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Rose nodded, feeling her throat thicken. ‘The basics.’
‘What a start in life!’
The kitchen was last on the whirlwind tour. Gleaming and high-tech, it was gadget heaven. Janet showed Rose where the formula was and explained, as she opened the massive fridge, that Arthur cooked.
‘So I’ve been spoilt but he’s left something for you to just pop in the microwave. You’re only here the one night?’
Rose nodded, relieved when she didn’t immediately regret it—fingers crossed this meant her headache was on the way out. It looked as if she could get away without taking the prescription meds, which she only resorted to when nothing else worked.
‘I think so. Does Mr Adamos...do you eat with him?’
The woman laughed. ‘Heavens, no, he’s barely seen the baby—’ her tight-lipped disapproval showed ‘—let alone me. He eats out most nights, treats the place like a hotel...though with you...?’
Embarrassed by the speculation in the stare, Rose gave a carefully casual shrug and didn’t pretend to misunderstand what she was hinting at. ‘I really don’t think I’m going to get mistaken for one of his girlfriends any time soon, do you? I doubt that I’ll see any more of him than you have.’
I hope, she thought fervently as she tucked her crossed fingers into her pocket, though she didn’t as yet share the other woman’s disapproval. People reacted to bereavement differently and the baby had to be a reminder of a loss he might still be coming to terms with.
‘Sorry,’ the other woman said with a grimace. ‘But you’re such a pretty girl.’
‘Well, I don’t know the manpersonally.’
Could a kiss be classed as impersonal?
‘I doubt that is going to change,’ the woman responded, her attitude perceptively warmer now that Rose was established as one ofthe workersand not one of the girlfriend class. ‘I’ve barely exchanged two words with him. He hasn’t been into the nursery once. He communicates via Arthur.’
Rose arranged her features into a suitably sympathetic expression while thinking that the two-word limit had not stopped the older woman passing judgment.
‘People react to loss differently...’ He might be dealing with grief in his own way, and that grief might involve eating out in posh restaurants with beautiful women every night—who was she to judge?
Janet conceded this with a slightly grudging, ‘You’re right, I know. It’s just my friends were so excited, jealous when I got the job...but I told them the nanny never gets the man.’
Notthisman, Rose thought, feeling a wave of sympathy for the other woman who, despite her denial, had obviously built a few castles in the air around her employer...something easily done.
Her own fantasies were under control and she intended it to stay that way. An invite into his bed...she’d sooner accept an invitation to put her hand in the fire. In the long run it would be the less painful option, she decided, feeling a touch more positive because she hadn’t allowed an image of his face to materialise in her head and she hadn’t thought about the animal magnetism that rolled off him for at least five minutes.
She really hoped she would see as little of him as her predecessor.
Rose remembered that wish when she was alone later that evening. The apartment was so vast that it would have been easy to forget that there was anyone else there, except the somebody was Zac Adamos and he was not so easy to dismiss.
Up to that point there had not been too much time to think. She had kept herself busy familiarising herself with where the various baby essentials were kept, and after a debate it hadn’t seemed worth unpacking her own things just for a night.
That headache that had lulled her into a false sense of security crept up on her just as the baby stirred... She sighed, as daggers stabbed her temples. The painkillers would have to wait.
Before he had left Arthur had said he’d keep Zac abreast of the arrangements and any potential issues that cropped up once he landed, but he did not foresee any problems.
Onthatcount Zac had no worries, but as he sat in his book-lined, utterly silent library his focus was shot to hell! He’d not been able to work with the noise of a fretful baby and now it would seem he couldn’t work without it—that really would be the supreme irony.
He was curious as to how she had calmed the child, but he had no intention of investigating. He saw no reason to revisit his decision to keep her at arm’s length, preferably farther, the fact he really didn’t want to proof that he needed to.
He turned back to the blank screen on his laptop, rose impetuously to his feet, changed his mind halfway to the door and, turning full circle, ended up at the built-in sliding cupboard containing some rather fine brandy... Hell, the redhead or parenthood or both is turning me to the bottle, he mocked himself as he poured a measure of the amber brandy into a glass. He held it but didn’t drink, instead he found himself staring at liquid the colour of Rose’s eyes.
He realised what he was doing and, choking out a snort of self-disgust, downed it in one. In the normal run of things this was a situation that would be easily remedied by scratching the itch... Sex was a great mind-clearer, not a solution available to him in this instance, so he might as well get drunk or at least get not totally sober!
Before he had time to put this plan into action there was a knock on the door.
It was no surprise to see who was standing there, it was a surprise to see how ill she looked.
‘Theos!’ he exclaimed, taking in her drawn ashen face, the bruised shadows under her eyes. ‘You look terrible!’
