tissue and dabbed her eyes. “And now,” she said in a stronger voice, clearing her throat, “the build must recommence, but Tom is anxious to be on-site for its duration and requires the children and nanny to be with him. I’m Tom’s housekeeper, and I’ll also be there.” She stuffed the hankie up her sleeve and turned to me with shining eyes, the memory of Aurelia evidently filed away in her mind so that normal service could resume.
“The job will require you to be with the children on-site on a full-time basis,” she said, “at least until March. Is that a problem?” Her eyes searched my fingers for any sign of a ring. “No . . . partner who’ll want you home for Christmas?”
“Oh,” I said. “No. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
She frowned at that, but something in her mind told her that this was the answer she wanted and she moved on. “Well, your reference was glowing, of course. Tom only sent the application pack to a selection of trusted associates—we don’t use recruitment agencies or anything like that—so we were delighted when Verity championed you.”
She was beaming now, and my face contorted into a rictus grin while my mind did somersaults. Verity?
“Oh, Verity,” I said lightly. “She’s . . . that’s so kind . . .”
Maren batted her hand in the air as though I was being modest, not clueless. “Of course she championed you. And after the thing in Belgium . . .”
I gave a nervous giggle and eyed the door. What thing in Belgium? I wanted to shriek. It was abundantly, sharply clear now that I was way out of my depth. It was wrong to lie to a family who’d lost their mother. It was wrong to parade as something I wasn’t, despite how desperate I was. I placed a foot on the floor and lifted my hips off the chair, preparing myself to sprint the hell out of there.
“Hello?” a man’s voice called. I looked up and saw a figure in the French doors, silhouetted by celestial afternoon sunlight that was swelling in the garden. A tall, lean man in a smart navy polo shirt and chinos, dark, tousled hair flecked with silver, and a hint of beard. A slightly more upmarket, skinnier Colin Farrell, with rimless glasses and overlapping front teeth. He marched across the room toward me and extended a hand. A gold wedding band flashed in the light. “Tom Faraday,” he said, grinning. “You must be Sophie. A pleasure to meet you.”
“A pleasure to meet you, too,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that a Geordie accent?”
I hesitated. “Yes?”
He glanced at Maren. “Spend a lot of time in the north, did you?”
“I . . . looked after a child from the north,” my mouth said, while my brain tried to keep up. “She was homesick and so I adopted her accent to make her . . . less homesick.” Phew. My excuse seemed to make sense. But I would have to curb my accent. Now that I thought about it, Sophie didn’t sound particularly northern.
A warm smile. “Well, that’s very kind of you. How long have you been nannying?”
“Ten years,” I blurted out. Lies, lies, lies, said my brain.
I was sure Maren would launch into questions about the specifics of this—who did I nanny, and where—but she merely smiled and said, “And if you had to describe your nannying style, what would you say?”
I tried to make up another lie, but a squeak came out. My bladder was actually threatening to explode right there on the floor.
I stood up. “Sorry,” I said. “But is there a loo I could use?”
“Certainly,” Tom said, spinning around to his left. “Straight ahead, past the fridge. Oh, on second thought, best not, as it’s still blocked. Kids and their toys . . . Use the one upstairs. Second door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
I headed quickly upstairs and locked the toilet door behind me, then sat down with my head between my knees and groaned. What was I doing? What. Was. I. Doing?
I spent a few moments taking deep breaths and planning my next moves. I would go back downstairs and tell them that I was very sorry but I couldn’t do it after all. My friend was pregnant—or Sophie’s friend was pregnant—and I had to be around for her. Or Plan B: I’d tiptoe back down the stairs, open the front door, and run the hell out of there.