He looked bemused but pleased, and Rachel immediately felt guilty for using him. She was going to have to put a stop to this—she should have already. The knowledge weighed on her conscience like a stone.
‘Slide into the back, Charlie, and let your mum sit up front.’
Rachel saw that Nigel looked a bit startled when the child immediately did as she was bid. ‘Maybe a knock on the head wasn’t such a bad thing,’ he joked softly to Rachel as she slipped reluctantly into the soft cream leather upholstery beside Benedict. Nigel waved them off cheerfully.
‘What did he say to make you look so murderous?’ Benedict asked curiously as they pulled away.
‘It was nothing,’ she said shortly, avoiding his probing eyes. She told herself she was being over-sensitive—Nigel had only been joking. She knew she shouldn’t compare Benedict’s light touch with her daughter to Nigel’s heavy-handed approach, but it was hard not to contrast their very different styles.
‘I prefer Steve. Benedict.’ Charlie screwed up her small nose, her expression speaking volumes.
‘My friends call me Ben if that’s any help.’
‘Ben.’ She tried it out experimentally. ‘Not bad,’ she conceded. ‘I thought it was cool when Mum said she was working for you.’
‘Mr Arden to you,’ Rachel put in sharply. Trust Charlie to take a shine to him; that was all she needed. Where was that well-known disagreeable personality when she needed it?
‘Mum was really mad when she found out you’d fooled us,’ Charlie piped up from the back. ‘I don’t think she’s forgiven you yet.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Take a nap, Charlie; you look tired,’ Rachel observed hopefully. She knew from experience that short of gagging her child there wasn’t much chance of stemming the flow of indiscreet comments.
‘I wasn’t worried about you, like Mum.’
‘You weren’t?’
‘No. I saw the real expensive watch you were wearing so I knew either you were a good thief or an eccentric rich guy.’ With a satisfied smile she settled into her seat.
‘You worried about me?’ Rachel could hear the slightly smug smile in his deep, expressive voice. Why did this man’s voice have the same effect on her as half a bottle of red wine? she wondered resentfully. It did have a marvellous texture; she found herself whimsically likening his warm, rich tones to being wrapped up in a rich, luxurious velvet sheet and pulled herself up short. The less she thought about sheets and Benedict Arden in the same context the better!
‘No more than I do any other destitute social outcast,’ she observed with a dispassion she was far from feeling.
She’d never admit it was the man more than his condition that had got under her skin, but fantasising about someone she’d never meet again had seemed a fairly harmless thing to do. There was safety in distance and she found herself wishing she had more than a couple of feet to protect her right now.
They continued to travel in silence for several minutes. In the back Charlie fell asleep. When she noticed this Rachel worriedly fished the card the hospital had given her out of her bag and scanned it.
“‘Sleepy or difficult to rouse”.’ She read the words out loud and glanced anxiously at her sleeping daughter. ‘Do you think…?’
‘She’s just asleep, that’s all, Rachel. She’s had quite a day.’
Strange how a second opinion made things slip back into perspective. Rachel’s smile was strained; she took a deep breath and tried to calm down. She tried really hard not to be a fussy, over-protective mother, but sometimes…
‘I expect you think I’m just a neurotic mum.’
‘I think you’ve perfected the mum part, Rachel, but I think you’ve neglected the woman part.’
His words startled her and made her feel uneasy. ‘You’re saying I’m not feminine.’
‘You’re about the most feminine female I’ve ever met.’ Her stomach went into its now familiar acrobatic contortions as his dark eyes moved warmly over her face and lower… Give me strength—please, she prayed without much confidence that anyone was listening. In the wider view her libido probably came pretty low down priority-wise.
‘You’re just overcompensating for being a single parent. When did you last do something for yourself?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean something spontaneous, selfish…’
‘I’m not a spontaneous sort of person.’
‘You must have been once.’ She saw his eyes touch the image of her sleeping daughter in his rear-view mirror and her expression grew chilly.