Chapter 35
Bea makes it through till after seven, which feels like a win.
‘Daddy!’ Her shrieks come through as she struggles with Miles’ bedroom door handle. ‘Daddy! It’s morning time! Father Christmas came!’
Miles is out of bed in a flash, bounding over to let her in and scooping her up in his arms.
‘Merry Christmas, monkey. Come and give us a cuddle.’
But Bea’s not interested in cuddles, because she’s seen the swollen stocking at the bottom of her bed. And so Miles grabs the stocking and we establish our pyjama-clad selves on the sofa while Bea oohs and ahhs over her stash.
‘Look!’ She holds up some glitter pens. ‘Fancy!’
‘Father Christmas has excelled himself this year.’ Miles winks at me.
I, meanwhile, am clasping my knees and loving the magic of this moment.
It’s been a decade since Clodagh was young enough to believe in Santa.
There’s something wondrous about watching a little girl immerse herself in the sorcery of Christmas.
‘Look, Bea,’ Miles says when she’s done. He points at the fireplace. ‘It looks like he’s filled Saoirse’s stocking, too. D’you want to grab it?’
Bea runs over to fetch it, and I give him a look.
‘How did you do that?’ I mouth, but he just shakes his head smilingly.
‘You must have been a very good girl.’
‘Ha ha.’ I accept the stocking from Bea. ‘Thank you, pet.’
First thing out of it is a gorgeous-smelling, expensive-looking candle. Then some chocolates and a La Prairie skincare set. Wowsers. And at the bottom lies the softest, seriously sumptuous cashmere sweater. I unfold it. It’s a polo neck in a beautiful shade of scarlet.
I lean over and kiss Miles. ‘Wow. I wish I could thank Santa. He did good.’
‘I may have something for you myself, under the tree.’ He jerks his head. ‘Bea? Shall we see if there’s anything under the tree? I wonder if he brought your dollies?’
There is indeed a large box with a tag saying Bea, and when the recipient unwraps it, she lets out a whoop of joy.
‘It’s my doll! It’s Shonda!’
‘Is that her name?’ I lean over to look at the packaging.
‘No, I just want to call her that. Can you open her?’
Miles grabs some scissors, and we make quick work of all the American Girl packaging, so that soon Shonda is uncovered, fully re-dressed in equestrian gear, and astride her horse. As Bea gets to know her new friends, Miles slides two small, gold packages onto my lap.
‘I have some more stuff I want to get you, but we were short on time yesterday. This one’s a priority, though.’
I turn it over and rip open the paper with a force that makes him laugh. The first one is a Harrods flannel embroidered with holly.
‘I know you like flannels,’ he tells me with a straight face.
‘Oh my God.’ I cover my mouth with her hands. ‘You are a piece of work.’
‘We can try it out later. Open the other one.’
The second package feels like it could be lingerie.
Seriously?
Is he buying me sexy lingerie already?
The expectant smirk falls from my face when I find a red bikini.
‘Oh. What—?’
‘Come to St Barths with us.’ He puts a hand on top of mine. ‘Please. I don’t want to leave you behind for a month when I’ve just found you.’
‘Are you serious? For how long?’ My mind is reeling.
‘Come for the whole month. We have a villa. I’ll be working some of the time, but Bea and I want you there—we’d be so miserable without you.’
‘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 a far better 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 looks tiny.’
‘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-old twin girls.
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.
His middle brother, Theo, is a stark contrast to his siblings.
He’s definitely as blessed in the looks department as Miles is, but his jokey, irreverent side is far more evident.
His sense of humour is heavy on flirtation and light on political correctness.
I think he’s hilarious, but Miles’ mouth is pressed in a grim line most of the time I’m talking to Theo.
If I was in the business of making generalisations, I’d diagnose Middle Child Syndrome. Theo brushes off their mum’s questions about possible girlfriends with ill-disguised impatience. I pity the women who get involved with him. He must have broken a few hearts in his time.
Bea’s just as entranced as I am by her baby cousins, so after lunch, we leave her playing Mummy and Babies with her tiny human dolls, carefully supervised by Stephen and Margot. Her new American Girl doll, Shonda, can’t hold a candle to the real thing.
‘You up for a little walk?’ Miles asks me. ‘I’d like to show you our house.’
I’d love to see his and Bea’s home. And it’s a case of walking off the turkey or lying on the sofa and never getting off it again. I wrap my enormous Astrid Carmichael coat around me (Miles procured a brand-new one, which he also stashed under the tree for me this morning), and off we go.
‘I thought your house was in Holland Park?’
‘It is. It’s right next to Notting Hill. A lot of these roads straddle the boundary.’
We stroll, hand in hand, along the prettiest crescents.
Many of the houses look to have professional-grade festive lights and decorations outside.
Dusk is falling, and I get some fantastic glimpses of the local residents’ at-home Christmas Day entertaining: softly twinkling trees, chandeliers dripping with crystal, mantlepieces festooned with greenery, and glamorous people drinking champagne.
This part of the world is glorious. Rarified. I can hardly believe people live like this.
‘Have you spoken to your folks yet today?’ Miles asks me.
‘I had a quick chat with Mam and Da before they went to Mass this morning. They want a FaceTime later. They’re dying to meet you—they’re so excited for me. It’s so cute.’
‘I’m happy to do a FaceTime when we get back to the hotel.’ He squeezes my hands. ‘I’d love to meet your parents.’
‘Be warned. Mam is completely mad. And God knows how many people will be in the house. And they’ll definitely all be drunk—Mam’s probably on the Bailey’s already.
There’s a good chance she’ll ask you when you’re going to propose.
’ I shake my head. ‘Maybe we should leave it till tomorrow morning, when everyone’s briefly sober. ’
Miles leaned over and kisses my cheekbone, just below where my hat lands. ‘If she asks me that, I’ll tell her I’ll propose as soon as I think I can get away with it without you freaking out.’
I twist my head and gape at him, and he smirks. I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.
Please be serious.
He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to joke about marriage—especially not after what he’s been through—but we’ve only been back together properly for twenty-four hours. Less.
The idea of Miles actually proposing to me makes my heart ache. How the hell did I get this lucky? But all I say is:
‘That would be one way to shut her up, for sure.’
My eyes must give away my emotions, though, because he pulls me into his arms, there and then, for the most tender kiss.
His house, currently hidden behind a hoarding, is extraordinary: a huge, white villa with beautiful black iron-work.
Detached, which I’ve quickly deduced is a big deal in central London.
There’s lots of builders’ crap in the front garden, but the house itself seems to be in good shape, if dark and empty.
‘How finished is it?’
‘They’re working on the kitchen now. Everything else is done. The kitchen cupboards and marble tops got delayed, but they’re coming next week, so we should be good to move back in when we get back from the Caribbean.’
He opens the raised front door and hits a lighting pad, and the upper ground floor illuminates.
I gasp. It’s spectacular. A wide hallway leads through an arch to an enormous double living room, which is all soft greys and whites.
Brand-new sofas under plastic wrap. A gloriously ornate white fireplace.
‘There’s a lot of art to go back in here,’ Miles tells me. ‘It’s not safe to hang it while it’s a building site. The insurance company would go crazy.’
‘I didn’t know you liked art.’ I spin slowly around, looking up. The ceiling boasts divine, creamy coving and chandeliers that make the ones we passed on the way here look paltry.
‘I love art.’ His hands slide around my waist. ‘First impressions?’
‘It’s gorgeous, Miles. It is absolutely jaw-dropping. Like a dream.’
‘Better than Park Royal?’
Something about the way he asks makes my skin prick.
‘Like a different planet.’
‘Well…’ He lets go of my waist and moves around to face me. Tips my face up to his with his fingertips. ‘If you haven’t dumped me by the time we come back from St Barths, you should move in with us. Here.’
His tone’s casual, but I can tell he’s nervous from the look in his eyes.
‘What?’ I whisper.
‘I know it’s fast. I don’t want to pressure you at all.
But I’m not messing about here, Saoirse.
I love you. I want as much of you as I can get.
And you’ve worked wonders with your flat, but let’s face it.
Park Royal is a total shit-hole. So if Holland Park takes your fancy, come and live with me and Bea.
You’d make us both so happy. But take your time; see how you feel in St Barths. ’
I’m crying now, at the stupendous generosity and open-heartedness of this man. Not just the financial generosity, which is so massive that it terrifies me if I allow myself to think about it, but the way in which he’s invited me into his and Bea’s lives so readily.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘I can’t believe you. I can’t believe how kind you are to me—it breaks my heart. I love you so much.’
‘Hey.’
He wraps his arms tightly around me. So tightly. I shudder out a sigh.
‘It’s not kindness. It’s pure selfishness. There’s nothing altruistic about me wanting to wake up next to you every morning, baby. Besides, it will feel far more like a home than a mausoleum if you’re here.’
I’m the one who’s won the lottery, and yet he seems intent on behaving as if it’s he who’s lucked out. I hold onto him for dear life.
‘Come and see my bedroom. Our bedroom, if you agree to move in.’
His lips are right by my ear, and I shiver in delight.
‘It might help you make up your mind,’ he continues, his voice low and sensual. Did I mention it has a very nice bathtub?’
THE END