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“Well, with the family.” She shrugged; her shoulders were slender and vulnerable somehow. “I love them, but I’ll leave them at some point. And miss them all like crazy.” She flicked a smile at him.
His expression was difficult to interpret. He was someone who kept his feelings perfectly concealed.
“Eric works long hours.”
“He’s making an effort to curtail that.” Another guilty flush. “It’s better for the children that he be around more.”
“Is it? Why?”
Sophie sighed. “It just is. I see this time and time again. Many families who employ nannies have one parent – or both – who is frequently out of the home. I know that’s the demands of jobs, but for the small time when children are young, they benefit enormously from having parents who are present.”
“I see,” he prompted silkily. If she knew him better, she might have detected the dark note to his voice. But she did not. At that stage, Sophie took Alessandros Petrides at face value.
“Yes. As I explained to Eric, he is well-thought of enough to shape his career around his family for a time.”
“And Eric listened to this?” Alex said, disbelief rich in his chest.
“Yes. Well,” she laughed. “He’s trying. He’s a workaholic, you know, but he makes a point of reading to the kids a couple of nights a week, even if he then has to go back to the office.”
“And my sister?”
Sophie’s shoulders squared defensively. But what was she defending? Her right to be alone with Eric? Or his sister? “What about her?”
“She doesn’t join you?”
“Helena spends more time with the children than Eric. She doesn’t need to make such a point to carve out special blocks of time.” She turned away from him and stirred the chicken again, then added some greens to the same pan.
“I presume you had references? Or did Eric hire you on the spot?”
“I told you,” she couldn’t flatten the offended sound from her words, “I was recommended personally by the Prime Minister. Prior to taking the role within his family, I was thoroughly background checked.” She turned around to face him again, holding the spoon in front of her like a shield. “Why are you asking me these questions? Have I done something to offend you?”
Alex’s smile was pure, sexy amusement “Not yet,” he shrugged cryptically.
Sophie stared at him in confusion. “The twins will be waiting for you.”
“Yes,” he agreed, then continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “And what do you do, Sophie, when you are not minding my nephews and defending my sister?”
She shrugged, then removed the pan from the heat. “I exist in a state of stasis.” She blinked her long lashes at him in an obvious gesture of sarcasm, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. But you were …”
“Being rude first?” He finished the sentence for her, and she broke out in a genuine smile.
“Yeah. Something like that.” She tipped the stir-fry into a pair of Thomas the Tank Engine bowls.
She was bewitchingly charming. Was it possible Eric had fallen under her spell? Could he have thrown caution to the wind and engaged in the kind of affair that would break Helena’s heart? Not only was it possible, Alex was becoming increasingly convinced that it was highly likely. Despite Eric’s political aspirations, Alex suspected Sophie was just the kind of woman who could make him forget everything he owed to himself and his wife.
“Would you please go and get the boys?”
He was still for a moment, lost in thought, and then he nodded, moving from the kitchen. It gave Sophie an opportunity to study him surreptitiously, as he cut across the expansive lounge area and headed to the stairs. He moved with an almost predatory grace. He was silent and stealthy, and yet even then, simply strolling across the ground floor of this Kensington townhouse, he moved wi
th a barely concealed power and strength that made her heart race.
“Get a grip!” Sophie whispered. The incantation cheered her, as it always did. Those three words had been uttered by their mother, ad infinitum, whenever she’d needed to call on inner strength. As a result, all three Henderson sisters used the same phrase whenever they needed to shake themselves out of an annoying mindset.
It served as a reminder to find calm, and also as a talisman of their mother. In the five years since losing her, Sophie wasn’t sure a day had passed in which she hadn’t thought of Meredith Henderson.
“Are these what you were looking for?” Alex appeared with two boys at his heels, and grouped together like that, Sophie couldn’t help but gasp.
Her young charges were so like their uncle! Perhaps that explained why one look at Alex had filled her with a cumbersome sense of familiarity? It wasn’t a physical thing, so much as that he reminded her of the children she’d come to love dearly. For he was indeed the grown-up version of these two beautiful little beings. Six eyes, dark and almond shaped, stared at her, their similarities now impossible to miss.
