A big, powerful predator temporarily at rest was what she was thinking as she made them both a cup of coffee and then, as an afterthought and because she hated waste, a plate with some cheese and biscuits on it.
He smiled when he saw that.
‘I can’t bear to think of these lovely home-made biscuits being chucked out.’ She flushed and sat where he had patted, except not quite as close as he’d indicated. She stuck the plate with the cheese and biscuits between them like a physical barrier.
‘You’re so different, Georgie. Tell me why you are the way you are.’
‘Again, you’re talking in riddles.’
‘You don’t seem to have a lot of guile. I know that you’re still young but you seem so innocent. I like that.’
‘You like it because it’s different,’ Georgie pointed out with prosaic honesty. ‘If you were surrounded with lots of women like me, you’d soon be bored and desperate to meet someone like your…er…’
‘Like my ex-wife?’
‘I don’t know what she’s like so I can’t say anything about her and, anyway, I’m not interested.’
‘Not curious at all?’
‘No.’ She gulped a mouthful of hot coffee and swallowed it down.
‘I don’t believe you, because I’m curious about you.’
‘And because you’re curious about me, you think that it’s inevitable that I’m likewise curious about you?’
‘You’re good at getting to the heart of the matter.’
‘Well, that’s very egotistical. Besides… I thought…that wasn’t allowed,’ Georgie said breathlessly. ‘Curiosity…’
‘I know. It wasn’t but I didn’t expect to find myself bedridden on day one.’
‘I don’t know what that has to do with anything.’
‘I’m usually always in control, but this time I don’t have control over whatever germs are having fun inside me so maybe I’m not thinking as logically as I normally would be. Hence, I’m curious and you’re curious too. Tell me why you were never tempted to follow the sister who went into medicine. Isn’t that along the same lines as teaching? Both in the caring profession but with one being a little more up close and personal with the human body?’
Georgie blushed.
Dyslexia was the thing she rarely discussed even though, logically, she knew that that was silly because it was so widely recognised as a diagnosed disability.
If she had to declare it, as had been the case during her work career, then she did, but it was mostly something she kept to herself.
Was it because, for those years before she was diagnosed, she had become accustomed to feeling a little second best?
Had a certain amount of insecurity around it become ingrained in her psyche? Making her think that to admit to it would be opening herself up to pity?
If that was the case, then it defied logic because no one in her family had ever made her feel inferior in any way, but then emotions sometimes bypassed logic.
‘I’ve always been more of an outdoorsy type,’ she said vaguely. ‘As a kid I couldn’t sit still long enough to do well enough to get all the exam results that would have qualified me to do something serious with my life. I found my level. It may not be as important as what my sisters do but—’
‘Don’t say that,’ Alessandro interrupted sharply.
‘What? Don’t say what?’
‘What you do is incredibly important and incredibly serious. I’ve never seen Flora so engaged as when she got back here with you, so what you do? Incredibly important.’
‘Oh. Okay. Well. Thanks.’ She went bright red.
‘And…you shouldn’t put yourself down.’
