‘We’re not allowed in the house. Especially your office.’ So Harry was not a rule-breaker. ‘I like looking at the night sky, but I want to be an astrophysicist when I grow up.’
Zoe blinked. This was news to her.
‘Cool,’ Isandro said.
‘Run along, children.’ She was both pleased and relieved when they both did as she asked—with Georgie, you never knew.
‘You, too,’ Isandro said when they had left. ‘Ring the agency first and get a replacement for…whatever her name is.’
‘Susie.’
‘Then take the rest of the day off. I’m off to London.’
She assumed when he left that they would not see him for some time. She had understood that this was the norm. But over the next few weeks he kept arriving unexpectedly, sometimes spending a night, sometimes not even that long.
At first mystified by his behaviour, she realised that he was hoping to catch her out, though it did seem a lot of trouble to go to. Never knowing when he would turn up made it difficult to relax…and though trying to catch her out made sense, it didn’t explain the occasion he brought Harry a book full of photos of galaxies and nebulae.
The little boy looked forward to his visits…but was he the only one? Why would anyone look forward to a visit from someone who blew hot and cold? Who was cold and remote one moment and relaxed and friendly the next?
As they approached the crossroad Alex slowed for a red light. Isandro shut down the tablet and looked through the window, dragging a hand through his dark hair. He had planned to spend the weekend in London, but at the last moment had decided to drive down to Ravenwood, reasoning he could spend the weekend reading the report without distractions. Sure, no distractions at all, mocked the voice in his head.
‘Is that…?’
Pushing away the thought, Isandro followed the direction of his driver’s nod. ‘Yes, it is, Alex,’ he confirmed.
‘Are they alone?’
Isandro, who had been looking for that glossy dark head attached to a body he had spent some time thinking about, nodded. All right, not just some time—a lot of time. He was finding it pretty much impossible to think about anything but his housekeeper, who did not know the meaning of ‘unobtrusive’.
‘It looks like it.’
Which in itself was strange. While Zoe Grace might not be about to win any prizes for her housekeeping skills, when it came to her youthful charges she took the role extremely seriously. He could not imagine her allowing the twins to wander around town unaccompanied.
‘Shall I pull over?’
Isandro nodded and unclipped his seat belt as the car drew to a halt on a double yellow. When he reached the twins they were still on the pavement. They appeared to be arguing—and more significantly there was still no sign of their aunt.
It was Harry who saw him first. Seeing the relief on his freckled face, Isandro experienced an emotional tightening in his chest.
Isandro controlled his strong inclination to hug him, aware that the boy had already measured him up as an unlikely male role model. It would be nothing short of cruel to allow the boy to become reliant and then fade out of his life.
Instead he gave the boy a manly pat on his painfully skinny shoulder. The kid could do a lot better than him for a father substitute. Did his aunt’s determination to sacrifice her own needs for her charges extend to her choice of partner? Would she choose the ‘good father’ material over a good lover? The woman was probably determined to be a martyr. She’d probably end up alone or with some boring loser whom she deemed solid and responsible.
‘We’ve lost Aunty Zoe. Actually, we ran away and now we’re lost, too.’
For which Isandro correctly read his sister had run and he had followed. There was no doubting who the dominant and reckless twin in this equation was.
‘We’re not lost,’ his sister interrupted. ‘And if you hadn’t made me come back…’
‘It was stealing!’
‘It was not stealing. We were bringing it back, and that’s borrowing, isn’t it?’ she appealed to Isandro for support.
‘Borrowing without permission is stealing. And running away from your aunt is…Have you any idea how worried she will be?’ An image of a terrified Zoe flashed into his head and he hardened his heart against their stricken expressions. ‘She will be frantic!’
The twins exchanged worried glances.
‘We didn’t think,’ Georgie admitted.
Isandro steeled himself against the quiver in her voice and struggled to maintain his stern expression as he ushered them towards the car. The sniff was too much for the ruthless captain of industry to withstand.
‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed. ‘I’ll ring your aunt and let her know—’
‘You can’t,’ they said in unison.
He shook his head. ‘Why can’t I?’
‘Her phone wasn’t charged. It died on her when Aunt Chloe was talking.’
He exhaled. If he had been in Zoe’s position—which was unlikely, because not only would he not have let his phone battery run down, he certainly wouldn’t have taken on responsibility for this pair of demons—he would now be retracing his footsteps.
The demons regarded him with the expressions that said they had total faith that he would come up with a solution.
‘Right, then, where were you when you ran away, and where were you before that?’
The terrible clawing panic in her stomach when she had turned to tell the twins to get a wriggle or the car would be clamped would stay with Zoe for ever. When she found them she would never let them out of her sight again…always supposing she didn’t throttle them.
She jogged along the pavements, retracing her footsteps, stopping occasionally to ask people if they had seen two children, oblivious to the stares that followed her progress. She kept telling herself over and over like a mantra, Tomorrow this will just be a memory. I’ll laugh about it with Chloe.
Tomorrow seemed a hell of a long way away, though, and Chloe was still in Boston!
By the time Zoe had worked her way to the boat-hire booth her heart was thudding so hard she felt as if it would crack her ribs. She was only kept going by the strong conviction that had gradually taken hold that the twins were out there on the river.
It was so obvious. Why hadn’t she smelt a rat when the wilful youngster who would never take no for an answer had not argued or even tried to cajole when she’d refused to take them out in a kayak. Now of course it made sense. Georgie hadn’t suddenly become malleable, she’d simply cut out the arguing, and she’d dragged Harry with her.
The ticket booth was closed, but before a frantic Zoe could think of what to do next a boy came around the corner carrying a padlock and a large bunch of keys. He removed the earphones from his ears when he saw her.
‘Sorry, we’re closed.’
‘I’m looking for my niece and nephew,’ she said before he could put the earphones back in. ‘They’re seven years old. I think they might have gone out in one of your kayaks.’ The effort to stay calm and not sound like an unbalanced lunatic made her voice shake, but she was pretty proud of her effort.
‘Sorry, we’re closed.’
She watched, her pent-up fear tipping over into rage, as he began to insert the earphones.
Her eyes narrowed, she stepped forward and snatched them out, drawing a yelp from the boy. ‘My niece and nephew—they wanted to go out in a kayak. Have you seen them?’ she