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Authors: Charlotte Eve

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BOOK: Barely Yours
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Seven o’ clock on Friday night. The end of a long first week in my brand new job. And
oh my god
am I exhausted. Perhaps it was a little naïve of me, but I thought this job was gonna be a total breeze. I mean, hang out with a cute kid all day? Take her to the park? Maybe fix her a sandwich for lunch and then relax in front of some kiddie TV? Plenty of time to chill out on my phone and catch up with all the gossip back home, right?

Wrong.

For a start, I’m on my feet all the time, even more than in the shop. Tabby has got
so
much energy. It’s like nap time means nothing to her. Sure, I take her to the park. But she wants me to push her on the swings, play peekaboo in the trees, pretend we’re both dragons. It’s totally exhausting.

And another thing?

The hours are
killing me
. I know I shouldn’t complain. I know my pay is crazy, insane – the kind of money I didn’t think I’d be earning even in fifteen years time, even with whichever masters degree I decide on in the end. But I start at eight am, sharp, not a moment later, and I’ve got to stay until Will – I mean
Mr Cavendish
– gets home. Which hasn’t been any earlier than eight
pm
all week long.

I mean, that’s a twelve hour shift, right? I suppose the upside is that I haven’t had to spend any time at home, so I’ve hardly even seen my crazy flatmate Magenta.  On the upside, I’ve had no time to get annoyed by all the maddening things she does. Drastic way to solve a problem, I know, but it’s worked.

The worst bit is that I had to cancel my weekly pub date with Brian. I really hated doing that, but he’s been so understanding, not to mention excited for my new job. And he’s promised to take me for a celebration brunch tomorrow in this hot new place in Fulham. I can’t
wait
.

And right now Tabby’s fast asleep, and I’ve finally got a moment to sit down, relax and catch my breath. But it seems like no sooner have I got good and comfy on the sofa, when I hear the front door open.

“Everyone home?” calls out Will’s – I mean
Mr Cavendish’s
– now familiar voice.

“Just through here,” I call back.

He walks through to the living room. As always, he’s immaculately dressed, but he looks tired out by his working week and I know just how he feels. For once, his usually-perfect hair is all messy and dishevelled and his normally-broad shoulders are even drooping a little. With a big sigh, he flops down onto the sofa next to me, tantalisingly close.

“You
promise
me this is Friday?” he chuckles.

“Absolutely,” I confirm with a grin.

“Great,” he says. “That means I only have to go in the office for maybe six or seven hours tomorrow. And how’s Tabitha?”

“Finally asleep,” I stage whisper, lifting my hand to my mouth for emphasis, although in truth her bedroom is up two flights of stairs. “We ran around the park for hours today. I think I finally succeeded in tiring her out.”

“Thank you,” he nods. “This has been a great start. Now I think we both deserve a drink.”

Oh baby, you read my mind,
I think, imagining a large glass of crisp, chilled white wine.

“I’ll make us both a pot of tea,” he says a moment later, shattering my fantasy. “Fortnum and Mason’s sell the most exquisite teas on the planet. We have practically every blend here in the house and I know just the thing. They do the most delicate Darjeeling. I’ll rustle us up a pot right away!”

“Thank you, that sounds great,” I say, hoping that I’m making a good enough job of masking my disappointment, as Will rises from the plush turquoise sofa and heads down the corridor to the kitchen.

Shucks
, I think.
A nice cup of English tea wasn’t exactly what I had in mind to kick off my Friday night with.

But even so, I
am
looking forward to getting to know Will – I mean
Mr Cavendish
– a little better. After all, he’s my boss and he trusts me all day to look after his most precious possession: his daughter. So it makes sense that we should at least know a little bit about each other ... right?

 

§

 

God Damn. I’d never noticed before just how
good
this man smells. But right now, now that he’s sitting
right next to me
on the sofa, I’m totally intoxicated by his cologne. It’s heady but not overpowering, nothing at all like the cheap scent college boys on a night out – the kind of smell I’m used to. No. He smells spicy like cedar wood and cardamom, but there’s also a lightly sweet fragrant tone, too – something like jasmine. You’d think that would be feminine, but on Will; if anything, it makes him even more masculine.

And right now, half-drunk on his scent (not to mention the fact that he’s mere inches away from me), I’m actually kinda glad that he didn’t serve wine. I don’t think I could have handled it.

I pull my eyes away from him, worrying my no-doubt dilated pupils will give away my crush, and instead cast my gaze around the living room.  Which is
huge
. I mean, you could legit have fifty people in here for a cocktail party, no problem. So I totally didn’t expect him to come and sit right next to me. He could have sat anywhere at all in this gigantic room.

“How about you?” he says, forcing me to turn back towards him, those dark eyes once again smouldering in my direction.

Which is when I realize that while I’ve been lost in la-la land, daydreaming about just how f-ing good he smells, he’s obviously just asked me a question. Jeez. He must think I’m a total space cadet. And on top of everything, why would he employ someone with an attention span like mine to look after his daughter? I’m totally gonna get fired. Nice work, Chrissie!

“I’m sorry?” I say as I feel myself blushing a deep crimson.

“I said, have you ever been to France?”

Oh yeah. I remember now. He was telling me all about his year abroad, at the Sorbonne.

“No, no,” I reply, “but I’d really love to go. One day. Especially Paris. It always looks so beautiful in the photos.”

I mean it: I would love to go. And I’d like to go to all the places he’s told me about this evening, too. He’s been to so many amazing far off destinations – practically everywhere on my bucket list. I’m actually kinda jealous. Because I know he’s older than me, but he’s not
that
much older. And I’m guessing he never had to wait tables at the Dairy Queen to pay for
his
adventures around the globe.

I sigh wistfully, thinking about how much money all this travelling is going to cost me. “Sometimes it seems like I’m never gonna get there,” I say quietly.

“How old are you, Chrissie?” he asks.

“Twenty two,” I reply.

“You’re still so young,” he says. “I’m thirty, so of course I’ve been to more places. And I’m sure you will too. There’s still so much time ahead of you.”

“But it’s not just time, is it?” I reply. “It’s money.”

Immediately, regret what I’ve just said. I mean, I’ve basically just outright accused him of being a trust fund kid, haven’t I?

“Money does help,” he admits. “For example, it was good to have an allowance from my parents when I was studying in Paris. However, it wasn’t quite as easy as grabbing Daddy’s credit card and jetting off wherever I wanted. They had very fixed ideas about the kinds of places I should be going, the kinds of experiences I should be having, and let’s just say we didn’t always see eye to eye.”

He takes a sip of his tea, before continuing.

“Take Goa, for example,” he says. “I always wanted to visit there.”

“Me too,” I say, sitting up straight with excitement. “It’s one of the places on my list!”

“Well, it was on mine too,” he grins. “When I was about your age. But my parents weren’t having any of it. To them, it was a dangerous, dirty place and they made it clear that they certainly weren’t giving me any money to go to a place like that.”

“So what happened?” I ask, enthralled now in his story.

“I decided I wasn’t going to let them dictate everything I did, just because they were the ones looking after the money,” he explains. “So, I had to do it all by myself, and I needed money fast. Despite my privileged upbringing, I didn’t have any money of my own. Sure, there was my trust fund – but that came with many strings attached, and anyway, I wasn’t even allowed to touch it until I turned twenty five.  I didn’t have any capital, but I had been a diligent student at school, and I knew a thing or two about computers. So, I did a bit of research, and that’s how I formed my first company – a software firm. It didn’t make too much money at first, but it was more than enough to get me to Goa. Which I did, by the way, without telling my parents where I’d gone.”

At this, he gives me a wink, and I can’t help but smile at the image of him – my age, running away like that.

“My parents were livid when they found out,” he continues.

“I’ll bet,” I say.

“But when I told them how I’d got the money to fund my travels, and showed them my projected earnings over the next five years, they were begrudgingly impressed. And when I sold that company five years later for a handsome amount, I had more than enough to go anywhere I wanted in the world.”

I guess I was wrong about him
, I think. I thought he had everything handed to him on a plate, but I can see now that that isn’t true. He’s driven, and judging by the places he’s been in the world, we’ve got so much in common. He would be the perfect guy for me – too bad he’s my boss.

Suddenly, the beautiful old mahogany grandfather clock in the corner of the room strikes out a series of long, deep notes.

“Wow,” I say, glancing over at it and clocking the time. “Midnight already? I didn’t realise we’d been talking for so long!”

“I guess we must have lost track of time,” he says, shifting his weight a little on the sofa as if he’s about to stand up.

And all of a sudden I just instinctively
know
that, like Cinderella, at the stroke of midnight I have to leave. The conversation – the night – is over.

“I’d better go,” I smile, “before the buses stop running ...”

He looks at me, with a mixture of concern and confusion. “Buses?” he asks. “What are you talking about? I’m not having you running around on public transport at this hour! Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll call my car service.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking one final look around the sumptuous room, filled with generation upon generation of no-doubt priceless heirlooms, as I realize that practically nobody in Will’s entire family has probably ever used a bus in their entire lives.

“Excuse me one moment,” he says, quickly pushing himself off the sofa and dashing out of the room.

I get to my feet, too, waiting for him to return. Moments later he’s back, and as he helps me into my coat like a perfect gentleman, once again intoxicating me with that delicious scent of his cologne, I find myself praying for just a few more minutes – hoping against hope the car will be delayed and give me just a few more minutes in his company.

But God’s doesn’t seem to be listening to me tonight, because what seems like seconds later, Will’s phone discreetly buzzes and he checks the screen then announces that my car is waiting outside.

He shows me to the front door, and then we pause for a moment, only inches away from each other, the proximity forcing me to notice all over again just how damn
tall
he is, as I look up to meet those deep dark eyes. There’s this crazy silence between us which suddenly feels charged with meaning, and it actually kinda scares me a little, it’s so intense, so I scramble to fill it.

“I’ve had a really great first week,” I blurt out, sounding like some silly kid.

“Thank you,” Will says simply but it’s like there’s something behind his words, too – something in the building tension between us, something in the way his eyes stay locked onto mine.

Yep, there it is again: that meaningful silence as we gaze at each other, not quite sure where we stand, two people who only a few days ago were complete strangers to each other and are now ...
what
exactly?

BOOK: Barely Yours
6.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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