Dirty Little Midlife Mistake by Lilian Monroe
Blake
A noiseoutside my hotel room door draws my attention away from my laptop screen.
“Who’s there?” My mother’s eagle-eyed stare misses nothing, even through a video call. “Is someone at your door? Is it a woman? Who is she? Tell her to come in, I want to meet her. I hope it’s not one of your twenty-six-year-old playthings, Blake, honey, because you deserve someone your own age who can stand up to you. Why you insist on dating young, airheaded bimbos is beyond me. Your father and I agree, by the way. You should be dating someone your own age. Isn’t that right, Merv?”
A muffled, “That’s right,” sounds from the next room.
My mother nods, arching her brows at me, waiting for a response—a response she isn’t going to get. There are times when you should not engage with your mother’s line of questioning, and now is one of those times.
“It’s no one, Mom. Just someone checking in to the room next door.”
“I thought you said they booked out the cabanas next to yours for privacy.” My mother frowns as she moves in close to the laptop. Her forehead fills the screen as if she’s leaning in, trying to inspect my background for clues. “Why is someone checking in next door? You should tell the hotel not to let anyone in. They agreed to keep the rooms empty for you, didn’t they?”
“I told them they could move someone in, Mom.”
“Why would you do that?” Her face fills the screen again as she sits back, crossing her arms. “You know how much focus you need when you’re filming. You shouldn’t let people push you around. They can find another room for that guest. It’s probably just someone trying to get close to you. One of those bimbos, most likely. Don’t you dare sleep with her, Blake Andrew Harding. You should be focusing on your acting, not on these clingy women who are barely out of diapers.”
I love my mother. I do. But sometimes she forgets that I’m a grown man with a life of my own. She also seems to think that everyone under forty years old is barely old enough to function on their own and definitely too young for me to date. Taking a deep breath, I draw on the deep well of patience that always seems to run dry when my mother starts talking about my love life.
“I offered up the room,” I tell her. “A woman in town just lost her home in a fire. She has nowhere to stay, so it would be truly selfish of me not to let them use the cabana next door. She’s a single mother.”
“So it is a woman,” my mother breathes. “Merv! Blake met a woman. A single mother.” Her eyes return to me. “What’s her name, honey? A house fire, too, that poor woman. What are you waiting for? Get her in here! I want to see her face. I could send her a care package. Did she lose everything in the fire? How horrible.”
“Mom,” I snap, then take a deep breath. “It’s not like that. We’re not together. She’s the caterer on set. I can’t go asking her to meet my parents.”
No matter how much I want to see where this goes with Candice, I am not ready for that.
“A businesswoman,” she says with an appreciative nod. “That’s good. Yes!” she calls out off-screen so loud I have to take my earbuds out. “She owns a catering business. Single mother who runs her own business!” Her eyes return to me. “She’s not one of those teen moms, is she?” I shake my head, to my mother’s great relief. “No. That’s good. Okay.”
I never actually told my mother that Candice owns the business, but that’s neither here nor there. My mother makes her own reality and only hears what she wants to hear. I’m not telling my mother anything else about Candice. Not one word.
An expectant silence stretches. Then she leans in and says, “Name, honey. What’s her name?”
“Candice,” I answer before I can stop myself. Shit. How the hell does my mother do that? Extract information like she’s a special agent in the CIA?
“Candice,” Mom says slowly, tapping her chin. “Interesting. I’ve never met a Candice before.”
“I have to go,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Of course, honey. Say hi to Candice for us! Looking forward to meeting her. Love you!”
“Love you too, Mom.” I hang up the call before the inquisition can continue, then close my laptop screen with a soft click. A long sigh slips through my lips as I massage my temples.
My mother is not, under any circumstances, meeting Candice. Not for a long, long time.
I listen to the silence for a moment. After the initial noise of her checking in, I haven’t heard a thing. The hotel is set up in two sections. The main building is a traditional hotel, with four floors filled with rooms off one long hallway. The other part of the hotel, the one I’m in, consists of half a dozen cabana-style rooms. My room, along with two others, looks out on a small rectangular pool. The other three cabanas are nestled in a wooded patch of land, mostly hidden from view. It affords quite a bit of privacy and more luxury than I’d expect from this small town. Didn’t stop Veronica Taylor from kicking up a fuss and forcing her team to scramble to find a suitably luxurious mansion for her to stay in while we film, but I’m glad she did. She gets carted from her rental mansion to the trailers on set, and I only have to see her when we film. Works for me.
Pushing my chair back as I stand, I brush the thought of Veronica from my mind. She’s the last person I want to think about right now. If I have to spend the rest of my time on this project dodging her advances, it’ll be a miserable last two weeks. It’ll probably show in the final product, too, and we’ll get terrible reviews about our lack of onscreen chemistry.
A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts. Combing my fingers through my hair, I open the door to find Candice standing on the other side. My brows jump. “Oh. Hi.”
She gives me a shy, sexy smile that sends a line of heat straight to my cock. “Hi. Sorry to bother you. I heard your voice and…” A flush sweeps over her cheekbones. “Sorry. I just wanted to say thank you for offering the room. I hadn’t realized until I actually got here how much I needed a bit of privacy. Everyone has been so wonderful today, but sometimes this town can be a bit…overbearing. It’s nice to have a bit of peace and quiet, if only for a couple of nights.” She huffs a laugh, a hot little blush creeping over her cheeks. “I’m rambling.”
“It’s fine.” I realize I’m smiling when her eyes meet mine, light sparking in them. The yellow lights around the pool glint off the gold in her hair. It’s brown near the roots, tied back in a ponytail that turns blond at the ends. With a thin cardigan and figure-hugging jeans, Candice looks nothing like the airheaded bimbos my mother so hates. I curl my fingers into my palm to stop myself reaching for her ponytail, to stop myself wrapping that hair around my fist and feeling those silky strands between my fingers. I’d pull her tight to my body and repeat what we did earlier, kiss her breathless until she melts into me.
I want to feel that again. Feel her body give in, get soft for me. Feel her let go of whatever she holds so tight.
She licks her lips as if she can read my mind.
Fucking hell. My body goes hard. Everything turns hot, and I find myself leaning toward her, shoulder on the doorjamb, the air between us electric.
No, this isn’t like other women. This is palpable—a real, physical thing between us. It’s not just sexual attraction, it’s bigger.
“Well,” she says, her chest heaving with a shallow breath, “I better get to bed.”
“How about that coffee?” I blurt. “Well, it might be a bit late for coffee. I have tea, I think.” I jab my thumb over my shoulder toward the mini fridge, kettle, and coffee maker in the corner of the room.
Candice opens her mouth, then pauses, and my mind produces a thousand images of other things she could be doing with that mouth.
Some sort of internal battle wages inside her, and she finally nods. “Okay. Let me put something more comfortable on and I’ll meet you by the pool in five.”
“I’ll get the drinks ready.” As I close the door, my heart jumps. I’m smiling again. I’m smiling at the thought of drinking a cup of tea with this woman.
And at the thought of doing a lot more than drinking tea.
Then I shake off my stupor and grab some mugs.
