Taming Her Italian Boss by Unknown Page B

Nothing ostentatious. But there was an elegance to the simplicity. A pared-back beauty. ‘Why on earth not?’
    He shrugged. ‘I think the actual phrase they used is that they want more “wow factor”.’
    A screech from around knee level interrupted their conversation. Ruby hadn’t noticed it while she’d been talking to Max, but the bucket was now almost full and the crabs were scrambling over each other in an attempt to climb out.
    Max knelt down next to his niece. ‘It’s time to put them back now,’ he said matter of factly and tipped the bucket over to let a stream of crustaceans, legs flailing, fall back into the salty lagoon water.
    ‘No!’ The exclamation was loud and impassioned and followed immediately by a stream of hot tears. ‘Want friend! Want friend!’
    Ruby grabbed for the bucket and righted it. Only three crabs remained in the bottom.
    Sofia stopped shouting and sniffed. ‘Want take fish home.’
    Ruby crouched down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders and joined her in looking into the bucket. She might be wrong, but she thought one of the three crabs left might be the little one they’d caught first. ‘We can’t take them back to Grandma’s, sweetie. They belong here in the water. It’s their home. We just picked them out to say hello for a little bit.’
    Sofia let out a juddering sigh.
    ‘Why don’t we put the last ones back one by one and say a nice goodbye to them?’
    Sofia frowned. ‘Come back ʼmorrow say hello?’
    Ruby smiled. ‘If you want.’
    The little girl nodded. Ruby looked inside the bucket and then up at Max. ‘How do we...?’
    Quick as anything his hand plunged into the bucket and he pulled out a crab. ‘There’s a trick to it. If you hold them at the back of the shell like this, they can’t reach to pinch you.’
    He held the crab up for Sofia to see. She puckered up her lips. ‘Kiss fish?’ she asked.
    Ruby’s heart just about melted.
    ‘Not too close,’ she said softly, imagining what Fina would say if her precious granddaughter came home with pincer holes in her lips. ‘Just blow a kiss.’
    Sofia blinked then puffed heartily on the crab, who was so shocked it stopped waving its legs around angrily and went still. A deep rumble started in Max’s chest then worked its way up out of his mouth in the most infectious of chuckles. Ruby looked up at him, eyes laughing.
    ‘That’s a first,’ he said, smiling, and then he gently plopped the crab back into the canal.
    They followed the same routine with the next crab, too, but when they came to the last one, Ruby asked, ‘Can I pick it up?’
    Max nodded. He put the bucket down on the cobbles and took hold of Sofia while Ruby took off her watch and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. She inhaled, then dipped her hand into the cold water and aimed her forefinger and thumb for the parts of the shell the way she’d seen Max do it. It wriggled away a couple of times, but then she gripped more firmly and lifted the crab out of the water.
    ‘I did it!’ she exclaimed. ‘For a moment there I didn’t think I was— Ow !’
    A searing pain shot through her finger, making her eyes water. She blinked the moisture away, slightly breathless, to find an angry little crab attached to her hand. She was sure it was scowling at her.
    ‘Ow, ow, ow...’ she yelped and started shaking her hand backwards and forwards. Anything to make it let go!
    Eventually the force of the swinging must have got the crab, either that or it lost its grip on her wet hands, because it shot off, landed on the paving stones a couple of feet away then scuttled to the edge and flung itself into the canal.
    ‘Ow,’ Ruby said again, just to make her point, even though her attacker probably neither heard nor cared.
    She looked down as her finger started to throb. That had definitely not been the original crab with the delicate little pincers that hadn’t punctured Sofia’s finger. This one had been mean and angry, and blood was now seeping