Читать книгу Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 11
ОглавлениеSTEFANO’S HOUSE, on the outskirts of London, was a dream house.
For one man and a young child, it was ridiculously big. There were six bedrooms, five bathrooms, too many undefined reception rooms to count and a kitchen that was spacious enough for a table at one end that could seat ten. It opened out to a spread of perfectly manicured lawns, in the middle of which was a magnificent swimming pool.
Paradise for an eight-year-old child and Sunny wondered whether the pool was used during the day. The weather had certainly been hot enough for swimming.
Life here couldn’t have been more different for Flora than her own life had been for her. She wondered what it would have been like had she, as a kid, been exposed to this level of opulence. She would have been terrified.
Now, as an adult, she could see the many material advantages but she was also beginning to see the many drawbacks. After four days of babysitting, she was slowly realising certain things and there was no need for Flora to verbalise them.
Surrounded by all this luxury, Flora was confused and unhappy. Her mother had died and she had been yanked across the ocean to a life she had never known and a father she seemed to resent.
‘I hate it here,’ she had confided the evening before, as Sunny had been about to switch off the bedroom light and leave the room. ‘I want to go back to New Zealand.’
‘I get that.’ Sunny had sat on the bed. There were no signposts as to how she should connect with a kid and it wasn’t in her to be patronising. She had had to grow up fast and that had implanted in her the belief that kids could deal with honesty far better than most adults thought.
They didn’t like being patronised and Sunny didn’t see why she should patronise Flora.
‘Sometimes circumstances change and, when that happens, you just have to go with it because you can never change things back to the way they were. That’s just the truth.’
Flora, she had discovered, was as mature as she herself had been at that age, although not for similar reasons. She was just a grown-up child with shaped opinions and the sort of suspicious, cautious nature that Sunny could understand because she, too, shared those traits. She had no time for her father and Sunny could have told her another harsh truth, which was that she was here and having him around was also something she couldn’t change so she might as well accept it.
It wasn’t in her brief to broker a relationship between father and daughter, however. In fact, it wasn’t in her brief to be curious about the dynamics of the household at all. She was there to babysit, no more, no less, but she liked the kid and she knew that Flora liked her, even though she still didn’t understand why because they never did anything Sunny imagined an eight-year-old would find fun. When she’d been eight, there had been no exciting trips to Adventure Parks or shiny new toys. She had taken refuge in books and so pointing Flora in the direction of more serious pursuits came as the natural choice.
They watched telly, always the National Geographic channel which they both enjoyed. They’d played a game of Scrabble and Sunny had laughed and told Flora that she could allow her to win or they could both play to the best of their ability and see what happened. The evening before, after they had eaten an early dinner at six, they had both attempted to bake and it had been a miserable failure.
‘I didn’t do much baking as a child,’ Sunny had said truthfully, ‘and I don’t think I ever got the hang of it. We’ll have to bin the bread. Or else hang onto it in case we need a lethal weapon.’ Which had made Flora laugh until she cried.
Between eight and ten Sunny worked and then Stefano would return with his driver.
His presence filled the house. He would stride in and Sunny would know that she’d been bracing herself for the brief encounter. They would exchange a couple of sentences and then the driver would whisk her away back to her flat and once there she would think about him. She tried to fight those thoughts and when she couldn’t she uneasily told herself that it was only natural that he was in her head because she was now working for him. If she hadn’t been, she would have forgotten all about him, however startling the impact he had made on her had been.
Now, with Flora in bed, Sunny settled down for her two hours’ work, which was absolute bliss because it was a luxury she could never had afforded when she’d been working at the restaurant. She was given the most basic of tasks but they tended to be time-consuming and it was good to be able to work her way through them in the peace and quiet of the sprawling mansion.
Having explored all of the rooms on the ground floor, she had settled on the smallest and the cosiest as her work room. It overlooked the back gardens and she enjoyed glancing up and letting her eyes wander over a vista of mown grass, sweeping trees and, in the distance, the open fields onto which the house backed. Compared to the view from the flat she shared, which gave onto the grimy pavements outside and a lone tree which looked as though it was pining to be anywhere but on a road in London, the view here was breathtaking and it made her feel as though she was on holiday.
Legs tucked under her, her long hair untidily pulled over one shoulder, she was hardly aware of Stefano’s appearance in the doorway until he spoke and then she yelped in shock, eyes adjusting to the impressive sight of him.
When she could predict his arrival back, she had time to brace herself for the physical impact he still seemed to have on her. With no time to prepare herself, she could only stare while her heart sped up and her mouth went dry.
He was tugging his tie off, dragging it down so that he could undo the top two buttons of his white shirt, and she tried her best not to gape at the sliver of brown skin exposed.
‘What are you doing here?’ she stammered, gathering the bits of paper spread around her and smartly shutting her computer.
‘I live here.’
‘Yes, but...’
‘No need to rush, Sunny. I’m back early so we can have a catch-up.’
‘A catch-up? On what?’
Stefano banked down a flare of irritation. Her desperation not to be in his company had not abated. They crossed paths when he returned from work and she was always packed up, jacket on, exchanging a few sentences on the move as she headed out the front door. Whatever she did with Flora, she was doing it right because his daughter, when prompted, actually now deigned to show some interest in his questions rather than sullenly sitting at the breakfast table in front of her cellphone playing games. The top-of-the-range cellphone, in retrospect, had not been the cleverest purchase on the planet.
‘I haven’t eaten,’ he said evenly, keen eyes noting the blonde length of her hair which, for once, wasn’t tied back, probably an omission because she hadn’t expected him home at eight-thirty. ‘Why don’t you join me in the kitchen?’
‘Of course,’ Sunny dutifully replied. She sneaked a covert look as he rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing muscled forearms sprinkled with dark hair. Everything about him was intensely masculine and her body behaved in disconcerting ways when she was confronted with it.
He was already moving off towards the kitchen and she followed, taking all her work with her and her bag so that she could leg it at speed as soon as their catch-up was finished.
‘Drink?’ He moved to the wine cooler, which was built into the range of pale cupboards, and extracted a bottle of white wine.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Relax, Sunny. One drink isn’t going to hurt you.’ Without giving her time for a second polite refusal, he poured them both a glass, handed one to her and rummaged for ingredients for a sandwich. ‘How are you finding the job?’
‘Fine,’ she said awkwardly and he turned round and looked at her with a frown.
‘Is that going to be the full extent of your contribution to this conversation?’ he asked coolly. ‘Monosyllabic answers? Flora talks about you.’
‘Does she?’ She fiddled with her hair and reminded herself that this was a perfectly normal business conversation, that of course he would be interested in knowing what she did with his daughter. But she still felt horribly nervous and she knew it was because she was too aware of him for her own good. If this strange reaction was her body reminding her that she was still alive, then she resented the reminder.
‘Tell me what you two do together.’ He dragged out a chair, sat down and began tucking into his sandwich.
‘Oh, the usual.’ Their eyes met and she reddened. Did she really want him asking why she was so jumpy around him? No. But he would if she continued to stutter and stammer and, as he had pointed out, answer his questions with unhelpful monosyllables. ‘Nothing very child-oriented, I’m afraid, although we did do a spot of baking yesterday after dinner.’
‘A failure, I’ve been told.’
‘I’m not very good when it comes to stuff like that,’ she said vaguely.
‘No mother-daughter bonding sessions in front of a stove?’
‘No.’ Sunny heard the tightness creep into her voice and she lowered her eyes. ‘Nothing like that.’
A girl with secrets. Was he really interested in finding out what those secrets were? Did he care one way or another? She was here to do a job and she was doing a damn fine job. Then she’d be gone...
He found his curiosity unsettling because it was something he never felt with any of the women he dated. He had been through one disastrous relationship and now he made sure to keep everything light and superficial when it came to the opposite sex. Curiosity was definitely neither light nor superficial.
But it was something she roused in him for no reason he could begin to understand.
‘I think Flora’s unhappy and lonely.’ She rushed into saying more than she had intended because she didn’t want him quizzing her about her past. Being here had brought home to her the differences in their worlds and she didn’t want him judging her because of her background. She was an aspiring lawyer, coerced into doing an impromptu job for him. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her or pitying her.
‘I mean...she’s been displaced from everything she knew and I just get the feeling that she hasn’t settled here just yet. She hasn’t mentioned her school once and that’s saying something.’
Stefano shoved his plate to one side and sat back, arms folded behind his head. ‘Is that right?’ he drawled and Sunny bristled.
‘She’s just a child and she’s had to endure some pretty major life changes.’ The way he was staring at her with those dark, dark speculative eyes made her feel all hot and bothered and she was suddenly as angry with him as she was with herself for feeling so exposed.
‘And I hope you don’t mind me being honest,’ she said tersely, ‘but I don’t suppose it helps that you work such long hours.’ Oh, he’s never here, Flora had shrugged apropos of nothing in particular a couple of evenings ago, and Sunny had heard the hurt in her voice and been moved by it.
Stefano stiffened at the implied criticism in her voice, yet she was only stating the obvious, wasn’t she? He wondered when positive criticism had become something he could do without. He certainly never encountered it in his day-to-day life.
‘It’s impossible for me to conduct a nine-to-five existence.’
Sunny shrugged. ‘It’s none of my business anyway.’
Perversely, the fact that she was happy to back away from the contentious conversation rather than pursue it made him want to prolong it. ‘Don’t start conversations you don’t want to finish,’ he inserted. ‘I’m a big boy. I can take whatever you have to say to me. Did Flora tell you that?’
‘A passing remark. Look—’ Sunny raised her eyes to his and felt heat creep into her face ‘—I’m not here to have opinions on...on...how you handle Flora. I’m just here in a babysitting capacity. I need the money. I don’t suppose any of your nannies tell you what they really think because they’d just be here to do a babysitting job, like me.’
‘They don’t tell me what they think because they’re intimidated by me,’ Stefano said drily. ‘You don’t like being around me but you’re not intimidated by me. At least, that’s the impression I’ve got. Am I wrong?’
Sunny had no idea how they had got where they had but this felt like a very personal conversation. Or maybe it was the intimacy of being in the kitchen with him, just the two of them, that made it feel more personal than it really was.
‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘True or false?’
‘I try not to be intimidated by anyone,’ she was spurred into responding.
‘And that works for you?’
‘Yes. Yes, it does.’ Colour flared in her cheeks but she held his gaze defiantly. ‘I like to think, What’s the worst that can happen? I mean, you can sack me from this job but, if you do, then that’s fine. I’d be more than happy to return to my restaurant work.’
‘Long hours,’ he mused, startling her by the sudden change of topic.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When do you get time to relax? Do you have a busy social life on the weekends?’
‘I’m too busy building a career to have a busy social life on the weekends,’ she snapped.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m twenty-four, although I don’t see what my age has to do with anything.’
‘Katherine told me that you’re one of the most dedicated employees in the company. You’re in by eight every morning, sometimes earlier, and if you leave promptly for your job in the restaurant it never seems to affect the quality of your work, which is always of the highest standard. Which means, I’m guessing, that you work on weekends...’
Sunny was torn between pleasure that her hard work had been noted and dismay that she had been a topic of discussion. ‘You have to work hard in order to get on,’ she muttered, flushing.
‘To the extent that it consumes your every waking hour?’
‘It seems that work consumes all your waking hours,’ Sunny said defensively. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, Mr Gunn.’
‘If you call me Mr Gunn again, I’ll sack you.’
She didn’t know whether he was joking or not and she bit back the temptation to keep arguing with him.
‘And, believe it or not, work doesn’t consume all my waking hours,’ he told her softly, ‘I know how to play as well...’
Sunny stared. The tenor of his voice was so...sexy...and when she looked at him it felt as though his eyes were boring straight past her defences, seeing into parts of her that were soft and yielding and vulnerable, parts of her that hadn’t been forced into toughening up over the years.
‘I... I...’ Her voice was cracked and she cleared her throat. ‘I plan on getting through my LPC exams and then...then I’ll have plenty of time to go out and have fun...more than enough time...’ Because, right now, clubbing and going to pubs and bars just wasn’t on the agenda.
When did she ever have fun?
That was something that she never really thought about. A history of insecurity and rootlessness had instilled in her a need to ground herself, to have the security she had missed out on and that security, she had always known, would come in the form of her career. She had learned to distrust the attention she got from men and she had learned that at an early age, so fun, for her, wasn’t about guys and dates and flirting. Her one stab at fun had run aground and she wasn’t going to repeat the experience. She just didn’t have it in her to enjoy life the way other girls her age did. As she’d told her young charge, what you couldn’t change you simply had to accept, like it or not.
So fun for her wasn’t about all those things girls her age were interested in.
Suddenly the life she was looking at, the life she had strived with every ounce of her being to secure, looked empty and lacking.
Stefano watched the play of expression on her face. There was a luminosity to her face and a guilelessness that was at odds with the tough exterior.
His eyes drifted lower, to the jut of her breasts underneath the T-shirt. Small breasts, a neat handful. He drew his breath in sharply at the unexpected image of her in his king-sized bed, with all that blonde hair across his pillow...lying naked and hot for him.
His erection was as swift as it was hard and painful, bulging against the zip, and now that his imagination had taken flight, it was flying without restraint.
What would it feel like to have her delicate tongue flicking against his shaft? How would she taste? He imagined her writhing under his exploring mouth and hands, twisting and moaning and begging, desperate for him to take her.
She was too young to be so utterly controlled and he wanted to smash through that control and see what was underneath...
Hell, where were his thoughts going? Aside from anything else, there was no way he was going to jeopardise the tenuous, fragile shoots of a relationship tentatively trying to establish themselves with Flora by hitting on her babysitter.
He shifted uncomfortably, trying to ease the pain of his erection, annoyed with himself for his utter lack of self-control. ‘There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you.’ He dragged his brain back into gear but for a few seconds he had to look outside rather than at her face. ‘I have to be at a breakfast meeting on Saturday and I want to ask you whether you would step in and cover here. Naturally, you will be paid handsomely for putting yourself out...’
‘Saturday...’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
Her fingers were slender and she was raking them through her tangle of fine hair now, frowning slightly as though he had posed a particularly tricky maths problem which she had been called upon to solve rather than being asked a simple question that required a simple yes or no answer.
‘You can bring your work,’ he reminded her, ‘although you might want to do something...a little more fun...unless you have plans for the weekend? Have you?’
More than anything Sunny would have loved to have told him that she had. In fact, she had planned on getting ahead with some studying and then having a lazy night in because Amy was going to be out on another date with yet another hopeless boyfriend.
‘What about the woman who stays with Flora during the daytime?’ she asked and Stefano shook his head.
He laughed shortly. ‘She’s been with Flora for a fortnight and so far she hasn’t run screaming for the hills. I don’t want to test her patience by asking her for anything beyond the call of duty.’
Sunny felt her lips twitch in a smile. It was bad enough that he was so distractingly attractive. Add a wry sense of humour into the mix and that attraction became combustible.
‘Why have you run through so many nannies?’ She was genuinely perplexed because Flora seemed a far from difficult child.
‘She hasn’t wanted to have a nanny so she’s made sure to get rid of them,’ Stefano said shortly. He stood up and poured them both another glass of wine. ‘I mistakenly assumed that someone young and enthusiastic would be the first choice but they’ve all found her stubborn refusal to communicate unbearably frustrating...’
‘I don’t try and force her into having fun,’ Sunny mused thoughtfully.
‘Edith, the woman who comes in during the day to help out, is sixty-three years old, although she’s already mentioned that she doesn’t like the way Flora talks to her.’
‘Which is how?’
‘Patronisingly.’
Sunny wondered whether Flora’s patronising wasn’t a response to the older woman also being patronising and then was surprised that she was finding excuses for her young charge and taking her side over a woman she hadn’t even met.
‘I... Okay, that’s fine.’ She stood up and felt the two glasses of wine rush to her head. ‘What time would you like me to come on Saturday?’
‘My driver will collect you at ten and I’ll need you for the whole day, I’m afraid. I won’t be home until at least nine in the evening.’
Stefano thought that she looked like someone who had suddenly remembered that she should be fleeing the scene of the crime instead of hanging around making small talk with the officer in charge.
‘And don’t forget that you have full use of the account. You have the card. Take advantage of it.’
They were at the front door. When Sunny looked up, she felt her heart skip a beat because he was so close to her, almost but not quite invading her space.
For a second, a brief destabilising second, instead of wanting to step back, she wanted to move closer, wanted to place the palm of her hand on his chest and feel the hardness of muscle under her fingers.
‘Perhaps I will,’ she said shortly, swerving away and opening the door. ‘And there’s no need for Eric to drive me home.’ She felt breathless, as though she’d been running a marathon and now had to steady herself or else fall over from the exertion. ‘I can make my way to the station. It’s only a half hour walk and the exercise will do me good.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Stefano murmured, not taking his eyes from her face even though he was already on his cellphone calling his driver to the front.
Sunny felt herself break out in a fine film of perspiration and she stuck her hands behind her back, clasping her computer case between them and clutching it for dear life.
This was what it felt like to be turned on and it was the first time it had ever happened to her. John had never turned her on. She had liked him, perhaps even loved him in the way you loved a dear, dear friend, but this overwhelming physical helplessness had been absent.
She didn’t know why it had chosen to make an appearance now but she knew that it was utterly inappropriate and complete madness and was to be stamped out at all costs.
* * *
Sunny had no idea what she was going to do with Flora on Saturday but the day dawned with the promise of heat.
She had grown up in London and now lived in London and so escaping London, going to Stefano’s sprawling mansion in Berkshire always felt like a sneaky escape and even more so now because it was the weekend.
On the spur of the moment, she packed a little bag and thought that if it was hot enough she might dip her feet in the pool.
She’d asked Flora whether she swam in it at all and was told that of course she did.
‘I learned to swim when I was two,’ she had told Sunny proudly. ‘We had a swimming pool in our house in New Zealand and Annie used to take me twice a week to the public pool so that I could get practice swimming with other girls. In competitions. I always won.’
‘I bet your mother was proud of you,’ Sunny had said, because she would have been proud, but her mother, she was informed, had rarely gone to stuff like that because it was boring.
‘She liked going out,’ Flora had said, shrugging her shoulders, ‘parties and stuff. She liked dressing up.’
Lonely on both sides of the world, Sunny had thought. You could be lonely even if you had loads of money because loneliness was very fair and even-handed when it decided to pay a visit. No distinctions were ever made.
Eric came to collect her promptly at ten, always on time, and she allowed herself a sigh of pure anticipation at spending the day out, doing something other than working or household chores. Plus Amy was overjoyed to have the flat to herself for the day.
‘I’m going to show him that I can be a domestic goddess,’ she had confided.
‘Brilliant idea.’
‘Something Thai,’ Amy had said vaguely. ‘A salad or something. Don’t worry. I’ll be gone by the time you get home...’
Sunny had wondered whether some sort of Thai salad was going to work with her friend’s latest big love interest but who was she to say anything? She had images in her head of a guy who was inappropriate on so many levels that it made her feel dizzy when she thought about it.
But today she would just relax and enjoy herself because she had one more week and then she’d be gone.
She’d miss Flora.
In her own way, Flora was as fragile as she had been at that age and Sunny felt a pang when she thought about saying goodbye and walking away, leaving her in the capable hands of another nanny.
It was already baking hot by the time the driver pulled into the long drive that led up to the house. She expected to find Stefano there, had braced herself for some polite conversation but she was greeted at the door by the housekeeper, who came, it would seem, to clean on the weekends.
‘We could do something exciting and fun,’ she suggested to Flora, racking her brain to think of what might fit the bill. ‘Perhaps a zoo...or a park...maybe the movies...or something...’
‘I disapprove of zoos,’ Flora ruled out that option immediately and Sunny grinned.
‘Or we could just...have lunch somewhere nice and then come back here...’
‘And swim!’
‘I’ll have to stay in the shallow end...’
‘Why?’
‘Because I... I never actually learned how to swim...’
‘I’ll teach you!’
With a project in hand, Flora was happy to rush through the various fun things Sunny felt she should be doing. The zoo, which would have meant trekking back into London, was fortunately ruled out and instead they went to a nearby beauty spot for a picnic. There was a huge lake, acres of woodland and many, many people also out enjoying the area with their kids and their dogs.
Flora talked about New Zealand, about what she had done there and about the open spaces and natural beauty. Her mother rarely featured in these accounts, except in passing, and her father not at all. Had he been over to see her at all? Sunny wondered. Or had he washed his hands of his own child the second he had obtained a divorce? Strangely, although he was a workaholic and although, as far as Sunny was concerned, he needed to take way more interest in his daughter, she didn’t see him as the sort of guy who would ever walk away from responsibility.
Walking around the lake, she realised that speculating about Stefano Gunn was becoming a full-time occupation. When she wasn’t thinking about work she was thinking about him and having told herself that there was no way she would allow herself to be curious about him or his circumstances, she still was.
Eric, fortunately, was there to save them the huge walk back in blistering sunshine and it was a little after two by the time Sunny had stripped down to the modest black bikini she had brought with her.
She had always wanted to know how to swim. Indeed, she had started a few swimming lessons less than a year ago but time had been in short supply and she had stopped them. The fact was that her life had just been too disordered, too unpredictable for something as constant as swimming lessons and when she had earned her scholarship to the boarding school she had made sure to steer clear of the enormous swimming pool. With few close friends, no one had questioned her reluctance to go swimming and, as it was a voluntary after-school activity, there had been no awkward or embarrassing confessions about her lack of know-how.
But this glittering turquoise pool in the calm peace of the countryside was irresistible.
She stayed at the shallow end and watched a different Flora prance around, diving and flipping and swimming underwater like a little darting fish.
Instructions were given, with Flora stepping into the role of stern swimming teacher.
Little by little, Sunny relaxed and began enjoying the weightless feeling of being in the water. It was a very big pool and she tentatively edged away from the shallow end, growing in confidence as she remembered some of the instructions from her brief foray into swimming lessons months before.
Don’t panic and swallow lungfuls of water while trying to scrabble and touch ground...
Brilliant, sensible advice.
Except...
How was she to know that Stefano wouldn’t do as he had promised? Wouldn’t stay out of the house until at least nine in the evening? In other words, how could she have guessed that, daringly halfway across the pool, trying her luck with paddling from one side to the other, she would look up and see him? Standing right there? Looking right back down at her?
All the brilliant, sensible advice flew straight out of her head. She panicked. She gulped down water and panicked more, scrabbling to touch ground but, in her confusion, sinking and flailing.
Flora was the first to dive in, slicing through the water and grasping her under her arms.
Convinced that she was on the verge of drowning, Sunny still wanted to yell to her that she was way too young to be trying a rescue mission on an adult.
But she didn’t have to because Stefano wasn’t far behind his daughter and then bigger, stronger arms were around her, firmly gripping her ribcage and pulling her with consummate ease to the side of the pool, where he heaved her out with no trouble at all.
‘Good job, Flora,’ she heard him say, to which Flora muttered something in reply, but when Sunny opened her eyes and looked at her she was blushing as she turned away for a towel, which she brought to her.
Humiliation washed over her in waves. She could barely look at him and, when she did, he was leaning over her with a concerned expression.
He was soaking wet. He’d kicked his shoes off before diving into the pool but he was dripping.
Sunny squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed that she had somehow imagined the whole horrible episode but when she opened them he was even closer to her, kneeling with his big hand propping up her head.
The spluttering was thankfully done but shock was setting in.
‘We need to get you upstairs.’ He’d taken the towel from Flora and sat her up so that he could wrap the towel around her as best he could.
‘No,’ Sunny pleaded. ‘I’m fine.’ She was trembling violently even though she was doing her best not to.
‘Flora—’ he turned to his daughter ‘—do you want to start running a bath for Sunny? And make sure there’s a dry towel there. And Flora...you would make a fine lifeguard, once you’ve grown a little...’ He smiled crookedly and felt a burst of something he had never felt before—sheer pleasure and warmth when she half smiled back at him. ‘Change into some dry clothes before you run the bath,’ he instructed. ‘And then wait for us in the sitting room. We need to do something a little special after this...’
‘Okay. ’Cos she’ll probably be all shaken up.’
‘Exactly.’ He turned back to Sunny as Flora disappeared inside the house. ‘And you,’ he murmured, ‘I don’t want to hear a peep out of you...you’ve had a shock. Just relax and let your breathing return to normal.’
Relax?
When her practically naked body was pressed against him? When his arms were so close to her breasts that one inadvertent shift in position could have him touching her? When her head was against his chest and she could almost hear the beating of his heart under his wet suit?
After this, there was no way she could stay on here...
