would it feel like to have her delicate tongue flicking against his shaft? How would she taste? He imagined her writhing under his exploring mouth and hands, twisting and moaning and begging, desperate for him to take her.
She was too young to be so utterly controlled and he wanted to smash through that control and see what was underneath...
Hell, where were his thoughts going? Aside from anything else, there was no way he was going to jeopardise the tenuous, fragile shoots of a relationship tentatively trying to establish themselves with Flora by hitting on her babysitter.
He shifted uncomfortably, trying to ease the pain of his erection, annoyed with himself for his utter lack of self-control. ‘There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you.’ He dragged his brain back into gear but for a few seconds he had to look outside rather than at her face. ‘I have to be at a breakfast meeting on Saturday and I want to ask you whether you would step in and cover here. Naturally, you will be paid handsomely for putting yourself out...’
‘Saturday...’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
Her fingers were slender and she was raking them through her tangle of fine hair now, frowning slightly as though he had posed a particularly tricky maths problem which she had been called upon to solve rather than being asked a simple question that required a simple yes or no answer.
‘You can bring your work,’ he reminded her, ‘although you might want to do something...a little more fun...unless you have plans for the weekend? Have you?’
More than anything Sunny would have loved to have told him that she had. In fact, she had planned on getting ahead with some studying and then having a lazy night in because Amy was going to be out on another date with yet another hopeless boyfriend.
‘What about the woman who stays with Flora during the daytime?’ she asked and Stefano shook his head.
He laughed shortly. ‘She’s been with Flora for a fortnight and so far she hasn’t run screaming for the hills. I don’t want to test her patience by asking her for anything beyond the call of duty.’
Sunny felt her lips twitch in a smile. It was bad enough that he was so distractingly attractive. Add a wry sense of humour into the mix and that attraction became combustible.
‘Why have you run through so many nannies?’ She was genuinely perplexed because Flora seemed a far from difficult child.
‘She hasn’t wanted to have a nanny so she’s made sure to get rid of them,’ Stefano said shortly. He stood up and poured them both another glass of wine. ‘I mistakenly assumed that someone young and enthusiastic would be the first choice but they’ve all found her stubborn refusal to communicate unbearably frustrating...’
‘I don’t try and force her into having fun,’ Sunny mused thoughtfully.
‘Edith, the woman who comes in during the day to help out, is sixty-three years old, although she’s already mentioned that she doesn’t like the way Flora talks to her.’
‘Which is how?’
‘Patronisingly.’
Sunny wondered whether Flora’s patronising wasn’t a response to the older woman also being patronising and then was surprised that she was finding excuses for her young charge and taking her side over a woman she hadn’t even met.
‘I... Okay, that’s fine.’ She stood up and felt the two glasses of wine rush to her head. ‘What time would you like me to come on Saturday?’
‘My driver will collect you at ten and I’ll need you for the whole day, I’m afraid. I won’t be home until at least nine in the evening.’
Stefano thought that she looked like someone who had suddenly remembered that she should be fleeing the scene of the crime instead of hanging around making small talk with the officer in charge.
‘And don’t forget that you have full use of the account. You have the card. Take advantage of it.’
They were at the front door. When Sunny looked up, she felt her heart skip a beat because he was so close to her, almost but not quite invading her space.
For a second, a brief destabilising second, instead of wanting to step back, she wanted to move closer, wanted to place the palm of her hand on his chest and feel the hardness of muscle under her fingers.
‘Perhaps I will,’ she said shortly, swerving away and opening the door. ‘And there’s no need for Eric to drive me home.’ She felt breathless, as though she’d been running a marathon and now had to steady herself or else fall over from the exertion. ‘I can make my way to the station. It’s only a half hour walk and the exercise will do me good.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Stefano murmured, not taking his eyes from her face even though he was already on his cellphone calling his driver to the front.
Sunny felt herself break out in a fine film of perspiration and she stuck her hands behind her back, clasping her computer case between them and clutching it for dear life.
This was what it felt like to be turned on and it was the first time it had ever happened to her. John had never turned her on. She had liked him, perhaps even loved him in the way you loved a dear, dear friend, but this overwhelming physical helplessness had been absent.
She didn’t know why it had chosen to make an appearance now but she knew that it was utterly inappropriate and complete madness and was to be stamped out at all costs.
* * *
Sunny had no idea what she was going to do with Flora on Saturday but the day dawned with the promise of heat.
She had grown up in London and now lived in London and so escaping London, going to Stefano’s sprawling mansion in Berkshire always felt like a sneaky escape and even more so now because it was the weekend.
On the spur of the moment, she packed a little bag and thought that if it was hot enough she might dip her feet in the pool.
She’d asked Flora whether she swam in it at all and was told that of course she did.
‘I learned to swim when I was two,’ she had told Sunny proudly. ‘We had a swimming pool in our house in New Zealand and Annie used to take me twice a week to the public pool so that I could get practice swimming with other girls. In competitions. I always won.’
‘I bet your mother was proud of you,’ Sunny had said, because she would have been proud, but her mother, she was informed, had rarely gone to stuff like that because it was boring.
‘She liked going out,’ Flora had said, shrugging her shoulders, ‘parties and stuff. She liked dressing up.’
Lonely on both sides of the world, Sunny had thought. You could be lonely even if you had loads of money because loneliness was very fair and even-handed when it decided to pay a visit. No distinctions were ever made.
Eric came to collect her promptly at ten, always on time, and she allowed herself a sigh of pure anticipation at spending the day out, doing something other than working or household chores. Plus Amy was overjoyed to have the flat to herself for the day.
‘I’m going to show him that I can be a domestic goddess,’ she had confided.
‘Brilliant idea.’
‘Something Thai,’ Amy had said vaguely. ‘A salad or something. Don’t worry. I’ll be gone by the time you get home...’
Sunny had wondered whether some sort of Thai salad was going to work with her friend’s latest big love interest but who was she to say anything? She had images in her head of a guy who was inappropriate on so many levels that it made her feel dizzy when she thought about it.
But today she would just relax and enjoy herself because she had one more week and then she’d be gone.
She’d miss Flora.
In her own way, Flora was as fragile as she had