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He carried Mia. They met back at home. Mia grumbled though a quick sponge bath and teeth clean and Audrey tucked her into bed while Reece hung out beach towels, rinsed swimwear and got organised for tomorrow. They shared a pot of tea. With Mia asleep, there was no reason for Reece to stay, but she had no incentive to ask him to go and when he sat her on a kitchen stool, turned the lights off, stood behind her and put his hands to her neck, she let herself dissolve into him.
“Close your eyes.”
She’d taken two headache tablets and his touch was the most exquisite ache. She closed her eyes and drifted. “I shouldn’t let you do this.”
“Why not?”
“I like it too much.”
“That was my cunning plan.”
“Is this the part where you get me to believe you’re not a nice man?”
His hands stopped moving, but the heat coming from them was a softening agent all of its own. “This is the part where I tell you I want to kiss you and give you the chance to tell me to go home.”
She gasped and he started the massage up again. She shook her head because that was impossible. “No.” Her heart was thumping so hard she looked down at her chest to see if its beats were visible on her skin.
“No, I can’t kiss you, or no you don’t believe me, or—”
She reached up and stopped his hands. “No, you can’t kiss me. Please, Reece. We get on well. We had a lovely afternoon. Don’t turn this into something it isn’t.”
“You’d better tell me what it is then.”
“You know what it is. I pay you a salary to look after Mia.”
He pulled his hands away. “That’s all we are then, Boss?”
She swivelled to face him. “Please don’t do this. There are too many reasons why this can’t happen.”
“Name one that counts.”
He was so close she had to tip her head up to look in his face, her knees were between his legs. “Common sense.”
“Audrey,” he put his hands on her shoulders, “give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kiss you right now.”
She could give him a hundred if she was capable of thinking clearly. “I’m your boss. There’s this unequal power thing. I’m too old. You’re not interested in me. You just broke up with Sky.”
He shook his head. She’d given him solid-core steel reasons. How could they not be acceptable to him? “Mia.”
“Mia is asleep. Nothing in Mia’s life needs to change because we kiss.”
She wrapped her hands around the seat of the stool, because her head was spinning. “I can’t have an affair with the nanny.”
“I only asked for a kiss and all you had to say is you didn’t want it and tell me to go home. I’m still standing here.” He took her chin in his hand. “Last chance.”
“Oh my God, Reece. It’s been so long since anyone kissed me I’ve forgotten how.”
He smiled. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever been touched by and he wanted to kiss her. It might well have been out of pity, as an up yours to Sky, or as some belated award for single parent bravery, but she didn’t care.
“That’s what I wondered. So is that a yes?”
He felt her nod. He would’ve felt her tremble. He might have even understood her near terror because he moved so slowly, with such deliberateness and gentleness, she had every opportunity to stop this and instead stood on the stool rung, so she was properly face to face with him and could press against his chest and put her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry if this is awful.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s already not awful. Are you ready?”
She shook her head, then lowered her forehead to his shoulder. “No.”
“Then how about I hold you for a while till you get used to the idea?”
