Page 88 of The Secret

She raised her head with a groan. “Hey. Tell me you feel as bad as I do.”

“I don’t think I do,” I chuckled. “You want a coffee?”

“Yes, please. I didn’t have the stomach for it earlier, but I could probably manage it now.”

Luckily the coffee machine in this kitchen was the same as Murray’s, which I could work, even though it had taken me the whole of the first week to figure out. I flicked it on.

“Why do you feel so bad?”

“Why do you not?” she shot back, “Don’t you remember free-pouring tequila while we were dancing on the table?”

My eyes bugged. “What?”

Then it all came flooding back. Cooper had left with Freddie, but the rest of us had stayed, another bottle of tequila was brought over and the wheels had come off. Alex, Wolfie, and I had ended up on the tables, and Wolfie had refused to get off when it was time to go home, so Jasper had fireman lifted her to the waiting car.

I joined her at the table, head in my hand. “Oh my God.”

“I see you two feel as bad as I do.” I looked up to find Alex leaning against the patio doors, sunglasses on, and looking like what I wanted to name ‘English Country Chic’, in a long, floaty peach dress. And for the first time, I noticed what a beautiful day it was outside. The warm breeze coming in from the beach was more suited to June than early April.

“Wolfie feels worse; I just had a memory jog to what happened.”

“It was fun. Haven’t had a night out like that in ages,” she laughed, “and I’m thankful my kids are old enough that I don’t need to get up in the night with them.”

Wolfie groaned again. “Macauley will be on formula until my milk doesn’t resemble grain alcohol.”

Oh God, the kids. Maybe I was more hungover than I felt; I’d completely forgotten about them. “Where are the kids?”

“The boys have them, they’re in the pool. The babies are with the grandparents.”

“Shit, I’m the worst nanny. I should be with Bell.”

Wolfie tried to lean over and pat my hand but gave up half way. “No, you should be hungover with us. There are plenty of adults here, not to mention grandparents, who don’t really want us near the kids. This is their time to shine, and I’m here for it.”

“Where are Sylvia and Greta?”

“They have the morning off. I think they went into town.”

That made me feel slightly better, seeing as I was also a paid employee even if I wasn’t behaving like one.

“Come outside for breakfast, it’s all laid out.” Alex gestured behind her. “There’s coffee and everything.”

That was enough to persuade me, seeing as I hadn’t actually started making ours, plus I was hungry. Coffee was all Wolfie needed to hear too, and we all wandered out to the veranda, where my attention was immediately taken, not with food, but with the view. And by view I wasn’t talking about the smooth stretch of beach and ocean. No, by view, I was talking about the four male specimens jumping around in the pool playing volleyball with the kids. All the thoughts I’d had whirring around my brain since I’d woken up stopped dead. It had been silenced.

I couldn’t remember a time I’d seen so many finely honed muscles all in one place, maybe I’d never seen them. Not like this, anyway. Not so gratuitously wet and glistening. There were four guys in the pool, but my attention was only on one. I could only see one. Murray. Standing tall, he currently had his back to me, his strong, thickly defined back and shoulders, which Maggie was sitting on as she tried to catch the volleyball Jasper and Mia had thrown over the net.

I’d seen how spectacular his body was the morning I’d bumped into him, and even though I’d been wrapped around him while he kissed me, held onto his tight muscles, felt them flex under my fingers as I clung onto him while he brought me to orgasm, I hadn’t actually been skin-to-skin. The heavy throb at the apex of my thighs told me I needed to rectify that, soon.

“Kit, coffee?”

I turned around to find Wolfie holding the pot up, unsure of how long she’d been standing like that. “Yes. Please.”

She started pouring as my attention then focused on the breakfast set out for us along the wall, where it should have been. Bowls of enormous strawberries and juicy blueberries; Kilner jars filled with granola; yogurts, preserves. Lifting the lids on the burners, I found stacks of waffles, eggs, bacon, sausages, and hash browns.

My stomach rumbled loudly. “Who did all this?”

“The chef.”

I had seen a couple of housekeepers yesterday, but no one apart from that. Naively perhaps, it never occurred to me there would be staff this weekend, but a house of this size, built for entertaining, would need a staff. It was too big for one person to run it. This was a life I’d never lived before; this was Murray’s life though. This was what he was used to, what he was comfortable with, although he seemed to manage to get by with a housekeeper who came a couple of times a week. And considering his cooking skills were zero to none, I was surprised he didn’t have a chef.

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