‘Not exactly. I paid a quick trip to the shops,’ Lara confessed, reaching for the bag. ‘Try it on. Chloe? I picked up some paint cards when I was in the shops. I thought you might like to choose a colour for your bedroom. Have a look at them.’
Chloe stared at her. ‘My bedroom?’ She shook her head. ‘My bedroom is fine. It can wait.’
‘I have an idea, but if you hate it, you must tell me.’ Lara reached for Aggie’s crayons, which were strewn over the table, and started to colour in broad strokes. ‘Look at this. How about we paint three wide stripes around two of the walls? Different colours. Purple, orange and blue. Not bright ones. Pastel. Disgusting or amazing?’
Chloe looked at the sketch and then at the paint colours that Lara pushed in front of her. ‘A-amazing,’ she stammered. ‘But that would take ages and be really hard.’
‘No. It would just take patience, a sense of humour and lots of masking tape,’ Lara said blithely, turning to look at Aggie who had wriggled into the costume. ‘Now, that is what I call an angel costume! Do you like it?’
Aggie stared down at herself. ‘It’s way beyond awesome,’she breathed, and Lara grinned at Chloe.
‘Does that mean she likes it?’
Chloe laughed. ‘It means she lik
es it.’
CHAPTER SIX
CHRISTIAN opened the front door and then paused on the threshold, wondering for a moment whether he’d walked into the wrong house.
Lively Christmas music blared through the tall, elegant building, punctuated by the steady thumping of feet and shrieks of female laughter. The thumps and bangs were so loud that he glanced upwards, wondering how many more thumps it would take to bring the ceiling down.
Were they having a party?
Christian gave a faint smile. Whatever Lara was doing with his children, they were clearly enjoying it and that was all he cared about. If necessary, he’d pay someone to fix the ceiling.
He closed the door behind him, shutting out the bitterly cold December evening, and the delicious smell of garlic and herbs wafting from the kitchen made him realise how hungry he was. Suddenly he was glad that he hadn’t succeeded in stopping Lara from cooking,
He hung up his coat and then followed the sound of laughter. Pushing open the drawing-room door, he stopped in amazement.
Chloe, Aggie and Lara were all wearing toy antlers and gyrating furiously to a rock and roll song about Rudolph. Christian watched his children for a moment and then he looked at Lara.
And continued to look.
She was wearing a tartan miniskirt with a black jumper and thick black tights, and she moved her whole body in perfect time to the music, somehow managing to combine both grace and energy as she executed a deceptively simple dance that Chloe and Aggie were both trying to emulate. Her legs went on for ever and her blonde hair and blue eyes provided a splash of colour against the unrelieved black of her jumper. With the brown, furry antlers on her head, she looked young, uninhibited and—gorgeous?
Captivated by the sudden injection of life into his home, Christian could have watched her for ever but Aggie noticed him and gave a shriek.
‘Daddy’s home!’ She raced towards him and leapt, forcing Christian to catch her in mid-air. ‘We’re playing discos. Lara calls it the Rudolph Jive. She says it’s great for warming you up on a cold day.’
Lara stopped dancing and pushed strands of blonde hair away from her pink face. Her eyes sparkled with humour as she smiled at him. ‘Hi, there! I couldn’t find the controls to turn up your central heating. It was dance or freeze. This is a big house. I’m used to living in a tiny flat. If I just turn on the hairdryer, the place heats up so fast I have to open the window.’
‘The boiler is in the basement. I’ll show you how to adjust it later.’ He stroked Aggie’s hair and glanced over her shoulder at Chloe. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling with laughter, but there was a wary look in her eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d first entered the room.
Was it him? Had he done something?
Did she blame him for the fact that her mother had left?
‘Hello, Daddy.’ She rushed to turn the music down. ‘Did you have a good day?’
Christian frowned, wondering why she felt the need to stop what she was doing. It didn’t escape his notice that in comparison with Aggie’s unselfconscious exuberance, Chloe was painfully, almost unnaturally well behaved. He studied her for a moment, trying to work out the problem and failing. He wanted her to act like the child she still was and it seemed as though she’d been doing exactly that until he’d walked into the room.
Why had his sudden entrance had that effect on her?
Suddenly he wished that baby daughters were delivered with manuals. He had absolutely no idea how he should be handling this current phase in her life. What if her subdued behaviour had nothing to do with the divorce? What if she was being bullied at school? What if there was a boy?
He broke out in a cold sweat and then reassured himself that there was no way that Chloe had boy trouble. Yet. But boy trouble would undoubtedly come in time, and he would be expected to help her with her problems.