastening on the cruel, sensual curve of his mouth.
The only way to find out why his attitude towards her had suddenly changed so drastically and incomprehensibly was to ask. She laved her dry lips slowly, hoping her voice wouldn't betray her distress, and saw his silver eyes turn black and hard, his mouth turn down in angry, bitter contempt.
He reached for his mobile phone and said pointedly, 'Lost the use of your legs? If not, I'd like to make a private call.'
'Oh—go jump off a cliff!' Caro scrambled out of the car and headed up the garden path. That explosion of temper, childish as it undeniably was, actually helped. Helped a lot. It pushed all those tearful, wimpish notions of actually caring about the wretched man, finding him sexy as hell, and about as resistible as chilled spring water on a scorching summer day, right into limbo where they belonged. And replaced the whole bunch of idiotic illusions with good old-fashioned rage!
It took no time at all to throw her things into a bag and strip her bed and Sophie's cot. She had no idea what the loathsome Finn intended to do about the laundry and as sure as hens laid eggs she wasn't going to ask!
But stuffing Horn into the canvas hold-all with the rest of the baby's things brought the tears flooding back, filling her eyes and making her feel a fool.
Despite the golden-haired charmer being the dreaded Finn's offspring, fruit of his loins, as it were, she would miss the little girl dreadfully. Sophie had burrowed her way into her incompetent nanny's heart in rather less time than it took to blink.