The Single Mom and the Tycoon

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Not at all, but you aren’t meant to be feeding me tonight. I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘But you did yesterday, and all you had was a sandwich, so I owe you.’

  He hesitated, then smiled. ‘OK. If you don’t mind, that would be good. Where’s Charlie? Did you say he’d gone to bed?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s exhausted. He’s had a really busy day at holiday club, and he’s flat out. Why?’

  ‘If it won’t disturb him, I was going to have a look at the attic room while you’re shopping—see what needs to be done so we can get you moved in there.’

  ‘No, not me,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘If you’re going to be here for a while, it would make sense if you had that room. It’s got a little en suite shower room, and you can’t sleep in the cabin while we paint it—if you really meant what you said…’

  She trailed off, feeling suddenly awkward for mentioning the painting because he was frowning and she wondered if he’d had second thoughts or she’d simply stupidly misunderstood, but she hadn’t, apparently, because he said softly, still frowning, ‘That’s your room. I couldn’t take it from you. The paint won’t worry me.’

  She shrugged, relieved that he didn’t seem to have taken offence at her reference to the painting and touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s only short-term and, to be honest, without your money I can’t afford to do it anyway, so you might as well be in there because if you weren’t here it wouldn’t be finished anyway. And, as soon as we’ve finished the cabin, you can go back outside if you’re still here and I can move all my stuff into my room and start painting again properly. I’m supposed to be having an exhibition soon, and there are a couple of galleries asking for my work and I hate to let them down.’

  ‘Never a good idea, turning money away,’ he agreed.

  ‘Which is why I said yes to you yesterday,’ she confessed ruefully, ‘even though I’m not in the least bit prepared for having guests at the moment.’

  He smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. The bed is really comfortable, the toasted cheese sandwich was excellent and you make great dippy eggs, even if it was the only thing on a rather limited menu. I’d give you—oh, nine out of ten? Maybe even nine and a half, bearing in mind the cup of tea in the night. That was above and beyond, really.’

  She snorted. ‘Either you’re a shocking liar or your standards are too low. If you’d give me nine and a half with the décor in that state, what would you give your hotel?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Of course, you’re spoilt for choice. The most basic, then, to give me a bit of a chance.’

  ‘The rainforest retreat? Twenty,’ he said promptly, and then added, ‘but I’m biased,’ and laughed.

  ‘And you have the nerve to criticise my maths,’ she said with a chuckle, and pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table, refusing to be insulted. ‘So—give me a list of likes and dislikes, and I’ll go shopping.’

  He’d never been upstairs in her house, and it felt a little voyeuristic, but he had her blessing so after she’d gone he went upstairs to have a look at her loft conversion and see what else there was to do.

  Not much.

  She’d already done the ceiling and the first coat on the walls, so another good day and she’d be there. And it would be a lovely room. The window came down almost to the floor, and there was room on the wall opposite to put the bed so it would face the sea.

  Not the beautiful turquoise tropical waters of the Reef that his room faced, but the cold, grey North Sea, sometimes flat calm, sometimes wild and tempestuous, ever-changing. And he loved it.

  He stuck his head inside the shower room again. Small, but, like the one in the cabin, it had everything necessary. It wasn’t a patch on his bathroom at home, but then his shower had a head the size of a dustbin lid and it was outside on a veranda with wooden slats for the floor and the rainforest for walls.

  He went back into the bedroom and stared over the sea thoughtfully. He didn’t want to move up here. It was Molly’s room, and she ought to be in it. And in a perverse way he liked the cabin, for all the peeling paint and the shrub rose that scraped eerily against the walls in the wind. It had the same sea view, if from a slightly different perspective, and it was curiously cosy.

  And a bit of paint wouldn’t kill him.

  He went down the steep, narrow stairs and paused on the landing. She’d said Charlie slept in the bedroom at the front, and he could see what was clearly a child’s bedroom, the floor scattered with toys, the bedding bright and reminiscent of his own boyhood.

  He put his head round the door and saw Charlie flat out on his back, mouth open, one foot hanging out of the side of the bed, and he smiled. Molly had said he was tired, and he certainly looked it. He’d sleep well tonight.

  Resisting the somewhat unaccountable urge to tuck him in, he went back out on to the landing and hesitated. He could see her bedroom through the open door, the big high Victorian iron bed neatly made, the pillows topped with pretty cushions. Funny, he wouldn’t have thought she was tidy, but apparently she was.

  In there, at least. In the other room, the little room beside Charlie’s, there was stuff everywhere—canvases, brushes, pots of dubious-coloured liquid with more brushes sticking out of them, piles of magazines and newspapers, tubes and tubs of paint, and the small patch of floor that was visible in the chaos was liberally splattered with blobs of vivid colour.

  She’d trekked it out on to the landing too, in places, and he was amazed there wasn’t more.

  His curiosity overcoming him, he went in, picking his way carefully amongst the propped pictures and piles of magazines, and looked at the canvas on the easel, but it was barely started, just a wash of colour and a few scribbled notes pinned to the top of the easel. There were others stacked around the walls, none easily visible because of the clutter, and he didn’t want to pry.

  She was right about one thing, though. She needed more space. Desperately. There wasn’t room to swing a mouse, never mind a cat, and how she managed to work in there was a total mystery to him.

  Well, he could do something about that. He could help her finish the room upstairs, and then move her into it so she could have her bedroom as her studio and get on with working towards her exhibition.

  Of course he’d lose the glimpse of her closing her curtains at night, but so be it. There were bigger fish to fry, and he for one wasn’t on Molly Blythe’s menu.

  More’s the pity.

  He turned to go back downstairs and caught sight of her room again, and his heart jammed to a halt.

  Apparently she wasn’t quite immaculately tidy. There was a pile of what looked like washing on the floor, and, mingled in with the T-shirt that had given him heart failure yesterday was a pretty lacy bra and a pair of matching knickers. Well, lacy string.

  His gut clenched and he turned hastily away and went back downstairs before she came home and caught him lusting over a pile of washing, for heaven’s sake. Lord, he was in a sorry state.

  He would have changed into jog bottoms and trainers and gone for a run along the river wall to take his mind off it, but he was babysitting Charlie, so instead he made himself a cup of tea, in the absence of real coffee, and sat on the veranda and waited until she came home.

  She wasn’t long, and he helped her bring the things in from the car, then propped his hips against the worktop while she put everything away and tried not to think about what she might be wearing under her jeans and clingy little jumper. Unlike yesterday’s T-shirt, the jumper didn’t have a V neck, the scooped front hiding the little shadowed valley that had driven him insane yesterday, and so he could only speculate.

  Or not.

  ‘I had a look upstairs,’ he said, trying to stick to the point. ‘We should be able to knock that room on the head in a day. I’ll get some tools from my father tomorrow and we can make a start on it when I get back after lunch. And then you can move in.’

  She turned, hands on hips and
more gorgeous than ever. ‘But you’re moving in up there! We’ve just had this argument!’

  He shook his head, even more determined now he’d had time to think about it, not to give in. ‘No. I can manage in the cabin. It’s not like it’s for long,’ he reminded her. ‘Besides, I like it. And it’s your room, you should be in it. I can help you move all your stuff up there and you can have more space for your art. God knows you can certainly use it, what with your exhibition coming up.’

  ‘Did you look at the stuff?’

  ‘Your paintings? Not really. Just enough to tantalise.’ Which went double for the underwear—

  ‘Want to see?’

  His mind screeched into overdrive. Her paintings, he realised after a second of fantasy run mad, and he nodded. ‘I’d love to. Can we do it now?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll cook later, if you like.’

  He followed her upstairs and stood in the doorway of the room while she foraged about and dragged canvases out of the corners and brought them out to the landing, propping them up against the end wall at the head of the stairs so he could get a proper look at them, and it brought him up short.

  He studied the canvases in astonishment, her underwear forgotten, because they were stunning.

  Powerful, vivid images, wonderful textures—bits of paper and photos stuck into them to create almost three-dimensional collages that built up one single image. Or maybe not.

  It was like looking through a time-slip, shadowy images overlayed, as if each one had occurred in the same place but at a different time, and he was captivated. In one there was an old door in a crumbling wall. In another, trees in a forest. In another, the surf creaming on the shingle.

  A series of those, in fact, he realised, big ones and little ones, with elements of the foreshore and the quay—part of her forthcoming exhibition?

  ‘You’re brilliant,’ he said softly. ‘Absolutely amazing. How much do they sell for?’

  She shrugged. ‘A few hundred at the most, the big ones.’

  ‘Ridiculous. They’re worth far more than that. You ought to get them into a London gallery.’

  She laughed. ‘I wish. There are some good galleries round here, though. One in Yoxburgh, a couple in Aldeburgh, some in Ipswich, Snape Maltings—there are lots of places. I do all right.’

  ‘You’re selling yourself short,’ he told her firmly, and she shook her head.

  ‘No. I’m selling. That’s all that matters. I don’t need fame, David. I need to earn a living. That’s all. And I do that.’

  He thought of the peeling cabin, the flaking paint on the bargeboards of the house, the broken gate, the outdated kitchen, and wondered what it was like to have such simple demands of life, and if it was because she’d lost the only thing apart from Charlie that mattered to her, and so nothing else was important any more.

  And, because of that, he stopped arguing and went back downstairs while she tucked Charlie up, and he made a start on preparing the vegetables.

  Then, while she was cooking—refusing his help because it was her job, not his, to cook—they chatted about nothing in particular and after they’d eaten he went to bed, alone and frustrated and torn between admiration of her artistic talent and wondering if he’d ever get the image of her underwear out of his mind…

  ‘Wow! Cool car!’

  David laughed and looked up at Charlie, who was standing teetering on the gate looking awed. Goodness knows why. He loved the Saab for all sorts of reasons, but cool it was not. His Mercedes, now…

  ‘Fancy a drive?’

  ‘Yeah! I’ll have to ask Mum—’

  ‘She can come, too.’

  Charlie pelted off, legs flying, and came back a moment later with a grin. ‘She’s coming. She’s getting my booster seat.’

  ‘Great. Pile in, then.’

  ‘Can I sit in the driving seat?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He got out and moved the seat forwards, and when Molly appeared her son was grasping the wheel and making revving noises. ‘Look, Mum, I’m driving!’ he said with a grin that cracked his face in two, and Molly laughed and leant over and hugged him.

  Which gave David a perfect view of her sleek, rounded bottom, neatly encased in well-worn denim, and he had a sudden vision of those tiny little knickers and heat slammed through him.

  No. Bad idea. Widow. Complicated. Back off.

  But she was just so damn pretty, and she turned back to him and mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ and her eyes were soft and he wanted to wrap her hard against his chest and just cuddle her.

  Ludicrous. When had he last wanted to cuddle a woman he wasn’t related to? Dig his fingers into that taut, firm flesh and haul her up against him, sure, but cuddle?

  Scary.

  ‘Come on, pest, out of there,’ he said, and Charlie scrambled over into the back and Molly piled into the front and scooped her hair up into a hairband and cobbled it in a knot while he shot the seat back and slid behind the wheel and tried very hard not to notice the shift and jostle of her breasts as she held her arms in the air and fiddled with her hair.

  Thank God he was sitting down.

  ‘Right—where to?’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know. Wherever,’ she said with a smile that lit up the depths of her glorious green eyes. ‘It’s just such a gorgeous day and I love open-topped cars. Where did you get it?’

  ‘It was my mother’s. My father kept it for me.’

  Her mouth made a perfect round O and she regarded him steadily for several seconds, the smile in her eyes replaced by sympathy and a tenderness that threatened to unravel him. ‘That’s lovely,’ she said at last, and he smiled a little crookedly.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Did you have a nice lunch with him?’

  ‘Yeah, good. Oh, by the way, we put some tools in the boot too, so I can get started when we get back. OK, Charlie, where do you want to go?’

  ‘All round the town,’ he said, his bright eyes meeting David’s in the rear-view mirror as he jiggled up and down.

  ‘Round the town it is, then,’ he said, so that was what they did. They drove back into Yoxburgh, past Georgie’s house and along the prom, up through the town, past the spa with its flags and bunting, out on to the heath and home via the back roads along the river and through the golf course, with Charlie waving like royalty and giggling whenever anyone waved back.

  Such a simple thing to give him so much pleasure, David thought, and then he looked at Molly and saw she was smiling too, her face tipped up to the afternoon sun, her eyes closed, and his gut clenched with the need to kiss her.

  He really needed to get a grip.

  ‘So, are you going to help me paint the walls?’

  David frowned and laughed and shook his head. ‘No. I’m going to fill the woodwork and sand it down and undercoat it. Charlie can help me, and you can do the walls if you promise not to splatter us.’

  Molly felt her lips twitch, and he arched a brow. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned, and she laughed.

  ‘As if I would. So, come on, then, where are these tools you said you’d got?’

  He grunted and opened the boot of the car, unloading a wicked-looking power tool whose purpose she could only guess at. A saw? She shuddered with the images, glad to see it had guards all over it.

  ‘I’ll stash this in the cabin,’ he said, and then came back and took out some more normal tools and filler and sandpaper. He shoved a couple of dust-sheets into her arms, picked up the other bits and pieces he’d sorted out and handed some to Charlie, and then chivvied her up the stairs.

  ‘Right, first things first, we need tea, don’t we, Charlie? Can’t paint without tea,’ he said with a grin, and so, dumping the dust-sheets, she went back downstairs and made the tea without a murmur, still slightly amazed that he was doing as he’d said. After all, why should he? He didn’t know her, he owed her nothing—it was crazy.

  And she was hugely, massively grateful.

  By the time she got back upstairs wit
h tea for them and juice for Charlie and a packet of biscuits, they’d spread out the dust-sheets and Charlie and David were bent over a piece of skirting board while he showed the boy how to fill the screw holes.

  ‘A little bit in there, and stroke the knife over it gently—no, stroke, Charlie, not drag. That’s better. Good. Right, do that one.’ He watched, nodded and ruffled her son’s hair affectionately. ‘Brilliant. You’ll be a painter yet. Right, teatime.’

  ‘I’ve only done one,’ Charlie protested, but he put the filling knife down when he saw the biscuits, and they ended up sitting on the floor in a row opposite the window and watching the sailing boats go by.

  ‘I could look at it for hours,’ she said softly, and he made a sound of agreement.

  ‘I want to do more filling,’ Charlie said. ‘Unless I can have another biscuit?’

  ‘No, because you won’t eat your supper,’ she told him, knowing full well he’d eat whatever she gave him because he was growing like a weed at the moment and ate everything in sight, but there was no way she was going to feed him rubbish and rot his teeth and he knew it, so he scrambled to his feet, picked up the filling knife and carried on, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth like it always did when he was concentrating hard, and she felt such a surge of love it took her breath away.

  ‘Thank you for being so patient with him,’ she murmured, and David smiled.

  ‘My pleasure. He’s a good kid,’ he said softly and, getting up, he went and joined Charlie, working alongside him. It was a little awkward for him doing the skirtings, she noted as she was getting her paint tray ready and sliding him surreptitious glances. He avoided kneeling on his left leg, presumably because it wasn’t designed for it. Instead he knelt on his right and propped his left elbow on his left knee and worked like that, then, once he was sure Charlie was doing all right without supervision, he stood up and started work on the architrave around the doors and windows.

  And that brought him closer to her. Was that the idea?

  She didn’t know, but he shot her a lazy, sexy grin and winked at her, and she felt her insides go funny. Bizarre, that a man who was a virtual stranger should turn her inside out with just a glance, but he could, and his presence turned a chore into something more like fun.