‘It’s not perfect,’ he admitted, ‘and clearly not a permanent solution, but there was not much choice within travelling distance of the hospital.’ Before she could respond to this obscure comment, he had leapt athletically out of the car.
Pressing her fingers to her temples, she waited while he came around to open the passenger door.
‘Have you got a headache?’
She dropped her hands, turned her head and looked at him. ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ she predicted. ‘Look, at this rate it will be time to get back to the hospital before I even get the B & B.’ The fizz of adrenaline after the all-clear had got her this far, but Lily doubted it would get her much farther. Her head felt like cotton wool and even lifting an arm was an effort.
He nodded, his eyes skimming her pale features. ‘You look totally spaced out,’ he roughed out huskily.
Lily roused herself to respond tetchily, ‘Well, you don’t look like an oil painting either.’
If only that were true. Even barely able to keep her eyelids open, just looking at him suffused her body with a deep ache of longing so intense that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. No oil paint existed that could possibly begin to convey the level of sheer energy he exuded.
He lifted a rueful hand to the stubble on his jaw, his mobile lips quirked in grin. ‘I’d like to think you love me for more than my body and sartorial elegance.’
She opened her mouth to retort in a similar style that she didn’t love him at all when the light bulbs in her head started flashing. The blood drained from her face.
Love!
When...how did that happen?
Love...? Not the childish crush that had turned him into a hero figure or even the passionate primal response to him as a man, but a soul-deep longing.
‘Not a perfect situation, obviously—’
She blinked. How long had she been sitting there with her mouth open? It had felt like a century, but Ben continued talking as if nothing had happened. Well, for him she supposed it hadn’t.
‘I picked up the keys this morning.’
She sat there trying to gather some strength before she levered herself out of the car with a gentle grunt of effort. There was no question of taking the hand he offered; she could barely look him in the face.
‘You’re staying here?’ she said, struggling to move past this sudden paralysing shyness as she focused on the building behind him.
She liked its solid proportions and the magical little green oasis of its setting, but it seemed an odd choice for Ben, who she saw more as an industrial loft sort of man.
‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?’ His exasperation faded as he scanned her face. ‘Come in,’ he said, concern roughing his voice as he placed a guiding hand in the small of her back.
‘I’m staying here?’
She walked ahead of him through the massive red door with its stained-glass panels. There were more panels in the big square hallway but, while most of the period features were in situ, including the mellow wood block floor, the décor was much more modern. The paintwork was all muted pastels, bright splashes of colour provided by an eclectic collection of modern art.
Feeling his eyes on her, she turned, looking at him through her lashes as she tipped her head. ‘It’s a very nice house,’ she said politely.
‘It’s only temporary. I bought it fully furnished so—what do the estate agents always say, look past the décor? The previous owners used the cottage in the garden for the housekeeper...she could stay on.’
‘I think it’s lovely, but I don’t really understand what it has got to do with me.’ Her head was full of her discovery; houses came a very poor second to love. When had it happened? Was it normal for love to creep up this way? Had it been little things like the silly ties?
‘I’ll explain tomorrow. What you need now is sleep.’ He glanced towards the big central staircase, wondering if she’d make it under her own steam.
Lily didn’t move. ‘You bought it...but why...?’ And when did he have the time? ‘Have you decided to move into property development?’
‘Not at the moment. Look, by now we both know that they allow children home a lot quicker when they live close enough to make treatment or checks on a daily basis possible.’
‘You bought a house so that Emmy could get home sooner...?’ She choked back the emotional sob that was never far away, her voice quivering as she said quietly, ‘You believed she’d get well.’
‘I BELIEVED THAT you believed.’
Lily huffed out a tiny laugh, her lips twisting into a reflective, sad half-smile. ‘I had to believe. The alternative... I couldn’t have borne it.’ She shook her head and looked around, wondering who would sell a home with all their possessions. ‘I don’t know what to say—you did all this? It’s too much.’
He gave a shrug. Her gratitude made him uncomfortable. He might not have chosen to be an absent parent but the fact remained that she had been alone in bringing up his child and, though the past few weeks had not been normal, he was beginning to understand just how much of a responsibility that was. Or maybe that wasn’t the discovery after all. It was a responsibility that he had been avoiding all his adult life. What he hadn’t known then was the joy of seeing through a child’s eyes, how something mundane could become a marvel.
‘It’s nothing.’
She gave a cracked laugh and did a three-sixty-degree turn that made her head spin. ‘This is not nothing.’
He grabbed her arm to steady her. ‘Compared to seeing Emmy smile, it is nothing.’ His grandfather’s words during that last argument came back to him.
‘Your problem is you think it’s all about profit, but it isn’t. It’s about people... You know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.’
Even though he’d mended bridges, Ben’s jaw hardened at the memory, just as it had back then as he had watched his grandfather feed the proposal he had sweated over for months—the one that was to drag the estate into the twenty-first century—into the fire.
But maybe the old man had had a point. And if he’d not reacted to his hurt pride and instead of storming off had stayed and made him see that it wasn’t all about the figures, there would have been no bridges to build. An image of his grandfather’s lined face—it was the frailty that had shocked him—rose up, leaving a taste of regret in his mouth.
Clearing his throat, he didn’t quite meet Lily’s eyes as he shrugged his shoulders. ‘We won’t be out of pocket the way the market is. We could sell the place tomorrow and make money and it isn’t totally altruistic—this is a big house.’
Her eyelashes fluttered as the comment sank in. She thought of the kiss and her insides quivered. Reading between the lines was an inexact science, especially when you were this exhausted. ‘You plan to live here?’
He looked as if he was about to say something, then to her intense frustration shook his head decisively. ‘Look, we can talk about this later. Right now what you need is sleep. I’ll show you where the room is.’
She looked at the sweeping staircase and felt a surge of panic. ‘You’ll wake me if there is any news?’
‘I promise.’
‘And you won’t