Living with the Sterlings was very different to simply working there a few hours every evening for half the week. All sorts of staff came out of the woodwork. I’d already met the indomitable family chef Martha, a warm, smiley Welsh lady in her mid-fifties. And then there was Terry, the ancient gardener who must have been at least a hundred and twenty years old. Apparently, he’d worked for the Sterling family since before Lord Sterling was born. Of course, there was also theactualgardener, a young man called Tim in his twenties, who came on Terry’s days off to correctthe older man’s questionable gardening escapades. When I asked Martha about it, she rolled her eyes and told me what a big softy Rafe was. I’d widened my eyes at her in shock, but she just laughed and said that I “didn’t know him well enough yet” and that “he’s all bark and no bite”. Well, seeing as I wasstillhaving those dirty fantasies about Lord Sterling, some of which involvedactualbiting on his part, that was of little comfort to me.
The physical attraction was getting worse and worse as I realised that, despite this man’s size and general scariness, I was actually safer with him than I had been with most of the other men in my life thus far.
It wasn’t a very high bar, to be honest, as, excluding my gentle, gangly teenage brother who wouldn’t hurt a fly (but who certainly couldn’t protect me), the men in my life all had psychopathic tendencies. So, coming across a man with the physicality of Lord Sterling, combined with his gentleness, was a heady combination for me. Any hint of defiance I’d displayed previously had always been met with immediate retribution from the men in my family, but Lord Sterling seemed to love me giving him shit. It was completely bizarre.
And since the flinch incident weeks ago when I exposed myself as a massive scaredy cat, he had, in fact, been very careful with me. More careful, really, than anyone hadeverbothered to be before. He still barked out orders and blustered around the place as was his way, but I could tell that he was trying to soften his tone around me.
He worked long hours but managed to come home earlier a few nights a week. We always ate together now on those days. In fact, even when Ozzie went to his mum’s, Lord Sterling had decreed in that uniquely aristocratic,commanding tone, honed from centuries of commands being issued from the landowners to their serfs, that I would still be dining with him. The first night when I’d backed away, telling him I’d already eaten a cheese and pickle sandwich, he wasn’t having any of it.
“You need to eat proper meals,” he told me, all Master of the Universe as per usual.
“No, really. It was ahugesandwich and I really don’t think?—”
“Sit. Down.” His clipped command, combined with my incessant need to please people, meant I automatically planted my arse in the chair. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at his smug expression. Then, when I tried to get up from my chair to help serve the casserole Martha had cooked, he gave me another of those stern looks and I sat back down.
“Right,” he’d said. “I’ve had a rubbish day. I could do with a laugh. Tell me more about thisSweeney Toddcaper.”
So I did. It helped that there was a lot of material there, including the fake blood, which Lily had bought two gallons of and was fully planning on using until Mrs Clayton walked into a dress rehearsal that looked like something out ofThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
“Seven-year-olds are surprisingly bloodthirsty,” I told him when he questioned whether they were traumatised. When his rich, deep, beautiful laughter filled the kitchen completely, I just stared at him. Amused and unguarded, he was so handsome it was almost ridiculous. I made an excuse to leave after that, worried that I would do something mad like jump out of my chair and into his lap. It was bad enough that he’d had to take in a random woman; if that random woman started jumping him in his own home, I doubted he’d be very impressed.
So, yes, a week into my stay and apart from my inappropriate thoughts about my boss which were nothing new, I was settling in well. I’d started eating three meals a day again, mainly because Lord Sterling and his spies (Ozzie and Martha) forced me to, plus Martha bagged up my lunch along with Ozzie’s every morning.
There were small things too. Like how when I ran low on Branston Pickle, another jar magically appeared in the cupboard with the exact chunk size I liked. It may have been Martha, but Lord Sterling had caught me eating directly from the jar with a spoon twice now, so I suspected he may have been responsible for that little piece of thoughtfulness. Which was mad, wasn’t it? He worked so hard. He didn’t have time to make sure I had my small-chunk Branston Pickle available. Surely?
But by far the best thing was that I felt safe. All the time.
Then cameThe Incident.
Ozzie and I had had a particularly good reading session. I’d told him he could go up another level soon and he’d been pleased as punch.
“I think I might be ready to read to Daddy,” he told me in a small voice when I was dishing up supper in the kitchen.
“That’s great news, Ozzie,” I said, trying to keep my voice level and not reveal my extreme excitement. I’d been teaching long enough to know that if you showed children how much something meant and put too much pressure on them, they would invariably back off what you wanted them to do.
When Lord Sterling arrived home shortly after Ozzie’s revelation, I took him aside in the corridor to tell him. His smile in response to the news was huge and absolutelybeautiful. But his spontaneous hug took me completely by surprise. I was still bouncing on the balls of my feet with excitement when his arms closed around me. I stiffened at first, overwhelmed by the feel of his muscular body against mine, but then as I felt him start to pull away, my brain screamednoand that’s when I short-circuited. My arms came up to clamp around as much of his large body as I could manage, and I rested my head on the centre of his broad chest, breathing in his glorious scent and revelling in the very feel of him. Mortifyingly, in order for him to separate himself from my spider monkey hug, he had to call my name a couple of times. Eventually, he enclosed my upper arms with his large hands and physically set me away from him.
Once my brain restarted and I realised what I’d done, I took a huge step back, my face burning with humiliation. Luckily, Ozzie appeared at that point to cut through the tension.
“Daddy,” he squealed as he flew down the corridor, colliding with his father’s legs as was his standard greeting. Lord Sterling dropped down to his knees to give his son a hug, and I tried to slow my breathing back to a normal rate.
The tension between me and Lord Sterling when all three of us settled on the sofa while Ozzie found his place in his book was almost unbearable. I started listing countries in my head where I could move to get away from the acute embarrassment. Maybe Australia needed teaching assistants with chronic shyness and PTSD, who knew?
But then, Ozzie, tentatively at first, but with growing confidence, started to read his book to his father, and the embarrassment dulled as my heart swelled with pride. This was the little boy who, at the start of the school year, when someone suggested he read out loud, would start throwingobjects around the classroom. The one who wouldn’t even sound out letters with me when I first started working with him.
After a couple of pages, Ozzie paused and looked up at his dad with a cautious expression. I could feel his worry and it broke my heart. His reading was still very hesitant. He skipped words and swapped letters around. With some of the words, even after sounding them out, he still got horribly muddled, and he often made wildly inaccurate guesses, becoming frustrated when they were wrong and he had to try again. Plus, he was obviously nervous with his dad listening, but he’d done so, so well. I prayed that Lord Sterling could see how hard Ozzie had tried, and he wouldn’t be dismissive in any way. But, of course, I never should have doubted him.
“That was great, Oz,” Lord Sterling said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He swallowed before he spoke again. “I’m so proud of you, you know that, my boy?”
Ozzie shrugged and hid his pleased smile as he turned away from his dad to look back at the book.
“Okay,” I murmured, “I’ll just be in the other room if you...”
“No, stay!” snapped Ozzie, grabbing my arm before I could stand from the sofa.
I had thought that I needed to give them space to have this special moment together. After all, I was only a paid employee. But both faces, one ultra-masculine and handsome, and the other so similar but with the softness of youth, frowned up at me in consternation.
“You’ll stay,” said Lord Sterling, with that imperious Lord of the Manor tone. I smiled at them both. In truth, I wanted to hear Ozzie reading to his dad. It was what I’d worked towards for so long, and I knew how much it meantto both of them. So I settled back down on the sofa and listened. When Ozzie was finished, he did what children tended to do after they’d blown everybody’s mind. He simply jumped up from the sofa and asked if he could go watch the telly now.
