Free Tempted by Dr. Daisy by Catherine Anderson

laugh and hugged her.
    â€˜I am. Florence was exhausted, too, that’s why I’m so early. We’ve had a busy weekend, and she crashed at six, and Jane was back so I thought I’d get away.’ He sniffed the air and smiled. ‘Something smells tasty.’
    â€˜I made a casserole. I just have to heat it up when we’re ready.’
    â€˜Great. Stick it on now, I’m ravenous. And then maybe we can talk.’
    They needed to. There was no way she’d intended to go to bed with him on Thursday night—or any other night, come to that. Her boss, her neighbour—and another divorced father? No way. But that night—that night had been something she’d had no defences against, and she didn’tthink he had, either, thinking back. And she’d had all weekend to do that.
    What to do?
    â€˜OK, fire away,’ she said after she’d switched the heat on under the casserole.
    â€˜You aren’t going to make it easy, are you?’ he said wryly, meeting the challenge in her eyes.
    â€˜I need to know, Ben,’ she said softly. ‘I need to know where I stand with you. I know we shouldn’t have done it, but as you said, we have now. So where do we go from here? I haven’t got a clue.’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and I wondered—maybe if we had some kind of framework,’ he suggested.
    â€˜What—like rules?’
    He felt himself frown. ‘I don’t like the word rules. Parameters, maybe.’
    â€˜Such as?’ she asked, trying to be rational because the idea of never holding him again was hard to take, however sensible it might be.
    â€˜Separate compartments,’ he said honestly. ‘I have to keep Florence out of my private life, for everybody’s sake. You won’t ever see her—well, not in any relationship context, anyway. As far as Florence is concerned, you’ll be my neighbour. That’s all. The lady next door. Not Aunty Daisy. But she isn’t what this is all about. This is about two consenting adults who’ve both been hurt in the past, having a relationship with clearly understood boundaries, and Florence doesn’t come into it at all.’
    She was relieved about that, but in another way gutted, because there was a quantum leap from what he was offering her now and the way she was starting to feel about him. That little flicker of hope that maybe, finally, her luck was changing.
    Stupid. She knew perfectly well it wasn’t. They’d talked about that, about the fact it was going nowhere, long before they’d scrambled their brains and ended up in bed.
    â€˜So what are you suggesting?’ she asked a little warily. ‘We just—’ she shrugged ‘—carry on?’
    â€˜If you feel we can. But I don’t want anyone knowing about it at work. Not about this. I want them kept utterly separate, to protect both of us when—’
    He left it hanging, but she knew what he was saying. When it came to an end, which it would. Of course it would. But maybe not for years. She was only twenty nine. She could afford to take time out to dally with a man who made her feel like no man had ever made her feel before, but not an indefinite amount unless she wanted to give up all hope of having a family of her own one day. And Ben—well, Ben hadn’t wanted this. Not with her. Too messy, in so many ways.
    Oh, lord. It was all her fault. If only she hadn’t kissed him. If only she’d kept her hands to herself, not held them out to him in that blatant invitation—
    She shut her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken you upstairs.’
    â€˜Let’s not play the blame game, Daisy,’ he said softly. ‘I kissed you first, on Monday night. I couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t help it on Thursday either. I needed you, and I think you needed me. And we still do. Well, I do, anyway.