is one of Mills & Boonâs most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.
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âA RISEâ¦YOUâRE ACTUALLY asking us for a rise?â Claudia looked at the younger woman with shocked and incredulous eyes, much as if the girl had asked for a half-share in the house. âI think weâre more than generous as it is. You have your salary as well as free board and lodging, and do please remember that weâre keeping two of you!â
Although Angie was severely embarrassed by that response, she forced herself to continue. âI often work six days a week and I baby-sit several nights as wellâ¦â
Her persistence fired angry colour in the elegant brunetteâs cheeks. âI canât believe that weâre even having this conversation. You do some housework and you mind the children. Why shouldnât you baby-sit? You have to sit in every night to look after Jakeâ¦surely youâre not expecting us to pay extra for what youâd be doing anyway? I donât know how you can be so ungrateful after all weâve done for youââ
âIâm just finding it very hard to make ends meet,â Angie slotted in tightly, a deep sense of humiliation creeping over her.
âWell, Iâm sure I donât know what youâre doing with your salary when you have all your bills paid for you,â her employer retorted very drily. âWhat I do know is that my husband, George, will be extremely shocked when I tell him about this demand of yours.â
âIt wasnât a demand,â Angie countered tensely. âIt was a request.â
âRequest refused, then,â Claudia told her sharply as she stalked to the kitchen door. âIâm very annoyed about this and very disappointed in you, Angie. You have a really cushy job here. Gosh, I wish someone would pay me to stay home and fill the dishwasher! We treat you and Jake like part of our family. We kept you on when you were pregnantâ¦and let me assure you that not one of our friends would even have considered retaining a pregnant and unmarried au pair in their home!â
Angie said nothing. There was nothing more to say unless she was prepared to risk Claudiaâs explosive temper and the threat of dismissal. No au pair worked the hours Angie did. But then she wasnât an au pair even though Claudia persisted in calling her one. She might have come to the Dickson family in that guise, accepting the equivalent of pocket money in place of a salary, but slowly and surely her hours had crept up until she was doing the full-time job of a housekeeper and childminder. At the time she had been so grateful to still have a roof over her head that she had made no objection.
But then she had been very naive when she was pregnant. She had seen the Dicksons as a temporary staging post, had fondly imagined that once she had her baby she would be able to move on to better-paid employment and build up her life again. But piece by piece that confidence had faded once she appreciated the cost of child care and the even greater cost of renting accommodation in a city as expensive as London. Ultimately it had come down to a choice between continuing to work for the Dicksons and moving out to live on welfare.
âWeâll say no more about this,â Claudia murmured graciously from the doorway, well aware that silence meant that she had won. âDo you think you could start putting the children in the bath now? It is half past six, and theyâre so dreadfully noisy when they get over-tired.â
By the time Angie had got the children to bed it was well after eight, and George and Claudia had long since gone out to dine. Six-year-old Sophia and the four-year-old twins, Benedict and Oscar, were lovely childrenâvery rich in material possessions but pretty much starved of parental attention. Their father was a circuit judge, regularly away from home, and their mother a high-powered businesswoman, who only rarely left her office before seven in the evening.
They had a spacious, beautifully furnished home and a Porsche and a Range Rover, but Claudia was so mean with money that she had had a pay meter installed on the gas fire in Angieâs room over the attached garage. Since the room had no central heating, and had originally been cheaply converted only for the purpose of storage space, it was freezing cold in winter.