Page 5 of Worth Every Risk

2

ARIES

Aclattering of pans greets my ears as I descend to the kitchen. There’s also a radio blaring. I peek into the room; it’s so vast it looks like it could cater for an entire restaurant. The surfaces are steel, and I half expect Gordon Ramsay to spring out from behind one of the enormous fridges and give me a mouthful of abuse. Instead, there’s a slim young man in a chef’s white coat flapping around.

He looks up when I take another step into the room. “Can I help you?”

He’s a sweet-looking man, maybe in his late twenties. Blond, blue-eyed, and doesn’t look like he could grow a beard, ever.

“Hi. I’m Aries. The new nanny?” I don’t know why it comes out like a question. Probably because I’m still recovering from the ordeal of trying to maintain a normal—ugh, nowhere near normal—conversation with the hot-but-grumpy gardener. “I’m waiting for Mrs Minter. She should be back soon.”

“Ah. Aries. Like the Zodiac?”

Here we go.“Yup. I’m an Aries. And I’m Aries.”

He chuckles at my lame joke. “Fiery and passionate rams, right?” He nods at my hair. “You look the part.”Thank God he didn’t nod at my tits. I’ve had that before.

“Thanks, I think.”

“Welcome to the madhouse,” he says, smiling even wider. I can already tell I’ll like this guy. So much friendlier than the gardener.

“That bad, eh?”

He chuckles. “It’s all right. Been a bit rough since Mrs Hawkston left. We’ve been scrabbling to keep the place ticking over.”

“She left?”

“Last summer. They’re divorced.”

“Oh. Mrs Minter didn’t mention that. Just said that Mrs Hawkston wouldn’t be able to speak to me, and that Mr Hawkston was too busy, so he delegates all household employment decisions to her. He’s always at work, apparently."

“Sounds about right, although Mr Hawkston’s been around a bit more recently. For the kids. But between you and me, I don’t think he really knows how to care for them. Never put in the time. Workaholic.” He wipes his hands on his chef’s coat. “Not that I can talk. The hours he’s got me working here, I’m worse than he is. I’m Alec, by the way.”

He points a knife at me rather than shake my hand, then continues chopping up an onion with a precision and speed that nearly blows my mind.

I take a seat at a large granite island in what appears to be the more homely part of the kitchen. I glance around to find there’s also a wooden kitchen table, a cushioned window seat, and a sofa area across the other side of the room. Overall, the place looks like it’s having an identity crisis, but in a very stylish, deliberate way.

“Were they together long? Mr and Mrs Hawkston?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah. Years. Since they were teenagers, I think.”

Wow. I can’t even imagine being with someone that long. “How old are they now?”

“I dunno. Mid-thirties? Somewhere around there. Far too old to have stuck out a marriage like that.”

Alec keeps chopping like he hasn’t just dropped a gossip bombshell. I’d love not to pick it up, but I don’t have that kind of restraint. Plus, I’m feeling a bit off-kilter, given I’ve entered an entirely new environment and, as Matt the grumpy gardener reminded me, I haven’t done my research about where I’m living.Surely, information from a member of staff is more reliable than Google, anyway. “What was wrong?” I probe.

Alec scratches his eyebrow with the back of his wrist, still holding his knife. “It’s not my place to say this, but they were bloody miserable. You could hear them fighting almost every time they were in the house together. Charlie, that’s the son, he used to come in here when he was little and hide under the kitchen counters when it got really bad. I came in one morning and found him sleeping in the cupboard over there.” He points with the knife at a double-doored cupboard. “Said he’d come down in the night because his parents were fighting upstairs.” Alec inhales deeply and blows out the breath. “Sorry. That’s a bit much, isn’t it? It wasn’t a nice place to work. You could feel the toxicity in the air.”

I wince. “Sounds awful.”

He closes his eyes and shudders, then snaps them open again. “Yeah. Like I said. Better now. Quieter.”

“Happier?”

Alec stills, his eyes glazing over like he’s remembering something. “I don’t know about that.”

For a moment, I hold my tongue. My parents were stuck in an unhappy marriage until I was six. I know what it’s like to be the kid hiding.

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