The Nanny and the Millionaire: Promoted: Nanny to Wife / The Italian Tycoon and the Nanny / The Millionaire's Nanny Arrangement

‘Can Riley help me?’ Georgy returned obediently to her desk.

Most late afternoons Marissa and Riley enjoyed a swim. Georgy had begun by sitting on one of the recliners, gradually moving closer to the pool, until finally she chose to sit on the top step at the shallow end dangling her feet in the water.

‘Why don’t you come in?’ Riley called, his eyes the brightest blue in his glowing face. ‘It’s great! I’ll look after you.’

‘Don’t pressure her, Riley.’ Marissa swam up behind him speaking very quietly.

‘I don’t have a swimsuit,’ Georgy called. It didn’t sound like an excuse, rather regret.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get one,’ Marissa called back. ‘Something really smart. Your father will be home Sunday.’

‘Are you going to tell him I’m cured?’ The expression on Georgy’s small face was one of hope.

‘Cured of what?’ Riley lifted himself out of the water to sit on the step beside her.

‘Cured of being frightened of the water,’ she told him simply. ‘My mother was always trying to throw me in the pool. She was really mean, like your mum.’

Marissa’s heart lurched. The children were growing close. They spent quite a lot of time talking to one another. From the sound of it Riley had been confiding in his new friend. She had to consider it as therapy. At least Georgy had accepted she wasn’t Riley’s mother.

‘After you teach me how to swim, you have to teach me how to sit on a horse,’ Georgy further astounded them by saying.

‘And you have to teach me to draw pictures as good as yours,’ Riley said.

‘You like my pictures?’ Georgy looked at him in amazement, her cheeks going quite pink.

‘Very, very much!’ said Riley.

Georgy started cracking her knuckles. ‘Well, Aunty Lois said she should show them to a psy … psy …’

‘Psychiatrist,’ Riley sweetly supplied. ‘Maybe you have way too much imagination for her?’

Georgy kissed him. ‘After tea I’m going to sing for you. You and Marissa. You’re my great friends. I have a really good voice but only Zoltan ever heard it.’

‘What songs do you know then?’ Riley eyed her with admiration.

Georgy jumped up so she could hand Marissa her towel. ‘Wait and see.’

If they were expecting nursery ditties, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Click Go the Shears, Boy, Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son and the like, Georgy’s performance brought the house down. She had graciously consented to give her impromptu concert in her great-grandmother’s sitting room.

The pint-size performer began by introducing the first of two songs from her repertoire before she sang them.

Nothing like ‘Danny Boy’ to bring on the tears, especially when sung in a pure sweet pipe. Then to end the concert on an upbeat note, one of her favourites from The Sound of Music complete with a really good natural yodel.

‘Julie Andrews couldn’t have done it any better,’ Olly pronounced, admitting later it had never crossed her mind Georgy could sing. Shriek, yes, sing like a lark, no.

Catherine gave the child a lovely smile. ‘That was absolutely beautiful, Georgy. Thank you so much.’

‘I’m going to be a singer when I grow up,’ Georgy told her charmed audience. ‘I think singing to people would be great!’

Holt arrived home to a contented household. After some harrowing moments with Lois, whose undying, let it be said, unrequited, love for him, had been wrung out of her, it was the peaceful homecoming he needed. Why was it that some women insisted on falling in love with the one man they couldn’t have? Of course he had long known about Lois’s feelings for him. How could he not? Tara had been very cruel in the way she had privately ridiculed her sister. Even when he had objected quite strongly she had invariably replied, ‘It just makes me laugh, darling, that’s all! You’re mine, so just don’t forget it!’

But it was Tara who had broken their marriage vows. With a minor rock star of all people! A good-looking young guy, years younger than she who had been part of a band hired to play at a friend’s wedding reception in Sydney. He and his father had been out of the country at the time, as members of a trade commission. Had he been home it would never have happened. But Tara when she was in the mood, just had to have sex. The big problem was the rock star hadn’t been using a condom and the one thing Tara hadn’t figured on happening, happened. She had fallen pregnant with Georgia.

The truly extraordinary part was she hadn’t considered herself unfaithful. She hadn’t felt in the least guilty about what other people called adultery. It might well have been an out-of-body experience, something over which she had little control.

‘He meant nothing! Less than nothing, darling. Just a good-looking kid in skintight jeans. I was drunk, darling! It was a wild, wild night! He must have slipped me something when I wasn’t noticing.’

The marriage hadn’t come to an end right then. Not in name anyway, although he’d never touched her again. The truth was he had discovered very early in their marriage Tara wasn’t the young woman he’d so stupidly thought she was. Tara, his beautiful, charming fiancée had been playing a part, like an actress in a movie. She’d been so good at it she had fooled his entire family, except maybe for Gran, who had once tried to warn him by saying, ‘Tara is lovely, Holt, but not quite believable!’

Tara’s parents knew all about their very difficult elder daughter and her wildly fluctuating moods. So did Lois, but none of them had been interested in telling him. Tara was unstable in more ways than one. It was this instability that had caused him much worry about Georgia. It seemed very much as if she’d inherited her mother’s nature. But he had only been home a few days to find Georgia was behaving like a normal happy child. It gladdened his heart that she had been spared.

Marissa had told him about Georgia’s amazing talent for singing, clearly expecting him to demand to hear her that very moment. When he had declined saying it would have to wait until he had a little more time, he had caught the flash of disappointment and yes, censure, in her beautiful eyes. Clearly she thought he wasn’t much of a father. He didn’t much like it. But then, she was a young woman who was trying to deal with a lot of hangups of her own. Both of them had one thing in common. They had chosen faithless partners.

What was he supposed to say anyway? ‘I’m doing my level best, Ms Devlin—a deliberate plot to try to keep her at a distance?—I’m very fond of Georgy. I support her in every way I can, but I’m only human. Georgia’s not mine!’

He had spent a lot of time wondering whether the rock star should at least be told he had a daughter. He knew he would want to know if somewhere in the world a child of his existed. He would owe that child, his own flesh and blood. The one and only time he had spoken to Tara about it had set off a near psychotic episode. She had become hysterical, smashing things, valuable things. No one was to ever know. She had taken it completely for granted he would do the best for Georgia as he had supported her right through her pregnancy.

But no way was he going to remain married to her.

That had precipitated another crisis but he had been adamant. He wanted a divorce.

The upshot was Tara had left Wungalla in a blind fury. She had left him with her child. I don’t want the ugly little thing! I never wanted her. She was an appalling accident. You keep her you’re so bloody sanctimonious!

Tara had left, feeling utterly secure in her belief he would remain silent on the issue of Georgia’s paternity. In many ways it was a dilemma. He didn’t believe he should live a lie. He didn’t believe Georgia should be denied the truth. But at what stage should he tell her?

A dilemma indeed, with the blue-eyed, so innocent looking Ms Devlin looking at him with naked reproach in her eyes when he was a man long used to respect.

Holt surprised them one afternoon by coming back with Dusty, saying he was going to take them all to the Blue Lotus lagoon, a permanent water hole on the station where the sacred water lilies were out in all their glory. Dusty, back in his element as a working dog, got very excited around Marissa and the children. Holt allowed them to play for a few moments then he brought Dusty to heel with a firm, ‘Sit, boy!’

Dusty did, thumping his tail good-naturedly, a grin all over his face.

‘Oh, this is such fun!’ Georgy trilled, clapping her hands together. ‘Isn’t Dusty beautiful? I always wanted a dog. Riley is going to teach me to swim, Dad, when you get me some propers swimmers. Marissa said you would.’

‘And she was absolutely right.’ Holt opened the doors of the 4WD, his heart breaking a little at the sound of that ‘Dad.’ Georgy rarely called him Dad and he had to admit he hadn’t encouraged it. ‘Okay, pile in.’

Marissa who adored the bush and had made a few early morning forays on her own when the children were still asleep, found the Blue Lotus lagoon a place of magic right in the heart of the red plains country. It was sheltered from the desert winds by towering river gums and an under canopy of feathery acacias their branches interlacing. The large lagoon was a shining dark green with great patches of the lavender-blue water lilies holding their long exquisite heads above the surface of the water and their glossy pads. It was a wonderfully cool green world in great contrast to the sun scorched plains.

Marissa hovered at the top of the grassy slope while the children accompanied by a romping Dusty took off for the sandy banks that surrounded the long near moon-shaped lagoon.

Holt, standing midway, turned back to her, unwilling to reveal how the sight of her, the sound of her, was a source of great pleasure to him. He had missed seeing her all the time he’d been away. Which just served to show what a sterile thing his life had become when really his working life had a lot of drama.

Face it. He wanted a wife. Not a stepmother for Georgy. He wanted a woman for him. This young woman, Marissa, was living, eating, sleeping, working, breathing, under his roof. He had become used to seeing her every day. His grandmother was deriving comfort and pleasure from her company. Georgy was a different child. Olly sang her praises, saying she was going to develop into a ‘great little cook.’ That was the top of the ladder for Olly and fine by him. The atmosphere at the homestead these days was one of joyous ease. He could scarcely believe it. Surely something had to go wrong!

‘Are you coming down?’

Under his brilliant gaze Marissa felt momentarily paralysed. Ever since he had come home she had been fighting down the wild bouts of excitement that flared up whenever he appeared. He was forever lurking in her mind, even when she was asleep. She couldn’t talk about her dreams, either. If they weren’t precisely erotic, they were certainly desire driven. She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had two romances she had thought serious at the time. Both young men had been kind and funny and sexy, professional young men, good catches or so her girlfriends told her. Neither had made her feel remotely like this, and just with a look!

She pulled herself together, moving down the bank, rather hoping yet fearful she would go for a slide and finish up in his arms. ‘This is such a beautiful place!’ she said in a hushed voice.