The Aristocrat and the Single Mum. Michelle Douglas
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live in Europe, right?’
‘Last time I checked, England was still a part of Europe, yes.’
‘Oh, ha ha, everyone’s a comedian.’
He gave her a kind of half-grin. She gave him a full grin back. ‘Well, Spain is nearby, isn’t it? Don’t you go on annual holidays to…Aruba?’ She pulled the name from some dark recess of her mind.
‘Kate…?’
Ooh, her name sounded divine in that to-die-for accent. She started to twist again. ‘Mmm?’
‘Aruba is in the Caribbean.’
Was it? ‘What’s a holiday destination between friends?’ she said with an airy wave of her hand.
Simon threw his head back and laughed. She watched in satisfaction. She’d find the holiday-maker in him yet. Still grinning, he gazed out over the water of the bay and she recognised the flare of yearning that lit his eyes. ‘Why don’t you go in for a dip?’
‘I don’t have a towel.’
She shrugged. ‘So run across the road and buy a beach towel. Or dry off after on your T-shirt.’ That’d take the crispness out of it. In fact, it’d leave him deliciously rumpled.
‘What about you?’
‘I didn’t bring my swimsuit.’ She stared out at the water wistfully. ‘Though I have gone swimming in shorts and T-shirt more times than I can count.’ She pulled back. ‘No, no. I have to go back to work in a couple of hours. I have a meeting with my accountant.’ Which was a good thing, she told herself—a very good thing.
Then the scent of hot chips hit her and she forgot everything else.
Simon swung towards her when she groaned. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am soooo hungry.’ She pulled her feet free from the sand. ‘Stay here. I’ll be right back.’
It took her less than two minutes to race up to the kiosk, buy three cones of hot chips and race back.
She handed Simon one. He grinned at the two she still held. ‘You weren’t kidding, were you?’
‘One for you, one for me and one for the seagulls.’
‘One for—’
She didn’t hear the rest of his sentence because she’d already thrown a chip in the air and seagulls descended from every direction to fight over it. ‘Your turn.’ She held the cone out to him. He took a chip and threw it. Seagulls dived and squawked. The air became alive with the flapping of wings. She laughed. He laughed. Feeding the seagulls was definitely a holiday thing. Fun.
When the cone was finished she tossed it in a nearby bin. ‘These ones are mine and I’m not sharing,’ she shouted to the seagulls, covering her cone with her hand. ‘Come and paddle,’ she said to Simon.
He blinked. ‘Whilst eating chips?’
She didn’t miss a beat. ‘It’s called alfresco dining.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘You English lords aren’t too high and mighty to get your feet wet, are you?’
‘Nah,’ he said, entering into the spirit, ‘it’s the colonials who eat with their fingers that frighten me.’
She laughed in delight. ‘I didn’t see you exactly rushing to bring out the silver service.’
‘I’d need a table for that.’ His eyes laughed down into hers. ‘Not to mention a butler.’
She’d known he had to have a sense of humour. He was Felice’s brother, after all.
They paddled and ate their chips. She watched the tension ease out of his shoulders, watched him lift his face to the sun.
‘When was the last time you did something like this with Felice?’ She tried to keep the question casual.
The tension shot back into his shoulders. His grey eyes speared hers.
‘It was just a question,’ she said gently. ‘Instinct tells me a bit of a rift has developed between the two of you.’
He drew himself up and glared at her and, although he wore board shorts and a T-shirt, he looked as formidable as if he wore a suit of armour. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss my relationship with Felice with a…’
‘Stranger?’ she finished for him. ‘That’s okay. You don’t have to. Let me tell you what I think has happened instead.’
‘I don’t—’
‘As you’re ten years older than Felice,’ she rushed on, talking over the top of him, ‘I expect you’ve always felt a certain amount of responsibility for her. As Felice is ten years younger than you, I expect some time in the last few years she’s rebelled against your…authority.’
She glanced at him. He didn’t say anything. His lips were clamped shut, but shadows haunted his eyes.
‘She’s spread her fledgling wings and that’s probably scared the beegeebies out of you because how on earth can you keep tabs on her when she’s flitting all over the place?’ She glanced at him again. He stared straight out to the front. ‘The short answer, of course, is you can’t. So you’ve become bossy and critical, she’s become defiant and defensive, and suddenly, instead of having fun together, all you do is fight.’
He stopped dead in his tracks and she knew she’d struck the proverbial nail. ‘You don’t know me. This is all…supposition!’
Supposition that had his hands clenching into fists, she noted. ‘I know Felice.’ Felice was family now. She wondered how Simon would react to that news when he heard it. He glared at her. ‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘I’m just a nosy colonial.’ But her brother had married into this man’s family and she wanted things to be right for Danny and Felice.
She wanted things right for Simon too.
‘I think there’s just enough of you in Felice for her to really get sick of your attempts to control her. Pushed too far, she’d up stumps and take off. Cut her losses.’
The colour leached from Simon’s face and Kate suddenly wanted to hug him. ‘But she’s a nice girl at heart,’ she continued, pretending not to notice his pallor. Pretending not to have noticed anything at all. ‘If my hypothetical situation ever occurred, I think a heartfelt apology would go a long way towards mending fences. An apology and a promise to butt out and let her make her own decisions.’ She lifted her face to the sun, welcoming its warmth. ‘After all, Felice is a competent young woman, more than capable of taking care of herself.’
The colour slowly returned to Simon’s face. They resumed their walk. The tension didn’t leave him, but she could sense that it had subtly shifted—seemed to be directed outwards rather than inwards now.
‘So,’ he finally said, ‘Felice has been enjoying her stay here?’
She sent him a deliberately droll look, then flung her arms wide to indicate the bay and its surrounds. ‘What do you think?’
He glanced around and a reluctant grin tugged at his lips. ‘I think she’s probably had a ball.’
‘Bingo.’
Sauntering along the water’s edge like this with Simon was strangely companionable. Kate pulled in a breath, filled her lungs with air, and beneath the salt tang lay the cool, crisp scent that was Simon—wood shavings, a hint of pine and something that was purely male.
‘Does your brother—Danny—live in Nelson’s Bay too?’
‘He does. We run the dolphin tour business together.’ She glanced up at him and smiled; she couldn’t seem to help it. ‘My father started the business over twenty years ago.’
‘And you enjoy it?’
‘I love it.