Читать книгу Snowed in with the Billionaire - Caroline Anderson - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

THEY WERE TAKING AGES.

Maybe she’d decided to unpack, or bath Josh, or perhaps she was lost.

He gave a soft snort. As if. She knew the house like the back of her hand. More likely she was exploring, giving herself a guided tour. She’d always considered the house to be her own private property. The concept of trespass never seemed to occur to her.

He went to look for her, taking the soft woollen throw he’d found for Josh’s bed, and saw his bedroom door standing wide open and voices coming from inside.

‘Josh, now! Come out from under there this minute or I’m going downstairs without you.’

Irritated, he walked in and was greeted yet again by that delectable bottom sticking up in the air. Was she doing it on purpose? He dragged his eyes off it. ‘Problems?’ he asked crisply.

She jerked upright, her hand on her heart, and gave a little gasp. ‘Oh—you startled me. I’m so sorry. The door was open and he ran in here and he’s hiding under the middle of the bed and I can’t reach him.’

She sounded exasperated and embarrassed, and he gave her the benefit of the doubt.

‘Two-pronged attack?’ he suggested with a slightly strained smile, and went round to the other side of the bed and lay down. ‘Hello, Josh. Time to come out, little man.’

Josh shook his head and wriggled towards the other side, and then shrieked and giggled as his mother’s hand closed over his arm and tugged gently.

‘Come on, or you won’t have supper.’

‘Want biscuits.’

Sebastian opened his mouth to offer them and caught the warning look she shot him under the bed, and winked. ‘No biscuits,’ he said firmly. ‘Not unless you come straight out and eat all your supper first.’

He was out in seconds, and Georgie scooped him up and plonked him firmly on her hip. She was smiling apologetically, her hair wildly tangled and out of control, those teeth catching her lip again, and he wanted her so much he could hardly breathe.

The air was full of tension, and he wondered if she was remembering that he’d kissed her here for the first time. They’d been playing hide and seek, and she’d hidden in the cupboard beside the chimney breast. He’d found her easily, just followed the sound of her muted laughter and hauled the door open to find her there, hand over her mouth to hold in the giggles, eyes so like Josh’s brimming with mischief and something else, something much, much older than either of them, as old as time, and he’d followed her into the cupboard, cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.

He thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

‘You kept the cupboard,’ she said, her eyes flicking to it briefly, and he knew she was remembering it. Remembering, too, when he’d spread a picnic blanket on the middle of the bedroom floor and scattered it with the petals of the wisteria that still grew outside the bedroom window and laid her gently down—

‘Yes. Well, it’s useful,’ he said gruffly, and dragged in some much-needed air. ‘I put the kettle on because your tea was cold. It’ll be boiling its head off.’

She seemed to draw herself back from the brink of something momentous, and her eyes flicked to his and away again, just as they had with the cupboard.

‘Yes. Yes, it will. Come on, Josh, let’s go and find you some supper.’ She spun on her heel and walked swiftly out, the sound of her footsteps barely audible on the soft, thick carpet, and he didn’t breathe until he heard her boot heels click hurriedly across the hall floor.

Then he let the air out in a rush and sat down heavily on the edge of the huge four-poster bed his interior designer had sourced for him without consultation and which haunted him every time he came in here. He sucked in another breath, but her scent was in the air and he closed his eyes, his hands fisting in the soft woollen throw, and struggled with a tidal wave of need and want and lust.

How was he going to survive this? The snow hadn’t let up at all, and the forecast was atrocious. With that vicious wind blowing the snow straight off the field and dumping it in the lane, there was no way they’d be out of here in days, Range Rover or not. Nothing but a snow plough could get past three foot drifts, and that’s what they’d been heading towards an hour ago.