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He had waited all day for her call and when none came he knew he needed to take matters in hand.
Carly spoke with a professional enthusiasm to the group, explaining her approach to sleep with the aid of an overhead presentation and a detailed account of some of the previous families she had successfully worked with. Max listened to her talk, realising it would be so easy to believe in everything she said. But Max knew that life wasn’t so simple. He raised his hand when she spoke about the importance of initially staying with your child as they fell asleep.
Her brow furrowed. ‘Yes, Max?’
‘Shouldn’t we be encouraging our children to be independent? Everything you are saying will make them even more dependent on us.’ Max was gratified to see some of the other parents nod in agreement.
‘The most independent and contented people are those who are secure in their love—isn’t that the gift we want to give our children?’ Without waiting for him to answer, Carly continued her talk.
Max shook his head. Didn’t she understand the importance of making a child independent? All of her tenderness and comforting talk was nonsense. Children needed to learn to cope on their own. Just as he had done growing up. His mother had rarely been around when he was a child as she had often worked a double shift in her job as a hotel chambermaid. Being independent hadn’t done him any harm…how many other people were running a billion-euro business at thirty-three? And he had coped when his mother had died when he was nineteen. He’d got on with his life. Isabella was without a mother too. She was at a greater disadvantage than other children so it was important that she learned to be strong. Not to rely on others. What if anything happened to him and Isabella was completely reliant on and attached to him? How would she manage? One thing was for sure, Carly Knight’s tenderness and comfort would be of little help then.
At the end of the talk Carly patiently answered the other parents’ questions. Begrudgingly he admitted that some of what she said made sense, especially the need for routine and consistency. He knew he needed to revise his work commitments, but his clients expected him on location to personally present at design bids, and with a workforce of over five hundred staff, it was his responsibility to make sure that work continued to flow into the practice. And as loath as he was to admit it, sometimes a hotel room was preferable to facing the emptiness of his house late at night when Isabella had eventually fallen asleep. The loneliness that engulfed him in those late hours often felt as though it were eating him up from the inside out.
As the other parents drifted out of the room, after giving Carly enthusiastic applause, he stood and approached her as she packed away all the sleeping aids she had shown around the group.
She raised one of her perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘It was an unexpected surprise to see you here.’
Hidden in her teasing tone was a hint of scepticism. He shrugged, leant against the wall next to a table filled with pots of tender, newly sprouting plants, name stickers haphazardly applied to the terracotta-coloured plastic. ‘I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a head start in understanding the techniques you’ll use with Isabella.’
Carly placed the lid on the yellow cardboard box. ‘In other words, you’re here to try and persuade me to come to Lake Como with you.’
‘Yes.’
She shook her head. ‘At least you’re honest, unlike a lot of other people.’
Surprised by her jaded tone, he said, ‘I thought in your line of work you’d see the positive in everyone.’
Today she was wearing a knee-length, primrose-yellow summer dress. She rested her hand against her upper chest, where the top buttons were undone to reveal smooth creamy skin. ‘I try to be…’ She eyed him carefully as though trying to weigh up just how much she could trust him.
He hesitated for a moment, but decided to go for broke…no matter how humiliating it was to be practically begging this woman. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m a proud man who doesn’t like to admit when he’s getting things wrong…’ he paused, taken aback by the sudden need to unburden himself in the face of Carly’s attentive blue gaze ‘…but I’ve been getting things wrong with my family for far too long. I need help. I need your help. Will you come?’
‘I don’t usually—’
He stepped forward, handed her the paper sheet he had folded into his jacket pocket earlier this morning. ‘Isabella created this drawing yesterday with Vittoria, I thought you might like it. I think she has an artistic flair.’
She took the sheet and smiled at the tiny pink handprint that had then been covered in a rainbow of assorted Pollock-like paint drips. ‘Considering your profession it’s no wonder that Isabella would have an artistic flair too. What type of projects is your firm involved in?’
‘We mainly specialise in large commercial contracts.’
She nodded and lifted her laptop bag. ‘Any that I would be familiar with?’
He went and picked up the cardboard box. ‘The Ayer building in New York, Yumba International Airport.’
She held the classroom door open for him to pass through, her eyes widening. ‘The Ayer building—wow, I’ve seen photos in the press. It’s a stunning building.’
After she said her goodbyes to the owner, who was in her office, they walked out into the school garden and then to the road beyond the security gate. ‘What did you think of my talk?’
‘You have a flair for public speaking—really engaging.’
His answer seemed to amuse her, but then with a more serious expression she said, ‘I meant the content, the substance of my approach.’
She had said earlier that she liked his honesty. He didn’t make it a habit to talk about his past, or anything to do with his family. But he knew he had to open up to Carly if he wanted her support. He lowered the box to the ground, shrugged on his jacket against the chill in the evening. ‘It’s very different from how I was brought up—I had to be independent from a young age. I can see the benefit to a lot of what you say…but I need help implementing it.’
She gestured for him to pass the cardboard box to her. Nodded down the road. ‘My underground station is in that direction. I have to go—I’m meeting a friend later.’
‘Can I give you a lift?’
She shook her head. ‘The underground will be faster.’
‘So, have you made a decision about this weekend?’
She frowned and indecision shone in her eyes. Why was she so reluctant to go to Lake Como with him? His instinct told him that there was more to it than just her planned weekend away. She didn’t trust him. He smiled. ‘Honestly, the ice cream in Lake Como is really good.’ He gestured to the dull day surrounding them. ‘And you can’t say that you’d prefer to stay here with this weather.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’
‘My plane has a slot for five p.m. at London City jet centre.’
‘I’ve a full schedule tomorrow until three.’
‘A driver from my office can collect you if you give me your address. We can board immediately, so provided you are there by four-forty we can go. Will that work for you?’
Carly inhaled a deep breath. Looked down at Isabella’s painting she was still carrying in her hand. ‘I’ll go because of Isabella. You can pay me my standard fee but also make a charitable donation to the family support group I gave the talk to on Tuesday. They do incredible work helping disadvantaged parents—please make sure your donation is generous.’
She turned away from him and walked quickly towards the station, the low heels of her summer sandals clipping on the footpath, her loose blonde hair shimmering in the sudden burst of sunshine that broke free of the cloud mass.
For a brief moment he felt elation.
And then he remembered what it was he was facing this weekend.
Isabella asleep in his arms, Max stared out of the jet’s window, his thoughts clearly far, far away, which Carly supposed was a welcome change from how he had longingly been eyeballing his phone, which was lying on the coffee table sitting between them. After Isabella had fallen asleep, he had asked her to pass it to him but she had whispered, ‘No, it will disturb Isabella. Use this time to enjoy holding her; giving her the comfort she wants.’ He had thrown her an exasperated look but she had just shrugged and returned to pretending to read the magazine the jet’s hostess had passed to her along with the best Americano Carly had ever tasted.
The implications of Max’s words yesterday that his plane had a slot at five for take-off hadn’t fully registered with Carly until she had seen his private jet sitting on the runaway. He owned a plane. Max Lovato was even wealthier than she had first guessed and that wealth made her uncomfortable and extra cautious around him. It made her want to push him to prove that he was a good father to Isabella. To figure out what his real priorities in life were—wealth or family?
Soon after take-off Carly had suggested that Isabella should have a nap; from her eye rubbing and yawns it was clear she was tired. Max had questioned whether they should instead keep her awake in the hope she would sleep through the night but had accepted Carly’s explanation that they needed to avoid Isabella being overtired and taken her into the jet’s bedroom. But Isabella had refused to settle and had clung to Max instead. Guessing that Isabella was picking up on her father’s stress, lying down in the middle of the day clearly not being his thing, Carly suggested that they come back out into the lounge and cuddle. Within five minutes Isabella had fallen fast asleep.
Now, Carly tried to focus on an article about the benefits of superfoods and whether they were superfoods or not, but her attention kept being drawn back to father and daughter.
Isabella had her father’s mouth, the soft wave now relaxed in sleep from its earlier unhappy jutting out. When Carly had boarded the plane, Isabella had eyed her warily before burying her face into her father’s chest, her little hands bunching the light blue material of his polo shirt. Isabella’s complexion was lighter than Max’s—her skin was the colour of golden honey, her hair adorable chestnut curls. Her eyes were molten chocolate brown and could easily break your heart with the defiance that sparked in their depths and spoke of a toddler struggling to understand her world.
Alongside his polo shirt, Max was wearing navy chinos, his sockless feet in loosely laced navy boating shoes. Carly’s gaze time and time again was drawn to his bare ankles, the smoothness of his dark tanned skin over the ankle bone oddly compelling.
He had started off sitting upright, his reluctance to relax, to spend downtime with his daughter obvious. What was holding him back from fully engaging with his daughter? Was his job that pressurised? Was it the need for success and even more wealth and power? Or was he simply struggling like so many other parents? She thought back to that torment she had witnessed the first time she had seen him and winced. She wanted to help him in his grief for his wife, in his struggle with understanding and connecting fully with his daughter. That was why she had agreed to this weekend. Even after he had shamelessly turned up at her meeting Wednesday afternoon in a bid to persuade her to go with them to Lake Como. But to give him his due, he had listened attentively to her talk, which she had delivered in a more faltering than usual style, thanks to his unnerving concentration that had his gaze follow her every movement. After, out in the street, she had heard the sincerity in his voice when he said he needed her help.
But, despite all his well-meaning pledges, she wasn’t yet convinced he really was prepared to put the effort into what needed to be done.
As Isabella had relaxed in her sleep, as though by osmosis, Max too had visibly unwound. He had shifted forward in his seat, his legs moving outwards, his shoulders dropping, his right hand relaxing to gently rub against his little girl’s bare leg where her pink denim dungarees had ridden up from her bare feet.
Isabella’s earlier hot cheeks from fighting both sleep and her father had now cooled and Carly smiled at the little girl, already taken by her strong spirit.
Her gaze shifted back up to Max. His eyes were closed. Was he asleep too? Carly sank further into her chair and tried to ignore just how attracted she was to him. He was a client. She was here to do a job.
Carly knew only too well how workplace romances derailed life. Her parents had once owned an accountancy practice…until her mother had fallen for one of their clients. Carly, then aged eleven, could still remember to this day the elation that had shone in her mum’s eyes when she had spoken every evening at the dinner table about her new client. She had relayed with awe the details of his holiday home in Sardinia, his corporate jaunts to sports events and conferences in exotic locations. How devoted to and proud he was of his three high-achieving and beautiful daughters. How miserable his ex-wife had made him.
All this her mum would recount with great animation, her voice bright, which only emphasised the dislike that settled on her features when Carly’s father would interrupt with some story of his own.
Carly had been devastated when her parents split but she had held out hope—after all, her dad promised that she could stay with him at weekends and she was gaining three sisters. Carly had always wanted siblings. But with the business collapsing amidst a bitter divorce, her dad had left England for a new life in New Zealand where his sister lived. And Carly’s three new sisters, all much older than her, showed little interest in her on their visits home from university other than to make it clear that they considered her nothing other than a nuisance who would never be welcomed into their tight circle. They idolised their father and jealously guarded their relationship with him.
Carly shivered. The air temperature in the cabin had dropped. She smiled as Isabella snuffled, turned her cheek into her father’s chest and sighed. Carly’s throat tightened at the sight of Max’s strong forearm lying so protectively around Isabella’s tiny waist.
Then Max stirred, his head shifting to the left. But he continued to sleep, his chest rising and falling regularly. Even sitting four feet away, Carly could see the long dark length of his eyelashes. His eyebrows were thick and expressive; his nose was at a perfect angle to complement his high cheekbones; his chiselled jawline travelled down in a perfectly defined curve from his ears to end in a cleft chin that gave his face a devastating beauty.
Standing, she tiptoed across the cabin and picked up a lemon-coloured wool throw from the lounge sofa. Tucking the blanket around Isabella, she pulled back, lifted her eyes and looked straight into Max’s gaze.
‘You think of everything.’ His voice was low, croaky from tiredness. And so, so sexy. Her feet curled in her trainers. Her stomach did a little flip. She was not going to blush. She was going to brazen this out.
She inhaled a scent that reminded her of the summer she had gone Interrailing as a student and camped in a Croatian forest next to the Adriatic—sea mist and earthy pine combining to produce a potent sense of vitality and adventure. ‘All part of the service.’
He raised an eyebrow.
She stepped back. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
His lips twitched. He nodded to the table behind her. ‘My phone.’
‘Not until Isabella wakes.’
Carly sat back in her chair. Aware of his gaze on her, she picked up the magazine and tried to develop an interest in a berry favoured by sub-Saharan goat herders.
‘Are you sure that sleeping like this won’t teach her bad habits?’
She dropped the magazine. ‘Isabella needs to feel secure with you. This will teach her that you will spend time holding her, comforting her when she needs it. Being with her, responding to her needs—this is the starting basis of developing good sleeping technique. In the next few days hopefully you will start to appreciate that.’ She leant towards him, determined that he understood the main message of her sleeping technique—that parents learn to allow themselves to be tender with their children and themselves. ‘We all need physical touch. We all need to have someone hug us and tell us that everything is going to be okay.’
His expression hardened. A tense silence settled between them.
Confused, Carly stared at him, slowly realising what she had said. ‘I’m sorry—that was insensitive of me. With your wife—’
He interrupted her with a quick shake of his head. ‘It’s okay.’
Carly’s gaze shifted down to Isabella, her arms suddenly aching with the desire to hold her. ‘Trust me on this, Isabella won’t want your cuddles in a few years’ time…and when she’s a teenager she won’t even want to know you. So you should enjoy it while you can.’
His gaze dropped down to consider Isabella for a moment before he asked in a low voice, ‘Were you like that with your dad when you were a teenager?’
‘My dad moved to New Zealand when I was twelve. I didn’t get the chance to…’
‘You miss him?’
Carly’s heart fell. She spoke to her dad occasionally but there was so much time and distance between them now that their relationship just consisted of the polite conversation of assuring one another that all was well in their lives, and a hollowness when she ended the call that would stay with her for hours. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Have you other family?’
There was a gentleness to his tone that stirred unexpected emotion in her—a loneliness, a longing for a family of her own that she was usually so good at burying. ‘No—my mum remarried. It was messy.’ She gave a shrug, trying to dredge up her usual acceptance of her situation but there was something about Max’s intelligent gaze that was stopping her doing so. ‘I’m not close to my mum and her new family, but I have good friends, people I trained with. We all live close to one another in London.’
‘Were you going away with them this weekend?’ He paused for a moment. ‘With a boyfriend perhaps?’
‘Six of us were heading away together…all friends.’
He nodded to her answer and shifted the arm that was resting on Isabella. ‘Thank you for agreeing to come with us this weekend. I realise it was a lot to ask of you.’
She studied him for a moment, thrown by the sincerity of his tone, the restrained pride in his expression. Maybe he was different from her stepfather, who would always somehow twist everything he did for people, whether they wanted it or not, into the fact that he was doing that person a favour. He had insisted that Carly attend boarding school and signed her up for endless residential courses during half-terms and summer holidays. He had claimed that he wanted her to be more adventurous, more ambitious, more accomplished, just like his daughters. The unspoken truth was that he hadn’t wanted Carly around.
She nodded in acknowledgement to his thanks and said, ‘Most of the parents who come to me find it difficult to talk about their child not sleeping. They think they should instinctively know how to get their child to sleep, that they are somehow failing as a parent. Which of course is not true. The parents I meet are doing their best in their individual circumstances. I try to help them see and understand that…to learn to be tender with themselves.’
Carly laughed when Max’s smooth forehead creased at her last sentence. ‘You don’t like that expression “be tender with themselves”?’ she asked.
‘I can’t see any man buying into it.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
He shifted in his seat, his expression sceptical. ‘Is this going to work?’
‘If you allow it to—if you give it the time and patience needed.’
‘You think I’m impatient?’
‘I get the feeling that you like to be on the move a lot. With children you need to slow down, to connect with them.’
He looked down at Isabella and shook his head. ‘With this firecracker I’ve no option the way she clings to me.’
There was such weariness to his voice. Understanding the positives in Isabella’s personality might help him in dealing with his daughter. ‘At least you know that Isabella will fight for what she wants—she’s determined. It will stand her in good stead in life, having that strength of character.’
For a long while he stared at her, considering what she had said. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way… I guess you could be right. Do you want children of your own some day?’
Carly smiled at his question, while inside it felt like a soft swift pinch to her heart. She had envisioned herself and Robert having children quickly; they had even spoken about trying to have a baby soon after they married. ‘Some day hopefully I will. I love being with children. Before I set up my sleep consultancy business I was a Montessori teacher, but I have to meet the right person first.’
‘That hasn’t happened yet?’
Carly paused, a heavy weight lodging in her chest. ‘I thought it had. A few years back I was due to marry. But three weeks before the wedding my ex broke it off.’
Emotion continuing to whirl in her chest, Carly grabbed the magazine and again pretended to read it.
‘I’m sorry.’
Carly nodded but refused to look up from the magazine, hating how exposed, how humiliated she felt having told him. She flicked through the pages of the magazine, trying to understand why the publishers thought their readers would be interested in the weight gain of a soap-opera actress. Hadn’t they heard about emotional eating? Carly might have binned her wedding cake but that hadn’t stopped her from eating her own body weight in ice cream and her favourite comfort food, Brazil nuts, in the weeks that followed. It had taken her months to return to her normal weight. A weight that wasn’t particularly impressive in the first place. But Carly had long ago accepted that her body would never be lean, no matter how much she dieted or exercised.
‘Tell me about your ex—what happened?’
‘I’d prefer not to.’
‘It clearly upsets you.’
