Dani Collins - Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

‘Let me.’

She watched as he bent over the crib, lifting the sobbing baby with the sort of care normally reserved for an unexploded bomb, his expression fierce concentration as he arranged the baby against one broad shoulder and began to pat his back gently. The sight of Ivo cradling his tiny nephew made her smile despite the hand squeezing her heart.

One day he would have babies of his own; crazily the thought made her want to cry.

He glanced across, a look of self-conscious enquiry drifting over his face when he saw Flora standing there staring. ‘Am I doing it wrong or something?’

Flora swallowed the lump in her throat. How crazy to get choked up, but the sight of this big tough man being so gentle with the baby scored a direct hit on her tender heart.

‘No, you’re doing it perfectly,’ she said, grabbing the first thing to hand, which was a baby blanket. She began to fold it as though her life depended on perfectly aligned creases. ‘You know, you’re welcome in Skye any time. You should be part of Jamie’s life.’

Even before she heard his steely, ‘I intend to be,’ Flora sensed the change in the atmosphere. Maybe Jamie did too because he gave another whimper as Ivo laid him carefully down in the crib.

He watched Flora drag a chair over to the crib. They’d found mind-numbing passion together, and it was the thought of losing that and nothing else that had made him react to the idea of her vanishing back to Skye. That, after all, was the plan. Flora was to vanish out of his life, out of Jamie’s life.

Was he being fair to Jamie?

A child needed a female influence and not just one supplied by nannies. There was no doubt that Flora was utterly devoted to the baby. He shook his head; in some ways his grandfather’s plan was simpler.

Simple because Salvatore is losing his mind. The real question is: are you, Ivo?

He took a deep breath. He really needed to show her what an excellent life Jamie could have without her. It shouldn’t be that hard. He’d show her the glossy brochure of the really excellent school he’d picked out for Jamie, Ivo decided.

What’s the betting she disapproves of boarding schools?

‘He might take a while to settle.’

‘You planning on spending the night there?’ Ivo pointed to the lift doors at the end of the room, the ones that led to nannies on tap. ‘Or are you going to take some help?’

She pushed away a frivolous mental image of nannies lining up to slide down a pole like firemen, white frilly aprons fluttering, and started to shake her head.

‘Look, I know you have strong feelings on the subject.’ As she did on everything. ‘But there is help there ready and waiting if you change your mind. I know I’m probably wasting my breath, but you have nothing to prove. Everyone can see you put the baby above everything else.’ How many men would see that as a problem? An image of some future lover being jealous of Jamie drew his dark brows together in a frown.

‘But you can accept help. You don’t have to be a wonder woman or too tired and worn down to do fun things with the baby.’

Was he telling her that she looked worn down or she wasn’t fun, or both?

‘Or I could help?’ he heard himself say.

The offer made her smile. ‘Do you know one end of a nappy from the other?’ she asked, ignoring the fact that a few weeks back she hadn’t either. It was quite nice to feel superior for once. ‘Stick to what you’re good at.’

‘I’m good in bed, or so someone told me not so long ago.’

The blush on the outside was visible but it was the heat deep down inside that was more of a problem for Flora, who brought her lashes down in a protective shield, but not before Ivo had seen the aching longing reflected in the blue depths.

Inhaling through his flared nostrils, he fought to leash his libido. In another woman he might have imagined the look of silent yearning was a calculated seduction technique, but Flora didn’t have a clue what she was doing, or what power she was wielding.

It made her a very dangerous woman.

‘Do you really think this is an appropriate moment for that sort of...?’

The striking contrast between the silent sensual message of her eyes and the prim, prissy delivery drew a laugh from his throat. ‘Thing?’ he suggested. His shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug. ‘You could be right.’

She decided one concession deserved another. ‘Maybe another pair of hands would be useful. Ones who know what they’re doing, that is.’

* * *

The girl who delivered her meal gave a shy smile as she placed the tray down on the table on the balcony.

‘Nanny Emily says you need the calories, that you’re too stick thin. Me, I think you have a lovely figure,’ she added daringly, straying from the party line.

‘Thank you.’

Flora lifted the silver dome. Whatever was in the herby tomato sauce smelt good. She looked at the label on the wine bottle beside the single glass; presumably Nanny Emily saw nothing wrong in being drunk in charge of a baby.

And it would have taken a brave person to argue with the woman who radiated a reassuring sense of calm and spoke fluent Italian with a Yorkshire accent, which was fascinating to listen to.

She had made the day a lot easier but Flora had insisted that she take the night shift, rejecting the offer of a night nanny.

Finding it weird and a little worrying how quickly she had accepted the existence of night nannies and night nurseries, she had not objected when Nanny Emily had had a bed made up for her on the day-bed in the nursery.

She ate her lonely supper, picking at the food and allowing herself one glass of the really excellent red, which might have been a mistake because she found her thoughts veering towards self-pity. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t got plenty of practice eating alone, and Nanny Emily had offered to stay and keep her company.

Only it wasn’t Nanny Emily she was imagining sitting opposite her in the empty chair.

She shook her head, tossed back the dregs of the wine and wandered back to the bedroom. The whole place was wired for sound; she’d have heard Jamie if he’d cried, but she went to check on him anyway. He was fast asleep, his poor little nose bright red, but when she touched the back of his neck he seemed cooler.

She adjusted the speed on the cooling fan and went over to the neatly made up bed. She didn’t bother undressing, even though someone had brought night clothes from her room. Instead she lay on top of the covers intending to just rest her eyes.

* * *

Apparently, his grandfather hadn’t been sleeping. His valet, a sombre-faced little man who’d been with his grandfather for ever, had to know something was wrong and yet when he asked him what he was doing standing in the corridor at one o’clock in the morning, the man had replied with no expression at all that his master had locked him out, as though it was the most normal thing in the world—it probably was for him.

‘I’m just waiting to see if—’

Ivo shook his head. ‘You go to bed and I’ll check if he wants anything.’

‘I need to put his clothes out for tomorrow.’

‘Go to bed.’

The door was locked, but Ivo found his way in via a side door that led directly to the study. The study was empty but what seemed significant to Ivo was the debris of paper spread across the desk. He’d never seen that desk without neat piles and sharpened pencils in neat rows.

The TV was blaring in the drawing room but it too was empty. He eventually found his grandfather sitting on a stool in the bedroom, staring out into middle distance.

‘Not sleeping.’

Salvatore didn’t seem to find it strange to see his grandson standing there. ‘Can’t seem to these days. I think,’ he added in a conspiratorial tone, ‘they put something in the water. I’m seeing the baby tomorrow. Have they arrived?’