business.’
‘No, you were right. I overreacted, mainly because you’d put your finger on all the things I felt most guilty and unsure about.’ He smiled briefly. ‘So it looks as if neither of us behaved quite as well as we might have done.’
He paused, his eyes on Alice, who had tucked her feet up beneath her and was curled into the corner of the sofa.
‘What was the other reason?’ he asked.
‘Reason?’ she said blankly.
‘You said that was “partly” the reason you were angry,’ he reminded her.
‘Oh…’ The colour deepened in Alice’s cheeks, and she fiddled with the piping on the arm of the sofa. ‘It’s stupid, but I suppose it was meeting you again after all this time. I was nervous,’ she confessed.
‘Me too,’ said Will, and her eyes flew to his in disbelief.
‘Really?’
He lifted his shoulders in acknowledgement. ‘You were the last person I expected to see,’ he told her with a rueful smile. ‘I was completely thrown.’
‘Oh,’ said Alice with an embarrassed little laugh. ‘Well…I’m glad it wasn’t just me.’
‘No.’
An awkward silence fell, and stretched at last into something that threatened to become even more difficult. Will drank his beer. Alice traced an invisible pattern on the arm of the sofa and kept her eyes lowered, but beneath her lashes her eyes kept sliding towards the fingers curled casually around that brown bottle.
Those fingers had once curved around her breast. They had drifted over her skin, stroking and smoothing and seeking. They had explored every inch of her, and late at night, when they had been intertwined with her own, she had felt safe in a way she never had before or since.
Alice’s throat was dry, and that little thrum inside her was growing stronger and warmer, spreading treacherously along her veins and trembling at the base of her spine.
She reached forward for her glass with something like desperation. She shouldn’t be remembering Will touching her, kissing her, loving her. They weren’t the same people they had been then. Will was a father, and had more on his mind right now than remembering how the mere touch of his hands had been enough to melt her bones and reduce her to gasping, arching delight.
Sipping her lime juice, she sought frantically for something to say, but in the end it was Will who broke the silence.
‘Roger and Beth still out?’
The question sounded too hearty to be natural, but Alice fell on it like a lifeline.
‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You know what party animals they are.’
‘Why didn’t you go?’ Will asked her.
‘I didn’t feel like it.’
She didn’t quite meet his eyes as she adjusted her hair clip. Telling him how she had dithered over the possibility of meeting him again wouldn’t help. The atmosphere was taut enough as it was, even though they were both labouring to keep the conversation innocuous.
‘I’ve spent all week going to coffee mornings and lunches, and we’ve been out to supper twice, and every time you meet the same people,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I had a much better time with Lily this afternoon.’
Will had finished his beer, and he looked around for a mat to put the bottle down on. ‘What did you do with her?’
‘Oh, you know…we just pottered around.’
‘No, I really want to know,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to spend more time with Lily, and it would help if I knew what she liked doing.’
‘Well, she’s very observant,’ said Alice, glad to have moved the conversation into less fraught channels. ‘And she’s interested in things. We spent some time wandering around the garden, and she was full of questions, most of which I couldn’t answer, like why the butterflies here are so colourful and why don’t bananas grow in England…I think you’ll make a scientist of her yet!’
Will’s expression relaxed slightly. ‘It’s reassuring to know that she’ll ask questions like that. She’s always so quiet when she’s with me.’
‘She’s not a chatterbox,’ Alice agreed. ‘But she’ll talk if she’s got something to say. She got quite animated going through my wardrobe. She loves dressing up.’
‘She gets that from her mother.’ Will sounded faintly disapproving. ‘Nikki was a great one for clothes. Her appearance was always very important to her.’
‘Appearance is important to a lot of us,’ said Alice, sensing the unspoken criticism in his comment. ‘It doesn’t always mean that you’re superficial,’ she added with a slight barb, remembering how his jibe at the party had stung.
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Will, although he didn’t sound convinced, and Alice noticed darkly that he didn’t take the opportunity of apologising for calling her superficial.
‘It’s perfectly normal for Lily to like dressing up,’ she said with some tartness. ‘Most little girls do. It doesn’t mean she’s condemned to life as an empty-headed bimbo! Some of us manage to dress well
‘You sound like Nikki,’ he said, and from the bleak expression that washed across his face Alice gathered that it wasn’t a compliment.
She longed to ask what Nikki had been like and what had gone wrong with their marriage, but it seemed inappropriate just then. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know just how much she resembled Lily’s mother.
‘At least I stick at my jobs,’ she pointed out with a slight edge. ‘Unlike Dee.’
‘Quite.’ Will acknowledged the hit with a sigh. ‘I should never have employed her, but she seemed so bright and lively that I thought she would be more fun for Lily to have around than some of the more experienced nannies. We obviously weren’t fun enough for her, though,’ he said, his mouth turning down at the memory of that dire week with Dee. ‘She couldn’t wait to go out as soon as I got home in the evening. I should have guessed she’d take the first chance to leave. I just didn’t realise it would come quite so soon.’
‘You couldn’t have anticipated she’d throw up a good job to follow a guy she’d only known for a week,’ said Alice, even as she wondered why she was trying to make him feel better.
Perhaps that was what superficial people did.
‘If I’d been more experienced, I might have read the signs,’ said Will. ‘She was the only nanny the agency had on their books who could leave at such short notice, and now I know why!’
‘What are you going to do now?’
Will put his arms above his head and tried to stretch out the tension in his shoulders. ‘Get another nanny, I guess.’ He leant back in his chair with a tired sigh. ‘I’ll have to get onto the agency tomorrow. I just haven’t had a chance today.’
‘It might take them some time to find someone suitable,’ Alice pointed out. ‘What happens in the meantime?’
‘I’ll just have to manage,’ said Will, rubbing his face again. ‘Lily’s due to start school in a few weeks’ time. I might be able to find someone locally who could help out until then, or maybe she could come to the project headquarters some days. It’s not a very suitable place for a child, but I can hardly leave her on her own.’
‘I’ll look after her.’
The words were out of Alice’s mouth before she had thought about them, and she was almost as startled by them as Will was. He sat bolt upright and stared at her.
‘Why not?’ Some other person seemed to be controlling her speech. Was she really doing this? Arguing to look after Will’s daughter for him? She must be mad! ‘I managed this afternoon.’
‘But…’ Will looked totally thrown by her offer. Almost as thrown as Alice felt herself. ‘You’re on holiday,’ he pointed out.
‘I’m not suggesting I take on the job permanently. I’m just offering to help out until you can find a qualified nanny.’
‘It’s extraordinarily kind of you, Alice,’ said Will slowly. ‘But I couldn’t possibly ask you to give up your holiday to
