Chapter Four #2
‘You don’t have to remind me. I’ve never been in a less real situation in my entire life. I spent most of the journey to the airport pinching myself and wondering whether I was due to wake up any minute.’
‘Good. Glad we’re on the same page because this isn’t a relationship. This is an inconvenience that’s been foisted onto me and you’ve been sucked into the drama through no fault of your own. But sucked into it you have been.’
He paused, giving her time to reach the obvious conclusions, but she was staring at him with clear brown eyes, her expression polite and questioning.
Alessandro suppressed a sigh but it was vital he spelt these things out so that misunderstandings didn’t arise.
‘What I’m saying is that it’s important you don’t get tempted into thinking that this necessary charade will ever develop into anything.’
‘Develop into anything?’
‘I don’t think I need to spell it out, do I?’
‘You think I’m suddenly going to start getting it into my head that I’m in love with you?’
‘In love might be over-egging the pudding.’
He flushed, coughed again and wondered what the hell was the matter with him. Was he coming down with something? Or was he just discomfited by the whole situation, which felt more perilous than it should have?
He could feel the nag of an impending headache.
‘You don’t have to worry that I’m going to get any ideas,’ Georgie said flatly, eyes narrowed.
‘This is going to sound weird, but I can’t see myself falling for a guy who threatened to hand me over to the authorities for breaking and entering before coercing me into pretending to be his fake girlfriend because his ex-wife was being difficult. ’
Their eyes tangled and he burst out laughing before succumbing to a coughing fit.
‘By the way,’ Georgie added coldly, ‘you don’t look great.’
‘Never felt better.’
‘Is that what you had to tell me? Or is there more?’
‘We’ve pretty much covered it.’ The coughing had gone but he was smiling, a genuine, amused smile, and Georgie knew that she was blushing as they briefly looked at one another before he stood up. ‘Time for the fireworks to begin. I’ll take you to meet my daughter and remember…’
‘I haven’t forgotten. Business arrangement. Money has changed hands. Stick to the brief or else. Prison may or may not still await.’
He chuckled and it was a disarming, youthful sound that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She slid a surreptitious glance across at him and shivered at the thought of being in the same suite of rooms as him, business arrangement or no business arrangement.
Flora was sitting quietly in a circular arrangement of soft chairs with a round table between them on which was a pull-along emblazoned with Disney characters.
She was colouring and she looked up as soon as they approached, pushing away her book and sitting back and staring with her head tilted to one side.
Children were open with their curiosity but that didn’t faze Georgie because she was used to it. She smiled and remembered that talking would have to be kept to the minimum.
‘Is that your girlfriend?’ Flora asked in a soft, slightly breathless voice.
‘A friend,’ Alessandro corrected smoothly, taking it down a notch. ‘Georgie is a friend, who, yes, happens to be a girl. But mainly, a friend. Georgie, this is my daughter.’
He casually rested his hand on the small of her back in a gesture that was affectionate without being intimate, the sort of gesture that felt like a reminder of what he had just said.
‘Hi, Flora! Wow, what are you colouring? That’s amazing.’ The first thing that struck Georgie was just how beautiful the child was.
Long dark hair hung over one shoulder in a braid and the eyes that looked up at her were huge…dark…and serious.
Flora looked at Alessandro quickly and half smiled just as she stood up to politely reach out her hand in greeting.
‘Oh!’ Georgie grinned. ‘You’re a hand-shaker! Very pleased to meet you, Flora. I’ve heard a lot about you.’ She briefly held the tiny hand in hers.
‘From my dad?’
‘Er…yes?’
The dark eyes shifted to Alessandro, who was smiling down at her.
‘You must be so excited about going to Disney World.’
The serious eyes lit up and she clasped her hands together as if standing to attention. ‘I’ve seen all the Disney films.’ She reached for the colouring book and handed it to Georgie.
‘I’m seriously impressed.’ Georgie’s voice was warm. Was this too much chat? Just the right amount? She didn’t know how she could avoid talking without seeming rude.
‘I teach kids and some of them are your age and I’ve never known any of them to colour as neatly as this.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I’m a pretty good artist. Maybe I could teach you how to draw one of your favourite Disney characters.’ She felt the hand on her back deliver a tiny prod. ‘Time permitting. You’ll probably be all wrapped up going on rides with…er…your dad.’
‘With us both,’ Alessandro’s voice said smoothly from behind her. ‘Flora, why don’t you carry on with what you’re doing? We haven’t got long before the flight’s called. You can finish up colouring…’
‘Elsa from Frozen.’
‘Quite.’
She sat down and reached for one of the felt tips that she had arranged neatly in a row of ten on the table.
Georgie had no idea what to make of their brief conversation. For a minute she looked at the little girl as she took her time with the lines, shaking her head now and again when a colour strayed over the edge.
Next to her, Alessandro had flipped open his laptop and was scrolling through it, losing himself in work, occasionally glancing at Flora but, basically, he had returned to business.
He adored her. That was obvious in the unguarded expression on his face when he looked across at her. Now and again, he murmured something encouraging under his breath and Flora’s eyes would light up.
That said, they were so formal with one another!
Was that because he had been messed around with custody? Because the times when he had seen his daughter had been inconsistent?
If Flora had been caught in the middle of a vengeful mother and a father who had ended up finding himself sidelined, then, yes, that would explain the hesitancy between them.
She’d seen that before on the slopes.
One thing she’d clocked from all her time working with kids was that it was usually the very obedient, quiet ones who came from difficult situations and were hesitant when it came to being too loud.
Or complaining too much.
They had learnt that to be quiet was the safest way to deal with inconsistent parenting.
She felt a tug on her heart watching their interaction.
When she looked at Alessandro, slanting, concealed glances when he wasn’t looking, she didn’t see the open, joyful, delighted expression her father wore whenever he was with her and her sisters.
There was a restraint that made her heart constrict, although she knew that that was none of her concern and certainly nothing she should ever think of voicing.
And Flora?
So beautiful and quiet, engrossed in her colouring, barely glancing around her. There wasn’t a single six-year-old she knew who wouldn’t be making a complete nuisance of him or herself in this first-class lounge.
Or maybe she was thinking about her and her sisters, who would have raided that buffet bar several times over and would now be nagging their parents about something or other. They would have been too excited to keep still.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Alessandro murmured, snapping her out of her thoughts.
She turned to look at him. ‘I was wondering whether I should help myself to something from that buffet bar. Looks pretty amazing.’
‘Be my guest.’
‘I have to admit—’ she lowered her voice from low to practically inaudible and shot a few glances around her ‘—I’ve never travelled like this in my life before.’
‘And I have to admit—’ he lowered his voice with similar drama ‘—that I never had myself until I did.’
‘It must have been incredible…you…er…okay, I think I might be about to overstep the brief.’
‘Really? Then take a step back.’
‘I read up on you. I just think it must have been incredible as you climbed the ladder until you got to a place where you could afford private jets and houses here, there and everywhere.’
Alessandro knew what he should say at this point.
He should add a third clause to the two he had already detailed. Clause one—don’t start building bonds with his daughter.
Clause two—don’t start getting ideas that he might be up for grabs, because he wasn’t.
And now clause three—don’t even begin to think about looking for a backstory and plumbing any depths.
Her brown eyes were calm and interested.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Mid-twenties?’
‘I’m twenty-six. Why do you ask?’
‘You look younger or maybe…’ he thought back to that jaded feeling he’d had ‘…maybe you just make me feel a hell of a lot older.’
‘Older than what?’
‘Thirty-two. I feel a hell of a lot older because I’ve probably been through a hell of a lot more than you have. What’s it like where you grew up?’
‘Where I grew up…nice. Lots of countryside. I say nice…when you get to a certain age, it can be downright boring. But yes, growing up there was a lot of space. Cows and trees and stuff like that.’
‘Cows and trees and stuff like that.’
‘No cows or trees where you grew up?’
‘Alcohol, drugs and making sure to look over your shoulder when you walked the streets after dark. Not a cow in sight and trees were few and far between. Course, it’s a lot more gentrified now but, yes, that was where I grew up so I suppose it was incredible climbing the ladder and making it to the top. ’
Alessandro felt the throb in his temples, the steady progress of a headache he hadn’t had when he’d headed to the airport earlier on.
He felt exhausted.
Exhausted and a little spaced out. Overtired? He’d been up until one in the morning working on emails.
He heard himself say, in a low, pensive voice, ‘Although it has to be said that the higher up the ladder you climb, the more you forget how strong the desire was to have all those incredible things within reach. The houses and yachts and jets lose their allure.’
‘I imagine so,’ Georgie murmured.
‘Right.’ He belatedly remembered the number three clause, which he had temporarily and inexplicably put to the back of his mind. ‘That’s our flight.’ He tapped Flora on her shoulder. ‘Time to board, my little flower.’
The six-year-old looked up at him and beamed at the endearment.
I will not get involved with this family, was what Georgie was thinking as they began bustling to go.
I will not stick my oar into things so that I can be rebuffed yet again.
I will definitely not speculate about father and daughter and those spaces between them, or anything else for that matter. Not my business.
Even though, she admitted to herself, she’d already started speculating, and those things he had said…
Well, curiosity, which had been muted before, had crept through the crack in the door that had opened between them and was coursing through her.
She wasn’t going to feed it by asking any more questions, she decided.
Anyway, she was certain that he would shut her down if she tried to carry on the conversation. She could tell in the sudden stiffness of his stance as he reached down to hold Flora’s hand and began heading back towards the reception.
She busied herself with thinking about what the next ten days would look like.
At least she knew about the sleeping arrangements.
She’d googled the details. She and Alessandro might be sharing a suite but it was vast enough for them to have separate bedrooms and sitting areas.
Flora would be in a mini suite of her own, linked to theirs via an adjoining door.
Georgie figured it was the sort of arrangement suitable for a couple who couldn’t stand one another but were having a holiday for the sake of their kid.
He’d texted her the link, probably to put her mind at rest or maybe to remind her that this was a business arrangement lest she forget, and she’d checked out every small detail of where they’d be staying.
Would Flora be hurtling in and out through that adjoining door?
Unlikely. She didn’t seem the sort of child who did a great deal of hurtling.
Georgie glanced across at her and stifled another thorny surge of curiosity to find out more about her, about why she was so quiet, about the things that interested her, made her laugh.
Would she notice that her dad and his girlfriend weren’t sharing a bedroom?
Probably not and if she did, Georgie doubted it would register as anything suspicious.
Even if Flora had not been so incredibly subdued by nature, six-year-olds weren’t given to the sort of speculation an adult would have shown at something like sleeping arrangements.
The email Alessandro had sent her had listed a military-style approach to the theme park. Rides and lunch, but then downtime because he had to work.
He had suggested that if she was around for some of the morning activities, then she could do whatever she wanted during that downtime.
Flora, he had informed her, was good at entertaining herself, which was something she was now appreciating.
Georgie had wondered whether that had been a not-so-subtle reminder about the non-involvement clause with his daughter in their deal.
Dinner would be an early affair and then he would return to work.
At the end of the ten days, he would fly back to New York with Flora to be collected by Sophia and Georgie would return to her duties on the slopes.
She hadn’t asked him how their so-called relationship was going to taper off and he hadn’t volunteered the information.
That was added to the list of things she wasn’t going to be curious about.
There was so much she was under instructions to not be curious about and so many Keep Out signposts to be obeyed that she wondered whether she had the navigational skills to deal with it all.
She wanted to shamelessly wallow in the luxury of first class but as she watched father and daughter slip into their ridiculously comfortable seats, blasé and indifferent to their uniquely privileged position, all she could focus on was her chattering mind and her desperate attempt to shut it down.