Page 29 of Hired For the Billionaire's Secret Son

‘The higher the cocoa content, the better,’ she replied, squinting down at the bar. ‘Is there any cocoa in white chocolate? This is mostly sugar.’

He tried to pull the bar out of her hand but she held on tight. ‘You don’t have to have any if you are going to lift your nose at my chocolate choices,’ he told her, trying, and failing to sound sniffy.

‘Now, let’s not get carried away,’ Ollie told him. It wasn’t Belgian chocolate, but she’d deal. She snapped off two blocks and popped one in her mouth. It was sweet, too sweet, but that wouldn’t stop her from eating the second piece.

Bo grinned at her before breaking off his own piece. ‘You were about to tell me why you only take on three-month contracts.’

Ollie wrinkled her nose. Right, they were back to that. But she didn’t mind: she wanted Bo to know. And that felt strange because it had taken all her courage to tell Fred that Becca had died: she’d been so worried about his reaction and hadn’t wanted to fight when she’d barely been holding it together.

‘I was with a family, two older boys and a four-year-old girl, for about six months when the little girl—her name was Becca—was diagnosed with a fast-spreading, virulent brain tumour.’

Bo placed his hand on her knee and squeezed. He didn’t need to express his sympathy. It was there on his face.

‘There are some families where you are simply the nanny, another staff member, and then there are families where you become another member of that family. I loved them all so much, and they loved me. And I adored Becca. We had this instant, crazy bond.’

Ollie went on to explain that she’d often taken Becca to her chemo treatments due to her parents’ demanding, high-powered careers. She had walked the passageways of the hospital when she’d had exploratory surgery, and then again when she’d been admitted with pneumonia because her little body had been so immune-compromised. She explained that she’d played with her, held her, slept in her bed and that Becca had become like a daughter. And she tried to explain how her soul had crumbled when she’d passed away.

‘Her parents had each other and, strangely, they coped with her passing better than I did,’ Ollie explained. ‘I’m not saying they didn’t suffer—they were eviscerated—but I felt pretty alone after her death. They took comfort in each other, their sons and their work, but Becca had been my work. And my fun. I felt like I’d been picked up in a tornado and didn’t know where to go or how to land.’

‘Did your family support you? Your fiancé?’

Ollie shook her head. ‘I don’t talk to my family about my work because we always end up fighting about what I do. As for my fiancé, well, he couldn’t understand why I’d let myself become so involved, and he thought I should just get over it.’

Bo’s expression told her what he thought about Fred’s response.

‘About a month after Becca’s funeral, the De Freidmans asked me to leave. They said that my being there was too difficult and that they needed a clean break. They’d decided to move to the States to start a new life and I wasn’t invited to accompany them.’ She recalled every minute of that excruciatingly hard conversation, how incredibly sad they’d looked but how determined; how they’d all cried. ‘I knew, intellectually, that it was the best thing for all of us, but emotionally I felt like they’d ripped the rug out from under my feet. I was devastated on top of being devastated.’

‘Sweetheart,’ Bo murmured, the endearment rumbling over her. Ollie was so grateful he didn’t spout any clichés. She just needed him to listen and not try to fix the situation, or her, as Fred had.

‘They left and I told Sabine that I couldn’t do another long-term placement. I knew I couldn’t put myself in that situation where I could get so attached again. I knew it wasn’t healthy for me. I’ve been offered many long-term assignments, but I’ve turned them all down, because I simply couldn’t take the risk of falling in love again.’

She saw an emotion she didn’t recognise flicker in his eyes and, assuming that he disagreed with her, as Fred had time and time again, she lifted her chin. ‘It’s not only men and women who fall in love,’ she told him, her voice taking on a hint of bitterness.

‘I’m not judging you, Olivia,’ Bo told her, keeping his voice even. ‘Actually, for the first time in my life, I now understand how it’s possible to walk around with your heart in someone else’s body. That’s how I feel about Mat. I didn’t know about him, then I did, then he came to live with me and boom! I was head-over-heels crazy about him.’

She nodded. ‘I know that I wasn’t Becca’s mum, but that’s how I felt about her.’

‘Tell me about her,’ Bo said, gripping the sides of her bar stool and pulling her closer to him so that she was enveloped by his long legs, sharing his breath. He ran his fingers down her cheekbone and tucked a long curl behind her ear. His touch was pure comfort, and Ollie sighed. She wanted to tell him about Becca, probably because she’d never spoken to anyone else about her.

So she told Bo about the red-headed little girl with a face full of freckles and eyes the colour of a summer sky. How she’d loved owls, Willy Wonka and the colour purple. How brave she’d been when she’d been prodded and poked, how stoic she’d been about facing death. She’d known and she’d been so accepting, so gracious...

Light and love... Becca had been an old soul in a new, broken body.

When she finally stopped talking, maybe an hour later, Ollie realised that her face was wet with tears. When her words petered out, he reached for a dish towel left in a crumpled heap on the island and gently, oh so gently, wiped her tears away. Then he picked her up, held her against his chest and took her back to his bed, where he loved the hurt away.

By allowing her to speak, to cry, he’d washed away her grief. Oh, it was still there—it always would be—but it was cleaner, lighter, brighter. And it was the best and biggest gift she’d received in a long, long time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OLLIE,WITHMATon her lap, sat at an outside table in the Tivoli Gardens, watching crowds of people as they walked by. She and Mat were enjoying the sights and sounds of the amazing garden. Mat seemed fascinated by the bright colours and the happy faces, and many people smiled at the cheerful little boy dressed in his red-and-white-striped T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts.

Ollie was also fizzing with excitement.

On social media this morning she’d seen that one of her favourite colleagues, an older woman she’d met during her first job in France, was in Copenhagen on holiday with the family she worked for.

Taking a chance, she’d messaged Helen and had been thrilled when she’d told Ollie she had the morning free and would love to meet anywhere Ollie suggested. They’d settled on meeting at one of the many coffee shops in the Tivoli Gardens, and Ollie couldn’t wait to see her.

A few minutes later, Helen’s short and round figure stepped out from behind a group of teenagers and Ollie jumped up, squealed and placed Mat on her hip. With her free hand, she wrapped her arm around her old friend and breathed in her familiar scent. At nearly twenty years her senior, Helen had married young and, when her husband had died suddenly, she’d become a nanny, and she’d been with only two families since she’d started her new career.

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