Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Flora
My overthinking was at risk of overwhelming me.
Every thought I had came back to Maurizio and the things we’d done together just a week before.
There was no part of my life that wasn’t wrapped up in and around him.
I lived in his house where every surface, corner and item screamed his name.
I cared for his children who carried physical resemblances as well as character traits, not to mention their constant chatter of him.
My encounters with Carmella and her use of single Italian words and endearments set my mind to Maurizio and the times he’d said things in Italian to me.
I wondered what those words meant. Even if I could say them, who would I ask, Carmella?
I laughed, thinking they may not be suitable for her as Maurizio’s mother.
The car I drove had been chosen by him with me in mind.
Even going to bed at night conjured thoughts of him, the scent of the man, his taste and the feel of his skin against mine as he drew pleasure and sensation from me in a way I never knew was possible.
Even entering or leaving my home into the main house screamed Maurizio’s name much as I had that night when he had come to me and made me come whilst pressed against the wall!
“Penny for them.”
I shrieked, startled by Bea’s voice.
She laughed. “Oh dear.”
“What? ‘Oh dear’, what?”
“How about we take the kids to the park and then we can drink some half decent coffee and indulge in a very acceptable slice of cake. Then while they play you can tell me why you have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
She shook her head at me, a little disbelievingly. “The one I saw Carrie wearing before she got things straightened out with her and Gabe. The same one I saw looking back at me in the mirror when things between me and Seb were up in the air.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, ah.”
We were, as Bea had suggested, drinking coffee and eating cake together when Carrie and Ash appeared before us. I scowled at my colleague, suspecting some kind of intervention.
She shook her head. “Coincidence.”
Ash took a seat next to me and explained his presence. “My lot are off to look at new houses, meaning they are picking the kids up from school and eating out, so I am off the clock.”
Carrie came in for hugs from us each in turn and explained that she and her daughter, Charlotte, had been to the dentist meaning the little girl had finished school early, hence them being in the park at the same time as us.
I still wasn’t convinced until she began drinking her cappuccino through a straw.
“Bloody anaesthetic for a filling.”
It was then that I noticed her slightly slurred speech. Okay, maybe this wasn’t an intervention, which was good. I neither wanted nor needed one.
Barely two minutes passed before I seemed to blurt out, “Apparently I have a look that you two had before finding your happily ever after.” Perhaps I did want an intervention after all.
Carrie stared at me as a frown creased her brow and her lips pursed, well, as much as they could purse with her partial, temporary paralysis.
“What?” What had I said?
“I don’t do happily ever afters, nor Prince Charming if that’s your next stereotype for me finding happiness with a partner and making a family.”
Seemed I had hit something of a raw nerve.
“Sorry.” I was ready to make my own apology when Carrie interrupted me with hers.
“I have issues, but continue telling me about your look.” She sucked up some stray saliva before resting a hand on her growing belly. “Tell me how you come to be wearing your finding happiness face?”
A few seconds passed before I committed to speaking, wary of breaking the discretion Maurizio and I had agreed to. “How did you know, both of you, that you’d met the right man?” I was changing tack and turning this on them.
They exchanged a glance while Ash gave me a playful elbow dig. “What about me? Perhaps I have my own Miss Right stashed away!”
We all turned to look at him, knowing full well that he didn’t. I especially knew this because Ash and I had discussed the topic of love lives several times.
Bea and Carrie guffawed their response about Ash’s Miss Right and began to answer me.
Bea stepped up first.
“I’m not sure there was a specific moment for me. Seb was funny, sexy, charming, and really goofy. He made me laugh, a lot, and he was safe.”
“Safe?” I wasn’t sure I understood.
“He didn’t want a girlfriend, a wife, a family, the happy ever after.”
I definitely didn’t understand now. He pretty much had all that she was saying he didn’t want.
“He didn’t want those things and neither did I.”
Carrie huffed her disbelief.
“Okay, we thought we didn’t, but that made him safe.
I wasn’t risking my heart because he was all about a good time and never about feelings and emotions .
. .” She paused. “Until he was, until we both were, and by then it was too late. I loved him, he loved me, although neither of us was ready for that bombshell nor an unplanned baby.”
I’d only seen Seb a couple of times and he was besotted with Bea and their unborn baby. I looked across at Ash and saw his disbelief as clear as mine.
“I know, I know, he’s super daddy in waiting now.” Bea laughed. “But he was scared . . .” Her voice trailed off again, but this time she looked sad as her gaze moved as far as Carrie who took over.
“Long story short, Seb was hurt in the past and his funny, manwhore Uncle Seb routine was a front.”
“Mummy!”
We all turned to see Charlotte with her hands on her hips, her face stern as she approached us, but Carrie was her only target.
“What has Daddy said about saying bad words?”
“Sorry,” replied Carrie contritely, the roles of the two seemingly reversed.
Turning to me, Charlotte smiled. “Mummy sometimes says bad words, and Daddy, but Daddy doesn’t like it. My Grandma says really bad words.”
Carrie and Bea laughed, laughter the little girl joined in with.
“But Daddy says she has a broken brain sometimes so she can’t help it.” Quick as a flash she changed topic to Seb. “Uncle Seb is so lovely. He loves me lots and lots and he loves me even more than lots and more than anyone in the whole wide world.”
I felt strangely emotional at the obvious love and adoration radiating from this little girl towards her uncle.
She gave Bea a sideways glance that was slightly frostier. “Uncle Seb is funny and kind, and oh so handsome—”
“And that is a direct Seb quote,” Bea interjected to the little girl’s clear irritation.
“And do you know what else, Flora?” Charlotte’s focus was all mine again.
A shake of my head was my reply.
“Sometimes my Uncle Seb even likes Bea.” And as quickly as she’d entered the conversation, she was gone, calling to Craig and Rosie who were in a nearby sandpit.
My mouth hung open, while Ash struggled to stifle laughter, Carrie shook her head and Bea looked rocked.
“She adores Uncle Seb and they’ve had this true love thing going on a while, and it’s always been a little exclusive so she’s getting used to him having another woman in his life.” Carrie reached over and gave Bea’s shoulder a pat.
“I thought she was warming to the idea.” Bea looked a little upset.
“She is,” Carrie assured her. “But you were kind of suggesting that he wasn’t funny, kind and oh so handsome.”
Bea nodded, although she clearly agreed with Seb’s own quote that Charlotte had recycled for us.
Ash deflected attention by explaining that his sister had hated him so much as a baby that she’d put him outside in his pram and locked the door.
This was the same sister who was as good as a second mother to him now.
“Kids just need time to adapt to change, and you know this, we all do, we know kids, it’s our job. ”
Carrie turned her undivided attention to me.
“I fancied Gabe from the get go, even if he was a bit scary. He was my boss and like you, I lived with him so was scared for my home and job if we acted on the attraction, but from the second I met him there was a tension between us, and when I moved in with my clothes spread across the landing and he handed me my tiny scrap of underwear, I think I knew.”
“The underwear he nicked and kept,” Bea said, possibly oversharing.
Ash and I were rapt.
“Yeah, well, as serial killer as that sounds, it worked out. We were meant to be together, and I can’t ever imagine a life without him and my children.”
The sound of fake vomiting from Ash made us all laugh as the children appeared talking about ice-creams.
“I might go and mend a few fences with Charlotte,” Bea said and Ash got to his feet too.
“I’ll get another round in,” he said, indicating the empty cups surrounding us. “Let’s get ice-cream!” he squealed, encouraging the children to join in and follow him and Bea into the café.
“So, what’s your story, yours and Mo’s.”
I frowned at her use of Mo.
“He got drunk with Gabe and Seb when you were visiting your sister, him and his brother, and they all bonded and he is now referred to as Mo in our house.”
I laughed. “He told me he ended up hung over, but not about the bonding.”
“Boys will be boys. But you’re deflecting, tell me about you and him.”
“I think I might have messed it up.”
“How?”
I told her that we’d had sex and that he seemed to be retreating, even using his mother as his primary childcare provider out of hours.
“I’ll come back to the retreating, but how hot was the sex?”
I laughed. “Like nothing I have ever known. Nothing else has ever come close.”
“You’re fucked!” Carrie laughed at her double entendre because I was on both counts. “Maybe he’s trying to draw a line between Flora the nanny and Flora the, what did you say he called you?”
“Tesoro mio or something like that.”
She grabbed her phone from the table and repeated it.
“My treasure.” The computer voice said.
“Wow! So maybe he’s separating the two sides of you, but you’d need to speak to him to know that. But he didn’t blow cold as soon as you and he’d had sex?”
“No,” I heard the hesitation in my own voice.
“What?”
“I hope I can trust you.”
She nodded.
With a deep breath, I spoke again, unsure why I felt safe speaking with Carrie in a way I didn’t with Bea.
“It’s been going on for a while. Not the sex but the attraction and pull, which you probably already knew.
We kept ending up in clinches and compromising positions, sometimes minus clothes, but he’s never withdrawn like this before.
After our almost moments there would be a little tension I suppose but it was quickly replaced again with the attraction and usually another almost moment. ”
When Carrie nodded, she actually looked as though she knew what I meant.
“The day I arrived at Gabe’s house, my clothes ended up strewn across the landing, much to his disgust, and he picked up my tiniest, laciest item of underwear and dangled it from his finger to return it.”
I giggled.
“That is the item he ended up keeping and doing unthinkable things with.”
My eyes were out on stalks at the possibility of those unthinkable things but also found it kind of hot.
“I did walk into his bathroom one time before we were together properly and found him,” she looked around before whispering the last two words, “touching himself. I then offered to help him ‘finish’.”
“Same,” I said and then expanded. “He saw me.” I was crimson and burning hot. “I didn’t know he was watching me that time, I mean we did it again, together, and he showed me what he did.” I wasn’t anywhere near as articulate as Carrie but I think I got the gist of things across.
“Yeah, you’re fucked and he might just need some time to catch up, especially with the kids, and let’s not forget, you’re his treasure.”
Carrie grinned while I rolled my eyes, but inside the butterflies were throwing a party.
“I know that for Gabe, the one thing that made him hold back was Charlotte and not confusing her.”
“Makes sense.”
“But talk to Mo. However, never forget your own worth.”
I took that to mean if I discovered that Maurizio had doubts or regrets. “You sound like my sister.”
“She sounds really smart.”
We both laughed as Ash and Bea returned while the children set about getting the huge ice-creams into their mouths rather than all over their faces.
“Should we even ask what you two have been talking about?” Ash asked.
“You can, but we won’t tell you.” Carrie laughed but continued. “We’ve just been chatting and discovered that we have a lot more in common than we first thought. A lot more.”
I hoped I wasn’t blushing or pulling an expression that suggested what we had in common related to masturbation, sex and hot single dads.
I was relieved when my phone sprang into life, startling us all.
Maurizio. I quickly read his text, letting me know that he was working late.
Again. And that his mother had agreed to take care of the children once I clocked off.
Again. Well, it worked well in pissing me off and making me certain he was avoiding me.
Ash looked over at the phone in my hand. “You want to get together? Go out?”
I shook my head. “Not out, but you could come to mine and we can have take-out and wine.” I looked across at the other two women. “You’re welcome to join us, minus the wine.”
They both shook their heads. “Gabe and Seb are comparing car seats tonight, so we’ll need to give it a miss,” Carrie said.
I was unsure what to say.
“Not even joking. They check reviews and even draw up a list of pros and cons before scoring. They have already done pushchairs and cribs,” Bea explained, making me and Ash laugh before agreeing a time for him to come over.