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She loved what she did and, while every day was different because that was the nature of working with children, there was a comforting familiarity to it, something that her life as a child had lacked.
‘So do I, but I’ve thought about it.’
Rose’s eyes flew wide. ‘You’d leave?’
The older woman’s lips quirked at Rose’s shocked response. ‘I’ve been here seven years now and I feel in a bit of a rut. It was the extra half-hour commute that put me off.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I thought when the girls started secondary school, but with this one...who knows? But nothing is stopping you—you’ve got no one.’ Realising what she’d said, she added hastily, ‘Not that you couldn’t have if you wanted.’
‘I’ve no craving for excitement or a significant other,’ Rose said, thinking of theexcitingdays of arriving home from school and finding it wasn’t home any more and her things haphazardly dumped in her dad’s car or, more often than not, left behind. And then there were the notes she found scribbled in her dad’s bold hand telling her that he was spending the weekend in Paris or wherever had taken his fancy and to be a good girl and don’t answer the door to anyone and there was a tenner for a takeaway.
There wasn’t aways a note.
On one no-note occasion the usual few days had stretched into ten. The memory could still shake loose the cold feeling of panic in the pit of her stomach when she began to wonder if this time he wasn’t coming back, if she was alone now.
The effort of maintaining the pretence at school that everything was normal had made her feel physically ill. She’d tried to keep her head down and perfect the art of invisibility, a formula ruined after her dramatic faint in morning assembly, which might have been due to the stress or maybe the fact she’d been permanently hungry on a diet of tinned soup and baked beans.
Her dad had strolled back the next day as though he had just been to the corner shop.
‘Hadn’t time for a note, love. A free flight, private jet to Las Vegas, I wasn’t going to say no to that, was I?’
That had been his breezy reaction to her tears of relief when he had reappeared after a ten-day absence.
He had handed her a diamond bracelet that was wildly inappropriate for a fourteen-year-old, then reclaimed it, much to her secret relief, on hearing the news that the headmistress wanted to see him the next day.
‘Can’t you put her off? I have sleep to catch up on.Youbreaking a rule? What have you been up to?’
‘I forged your signature on my report card.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. How hard is it to forge a signature?’ he’d exclaimed, his generosity evaporating as he’d put the bracelet in his own pocket because she hadn’t deserved it.
No, Rose had a very poor opinion of excitement. She was, as her dad often told her,boring. Frequently adding,‘I sometimes wonder if you’re actually mine,’presumably in case she hadn’t got the message she was a massive disappointment to him.
‘I’ll miss you if you go.’
‘In three years’ time you probably won’t be here yourself. You’ll have moved on, found a gorgeous man, a beautiful thing like you...’
‘I’m not looking.’
‘I’d noticed,’ the older woman said drily. ‘It doesn’t do to keeptheman waiting, or so I’ve heard. Relax, I’m joking. It’ll probably be an assistant or something.’
Rose’s spirits lifted. Jac was right, anything to do with a lowly nursery nurse would be delegated. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that the rush of relief she wouldn’t see Zac Adamos was related to a conversation she had overheard the previous week as two women had blocked her access to a lift.
‘I am quite literally shaking...my skin feels...’
Rose, wary of the flu bug going around, had taken a step backwards as the second woman had responded with a giggle.
‘He’s just so, sosexy...it’s unbelievable. It hits you like a sonic boom...that mouth...mmm!’
‘What wouldn’t I give to work on the top floor and see him every day?’
‘You’d never get any work done,’ her friend had retorted as they’d wandered away.
Rose, who had identified the person with the sonic boom halfway through the conversation, now had access to the lift. She hesitated then headed for the healthy option, the stairs.
Not just for the exercise. Zac Adamos was not the healthy option. Compared to the Greek billionaire, her dad was in the minor leagues...actually probably no league at all. She’d read an article online that had called Zac Adamos a legend in his own lifetime, and if everything she’d read was half true he’d be the first to agree with this assessment. Humility and modesty were two words not associated with him.
Short of a push, nothing would have got Rose through the open door at the end of the boardroom had she not known the tall, supercilious blonde was watching. The woman had recoiled when she’d taken in the person waiting for her attention.
When it had come, the snooty smirk had been preceded by an icy, ‘I think you might have the wrong floor.’
