‘I can’t just accept a month-long holiday from you—it’s too much, honey. And I can’t afford to offer to pay my way.’ I can feel the panic rising. This offer is too amazing, and I want nothing more than to go. It never occurred to me that Miles might invite me along. I’ve been steeling myself for a month of misery back here.
‘Listen.’ He kisses me softly on the mouth. ‘We’ll have plenty of staff, but I don’t imagine Bea will want to be with them the whole time. So if you did come, you may well get stuck with a good proportion of the childcare. Especially if I’m working. I feel bad about that, because I don’t want you to think I’m asking you to come out as a nanny. Far from it. But if you’re happy for some Bea-time, and we’re both feeling bad about the arrangement, let’s call it quits? Because it sounds like a great deal for me.’
‘It sounds like afarbetter deal for me,’ I tell him. ‘Bea by day, you by night…’
‘That’s the spirit.’ He holds the bikini top up to my chest. I look down at it.
‘That lookstiny.’
‘It’ll fit perfectly.’
‘Those triangles will never cover my boobs. Either you’ll get some major under-boobage, or it’ll just give up the fight and fly off.’
‘That’s what I call fitting perfectly. I’m hoping very hard for either or both of those scenarios.’
‘Perv.’
He leans in closer. Lowers his voice, even though Bea is in a world of her own right now.
‘You know, we haven’t really exploited the pervy-boss-slash-hot-nanny fantasy properly.Yet. Maybe when you’re a hot, bikini-clad nanny…’
My mind is racing ahead, to a month on a beach, in a place I’d have zero ability to find on a map if asked, with lovely little Bea and this man, whose physical and emotional attributes leave me speechless. I mentally update my heartbroken fantasy of Miles lying on that sun lounger.
Now I’m there.
Straddling him.
Grinding down onto him.
Applying sun cream to his golden skin. Those pecs flexing under my hands. These skimpy bikini bottoms offering very little protection from him.
And alone with him at night. Just us and a mosquito net. A sea breeze cooling the sweat on our skin as we get intimate in ways we haven’t explored yet.
He’s watching for my reaction. I lick my lips. Just hearing him say words like that, my heart starts pounding in my chest.
‘It sounds like you’ll be making far better use of me than you have.’
‘You bet I will.’ He nods at me, slowly.
‘Okay then.’ Whew. Things are getting a bit heated for what should be a nice, wholesome Christmas morning. ‘Yeah. Um. Count me in, please. It sounds—lovely. Really nice. Thanks.’
He’s completely flustered me, and now he’s openly laughing at me.
‘Poor baby. I’ve made you blush.’
‘You’ve made me do a lot more than that. Why don’t I make us a nice cup of tea?’
‘I’ll do it.’ He springs up and looks over at Bea, who has Shonda’s face in her hands and is whispering to her adoringly. Then back at me. He blinks and smiles at me. ‘Look at you two. I love you both so much.’ He kisses me as if to seal in his declaration before saying the words I’ve wanted to hear so badly.
‘I love my girls.’
Later in the day, we head to Miles’ parents’ beautiful house on a curved, tree-lined street in Notting Hill and tuck into an enormous lunch. Because everything’s happened so quickly, I haven’t had much time to get nervous beforehand.
Not that I should have worried. Miles’ family is delightful. It turns out that the grumpiness he exhibited in our early days together was all him. Not inherited.
His parents are seriously cool: glamorous and funny, with an impressive ability to swear. They strike me as the kind of people who must have loved the social side of running a hotel chain when they were at the helm. Miles has mentioned that their social life these days as retirees put his to shame. Not difficult, from what I’ve seen of his non-existent festive socialising over the past month.
Miles’ youngest brother, Stephen, is married, and he and his wife Margot have two-month-oldtwingirls. Identical! I’m in raptures, and I spend as much time as possible getting cuddles and helping Stephen and Margot, who are still in the totally knackered phase of new parenthood. The twins’ tiny heads fit right in under my chin when I hold them. I forgot what heavenly little piglety noises newborns make. They smell amazing, too.
