Nikos took it out of the box and reached for her left hand. She held it out and he slipped the ring onto her ring finger. It fitted.
She looked up. ‘How did you know it would fit?’
He let her hand go. ‘A lucky guess.’
A little shiver went down Maggie’s spine. This was all falling into place so easily.
; Nikos stepped back. ‘Ready?’
Maggie nodded, but was suddenly reluctant.
Nikos noticed. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
She bit her lip. ‘Daniel... I hope he’ll be okay.’ She’d left him before, for brief amounts of time, but this was a whole new milieu.
‘You like Marianne, don’t you?’
She nodded. In the end none of the nannies who’d come for interview had been suitable, and then Mathilde the housekeeper had suggested her twin sister—newly retired from being a schoolteacher and already bored. They’d met, and Maggie had liked her immediately, warming to her easy maternal warmth. And Daniel had liked her too.
‘We’ll only be gone for a few hours. Mathilde is staying here with Marianne to help her out. And you’ve expressed milk, haven’t you?’
Maggie wasn’t unaware of the irony that Nikos was speaking those words out loud: you’ve expressed milk. A far cry from the lexicon of his previous experience.
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s go. The sooner we go, the sooner we’re back.’
Maggie put her head around the door of the kitchen area, where Marianne had Daniel in her arms, making faces at him. He was gurgling and kicking his legs. She caught Maggie’s eye and made a shooing motion. Maggie forced a smile, even though she felt physical pain at the thought of leaving Daniel behind.
In the lift on the way down Nikos said, ‘It’ll get easier. He’ll be fine.’
Maggie suddenly felt at odds...out of her depth. Tetchy. ‘And you know this because suddenly you’re an expert in babies?’
He cast her a look. ‘I might have more experience if I’d had more notice.’
Maggie clamped her mouth shut. She felt immediately contrite. ‘Sorry. That wasn’t fair. It’s just hard to leave him behind. What if he—’
Nikos took her hand, surprising her.
‘Then Mathilde or Marianne will call and we’ll come back straight away.’
He kept hold of her hand until they were outside, where a sleek car was waiting.
The air was warm and the sky was turning dusky, imbuing the surrounding buildings with a magical light. Maggie got into the back of the car on one side, Nikos the other. The interior was cream leather, sumptuous. When the doors were closed and they moved into the traffic the noises outside were just a dim hum. It was like a luxurious cocoon.
Maggie looked out of the window, taking in the wide elegant streets. They were crossing the Seine. She noticed something in her peripheral vision and looked to see Nikos’s fingers drumming a staccato beat on his thigh.
Without thinking, she reached across and put her hand over his.
Nikos couldn’t move his fingers. He looked down to see a pale hand over his, stopping his fingers drumming in that beat that he always felt gave him away.
Maggie’s hand was cool on his. She took it away. He looked at her. She was pink.
‘Sorry, I don’t know why I did that.’
Nikos was more disturbed by her noticing his nervous tic and wanting to soothe it than he cared to admit. He covered it up by drawling, ‘Feel free to touch me whenever you want.’