‘The bags are being taken upstairs and I think I’ll have to get Flora off to sleep. Too much excitement.’
‘She’ll be fresh for tomorrow.’
‘Are you hungry? It’s after eight and it’s probably been a long day for you.’
He was walking and talking at the same time, heading for one of the lifts while a porter scuttled along in front of him, eager to please, until Alessandro told him that he could make his own way to the suite while fishing in his pocket and handing over some notes that made the guy’s eyes light up.
‘Well?’ he prompted, once in the lift. ‘Hungry? If you are you can order up whatever you like or you can explore if you want to and eat wherever you want. It will all be covered by me. I’ll give you one of my credit cards and the pin. Use it as you want.’
‘That’s very generous,’ Georgie said politely. ‘What will you do? I mean once you settle Flora?’ She hesitated. ‘Am I supposed to do something here? Help settle her? I can get her ready for bed or is that overstepping my duties?’
‘Just sort yourself out, Georgie, and leave my daughter to me.’
‘Okay.’
Stung, Georgie turned away and stared at the elevator door. Burnished matte silver. She could see her reflection in it as well as his.
He looked irritable and she wondered what she had done to provoke that.
It shouldn’t matter.
Georgie knew that. She also knew that she sometimes took passing comments to heart.
She knew where that stemmed from, knew that her reactions were sometimes overblown and irrational, but, at moments like this, her instinct was to retreat into herself and fall silent.
Growing up with her dyslexia, which had fostered such a confusing feeling of disadvantage before she could understand that there was even something wrong with her, had made her wary and always on the lookout for any kind of takedown.
And with the opposite sex? She knew when to back off, when to protect herself. Only with Hans had she forgotten to obey that basic instinct. However attractive this man was, she would have to remember that instinct.
The lift doors opened and they were disgorged onto a very large landing adorned with chairs and a sideboard on which stood the largest vase of fresh flowers she had ever seen.
She wanted to reach out and touch one of them, but she just followed Alessandro to an imposing door, which he opened with a key card.
The silence felt suffocating.
She was as excited as a kid, eager to find out what was on the theme park.
Instead, all she could think was that now that they were here, now that he was facing the prospect of being stuck with her for ten days, he was waking up to the fact that she irritated him.
Insecurities that she was so adept at hiding, that barely troubled her at all, began to creep in.
Was he embarrassed by her?
Here in this uber-expensive hotel where even the kids running around were decked out in designer clothes? She was sure she spotted a baby in a pushchair wearing Gucci.
She sneaked a glance at herself.
She’d layered up and as soon as they’d got off the plane, had begun de-layering.
She’d tied her jumper round her waist, stripped down to the tee shirt and stuffed the coat into her carry-on so that it bulged as though on the point of explosion.
Which it probably was.
She’d worn trainers because they were comfy, and had plaited her hair.
One long plait that had made it its mission to unravel pretty much as soon as she’d left Alessandro’s house on the way to the airport.
Mortification tore into her and she did her best to fight it, using every mantra available.
