A/N: Sorry this took so long to update! I don't know if I like this chapter very much, but uploaded it anyway because I'm sick of re-writing it. Thanks for all your reviews!
Sarah x
When Henrik woke the next morning, it was with amusement but very little surprise that he found her curled up against his body, her face yet again buried in his chest. His hand was on the back of her head, cradling it into his chest, and an arm was draped around her body loosely. Somehow in their slumber they had become entangled in each other's grasp. Never in a million years had he thought this possible.
He kissed her head and untangled himself from her; he was showered and dressed in last night's clothes after half an hour. And then he remembered. The car was dangerous. He looked at his watch and realised it was only half-past seven.
His almost obsessive need to know the answer behind everything was beginning to tempt him to get the trolley jack out of the boot and see if he could see the problem. He heard footsteps on the stairs and guessed either Serena or Eleanor was just getting up and made a hasty decision to investigate.
Closing the door silently behind him, he unlocked the car and made for the boot. He jacked the car up, starting at the front passenger side. He lay flat on the hard ground, against his better judgement, and looked for a problem.
He didn't know very much about the subject but he would have known if something was seriously amiss – some things were blindingly obvious.
There was nothing snapped, which was encouraging. He lay there and thought for a few minutes, trying to find an answer for it. He leaned up slightly to get himself from under the car but a voice made him start and he felt his head hitting metal with sharp pain.
"Henrik, you idiot," a voice he knew to be Serena's drawled. "You don't go under a car that's only held up on a jack. It's asking for trouble."
He groaned and pulled himself out from under the car, rubbing his head gingerly. He glanced up to find Serena in a dressing gown and slippers, holding two mugs. "Oh, does Mr. Hanssen have a little owie?" she asked in her best baby voice. He glared at her but repressed a smile when she knelt down, handed him his mug and kissed the spot on his head he had been rubbing. "Now. If we're going to find what's wrong with your hunk of metal then I suggest we do it properly and safely," she said sternly, with that look even he knew not to argue with.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Axle stands," she grinned. "There should be two in the shed."
She smiled impishly up at him when he got to his feet; he let his fingers trail in her hair as he passed.
The switch had flipped again, he realised as he went in the shed. She wasn't vulnerable today; at least she didn't appear to be. She was just Serena this morning. Nothing more, nothing less.
When he returned, he was surprised to find Serena on all fours, ducking to see under the car without putting herself in danger. She seemed to sense his approach and stood up, silently taking the axle stands from him. He watched as she knowingly placed one under the sill of the raised side and lowered the car slowly and very nearly silently.
She jacked the other side up and repeated it to the same height; he didn't know how she knew what she was doing but he admired her swift motions with an inward smirk. She crawled under and started to look over the passenger said steering. Not to feel like a moron, Henrik mirrored her on the driver's side.
After about a minute of feeling around, he heard a triumphant noise from beside him. "Ah-hah!" Serena exclaimed. She told him, "Go and turn the engine," with what he knew was an affectionate and absent-minded pat on his flat stomach.
"With you under here?" he asked. "I don't think so."
"Don't be silly! It's fine if it's on axle stands," she insisted. "Go on!" He gave her a soft glare but reluctantly got to his feet and opened the door, making sure the car was in neutral before turning the engine on. "Come here!" she called. He sighed and went down and lay next to her. Teasing her, he kissed her neck lightly. She smiled but scolded him, "There's a time and a place, Henrik, and lying underneath a running car isn't one of them."
"Oh, I don't know," he retorted. "There is something rather attractive about Serena Campbell, in pyjamas, under a car," he smirked. "Right. What have you found?"
"That," she pointed at the control arm, "is a wishbone, and it shouldn't be moving like that." He saw it shuddering back and forth and looked around to the driver's side; the identical component on that side was solid. "It'll be the ball joint loose, too, which means the tracking will be here, there and everywhere," she explained over the engine. "Explains why your car tried to kill you last night."
He gave her a look demanding an explanation for her knowledge. "In light of what happened to my dad, I grew up wanting to feel safe driving which, to me, entailed some degree of knowing how a car works," she explained to him. He said nothing to her, only giving her a tiny understanding smile.
She gave him a smile and got up. He was still half-lying there when she turned the engine off, slightly dazed by what she had just displayed. He himself got up and waited while she took over, letting the car down again with very little noise. She bent over and picked their mugs off the pavement, handing him his and wrapping an arm around his waist as they headed back inside.
In the kitchen they found Eleanor making toast, and Serena hastily severed physical contact with Henrik, but Eleanor's eyes were quicker than Serena had credited her with. "Jesus," the girl side, smoothing her school blazer gently, "you're already like an old married couple."
"Hey!" Serena protested. "Less of the old, thank you very much!" Eleanor just smirked while Hanssen felt rather awkward; he did not like to be the source of tension between Serena and her daughter. Henrik sat down at the kitchen table when Serena left to get changed, a silence between himself and Eleanor he found tense.
She sat down opposite him and quietly started on her toast and tea, smirking to herself.
"I'm not a baby," she asserted quietly. "I'm not an idiot, either."
"Nobody says you are, as far as I'm aware," he replied. She looked up at him and smiled.
"You're the first man she's taken home in years," he informed her.
"She didn't take me home," he contradicted her. "I came here because I deemed it safer than attempting the longer journey to my own home in a car that seems to have a mind of its own at the present moment."
Eleanor grinned and leaned over to him, her hand closed. "Judging by where I found these hoovering Mum's room the other night," she said, dropping two shirt buttons and a cufflink onto his palm, "she must have pretty much ripped your clothes off when I was over at Gabby's."
Henrik immediately felt the blood rush to his cheek and he knew his face was turning red. He had known they were missing; he just hadn't counted on Serena's daughter finding them. "The one time I do as Mum says and hoover upstairs, I find out she's had a man home."
"How did you know it was me?" he asked, resigned to the fact there was no keeping it from her anymore.
She gave a small smile before she answered him. "The way she looked at you last night." She looked at her phone and added, "I'm going to school now; got to collect Gabby along the way. Tell Mum, will you?" she asked.
"Of course," he smiled.
"Thanks," she replied, picking up her bag and sauntering out the door, leaving Henrik, for the second time this morning, rather perplexed.
Before he knew what was happening, he was in the passenger seat and Serena was driving to his house so he could get changed. Serena, he was quickly discovering, moved like a tornado, as did her daughter. He had not expected his morning to be so lively.
"Go on," Serena said.
"What?"
"Spill," she ordered him, glancing quickly around at him. "What's eating Mr. Hanssen?"
"Eleanor knows," he informed her matter-of-factly, no emotion or worry tainting his voice. "She found my shirt buttons and cufflink when she was vacuuming in your bedroom. And apparently, you look at me in a certain way," he added, knowing that would unsettle her when she started to smirk. It was a smirk that rapidly faded upon being informed she had an obvious weakness for him.
He got out when she reached his house. To his surprise, she didn't wait for an invitation; she followed him into the house. She wandered off to the kitchen – no doubt to raid his cupboards for breakfast – while he headed upstairs.
He looked out a suit and took his shoes and socks off. He sat cross-legged on the bed and regained his mental equilibrium, having had his lover and her daughter knock it out of him in quick succession. It occurred to him he had just got himself very much involved with Serena by confirming her child's suspicions.
"What's up?" Serena asked again as she walked in eating a chocolate chip cookie.
"Cookies for breakfast, Serena?" he retorted, dodging the subject of his worries. "That is very healthy." She just shrugged, her stony face silently demanding he spit out his concerns to her. He sighed and explained, "It's just me being difficult."
She came to stand in front of him, and he looked up at her. "In what way?"
"I feel like I'm beginning to intrude on your life," he admitted. "You have a daughter."
"Who is well beyond the age of having to tiptoe around," she reminded him. She joined him on the bed, kicking off her shoes. "Look, Henrik. You're not a man of a million words. I know that. But if something bothers you about us then you need to tell me before we get too deep into all of this. I don't want either of us hurt," she warned him.
He held in the smile at this and replied, "I am not having second thoughts. I just don't like the idea of coming between you and your child."
Serena laughed his worry away when she replied to him. "Do you know how long she's been telling me to get a man?" she laughed. "Henrik, you're not coming between us. Our relationship can be strained," she admitted, "but she wants the best for me, as I do her. You will never come between us," she assured him with a kiss.
He smiled gently in acceptance; that smile turned into a grin when she knelt up and pushed him backwards onto the bed. She kissed him gently and he returned it with a shot of heated passion running through him. Instinctively, he pulled her close as she deepened their kiss. "We're most definitely going to be late for work," he breathed a reminder to her.
She smiled into his lips and answered, "All of a sudden I don't feel well. I think I may oversleep."
He laughed gently, kissing her warm neck as he pulled her blouse off. "I don't have a car and may just have to wait on someone on the same route giving me a lift."
"Too bad she overslept," she finished concocting their excuses for being late, pulling off his shirt and kissing his chest lightly.
She trailed kisses up his bare chest and throat to his mouth, and he said to her, "You need to set a louder alarm, Ms. Campbell."
Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x