Single Mum to Countess - Chapter 13
‘How was she?’ Sally hung Alice’s coat up and turned a little awkwardly to Ben as he hovered in the doorway of the flat. It had been his third outing with Alice, the first unsupervised.
Sharing her daughter was so alien to her and she didn’t know the rules. Didn’t know how to brush all those years of hurt and betrayal aside, how to co-parent and trust someone else with her child when she’d had to do it alone for so long. How to trust a man who had broken her heart, even if he hadn’t known it.
Ben smiled, that slow, considering grin that used to do funny things to her insides, to make her forget all common sense. She’d like to think she was immune to it now, ignoring the instinctive fizz deep down in the pit of her stomach.
‘Good I think. She can eat an extraordinary amount of pizza. But then again I’d need that amount of fuel if I did half her activities.’
‘She does like to eat.’ Sally paused. ‘Would you like to come in?’ Another small step in establishing this new relationship.
It was Ben’s turn to pause and then he nodded. ‘Thanks.’
It felt exposing letting Ben into the flat. Did he think it too small, too cluttered? See that it needed decorating? Would he think it a fit place to raise the child of an earl? He’d been brought up in a stately home surrounded by thousands of acres of land that all belonged to him. Alice didn’t even have a backyard.
But she did have a secure roof over her head, plenty of food and clothes, friends and relatives all around her, and the beach less than five minutes away. Sally tilted her chin. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
She sent him through to the small cosy sitting room while she made tea, and when she returned with the mugs, found him sitting on the sofa, Alice curled up by his side as she introduced him to her menagerie of stuffed animals. Ben took the introductions suitably seriously, addressing a few words to each one to Alice’s evident delight. Her daughter’s initial wariness and confusion had worn off long ago and she was quickly warming to Ben. As Sally stood at the doorway, he looked up and their eyes met, sharing a moment of appreciation for their daughter.
‘You have done an amazing job,’ he said as he accepted the tea and Alice carried an armful of toys back to her bedroom. ‘She’s bright and confident and funny—but most of all she’s happy and secure and that’s all down to you. I don’t know how I can make the last six and a half years up to you…’
‘You’re here now. Just stay in her life. Don’t let her down. That’s all I want.’
‘I won’t let either of you down.’ Their gazes caught and held and Sally could feel her pulse speed up, her heart thump, her body leaning closer until the sound of Alice’s door banging closed recalled her to her surroundings and she straightened, cheeks blazing. Ben wasn’t here to rekindle their romance and she needed to remember that, fast.