Rebecca Winters - The Nanny and the Millionaire - Promoted - Nanny to Wife / The Italian Tycoon and the Nanny / The Millionaire's Nanny Arrangement

Georgy’s face settled into a wicked grin. ‘How do you know I didn’t say it myself?’

‘They’re the words of an adult,’ Marissa replied, ‘and they really shouldn’t be repeated. They can only cause embarrassment. Do you know what embarrassment means?’

Georgy shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘It’d make Aunty Lois mad of course. Ack-shally, it was Aunt Lois’s friend, Tiffany. The one she brought with her from Sydney. Are we ever going to see Aunt Lois again?’ She directed that question at Marissa who responded warmly.

‘Well, of course you are! Aunt Lois is family. I understand she’ll be here at Christmas.’

‘Just so long as you two guys are!’ said Georgy. ‘Riley can marry me when we grow up.’

Riley gulped.

‘You can sit down now, Georgy,’ Marissa said. ‘For now, we have to get cracking on your sums.’

‘Can Riley help me?’ Georgy returned obediently to her desk.

Most late afternoons Marissa and Riley enjoyed a swim. Georgy had begun by sitting on one of the recliners, gradually moving closer to the pool, until finally she chose to sit on the top step at the shallow end dangling her feet in the water.

‘Why don’t you come in?’ Riley called, his eyes the brightest blue in his glowing face. ‘It’s great! I’ll look after you.’

‘Don’t pressure her, Riley.’ Marissa swam up behind him speaking very quietly.

‘I don’t have a swimsuit,’ Georgy called. It didn’t sound like an excuse, rather regret.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get one,’ Marissa called back. ‘Something really smart. Your father will be home Sunday.’

‘Are you going to tell him I’m cured?’ The expression on Georgy’s small face was one of hope.

‘Cured of what?’ Riley lifted himself out of the water to sit on the step beside her.

‘Cured of being frightened of the water,’ she told him simply. ‘My mother was always trying to throw me in the pool. She was really mean, like your mum.’

Marissa’s heart lurched. The children were growing close. They spent quite a lot of time talking to one another. From the sound of it Riley had been confiding in his new friend. She had to consider it as therapy. At least Georgy had accepted she wasn’t Riley’s mother.

‘After you teach me how to swim, you have to teach me how to sit on a horse,’ Georgy further astounded them by saying.

‘And you have to teach me to draw pictures as good as yours,’ Riley said.

‘You like my pictures?’ Georgy looked at him in amazement, her cheeks going quite pink.

‘Very, very much!’ said Riley.

Georgy started cracking her knuckles. ‘Well, Aunty Lois said she should show them to a psy … psy …’

‘Psychiatrist,’ Riley sweetly supplied. ‘Maybe you have way too much imagination for her?’

Georgy kissed him. ‘After tea I’m going to sing for you. You and Marissa. You’re my great friends. I have a really good voice but only Zoltan ever heard it.’

‘What songs do you know then?’ Riley eyed her with admiration.

Georgy jumped up so she could hand Marissa her towel. ‘Wait and see.’

If they were expecting nursery ditties, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Click Go the Shears, Boy, Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son and the like, Georgy’s performance brought the house down. She had graciously consented to give her impromptu concert in her great-grandmother’s sitting room.

The pint-size performer began by introducing the first of two songs from her repertoire before she sang them.

Nothing like ‘Danny Boy’ to bring on the tears, especially when sung in a pure sweet pipe. Then to end the concert on an upbeat note, one of her favourites from The Sound of Music complete with a really good natural yodel.

‘Julie Andrews couldn’t have done it any better,’ Olly pronounced, admitting later it had never crossed her mind Georgy could sing. Shriek, yes, sing like a lark, no.

Catherine gave the child a lovely smile. ‘That was absolutely beautiful, Georgy. Thank you so much.’

‘I’m going to be a singer when I grow up,’ Georgy told her charmed audience. ‘I think singing to people would be great!’

Holt arrived home to a contented household. After some harrowing moments with Lois, whose undying, let it be said, unrequited, love for him, had been wrung out of her, it was the peaceful homecoming he needed. Why was it that some women insisted on falling in love with the one man they couldn’t have? Of course he had long known about Lois’s feelings for him. How could he not? Tara had been very cruel in the way she had privately ridiculed her sister. Even when he had objected quite strongly she had invariably replied, ‘It just makes me laugh, darling, that’s all! You’re mine, so just don’t forget it!’

But it was Tara who had broken their marriage vows. With a minor rock star of all people! A good-looking young guy, years younger than she who had been part of a band hired to play at a friend’s wedding reception in Sydney. He and his father had been out of the country at the time, as members of a trade commission. Had he been home it would never have happened. But Tara when she was in the mood, just had to have sex. The big problem was the rock star hadn’t been using a condom and the one thing Tara hadn’t figured on happening, happened. She had fallen pregnant with Georgia.

The truly extraordinary part was she hadn’t considered herself unfaithful. She hadn’t felt in the least guilty about what other people called adultery. It might well have been an out-of-body experience, something over which she had little control.

‘He meant nothing! Less than nothing, darling. Just a good-looking kid in skintight jeans. I was drunk, darling! It was a wild, wild night! He must have slipped me something when I wasn’t noticing.’

The marriage hadn’t come to an end right then. Not in name anyway, although he’d never touched her again. The truth was he had discovered very early in their marriage Tara wasn’t the young woman he’d so stupidly thought she was. Tara, his beautiful, charming fiancée had been playing a part, like an actress in a movie. She’d been so good at it she had fooled his entire family, except maybe for Gran, who had once tried to warn him by saying, ‘Tara is lovely, Holt, but not quite believable!’

Tara’s parents knew all about their very difficult elder daughter and her wildly fluctuating moods. So did Lois, but none of them had been interested in telling him. Tara was unstable in more ways than one. It was this instability that had caused him much worry about Georgia. It seemed very much as if she’d inherited her mother’s nature. But he had only been home a few days to find Georgia was behaving like a normal happy child. It gladdened his heart that she had been spared.

Marissa had told him about Georgia’s amazing talent for singing, clearly expecting him to demand to hear her that very moment. When he had declined saying it would have to wait until he had a little more time, he had caught the flash of disappointment and yes, censure, in her beautiful eyes. Clearly she thought he wasn’t much of a father. He didn’t much like it. But then, she was a young woman who was trying to deal with a lot of hangups of her own. Both of them had one thing in common. They had chosen faithless partners.

What was he supposed to say anyway? ‘I’m doing my level best, Ms Devlin —a deliberate plot to try to keep her at a distance?—I’m very fond of Georgy. I support her in every way I can, but I’m only human. Georgia’s not mine!’

He had spent a lot of time wondering whether the rock star should at least be told he had a daughter. He knew he would want to know if somewhere in the world a child of his existed. He would owe that child, his own flesh and blood. The one and only time he had spoken to Tara about it had set off a near psychotic episode. She had become hysterical, smashing things, valuable things. No one was to ever know. She had taken it completely for granted he would do the best for Georgia as he had supported her right through her pregnancy.