But was he? Because he seemed exactly what shedidn’tneed at this point in her career.
She glanced to Connor and found his eyes on her, his expression watchful.Youokay?he mouthed.
She nodded. She could do this. Before, she hadn’t wanted the relationship enough, so it had suffered. This time, she wanted the relationship so much, she’d been miserable without it, and her work had suffered.
Somehow, she had to learn to juggle both.
Connor wrapped a band around Mia’s second plait and tapped her on the shoulder.
“All done.”
She smiled shyly at him, then grasped Ellie’s hand. “Come with me. I want to see what they look like.”
The pair of them dashed off, presumably to a mirror. With nothing else to focus on now, he scanned the room. As his gaze fell on the different groups chatting animatedly, the nerves he’d felt earlier returned, knotting his stomach. On holiday, her family had been on his side, keen for Olivia to have a bit of fun.
Today he was here as her boyfriend. With his daughter in tow.
Did they see him as a gold digger, after her money? A single dad after a mother figure for his daughter? His gut rolled.
“Thanks for doing Mia’s hair.” With a start, he looked up to see Jessica smiling down at him. “I think you just made her birthday.”
“No worries.” Awkwardly he lurched to his feet. In Nantucket he’d been able to talk to her easily. Here he felt like he didn’t belong. “Ellie used to get picked on for having unruly hair and begged me to plait it. I was so ham-fisted, they fell out before she’d got to school.”
“Sounds like one of your attempts, Jess.” Ashley smiled and his stomach settled a little. She knew him, didn’t she?
But then Olivia came into view behind her, and that feeling of being unbalanced, of everything inside him fluttering, returned in full force.
“Well, you’ve definitely perfected the art of plaiting now. How did you learn?” Jessica asked.
“Watching YouTube videos.” He felt his face grow hot and shoved his hands in his pockets for something to do. “And practicing on one of her dolls.”
He didn’t dare look at Olivia.
He’d never know what they, whatshethought of that, because the sound of a crying baby blasted through from the baby monitor.
Jessica sighed. “I’m afraid that’s the end of our peace.” She glanced speculatively at Connor, “Don’t suppose you can work your miracles on grumpy babies too? Tabby used to be such a sunny little thing, but I swear she’s started teething early.”
He was being too sensitive—blame years of his parents sniping at him—but it felt like he had a giant spotlight on him.He knows this stuff because he had a daughter when he was too young to care for her properly.“Ellie would gnaw on my fingers.”
Jessica laughed. “Well, I might ask you to help out if the paracetamol doesn’t kick in.”
“Happy to.”
The doorbell sounded, announcing more arrivals—Sophie and Steve, plus Linda, Olivia’s mum. As everyone hugged and caught one another up on their news, he felt more and more isolated. The virtual stranger who shouldn’t be there. Across the sea of faces he watched Olivia talking with her niece. Different to the focused career woman, this was the Olivia who loved her family. It was hard to square this woman with the one who insisted she didn’t want a family of her own.
She caught his eye and motioned for him to join her, but he gave a little shake of his head. Family time was precious and he wasn’t going to get in the way of hers by being a needy boyfriend. No matter how desperately he wanted to sit on the sofa and draw her onto his lap.
He slipped out of the living room and meandered into the kitchen, where he found Nick and Jessica. They looked frazzled, Nick trying to bounce a clearly miserable Tabby on his shoulder while preparing jugs of homemade lemonade, Jessica taking things out of the oven, her cheeks as flushed as Tabby’s.
“Put me to work,” he told them as he stood in the doorway. “I can be chef, barman, or babysitter, take your pick.”
Jessica burst out laughing. “Oh my God, you can too. I want to say yes to everything.” She waved a hand at Nick. “But maybe if you take Tabby for a bit?”
Nick looked pointedly at his wife, his reluctance to leave his precious daughter with the playboy from Nantucket perfectly clear.
“It’s okay,” Jessica assured him. “Connor brought up Ellie single-handedly. He knows his way around a cranky baby.”
Nick looked again at Connor, who nodded, man-speak forI’ve got this. Carefully Nick peeled the fussing Tabby off his shoulder and handed her to Connor. Connor arranged the little girl in his arms, and his throat locked up as memories flooded him, good and bad. Bad because he’d been a clueless twenty-year-old in charge of a baby who, at times, looked so unhappy. He’d lost count of how often he’d had to swallow his pride and phone his mum to check if the red cheeks and temperature were normal when teeth came through or that the nappy rash really wasn’t meningitis, the cough not whooping cough. He’d felt so out of his depth, so utterly useless, and also so alone, his mates not interested in staying in with a baby.
