Page 55 of Worth Every Risk

I’d call Mr Hawkston to ask if we’re waiting for him, but the brand new phone he gave me was in my pocket when I jumped in the river. It won’t even turn on. But I haven’t told the driver to leave, so I guess I am waiting for him.

I slide into the car next to Lucie.

“Tell me again,” Lucie says, reaching out and clutching my hand, dragging it into her lap. “Tell me what happened.”

I spend the next five minutes recounting the story of what happened to her. She finds it soothing, and each time I tell her how she fell in the river and Daddy swam in to save her, she calms down even more.

“You got in too,” she says. “Tell me that bit.”

“I saw a big splash and I knew it was you, so I jumped in the water with all my clothes on. And your big brother jumped out of his boat too. We were all swimming to get you out.”

“But Daddy got me. Tell me again.”

Before I can, the car door opens, and Mr Hawkston slides into his seat opposite us. His hair is soaking wet and pushed off his face. His jacket, however, is dry, and he lays it on the seat beside him.

He’s glowering. He barely looks at either of us, and the flicker of excitement I saw in Lucie’s eyes when her father opened the car door quickly vanishes. It’s like he’s sucked out any positive energy, filling the car with his bad mood, and now we have to sit in here with him.

Lucie closes her eyes, looking drowsy.

“Has she been sleeping?” he asks. His tone isn’t exactly angry, but I can feel his fury. He’s like a pot that’s about to boil over and I’m not going to be the one to turn up the heat.

“No,” I say.

“Hmm. Doctor’s coming to the house. Just to be sure she’s fine. She’ll meet us there.”

I briefly wonder what kind of doctor is making a private house call, but I figure it’s a rich person thing. If I’d fallen in the river, Mum might have taken me to A&E, maybe. But only if she thought I really needed to go. More than likely, she’d have made me drink a mug of sugary tea, wrapped me in a blanket, and put me on the sofa to watch TV. Maybe done some reiki on me. There would never have been a doctor who came to the house.Ever.

“That’s good,” I say. “I think she’s all right though.”

“No thanks to you.”

The bitterness in his tone takes me by surprise, and my body crumples with guilt. I feel responsible, and the fact that Mr Hawkston thinks I am too is unbearable.

I say nothing because he knows I jumped in the water. He knows I tried. I’m dripping a puddle all over his car. I would have got Lucie out even if he hadn’t been there. I’m a strong swimmer.

He sits with his legs apart, his trousers plastered to his thighs, which are thick with muscle. His white shirt is tight and transparent across his chest. On any other day, I’d be obsessing over the definition of his pecs beneath it, but I'm too worried about Lucie and anxious that he's about to lose his shit with me.

He pulls his phone out of the pocket of his jacket and scrolls.

For minutes on end, he doesn’t look up, completely absorbed by whatever he’s dealing with, and I wonder how he has the clarity to do business, or whatever he’s doing, after what just happened. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s numbing out, distracting himself, avoiding this horrendous present moment by looking at a screen.

I stroke Lucie’s forehead, taking wet strands of hair out of her face. She looks up at me through bleary eyes. “Will you tell me the story again?” she whispers.

“Later. At bedtime.”

I’m not about to start telling the story about Daddy the hero with Mr Hawkston sitting opposite me, his soaking clothes clinging to his body like a wetsuit.

Lucie nods and makes a sleepy noise. She’s still holding my hand, but it doesn’t take her long to drift off now the car’s moving.

A tense silence fills the vehicle. Mr Hawkston might be focused on his phone, but his jaw is tight, and so angular, sosharp, I want to run my fingertip along the edge to see if it would draw blood.

Maybe he’s genuinely not aware of me, sitting here, worrying that he’s about to lose his shit at me. If only I had a distraction, maybe I could lose myself in it too. If my new phone was working, I might use it to Google things. Although I don’t thinkGoogle would have an answer for the question, ‘Am I getting fired tonight?’

Perhaps I should hand in my notice. This job really hasn’t gone well so far. But I look over at Lucie and remember those sad eyes beneath her dark lashes. I can’t leave this kid… not now that I’ve seen what this family is like. And Charlie? I’ve only met him today, but I can recognise a teenager that’s struggling. I wonder if Mr Hawkston can?

His shoe brushes the tip of mine and he shifts his foot away. If this car weren’t so big, that contact would have been our legs. I kind of wish it had been.

Is it strange that I’m thinking about touching my boss after Lucie’s ordeal?I’m surprised that my body can go through the shock it has today and still feel the simmering attraction to the man sitting across from me. It feels wrong, but I've calmed down enough now that I can’t help it. I allow myself to stare, observing every muscle across his chest beneath his shirt; his nipples are dark beneath the fine white fabric, and erect. I wonder what it would feel like to flick one of them with my tongue…

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