Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Maurizio
Friday night came and went, as did Saturday morning and afternoon.
I was bored. I’d spoken to the children who were having a wonderful time with my mother, but I hadn’t heard from Flora and that pissed me off.
We hadn’t agreed to keep in touch, however, I was irked by the lack of communication.
The voice in my head pointed out that I could have as easily contacted her, but I ignored it.
I needed to get out.
I arrived at the bar where I’d agreed to meet, Nico. We didn’t meet up as often as we used to, outside of family gatherings, but we were only ever at the end of the phone and always up for a meet up and tonight I needed it.
Nico was already there when I arrived. I spotted him at a high table surrounded by four stools.
“Here he is.” Nico leapt to his feet and thrust a glass of scotch in my hand before we took seats opposite each other. “Not that I’m not thrilled for the opportunity to catch up, but what’s her name?”
I laughed at his very accurate summing up of my reason for making contact, yet still attempted to deny it. “We’re not all hopeless cases like you, you know.”
He laughed, unbothered by my accusation. “And yet, you called me.”
“Kiss my arse, Nico.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Nico threw back, the banter already flowing back and forth.
“You said we’d keep those times between ourselves.” I laughed with him and then shocked him and me. “Flora. Her name is Flora.”
“Shit! Hold that thought. We need more drinks.”
He was already on his feet and heading for the bar and as I watched the barman filling our order, I laughed again as I saw four glasses having very generous measures of scotch added to them.
Nico watched me down another scotch. I’d lost count of how many had gone before this one and as I swallowed it, the burn it caused made me think of Flora and her attempt at drinking my whiskey, only to cough and splutter her amazement that it was whiskey. Whiskey she didn’t like that burned.
“So, Flora is the nanny. You like her, she likes you, and there is no way back for you and Sophie?”
I nodded.
“The nanny that Mama says is beautiful and such a sweet girl?” He laughed and arched a brow at our mother’s meddling where her boys’ love lives were concerned.
“Mama is right, but I need her not to know about this.”
Nico laughed. “Maurizio, you are an open book where women are concerned and Mama is like a blood hound with a big juicy bone with us and women.”
I rubbed my hands over my face hoping that when I revealed it again, my thoughts and mind would be clearer. They weren’t.
Nico wasn’t done clarifying the situation. “She, Flora, is hot as fuck and seriously into you, as you are her and although you’ve never really got it together, you want to. You both want to?”
“Yes.”
“You are both single and consenting adults, so what’s the problem?”
It sounded so simple when he put it like that, but it really wasn’t, far from it. “She’s my children’s nanny.”
“I know, you said.”
“If we get together and it goes to shit, the kids lose their nanny.” I thought that was more than adequate as far as explanations went.
“You could get a new nanny.” Nico was staring across at me, a deep frown creasing his brow.
I shook my head at his lack of understanding my point.
“But the children like this nanny.”
“Oh right. But they liked the old nanny, right, Bea?”
“Ye-es.” My drawled out reply confirmed I was beginning to see the point he was trying to make.
“So, if you fuck it up between you, and she no longer wants to be your children’s nanny, you could get a new one.
To replace her for Rosie and Craig, not to try again with another.
” He sniggered, unlike me, not that I couldn’t see where he was coming from.
“Also, by the time she has realised you’re more trouble than you’re worth, Bea could be back. ”
Before I had a chance to really consider any of those scenarios, he continued.
“Maurizio, I am calling bullshit here. I accept that her being the nanny kind of complicates things if it all turns to shit and as the nanny, you can’t fuck her and move on.”
I saw red and immediately got to my feet, stepping closer to my brother, ready to punch him if he continued in this way. “Do not speak about her that way. Flora is a wonderful woman. She’s sweet and kind, and does not deserve to be spoken about so disrespectfully.”
The temptation to take a swing at my brother was strong whether he said anymore or not.
Perhaps that was what I needed, to fight.
What I actually needed was Flora, naked and writhing as I drew every last ounce of pleasure form her and forced her beautiful features to contort in pleasure with me insider her, but as I wouldn’t be doing the latter, the former might be the only way to work off this tension and frustration.
The sound of my brother’s laughter interrupted all thoughts, whether they be of pleasure or violence.
As I stared at him, he paused, possibly sensing my violent thoughts.
“Baby brother, you have it real bad if my use of the word fuck has you so wound up and getting all chivalrous. What I meant was that her role in your home and with Craig and Rosie means you can’t simply act on your desire and attraction and move on like you could if you picked someone up in a bar or a club.
I really didn’t mean to disrespect the lovely Flora or antagonise you. ”
I wasn’t sure about the latter, but I believed he wouldn’t deliberately show such disrespect towards Flora so I retook my seat.
Nico had, however, made several good points about the ease with which I could move on from a night with someone I casually picked up rather than pursuing things with Flora.
Unfortunately, I didn’t want to pick someone up, I wanted Flora.
I didn’t have time to think how that might look or what I should do next when I saw a couple of men draw alongside our table and for the first time, I noticed just how busy the bar had become.
“Maurice,” one man said, Gabriel Caldwell, Carrie’s husband.
“Gabriel.”
I offered him an outstretched hand and was in no way surprised to see that the other man with him was Bea’s boyfriend, Seb.
Seb and I didn’t not get on, but we didn’t get on either.
He knew that I’d made a couple of clumsy passes at his girlfriend, the same passes Flora asked me about in my bathroom.
As a consequence, Seb had marked my card and held a certain amount of distrust towards me.
I didn’t blame him for that, but he had no need to be suspicious of me because there was only one nanny I was interested in, and it wasn’t his.
Nico was already shuffling around the table so that he was sitting next to me. “If you guys want seats, we have a couple free.”
Gabriel didn’t hesitate in taking a seat, while Seb, a little more reluctantly, followed his friend’s lead.
I introduced Gabe to Nico first, just by his name and then moved onto Seb and foolishly added the information of him being Bea’s boyfriend.
“Do you have a nanny, too?” Nico asked Gabe with a laugh that confirmed he thought he was being humorous.
“Not anymore,” Gabe replied and then continued. “I married her so now I have a wife.”
“Shit!” Nico laughed, believing what Gabe was saying, but genuinely amused.
“Is it something they put in the water around here? You have a nanny, now a wife.” He pointed at Gabe.
“And your girlfriend is his nanny, one of them . . . the pregnant one.” He wagged his finger in the direction of Seb then finally turned to me.
“And you have another nanny, one you’re totally bewitched by and for some reason I can’t figure out, she seems rather taken with you too, but you’re too much of a pussy to do anything about it. ”
“You’re a fucking arsehole,” I told my brother, but couldn’t deny his summing up or his insult, even if I hadn’t wanted that knowledge to be shared with either of the other men present.
Seb looked stunned, but quite happy to discover I had a new nanny in my sights, not that Bea was ever truly in them.
Gabe on the other hand, laughed as he picked his glass up. “You, mate, are fucked,” he told me. Then raising his glass as if in a toast said, “To nannies, each and every crazy, fucked up in the head, and downright delightful one of them. And to those of us who are doomed to love them.”
“To nannies,” added Seb as we all clinked glasses and I sent a silent prayer that I might be fortunate enough to be one of those Gabriel Caldwell described as being doomed. I wanted to be doomed to love them. To love Flora.