Chapter 28
Max
‘Ihave one question,’ I tell the kids as I steer us down the back roads towards Sorrel Farm. ‘But it’s a big one. Will there be sweets there? Because, honestly, that’s all I care about.’
‘There will be sweets!’ Daisy shouts from her car seat. ‘Mummy is a chef, silly. She can always get sweets. She bakes cakes all day long.’
‘She really does have the best job,’ I muse. ‘And you really do have the best mummy. I can’t think of anything better as a kid than having a mum who’s a professional cake-baker. And brownie-baker. And cookie-baker. I mean, you guys are the luckiest kids alive.’
‘But what if she’s used up all the sweets on the gingerbread village?’ Toby’s brow creases with worry as he holds his post-school sandwich poised in front of his mouth.
I swear to God this kid lies awake at night, dreaming up lists of things to worry about.
‘No way,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve seen the store room in that place. I bet it puts Mrs Claus’ pantry to shame. It’s stacked floor-to-ceiling. There will be spare sweets everywhere. So if your mum has used up all the ones in the kitchen, we’ll make her open up the store cupboard for us. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ Toby echoes as Daisy bites into her sandwich of choice—fucking mayonnaise and butter, for fuck’s sake—and kicks the back of my seat, just because she knows it pisses me off.
‘What was that?’ I growl in a sinister voice, and she giggles.
‘Nuffing.’
‘Didn’t feel like nothing.’
Keeping my right hand on the wheel, I slide my left hand around the back of my chair to lie in wait for the offending foot. It’s dark enough that she won’t spot it. She won’t be able to resist goading me again.
Sure enough, a moment later, I feel a kick. I grope around and grab her foot with a theatrical snarl, and she lets rip with a blood-curdling scream and tries to free herself with more kicking.
I laugh. Bloody children. So easy to wind up.
The farm at dusk is a magical place. I did a few hours volunteering with one of Angus’ teams today, repairing a section of the dry stone wall that circles the fields on the farm’s west side.
It was slow, steady work, but the limited daylight at this time of year meant I could finish up in time to grab the kids.
I know Molly’s been spending hours and hours working on this village, and I suspect she’s pretty knackered given how many hours of sleep I’ve stolen from her these past few nights (even though she’s admitted that when she does crash in my arms post orgasm, she sleeps more soundly than she has all year.
That hurts my heart in a really fucking great way).
Car parked, I get the kids out, making sure Daisy has her coat zipped up for the short walk through the main resort to the Oast House.
‘Wow! It’s so pretty!’ she says, staring up at all the evergreens dotted with fairy lights. That must have been a painstaking job for some poor idiot—I imagine they spent a lot of time up a ladder, cursing the strings of lights.
‘Have you guys not seen the farm lit up for Christmas yet?’ I ask them.
‘No, because when we came to get the tree, it was in the morning,’ Toby reminds me.
‘Oh, yeah. We definitely need to rectify that. Maybe your mum and I can bring you back this weekend? We could grab dinner here and listen to the choir. They do seriously good hot dogs and burgers.’
‘Really?’ Daisy tugs on my hand, and I look down at her. ‘Like, at night-time?’
‘Yeah, at night-time,’ I say drily. More like five or six in the evening, but they don’t need to know that.
It’ll be pitch black by then; they’ll get the full effect.
We can spend an hour here, meandering around, and eating, and soaking up the atmosphere.
I bet Toby will love the choir, little dreamer that he is.
And Daisy will go wild for the stall selling hand-carved Christmas decorations.
Maybe Molly and I can enjoy a nice cup of mulled wine. And then, when we get home, we’ll pack the tired kids off to bed, and I’ll open a bottle of something in front of the fire, on that scratchy but otherwise convenient rug, and then…
My vivid mental movie of a naked Molly, moaning my name from the rug as I lick champagne off her tits, shatters in an instant as Toby repeats my name with the consistency and irritation-level of a car alarm.
‘Max. Max. Max. Max.’
‘Yeah, mate?’ I shake myself, disturbed that I fell so easily into a full-on porno starring Molly while being in charge of her kids. Get a grip, for God’s sake.
‘Look at the reindeer.’ He points towards the entrance to the main courtyard, where a huge, metal-framed reindeer stands, studded in fairy lights, his nose glowing red.
‘Oh, cool.’ I ruffle his hair. ‘That’s not just a reindeer, though.’
‘I know. It’s Rudolph.’ He beams up at me.
‘Damn right it is. He your favourite?’
‘I don’t really know the others.’ He screws up his nose. ‘Like, I can’t remember all their names. But I like Rudolph cos he thought he was different, but Father Christmas told him that made him special.’
I take his hand and squeeze it. ‘Exactly.’
We cross the courtyard, the Oast House twinkling invitingly. It’s an impressive structure outside and in. Between all the benches out front sit troughs full of snowdrops and greenery. The continuous bank of French doors on the near side showcase the inviting golden glow of soft lighting inside.
Beside the main entrance stands a huge potted fir studded to within an inch of its life with white fairy lights. Angus told me there are over fifty Christmas trees around the resort at this time of year. Insane, if you ask me, but it’s undeniably magical.
I have to hand it to Jess, Zoe, and Evelyn.
They’ve perfected the formula, and it’s crack.
Luxury plus authenticity plus integrity plus taste.
No wonder they’ve brought Theo Montague in to manage their new joint venture with his family’s global hotel chain, The Montague Group.
If they can replicate this format, they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
I push open the heavy glass door and the kids push through the gap in excitement.
The Oast House is pretty quiet at this time of the afternoon, except for a few tables occupied with laptop workers or coffee drinkers.
The lunch crowd is gone, and cocktail hour hasn’t quite begun yet, although I definitely wouldn’t mind nursing a G&T with Molly in front of that roaring fire at the near end.
Or a nice glass of red, even. That gigantic velvet sofa looks sinfully comfortable.
Halfway down the vast space stands a gaggle of people, and my Molly-radar homes in on her immediately.
She’s still in her chef’s whites, her golden hair glowing like a beacon in the atmospheric lighting.
There’s something about having the opportunity to watch her from a distance that makes me feel like the luckiest bastard on earth.
She’s incredible, far more incredible than she seems to realise, and the fact that I get to go home with her, and take her off to bed with me, and strip her bare, literally and emotionally, is a new and fragile gift after so long without having her in my life.
I watch as the kids weave through the tables in their haste to get to her.
Her face lights up when she spots them, and she gets to her knees so she can throw an arm around each of them and pepper their faces with kisses.
Seeing that propels me forward, almost without knowing what I’m doing.
I want to be close to her. To them. Want to be a part of that circle.
I want her face to light up like that when she sees me, even if she can’t act on her feelings in public.
It’s not till I join the little group that I take my eyes off her and realise I recognise a few other faces, too. Evelyn. Zoe. That amusing woman I met that horrific first morning I sought out Mol after the school run—Sadie, wasn’t it? I lean down to kiss my sister-in-law, and Molly catches my eye.
‘Hi,’ she mouths, those lips curving up into a coy smile. She’s blushing, even as she puts her hands on Daisy’s shoulders and steers her towards the display. She looks like a teenager who’s spotted the boy she likes and has no idea how to act towards him, and I fucking love it.
Just for the kick of it, I sling an arm around her shoulder and kiss her on the cheek.
It’s nothing more than a friendly kiss, nothing that could embarrass her in front of her colleagues, but her cheek is hot against my lips, and when I pull away, she looks flustered.
I spot Sadie’s knowing grin as I come up for air and give her a nod. Clearly, she knows our little secret.
‘Wow,’ Daisy breathes as she gets a clear look at the table’s display. I lean over her to take a look and do a double take. This is fucking incredible.
I jerk my head back at Molly. ‘You did all this?’
‘Team effort,’ she says, a little breathily. I’m really enjoying the effect my proximity is having on her. ‘My team did the baking and construction, and we liaised with the Visual Merch team to decorate the buildings and pull together the village.’
‘It’s so cool!’ Toby shouts. ‘Look, Mum! There’s a train!’ He points at the little train chugging around the table.
‘May I remind you that you have something extremely similar gathering dust in your wardrobe?’ she says, kneading his shoulders.
‘Seriously?’ I ask. ‘Mate, we should set that up at the weekend. It’d be great fun.’
‘Really?’ He cranes his head around to look up at me and Molly. ‘Can we, Mum?’
‘Of course you can,’ she says. ‘If it’s okay with Max, that is.’
‘It’ll be amazing,’ I tell Toby. A quick glance around shows there’s no adult behind us, so I run a finger lightly down Molly’s spine.
She shivers and glances up at me, eyes wide.
It looks as though disapproval and desire are warring beneath their beautiful blue surface.
I smirk at her and wiggle my eyebrows. ‘How amazing is this village?’ I ask the kids.
‘Your mum is seriously talented, isn’t she? ’
Daisy is, for once in her life, speechless.
She’s fisted her hands on the table and has rested her chin on them as she stares at the village.
It’s pretty damn cool from where I’m standing, so I imagine it must be a four-year-old girls’s dream.
It’s sweet how transported she is by Molly’s staggering creation.
‘There are sooo many sweets,’ she drawls in awe, and I laugh. Okay, so maybe she’s more overcome by the sheer volume of sugary things in this scene than by the talent and bloody hard work that’s gone into creating it.
‘Do you like the lights?’ Molly points, and Daisy sighs.
‘Yeah. And look! There’s a Christmas tree!’
I follow her little finger. There is indeed a tree standing in the middle of the village. It’s fucking cute. ‘How did you make that?’ I ask Molly.
‘It’s just a cardboard cone covered in piped icing, she whispers.
‘It’s seriously clever,’ I tell her. I almost drop a kiss on the top of her golden head but stop myself in the nick of time.
‘Can we make a gingerbread house at home?’ Toby asks. ‘Please, Mummy?’
Molly laugh-groans.
‘I suspect your mother never wants to see a gingerbread house again as long as she lives,’ I tell him.
Zoe jerks her head towards the kitchen. ‘Why doesn’t your mum take you through to find some sweets? You can take them home, and maybe she can cook some gingerbread here with the right equipment and bring a house home for you to assemble?’
Molly sags with relief. ‘That sounds like the right way to do it.’
‘You mean on the clock?’ I quip.
‘Exactly.’ She laughs. ‘No, I mean I should do all the painful bits myself, without them getting in the way, and then they can do the fun bits of sticking on the sweets.’
As we walk through to the open kitchen, I stand far too close to Molly, but I don’t give a fuck.
There are a couple of chefs on the other side, presumably prepping for the dinner service.
I help her take jar after jar of sweets and cake decorations down from an upper shelf as the kids watch, their eyes on stalks.
And, as she stands at the workstation, the children beside her and a stack of small paper bags in front of them, I step up right behind her, caging her in with my arms.
She sags back against me slightly, but keeps talking.
‘Right. Rule number one, no touching the sweets in the jars. Okay? Use these shovels.’ She passes them a stainless steel shovel each, and I trail a finger down the back of her neck. She wriggles as she pulls the lids off several jars.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s probably a function of having been apart from her for almost eleven hours.
But, once the children are focused on the fiddly task of shovelling sweets out of the jars and into the little paper bags, I take a step back from them and hook a finger through the tie of her apron, pulling her against me. I slap the counter.
‘Nice, solid counter,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘Maybe I should come and see you one evening when you’re working late.’
‘Kitchen’s pretty full in the evenings,’ she whispers back. ‘And I’m pretty sure whatever you’re suggesting using those counters for would be a Health and Safety violation.’
‘I don’t know.’ I nip at her earlobe. ‘They’re stainless steel. A quick wipe down, and nobody would be any the wiser.’ I lower my voice to the barest whisper. ‘Imagine me stripping you and bending you over this. Imagine how cold that steel would feel against your tits.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ she hisses in a panic. ‘Where the hell did that come from? Behave yourself, for the love of God, and I’ll make sure you’re well looked after later.’
I’m not sure where that came from, but I’m getting hard just thinking about it. One thing’s for sure. I need some time with this woman. And by time, I don’t mean a quiet, hurried session when the kids are down and she has an early alarm clock to consider. I mean some proper time.
Hmm. Something to talk to my brother about. I may need to call in some help.