Chapter Eight
‘DAD! DAD! Look at this! Look!’
Alessandro looked. Flora had run off to a touch-sensitive screen and was pretend wiping away golden, dripping honey on the screen to reveal characters from Winnie the Pooh.
It was hot. The queue snaked pleasantly through an attractively designed wooded area with rustic wooden fences and storybook signposts and lots of honeypots and barrels everywhere.
‘Don’t fast-track to the rides even though you can,’ Georgie had warned him two days previously, when he’d surfaced from whatever bug had kept him bedbound for two days. ‘The best bit is walking in the sun enjoying the sights.’
He’d acquiesced with good humour.
Things had changed between them. She was determined not to confront that fact and the more she’d stuck out her chin, daring him to push past her barriers, the more temptation had beckoned.
The temptation to knock down every single barrier and do what he’d wanted to do, do what she wanted to do as well, if she could allow herself to relax and accept that.
She would.
If the sexual tension between them was getting to him, then it was getting to her. Alessandro knew women. He might not have delved deep into their psyches in an attempt to analyse what they thought, but he knew their sexual responses to him with instinct born from experience.
She might say that what she wanted was her serious fun, whatever the hell that was but her sidelong glances and the tremble of her body when he was near her told a different story.
‘Magical, Flora.’ He went to stoop next to her and obligingly swiped the screen.
‘I know! Shall we go and see Rabbit’s Garden?’ She was hopping from one foot to the other, pointing to a patch of giant vegetables.
There were kids everywhere. Ice creams were being eaten, babies were dozing in pushchairs and parents were laughing. Alessandro laughed.
‘I think we should stick to the queue,’ he advised gravely. ‘We don’t want to lose our place.’
‘No.’ Flora looked wistfully at a batch of oversized fake carrots. ‘Dad.’ She slipped her hand into his and looked at him seriously. ‘Can we live here?’
Alessandro stifled a laugh. ‘I don’t think that would work out.’
‘Okay, but then can we stay longer? Please? Please, please, please?’
Alessandro met his daughter’s dark eyes and his heart flipped over. She’d been like a normal little six-year-old girl for the past few days and now he could see how much of a contrast that habitual seriousness he had got accustomed to really was.
For a second now, the worry was back as she chewed her lip and gazed at him with huge, imploring eyes.
The line was moving but they weren’t in it.
Georgie would be moving with the line. They’d find their place but for the minute…
‘That’s not going to be possible,’ he said quietly. ‘But, Flora, things have changed. Daddy’s going to be seeing you regularly now and you’ll get to do whatever you want when we’re together. Have fun. Who knows? We may even come back here.’
‘But can I come and live with you? Mummy’s no fun.’
‘I’m going to make sure that she’s a lot more fun now, darling. You wait and see.’ He stood up and swept her into his arms and held her still for a few seconds before depositing her on the ground and then leading her to where Georgie had made progress in the queue.
Bitterness and regret left a sour taste in his mouth.
He’d placed so much emphasis on the importance of a mother figure, because his own mother was so important to him, that for too long he’d chosen to overlook the very simple fact that his daughter had not been having a good time with Sophia.
She’d been left too much with nannies. She hadn’t been mistreated in any way.
She’d just been left to her own devices and that had shaped her personality, had made her cautious and self-contained.
Sophia, self-absorbed, vengeful and narcissistic, had been an inconsistent and indifferent parent. Nothing at all like his own mother.
He’d been a damn fool.
Things would change and not a minute too soon.
He looked at Georgie, who had spotted them and was smiling, and he felt such a powerful tug of intense attraction that he sucked in a sharp breath.
He watched the way Flora detached from him and skipped over to her, slipping her hand into Georgie’s as though that was its natural default position, turning to look up at her as she laughed and chatted about something or other.
‘Ready for this ride?’ Georgie smiled as soon as he was standing by her. ‘We’ll be in a honeypot. Have you ridden in any of those before? Might not be the same as your private jet. Think you can handle it?’
Alessandro met her eyes.
She was cheerful and friendly when Flora was around, but the minute there wasn’t a six-year-old chaperone, her guard was back in place, keeping him at a distance.
He didn’t want to be kept at a distance any longer.
They had a few days left here and he knew, with complete certainty, that if they walked away from one another without acknowledging this powerful sexual connection between them then he would regret it and so would she.
Whether she was aware of that or not.
He wanted her. He was sick of pretending that there was nothing going on between them when they both knew that there was. He wanted her in a way that felt different from any other wanting he’d felt for any woman in his life before.
He held her gaze for a fraction too long and noted the slow tide of pink that coloured her cheeks.
‘I can handle everything,’ he assured her. ‘And that includes honeypots.’
‘Really? But not germs.’ She smirked from under her lashes. ‘Because, and I hate to point this out, I didn’t catch whatever you had.’
Alessandro burst out laughing. He looked at her over Flora’s head.
‘You make me laugh,’ he murmured, leaning into her so that he was whispering into her ear. ‘I like that. You go where no woman has ever gone before.’
Alessandro felt the soft tremor that ran through her and half smiled with satisfaction. He’d wanted zero complications.
Sex equated to complications times a thousand.
But he couldn’t get her out of his head. Being in the same space as her was a constant tug of war between temptation and willpower.
Self-denial had moved quickly from compulsory to open to debate.
They were both adults. They wanted one another. Things didn’t always have to lead down the aisle. He was sure he could convince her of that because he felt her response to him when he got close to her.
She couldn’t control it. That was called lust, not love, and why shouldn’t she see the wisdom of giving in to it?
Georgie heard those amused, softly spoken words and shivered. She was trying her best but it was agony being in the same space as Alessandro.
She saw the way he sometimes looked at her, as if waiting for her to do the inevitable and succumb, like a cat waiting for a skittering mouse to come to a standstill and admit defeat.
If only she had the right defence mechanisms!
‘Really? I go where no woman has gone before?’ she said when nothing witty sprang to mind. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe that.’
She gazed down at Flora’s dark, bobbing head but was keenly aware of her father gazing across at her.
‘Tell me about the guy who broke your heart.’
The question was lobbed at her out of the blue and her eyes opened wide as she looked at him.
He laughed.
‘I thought that would get your attention,’ he said wryly. ‘You’ve spent the past couple of days pretending I don’t exist.’
‘You sound like a spoiled kid when you say that.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘No, we don’t. Least of all here! Look. We’re at the end of the queue. We’ll be on the next batch of rides! Flora! Ready to go on a trip around the Hundred Acre Wood?’
‘You can run…’ Alessandro’s voice was amused as he leant to place a hand in the small of her back, drawing her closer to him while between them Flora positively vibrated with excitement ‘…but you can’t hide. We’ll talk later, when we’re not surrounded by thousands of people.’
‘You can’t make me have a conversation I don’t want to have,’ Georgie hissed back. ‘That’s not part of my job description.’
‘I didn’t think there was a specific job description,’ he mused as people began stepping out of the mobile honeypots, making their way towards the exit, leaving room for the ride to be filled with another tide of eager kids and weary parents, ‘but if there was, then I’d say we’ve played fast and loose with it from the minute we got here.
So…once we’re back at the hotel, no scurrying off or escaping outside like you did yesterday evening.
Dinner with me and we can…see where the conversation takes us. Deal?’
‘Alessandro…’ Georgie looked at him helplessly as Flora began stepping into the honeypot.
Did she want to have a conversation with him? She couldn’t think of much else she’d rather do less but how could she refuse?
If she kicked up a fuss about talking to him on his own, then who knew where his thoughts would turn, what deductions he would make?
If she was unaffected by him then why would she run away from discussing the stupid little nonsense that had happened between them, which had now grown out of all proportion because she’d made such a big deal of it?
‘Okay. I guess so.’
‘Splendid! I must say I’ve missed our cosy little chats.’
‘That’s something else I don’t believe,’ Georgie scoffed, letting him help her into her seat and gazing at him as he climbed in after her, rocking the honeypot because he was so big. God, she had to tear her eyes away.
‘I’m hurt.’
He was grinning and relaxed as he stretched his arm out behind her on the back of the seat.
‘But I’m sure I’ll feel much better once we’re back on even ground and you’re not trying to avoid me.’
Georgie glowered but her cheeks were pink. She barely noticed the ride. She paid next to no attention to their Under the Sea adventure from The Little Mermaid. They ate hot dogs for lunch from one of the many stands, milling about with the crowds in the sunshine, like any normal family of three.
Which they weren’t.