The Billionaire's Christmas Cinderella. Carol Marinelli

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       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘I’M NAOMI,’ SHE offered by way of introduction as she closed the front door. ‘Merida’s friend and the baby’s nanny.’

      ‘Abe,’ he said, but didn’t elaborate. It was his father’s home after all and he was also in no mood to engage in small talk.

      But she persisted.

      ‘Have you seen her?’ Naomi asked. ‘The baby.’

      ‘Yes.’

      He said no more than that. Abe Devereux did not offer his thoughts or his opinions. There was no ‘Yes, isn’t she gorgeous!’ No ‘I can’t believe I’m an uncle,’ and it was clear to Naomi that he did not want to speak.

      It didn’t offend her.

      Naomi was very used to being the paid staff.

      He removed an elegant grey woollen coat and beneath that was a suit, cut to perfection, enhancing his tall, lean frame.

      Abe glanced briefly around, no doubt, Naomi thought, expecting someone to come and take his coat, but when no one appeared, neither did Naomi hold out her hand. With that lack of a gesture she drew a very important line. She might be staff, but she was Ava’s nanny, and not his maid.

      He tossed the coat over an occasional chair as Naomi opened the lid of her pizza box and peered into it. ‘I’ll say goodnight...’ She was momentarily distracted from his utter, imposing beauty by the sight that greeted her. ‘Just how big is this thing?’ Naomi asked.

      The pizza was massive.

      Seriously so.

      It smelt utterly divine.

      And, she remembered, she was not just the nanny but Merida’s friend, and so she persisted with the conversation when perhaps usually she would not.

      ‘Would you like some?’ she offered, but Abe didn’t even bother to reply so she took her cue and headed up the stairs.

      There were pictures lining the walls of the stunning Devereux family over the years. The two brothers, as babies and then children. Their stunning mother who, Naomi knew, was dead. She wondered if they missed her on a day like today.

      Yes, Naomi often wondered about things like this, especially with not having a family of her own.

      And then she heard his voice.

      ‘I would.’

      She turned on the stairs, a little unsure what he meant. Did Abe Devereux actually want to share in her midnight feast, or had she got things completely wrong and he was about to tell her he would like staff to refrain from wandering at night, or something?

      But, no, she hadn’t got things wrong.

      ‘A slice of pizza sounds good,’ Abe confirmed.

      He himself was surprised that he had taken her up on her offer. And it wasn’t the normality of it that had had him say yes, for it was far from normal—Abe didn’t do pizza. And, more pointedly, a woman in pale pink pyjamas with a big robe on top wasn’t the norm either. Silk or skin was the usual sight that greeted him at this time of night.

      He had just come from the hospital, though not the maternity section for he had visited his brother and wife earlier in the day.

      Instead, he had spent the evening and half the night with his father.

      Jobe had put everything into staying alive for the baby’s birth and visiting the little family today, and Abe had this terrible, awful feeling that now it was done he’d just fade.

      He had sat there, watching his father sleep and the snow floating past the window, and though warm in the hospital room he had felt chilled to the bone.

      They might not be particularly close but Abe admired his father more than anyone in the world.

      Ethan had grown up never knowing what a cruel woman their mother had been.

      Four years older than his brother, Abe had known.

      Elizabeth Devereux’s death when he was nine had come as a shock, but all these years later Abe already grieved for his father.

      Not that he showed it.

      Abe had long since closed off his heart and far from hiding his emotions, he chose not to feel them.

      Yet choice had been unavailable to him tonight.

      ‘Why couldn’t you come to me, Abe?’ his father had asked, when his medication had been given for the night.

      ‘It will sort itself out,’ Abe had said. ‘Khalid is just posturing.’

      ‘I’m not talking about Khalid,’ Jobe had snapped, and then, defeated by the drugs, had closed his eyes to sleep.

      Yet where was the peace? Abe thought, for despite the good news of the day, despite Jobe’s goal to see his grandchild being met, still his face was lined and there was tension visible even in his drug-induced sleep.

      There had been a long moment when his father’s breathing had seemed to cease and he’d called urgently for the nurse.

      It was normal, he’d been told, with so much morphine for respirations to decrease and also, he’d been further told, albeit gently, things slowed down near the end of life.

      But no matter how gently said, it had hit him like a fist to the gut.

      His father was dying.

      Oh, he had known for months, of course he had, but he had fully realised it then. Abe had glimpsed the utter finality of what was to СКАЧАТЬ