‘Goodnight,’ he said, then turned for the door without waiting for a reply.
CHAPTER SIX
THE NEXT MORNING Madeleine fought the arrival of the sunlight around the edges of the curtains in her room and wished that she’d had the foresight to close the shutters before she’d come to bed last night. With how discombobulated she’d been feeling, it was really a wonder that she’d managed to pull on some pyjamas and wipe off her make-up, never mind fiddling with the pristinely restored period features of the building.
How long could she get away with hiding up here? she wondered. She was under no illusions that the reason for Finn’s ridiculously early night last night was because the atmosphere had gone from awkward to worse. All because of her stupid overreaction to seeing the inside of Finn’s bedroom.
A large part of her insides wanted to curl up and die this morning, when she remembered how she had reacted. The pumping blood. The wild eyes. The implicit accusation in her response.
Not implicit. Explicit. So explicit, in fact, that Finn had felt it necessary to tell her in the baldest possible way that he was not interested in having sex with her. She blushed again at the memory. She was meant to be his guest. But her hair-trigger reaction to the smallest of misunderstandings had meant she’d all but accused him of planning to try and molest her.
No wonder he had chosen to spend the rest of the evening away from her.
She wished that she could check out of her brain sometimes too. Leave the flashbacks and the panic aside, and just live like a normal person. React in a totally normal way to totally normal stimuli.
The sound of a baby crying reached up to her first-floor room and when the second baby joined in she knew that she had to move. She was meant to be helping out with the kids and hiding up here wasn’t just childish, it was dereliction of duty
. A duty that just happened to be keeping a roof over her head and her bank balance in the black.
She pulled a big soft wrap cardigan on over her jersey pants and sleep top, and pulled her hair back into a reasonably respectable ponytail. Drawing back the curtains, she realised she’d been missing out on a truly glorious day. The park in the middle of the square was bathed in golden sunshine and the sky was a deep clear blue. It was enough to blow the cobwebs off her bad mood and actually make her smile.
When she reached the kitchen, Finn was bouncing Bella on his shoulder while making up a bottle, and both babies seemed to be competing to see which could make the most ear-splitting noise. Hart, in a bouncy seat on the floor, looked—or sounded—to be winning, so she scooped him up, taking a moment to fuss over him before turning to Finn. She held her breath for a moment, not sure whether things would be weird this morning, and praying that he had scrubbed the previous evening from his memory.
‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ he said with a smile, hitching Bella higher on his shoulder as he scooped formula into little plastic pots. ‘They don’t usually gang up on me like this, but when they do—boy, do they go for it. Here, do you think you can manage Bella too?’
Before she had a chance to say no, she had a baby parked on each hip while Finn screwed lids onto bottles and wiped down countertops.
‘I was thinking we should go out for the day,’ Finn said. ‘Enjoy the sunshine. There’s only so much you can do to entertain these two indoors.’
‘Sounds great. What did you have in mind?’ she asked, grateful that they weren’t going to spend the day inside. It didn’t matter how luxurious the surroundings were. If the atmosphere was as tense as it had been the previous evening, then it would be completely unbearable.
‘Well, I’ve never taken them to the beach,’ Finn said, putting away the tin of formula. ‘It’s too nice a day to spend half of it in traffic getting to the coast, but there’s a pop-up beach I read about that might be fun. It might also be a nightmare of sand-encrusted toddlers. But worth a try?’
‘Definitely worth a try,’ Madeleine said, marvelling that the twins were both quieting down as she bounced them gently. ‘Do I even want to know what packing a bag for twins at the beach looks like?’ she asked with a dubious look at the backpack slung over the back of one of the dining chairs.
‘It’s terrifying,’ Finn confirmed with a laugh. ‘But I’ll talk you through it. And there should be enough stuff in the fridge to pack a decent picnic. Trudy has a habit of predicting my impulses on such a regular basis it makes me wonder how impulsive I really am.’
‘Did you know that the best indicator of the number of barbecues on a Saturday is the temperature on the preceding Tuesday? Sounds like Trudy has a good grip on economics,’ Madeleine said. ‘Right, give me a list of what the kids need and I’ll go find it in their room. Then we can raid the fridge together. Sound like a plan?’
‘Great,’ Finn said, before reeling off a list of clothing and supplies that Madeleine was sure could outfit a military unit for several weeks. But as she packed tiny clothes into an enormous bag she was glad of the practical challenges that a day out with the babies would pose. She wanted her time filled—every second of it, if possible—because the alternative was awkward silences or, worse, awkward conversation.
By the time that she got downstairs, Bella and Hart were in their car seats and Finn was looking at his phone. ‘The car’s outside whenever we’re ready,’ he said, looking up at her with a smile. ‘Did you find everything?’
‘I think so. I mean, how badly can it go?’
‘Well, I’ve been out with them before and they’ve pooed through every item of clothing in the bag and I’ve run out of wipes halfway through the day. But sure, nothing worse than that.’
‘We’re going into central London. They have baby wipes there. We’ll be fine,’ she said with a confidence that she didn’t feel.
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Finn said with a laugh, sliding his phone in his pocket and reaching for one of the car seats. ‘Do you mind grabbing Hart? I cannot tell you what a luxury it is not to have to lug all this stuff on my own.’
‘Sure. That’s what I’m here for,’ Madeleine said, and was grateful for the little reminder to herself. She was only here to look after the children. Last night had been awkward, but they just had to ignore it. It wasn’t as if they even had a friendship that they had to rescue. Just because he was friends with Jake didn’t mean he was her friend too. All they had to think about was the children—and she could do that.
Just from the half day she had spent with them already, she knew that they were more than capable of filling her time and her thoughts. But their dad did keep trying to muscle in there too. No, that wasn’t fair. That made it sound like Finn’s fault, and it wasn’t. It was entirely her fault that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. It had been bad enough, even before that incident on the landing last night. But this morning it was worse.
Because yesterday—it was a fun little fantasy. Something that she knew that she was never going to act on. Something that she knew couldn’t hurt her. But today...today was different.
Because once Finn had mentioned his attraction—the chemistry between them—it had breached an unspoken rule where they were just refusing to acknowledge that it existed. And even though Finn had said that he wasn’t interested in acting on their feelings, she wasn’t sure that she believed him. It had felt brutal last night, when he had said the words.