Chapter Six
THERE WAS NO sign of Alessandro when Georgie woke up at a little after seven and peered outside her door.
She’d set her alarm. If they’d planned on heading off at eight-thirty, then she wasn’t going to cut it fine.
His door was ajar and she paused in front of it then hurried through the adjoining door to find that Flora was up, although still in bed and drawing.
The bed drowned her and her long dark hair spilled around her small face. She looked like a tiny angel and that was even more evident when she glanced up and smiled at Georgie.
‘Have you been up long?’
Flora shook her head and Georgie strolled over to see what she was drawing, to find that it was an eerily accurate depiction of a cartoon character she was copying from a book.
Listening out for the sound of footsteps, she perched up on the mattress and then her natural instincts took over.
She remembered how satisfying it had felt when she had begun as a ski instructor, the kids all trusting her expertise, eager to learn and quick to pick things up.
She remembered that wonderful feeling of finding her place, a place where she felt comfortable, where she no longer anxiously wondered whether she would ever settle into anything.
Comparing herself to her clever, talented sisters had become so ingrained that, despite the fact that she adored both of them, their easy successes had always cast long shadows over her and the choices she had made in life.
Her dyslexia had made her early years academically challenging.
Until she was diagnosed, she had learnt to hang back as a means of self-defence against being laughed at in class and had nurtured a lack of self-confidence that had ended up bleeding into her emotional life.
As a tomboy, there had been no need to prove herself successful with the opposite sex, but she had been unprepared for her headlong rush into crazy infatuation with Hans, the first guy she had ever felt truly fancied her, until she’d seen him with that other girl and realised that camaraderie had been more powerful than lust.
She looked at Flora’s dark-haired beauty, such a replica of her handsome father, and mentally told herself that the hurt she’d felt with Hans would be a pointless experience if she didn’t learn from it and snuff out her inappropriate interest in a guy who had no interest in her whatsoever.
She heard herself chatting now as she reached for a piece of paper and began to draw freehand.
‘I used to draw all the time as a kid,’ she confided. ‘It was the one thing I was really good at.’
‘What about Maths and English?’
‘I got by. When I started secondary school, I got diagnosed with dyslexia. That’s when things are jumbled up in your head and it’s hard to make sense of words and, in my case, also numbers. I don’t tell anyone that, so you’re very special. But what I’d do was I would draw, just like you.’
‘I draw because when I’m home, Mum doesn’t like me waking her up. Sometimes the nannies come but I prefer to stay in my room and draw or colour.’
‘Why doesn’t she like you waking her up?’
‘She puts on an eye mask and says she needs to sleep or else she’ll get wrinkles. I’m not allowed to disturb her. The nanny drops me off to school. My friend’s brother has what you have.’
‘Hmmm…yeah…?’ Georgie was busy mulling over the picture taking shape of Flora wandering through an empty mansion, surrounded by nannies and all the stuff that money could buy while her mother dropped in now and again to touch base.
She looked at her phone, which she’d brought in with her, and saw that it was nearly eight and, with no sign of Alessandro, she suddenly felt a spurt of panic.
‘Okay, Flora. You wait right here and I’ll go check on your dad. I’ll switch the telly on. You can have a look at all the stuff there is to do here. Would you like that?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. She switched it on anyway but kept the volume low.
At the door, she turned around and said, ‘Shall I get some clothes out for you?’
‘I always pick my own clothes.’ Flora looked at her and smiled a shy, angelic smile. ‘And shoes. I’ve picked my own clothes and shoes since I was three.’
Georgie smiled. She’d read somewhere that the younger a child was when she picked what she wanted to wear, the more it indicated a measure of self-assertion and independence.
Those were things that would get Flora far, even though the image Georgie had of her was of a trapped little bird in a golden cage.
She understood in a whoosh why Alessandro had done what he had, why he had coerced her with veiled threats to come on this trip.
He would surely be aware that his ex-wife might not be the most devoted of parents. From what she had picked up, Sophia was materialistic and manipulative and happy to use their daughter to further her own ends.
But he hadn’t played hardball until he’d reached a point of having no choice.
Why was that?
She thought back to those confidences when he had told her about his background and she could understand that he would have had an inherent deep respect for the mother figure in a child’s life and so had allowed his ex more leeway than he should have.
Before she’d met Flora, it had been easy to feel manoeuvred and resentful.
Now, though, she was glad that she was here if the sham drove his ex to a place where relations between them changed into something healthier.
If Sophia accepted that her ex was really and truly no longer within her orbit but had embarked on something serious with another woman, then surely she would accept defeat and move on with her own life and that could only be good for her and Flora alike.
It was easy to get stuck in one place and then moving on became impossible.
When other people got dragged into that dynamic, as in the case of a six-year-old kid, then it could be a disaster.
The door was still ajar and there was still no sign of Alessandro when Georgie returned to their shared living area.
She wondered whether he had taken himself off somewhere to work or else had maybe got wrapped up in something and had lost track of time.
She knocked.
No answer plus the lights weren’t on. At least not in the outside sitting area off which his bedroom, like hers, would be.
She walked through into darkness, switched on the light and then tentatively headed towards the bedroom.
As with the outside sitting area, the door was ajar.
And likewise, it was dark inside. She pushed the door and whispered his name.
If Flora made a surprise appearance now, then heaven only knew what would go through her mind.
She was supposed to be her dad’s girlfriend. Girlfriends didn’t do a lot of tiptoeing and anxious whispering. Even a child of six might find that odd.
When she eventually got up the courage to fully open the door it was to find Alessandro sprawled on the bed and for a few heart-thumping seconds, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could feel her mouth go completely dry.
Was he…naked?
Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead and she loudly cleared her throat and took a couple of steps into the bedroom.
The room equalled hers in size but the figure on the bed gave it an intensely masculine feel that hers lacked.
The covers were twisted around him and he was lying on his back, one arm flung to the side, the other resting on his torso, most of which she could see because he had obviously thrashed around during the night.
He had a beautiful body.
Burnished brown against the white covers.
One leg was fully exposed, long and muscular. The other was half concealed by the rumpled bed linen.
She shouldn’t have to be doing this!
Since when was it part of her remit to wake a slumbering Sleeping Beauty because he had overslept?
She spun round on her heels and banged on the top light and then instantly turned it to dim because it revealed just a little too much heart-stopping reality for her liking.
‘Alessandro!’
From the dim recesses of sleep, Alessandro heard his name being called and he half moved under the covers and opened his eyes without sitting up.
He grunted.
Georgie was standing by the bed with her arms folded glaring at him.
‘Why are you still in bed? We’re supposed to be leaving in half an hour!’
Alessandro reached out and fumbled on the bedside table for his phone and began shrugging off the covers.
‘No!’
‘No?’
‘Are you wearing anything?’
‘I can’t believe how late it is.’
‘You look awful, Alessandro.’
Her voice had gone from sharp to hesitant and she took a careful step forward and felt his forehead and then sprang back.
‘You’re burning up!’
‘That’s impossible.’ He began to push back the covers, registering another horrified squeal from her, and immediately fell back onto the mattress.
‘You’re ill.’
‘I’m never ill.’ He looked at her balefully.
She was dressed and raring to go in something that was, thankfully, a little more suited to the weather and the occasion. Some pale jeans, a cute orange and green tee shirt that clung to her slender body like some very fetching cling film, and plimsoles.
She looked fresh and young and sexy.
Alessandro recognised that he was lodging all these details in his head even though he felt like crap and yes, like it or not, he was burning up.
‘I’m never ill,’ he repeated in a futile attempt to deny the obvious.
‘Wait a minute while I check on Flora. In the meantime, I’ll bring you some tablets. I always carry a first-aid kit with me. Habit. You’re to take the tablets and then wait till I decide what to do with you.’
‘Are you giving me orders?’
‘Yes!’
She turned away but, before she left the room, she said over her shoulder in a voice that brooked no argument, ‘And keep yourself suitably covered! I’ll be back in a minute.’
She ran in to check on Flora, told her that her dad wasn’t well but maybe best not to go in just yet, wait till he was feeling a little better, and that she could go check the fridge and help herself to some juice.