She was silent and stopped walking. Was it a twin or was it Marc?
She started to walk again and turned right, coming to a dead end.
Why did she feel so nervous?
There was running and crowing from the inner part of maze while she turned right again and came to a small marble statue of some sort of goddess. Turning right again, she came to the fork in the paths. Which way?
She paused and then went right again. She had seen something on a television show years ago that if you ever wanted to get out of a maze, you had to keep turning in one direction. It could be right or left but to exit you had to stay committed to one direction.
She could hear the boys yelling. They were in the centre and she heard the sound of feet on the path next to her again.
Another fork and she waited.
To leave the maze she should turn right.
She turned left.
And there was Marc at a dead end.
She smiled at him, feeling her heart beating faster.
His gaze captured hers and he smiled in return. It was a lazy, sexy smile that she found truly knee-buckling.
‘Are you lost?’ he asked and she could have sworn he was flirting with her.
‘Nope, are you?’ She returned his sassy tone.
God they were flirting – so silly. Perhaps it was just in fun but Marc was looking at her in a way that she knew would get her into trouble.
‘Should I leave?’ she asked.
‘Please don’t,’ he said.
Christa thought about what the next few weeks would be like if anything happened with Marc. There was a flirtation but he was teasing her, like he probably did all women. Men like him could have supermodels, actresses, heiresses. She would be nothing more than a Christmas fling and she would still have to cook for him.
God no, she thought, and she laughed at him.
‘Last one to the centre has to bite the other’s bum, remember.’ She turned and walked in the opposite direction.
‘Christa.’ She heard him say her name but she kept walking towards the sound of the boys in the centre.
What would she have done if he’d kissed her? What if she had kissed him? What if she was mistaken? How embarrassing would it have been?
She worked for him. So many rules broken – it would have been a workplace disaster.
A phone rang and she heard him answer, saying Adam’s name. Saved by the bell, she thought as she finally came to the centre, finding the boys looking into a pond with little fish darting about.
‘There you are,’ she said.
‘Hey, I have to head back to the house – work emergency,’ Marc called.
‘Bye,’ yelled the boys but Christa said nothing. It was better that way, she decided.
Keep it strictly professional. That’s what she had always told the staff at Playfoot’s. She and Simon never showed affection in the kitchen at work. It was professional and respectful at all times. In hindsight they probably took it too far when they brought that energy home as well but it was done now.
Christa and the boys found their way out of the maze, using her one direction theory, to where Bill was sitting patiently on a bench with the picnic basket and Meredith the dog next to him.
‘Right, next stop please,’ said Christa wishing Marc was still there but also grateful he wasn’t. As they followed Bill through the garden, she began to think the conflicting feelings were a real pain.
