Chapter 31 - Molly
Molly
Zoe’s been giving me fleeting, knowing looks in the kitchen all morning. Looks that, from anyone else, would be confusing, but coming from a woman who I know to have psychic abilities, are downright unsettling.
At least she seems happy. It can’t be that the end is nigh for me, then. There must be something nice in store for me.
Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket?
I’ve had a delightful morning in the shape of a meeting Sadie and Nora set up with a journalist from Brides magazine.
Since the wedding of Theo’s brother Miles and his gorgeous wife Saoirse here this summer, interest in and demand for weddings at Sorrel Farm generally, as well as for my cakes in particular, has exploded.
Apparently, the Montague wedding has been dubbed the society wedding of the year, a term I suspect both Miles and Saoirse would hate.
Since Evelyn poached Nora, wedding planner extraordinaire, to come in-house and run events for the farm, the latter has been on a mission to establish a full calendar of private events here.
We host everything from cheese-and-wine tasting nights for members to huge charity galas, but weddings are our bread and butter.
Not only that, but they offer the perfect chance to showcase Sorrel Farm’s charms to wedding guests who often return for romantic or family breaks on future occasions.
And now my savvy friends have persuaded the good people at Brides magazine to run a special supplement on the farm as a wedding venue.
We haven’t even had to pay for play, both because Sadie is so persuasive and because everything Sorrel Farm-related is hot content since the wedding.
There’s to be a page on our in-house wedding cake producing capabilities, and yesterday I spent a heavenly few hours decorating four cakes with an assortment of fresh flowers and fruit.
The article will include suggested aesthetics for a Sorrel Farm wedding in each of the four seasons.
There’s something about sticking your headphones on as you run buttercream icing around a luscious sponge cake with a palette knife. About listening to arias as you select the perfect blowsy rose for your summer topping, or dust icing sugar onto redcurrants for the winter alternative.
It’s steady, indulgent, creative work, and the flow state I’m in when I decorate cakes is my favourite emotional state.
I’m in a constant state of inspiration, as though some greater, more creative force is working through me, using me as its willing instrument.
It’s far healthier than the frenetic, adrenalin-fuelled pace of the early mornings, when we’re baking for the breakfast service while prepping for the rest of the day ahead.
This morning, we and the lucky journalist got to dig into the fruits of my labour, sampling the various flavours of cakes while Clara snapped away (between bites), and Sadie worked her PR magic, and Nora went long on detail.
There’s a reason weddings at Sorrel Farm run like a Swiss watch, and that reason is Nora Wilder.
Now, though, the journalist has left, and my girls have scattered back to their jobs, and we’re prepping for lunch when I hear Max’s voice call to me through the open front of the kitchen.
My head jerks up in delighted surprise, and I scurry over to the entrance, wiping my hands on my apron.
‘Hi!’ I say. I’m a little breathless, a little overly eager. But come on. This man induces a similar reaction in every woman. I’m only human.
‘Hi, you.’ His eyes crinkle as he grins at me, drinking me in as if he didn’t see me off a few hours ago, after he’d de-iced my car.
‘What are you doing here?’
His grin widens into something smug. ‘Fetching you.’
‘Me? Why? Are the kids okay?’
‘The kids are great.’ He jerks his head at someone behind me. ‘Come here, Zoe. Tell her.’
I look over my shoulder as Zoe approaches. She puts her hands on my arms, smiling warmly.
‘You have the rest of the day off. Jess is picking Toby and Daisy up from school. She’ll see you back at your place later tonight. Go have fun with this nice man.’
My jaw drops. ‘What?’
Max grins sexily. ‘We sorted it out between us. Zoe has your shift covered. Jess is on kids duty till later this evening, God bless her. And thanks to Evelyn, you and I have somewhere to be.’
Somewhere to be turns out to be one of Sorrel Farm’s charming, newly built accommodation blocks. I stare, slack-jawed, as Max releases me long enough to swipe a key-card over the lock. He opens the wreath-clad door with a flourish and steps aside to let me through.
I shoot him a seriously? look and he nods, grinning.
‘Get inside, gorgeous.’
Holy crap. I step over the threshold in a daze.
In front of me is an obscenely gorgeous, ground-floor-level suite.
To my left, a huge, wooden four-poster bed piled high with white linens and huge pillows.
And to my right, a spacious living area with white sofas and a large coffee table on which stands a bottle of champagne on ice and a pair of flutes.
The floor is blonde wood, the huge, airy windows let in wide swathes of hazy winter sunlight, and the log burner has been lit.
It’s even decorated for Christmas, with garlands over the picture frames and around the top of the bed, and a perfectly plump tree in one corner, decked out in tasteful platinum and white.
Candles dotted around the room in minimalist hurricane lanterns emit the gorgeous, orange-clove smell that I recognise as belonging to the farm’s signature festive scent.
Everything is white, zen, from the waffle robes laid out on the bed to the glimpse I catch of a roll-top bath through an open doorway. There’s a tiny white kitchenette with a white enamel kettle and toaster. A stack of white coffee-table books lies, weirdly enough, on the coffee table.
Could Max possibly have known that, to a mother, the colour white is basically porn? That I dream of this kind of serenity for my home? Long for it with every knackered fibre of my being?
Our cottage, while lovely, is so bloody chaotic and colourful and relentlessly messy. Zen it is not. My eyeballs are permanently exhausted when I’m at home. And this beautiful space is probably what heaven looks like.
I want to stroke the bed-linen.
And quite possibly lick the coffee table.
I want to lower my weary bones into that bathtub and never get out.
Max closes the door and comes to stand behind me, his hands kneading my shoulders through my coat. ‘What do you think?’ he asks slowly, his breath warm in my ear.
‘I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,’ I say with a sigh. ‘A white room, and you? And champagne?’
He laughs softly and kisses my cheekbone where it meets my ear. I lift a hand and press it to his.
‘What’s going on, Max? Is this place ours?’
‘It is for the rest of the day. It was available for the night, but I couldn’t farm out the horrors overnight—nor would I inflict the school run tomorrow on anyone else.
Even Jess. But she’s hanging around your place till nine-ish with Mike and Mia, which gives us, let’s see, around nine hours.
’ He lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘Totally alone.’
I groan. ‘Oh my God. Say it again.’
He releases me with a laugh and spins me around to face him. I tilt my head back to enjoy the view. My God, this man. His beautiful hazel eyes shine with tenderness and, if I’m not mistaken, concern as to whether I like my surprise.
I take hold of the lapels of his jacket with a firm grip and stand on my tiptoes so our mouths are mere inches apart. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’
‘You.’ He slides a strong arm around my waist, holding me to him.
‘Why?’ I whisper.
‘You deserve a little TLC, Mol. Fuck knows, you need it. You’re dead on your feet at the moment, and I don’t blame you, what with leaving the house at obscene o’clock every morning, and working all day, and processing kids all evening. And now I’m keeping you up at night, too. Stealing your sleep.’
‘I don’t mind that part,’ I tell him. ‘That’s the best bit.’
His face softens. ‘I know, baby. But it’s not sustainable. You need a break. So I thought we could escape for a few hours, and, you know.’
I raise my eyebrows in a manner I hope is seductive.
‘Pray tell.’
‘Sleep,’ he says, and I laugh. ‘And maybe have a little sex. Or a lot. Take an endless bath. Drink champagne together. Just be, without kids or colleagues trying to get a piece of you. We can grab some lunch here, and head over to the Oast House for dinner, if you fancy it. Or just get more room service and stay naked. But seriously, Mol, if you just want to sleep all day, that’s fine with me.
’ His eyes trail over my face. Down my neck.
‘As long as you let me hold you while you do.’
This. Man.
He takes my breath away. I had no idea he was plotting all this, no idea he enrolled the help of probably half of Sorrel Farm to set this in motion.
He’s surprised me with an indescribably perfect afternoon and evening ahead.
It’s a glorious prospect. So idyllic I can’t quite believe this is real.
That I’ve been plucked from my working day and found myself in this sensory paradise with my gorgeous man.
‘How did I get so lucky?’ I ask him, my hand trailing up his lapel to find the skin of his neck, his jaw.
‘I have genuinely no idea,’ he says with a straight face, and I burst out laughing.
‘You’re ridiculous. And amazing. The kindest man I know. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He captures my hand with his. ‘You happy?’
I nod, my throat tight with unexpressed emotion. There is a good chance I’ll have a little cry at some point this afternoon, from sheer overwhelm.
The good kind.
‘Indescribably happy,’ I tell him.
‘Good.’ His warm, firm lips brush over mine. ‘What would you like to do first?’
I know exactly what I want to do first.
‘This.’
I shrug out of my coat and chuck it on the arm of the sofa before doing the same to his. He’s dressed up for me in trousers that aren’t jeans and a pressed white shirt through which my greedy hands can feel warm skin and hard, hard muscle.
I can’t wait to get that shirt off.
To slide my face along those ridges of muscle.
To kiss and lick my way across that skin.
I cup his dear, handsome face, and I stand on tiptoe again so I can kiss him.
Slow, lush, decadent kisses, because right now, it feels like we have all the time in the world to explore each other.
I slide my tongue past those lips. Softly.
Sensually. But when his tongue meets mine, it’s taut. Hungry.
I open wider, exploring his mouth thoroughly before I pull away.
Because it’s not his mouth my tongue has plans for.
Before he can work out what my game is and intercept me, I walk him the few short steps back towards the door and delight in the soft, satisfying thump of his body hitting wood. As soon as I have him where I want him, I drop to my knees. I need Max to know how much this means to me.
How much he means to me.
I need him to know that, right now, his particular brand of caregiving and thoughtfulness and general desire to spoil me is doing it for me like nothing else.
‘Fuck, Mol.’
My gaze travels upwards from his crotch, which is exactly at eye level and already bulging impressively, over the expanse of flat stomach under white shirt, to his face. His jaw is clenched, and his eyes are burning as he looks down at me.
I whip my top off clumsily, which has the added bonus of pulling my chignon loose.
Using deft fingers, I undo the plait. I know Max, and I know he’ll want my hair down for this.
His fingers will want to rampage through it when he’s close to coming.
I look up at him and smile. Today’s bra is a lace balconette—I’ve seriously upped my underwear game since I got myself a hot man to seduce each night—and I’m well aware that it shows my assets off to their full advantage, especially from where Max is standing.
He hasn’t taken his eyes off me as I prep myself for seductress mode. ‘You don’t need to do this for me, you know,’ he begins.
‘I’m doing this for me.’ I get the button on his trousers undone and pull down his zip with a highly satisfying sound. ‘I want to get my mouth on your gorgeous dick so badly I can’t even think straight.’
He leans his head against the door with an agonised groan in the back of his throat that makes my lady parts clench. Everything I said is true. He’s so fucking perfect—I need my mouth full of Max, and I need it now.