Chapter 3

"Come on then. Tell me all about him. " David sat with a mischievous grin on his face looking directly at Molly.

"There's nothing to say. Really." Molly replied back raising her eyebrows with a half smile on her face and looking down as Joanna put a plate of spaghetti bolognese in front of her. "Mmm, thanks Jo that looks lovely. Anyway the kids don't wanna hear about my boring journeys to work." Molly looked over at Matthew and Emily who were both sitting about to tuck into their teas but decided hearing about Molly's new friend seemed much more interesting.

"Yeah we do Molls. Mum said you told her this man makes cars and I'm hoping me and Dad'll have a look and drive some." Matthew immediately exclaimed, excitedly tapping his feet on his stool foot rest.

"You know it's a good job you lot can keep secrets in this house." Joanna joked to her family, sitting down to her tea and opening a bottle of wine, shaking her head. "Sorry, Molls it's just so romantic and mysterious. Meeting a tall gentleman on a train who by all accounts sounds like a male model and seems nice to boot."

"Sounds like my twin," laughed David and Matthew laughed too, covering his mouth while trying to eat. "It's like Trevor Howard and Celia whatshername. You know off that dead old film," clicking his fingers in the direction of Joanna.

"Brief Encounter, that's it!" David proudly stated and high fived Matthew. That was what Molly loved about this family. The loving and happy way all four family members were with each other were one of the things Molly adored about this job.

"All we're saying Molls is I think it's nice that you've met someone that hopefully could turn unto something because I do worry about you living out by yourself, and getting the train by yourself home again at night and as you said he gets off the same stop as you. You know, you're so pretty, Molly. Honestly, I'm surprised no-ones noticed you before now." Joanna looked seriously at Molly.

"Alright, alright, calm down when you've quite finished getting me married off." Molly laughed. "I'm only meeting him for coffee tomorrow night. He's nice but he's just a friend. And I love where I live. Having my own space, my little garden plus I love to do my painting there. I'm well settled" Molly reached forward to put her hand on Joanna's. "Don't worry about me."

She had a great relationship with Joanna. She looked on her as an older sister, regularly going shopping on a Saturday into central London together. They also both loved vintage home design and loved to browse the small vintage shops that Joanna knew about. She had recently suggested to Molly about moving into the loft extension upstairs which was admittedly a huge open area and the kids would love her to live with them but it was no contest compared to where her heart lay.

"So whats his name again? Henry or something? Some posh sounding name wasn't it?" David chimed in.

"It's Charles. And he's not posh. He's just a regular bloke and you know… has nice eyes." Molly winked at Emily. "Anyway let's get these dishes cleared away, you bunch of nosey parkers, I'll miss my train at this rate." Molly got up to clear the dinner table watching with amusement as David grabbed Joanna's hand and they started to do a waltz around the marble kitchen island.

"What was the name of that song on our first date Jo? Oh yeah, " I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston. She was a gonner after seeing my moves Molls let me tell you." David grinned.

"Yeah right dream on. I only stayed around because you kept promising you were going to build me a house. Imagine being promised that on a first date and I believed him! Well at least he does them up instead." Jo and David laughed together while Matthew and Emily jumped in too and the dancing then turned into a tickle frenzy with the children laughing loudly.

Molly sat on the train thinking of the laughs she had with Emily through the day and the rest of the family at dinner. She thought to herself if she ever got married, she would want all of the happiness that David and Joanna had. She wouldn't settle for anything less. She really wanted the heart-thumping, blood pumping, breath taking, adrenalin rush of being with someone who made you complete.

She immediately thought of Charles, strangely enough. After that first meeting on the train that morning, he infiltrated her thoughts every day since. Snippets of memories infiltrated her mind. His gorgeous chocolate brown eyes. His gold and blue Rolex watch sat upon his tanned forearms. His wavy brown hair but when it was a warm day, would start to curl slightly. His welcoming and sexy smile and when he smiled at you, you felt like the only girl in the world. His suits which were a perfect fit to his frame and his perfectly ironed shirts. The smell of his aftershave which was so irresistible. She thought if she rubbed herself up against him, could she get the smell to stick to her clothes? She laughed to herself at that one to get a grip. His tall height, which Molly had imagined would be perfect if you were ever to kiss him.

Molly realised after that first meeting that she was very attracted to him but she tried not to think about it too much as she guessed that he was married after hearing the woman's voice on the other end of the phone and she would never get involved with someone else's man. She had a cheating partner and it hurt her so much that she could never forgive that.

Molly had small exchanges of conversation on the station platform with Charles in the days following on from when they first met. But enough to know she would like to get to know him further. She noticed he mostly got the same time train as her. He always sat in his reserved seat and Molly always looked for the seat next to him to be free but generally it was always taken. She didn't want to be seen as desperate to speak to him but just being near to him made her day start well so she thought where was the harm in that? There was no angry phone calls from, she assumed, his wife. But he sat either looking out of the window or reading a newspaper. She wanted to know more about him, what made him tick.

The day that Molly and Charles organised their coffee date, was one that Molly thought of as special.

Molly was a few minutes late for the train and just managed to make it in time as the doors were about to close. As she stepped briskly inside, she couldn't believe her luck as Charles stood leaning against the glass looking in her direction.

"Morning Molly Dawes." Charles said cheerily with a smile that Molly knew was one of her favourites.

'Morning Charles. How come you're not in your seat?" Molly asked leaning back holding onto a handrail.

"Well, there's an elderly gentleman in my seat today and to be fair I think I would be a bit of a bad man to kick him out of it." Charles replied scrunching up his nose and smiling. "Anyway looks like we can have a proper chat today. It's lucky you were late and that man was in my seat." Charles said quietly and bit his bottom lip.

"Well that depends if I wanna talk to you. Anyway, you can just call me Molly, you know. It doesn't have to be all formal. Not at this time in the morning anyway." Molly smiled and looked out of the door window. She didn't want to sound too over familiar talking to Charles but she didn't know when she would get this close to stand with him again for a length of time and today it had to be said, he looked so gorgeous. His light blue shirt had the top three buttons undone and she could see the top of his chest was smooth and as he swallowed, she could see his windpipe and imagined her herself kissing it gently.

Molly definately get a grip for God's sake, she thought.

"Well, we don't know each other properly yet. You have to earn the right to just be called Molly."

Charles smirked hoping it didn't sound too much like he was flirting. It was a long time since he'd done that and didn't know if he would be any good at it.

He knew he was very attracted to Molly. She had beautiful long wavy brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders. She had a sensational figure with curves in all the right places. Her green eyes were so astounding. He had never seen an eye colour so vivid before. They pulled him in every time he looked at her and it seemed like she was trying to read his thoughts just by looking at him. He was afraid in case she could as his thoughts when he was near her were very contradicting. Even though he was married to Rebecca, he knew that he couldn't go on living like this. He hadn't seen her for 3 days. She told him that she had to be in London for a fashion shoot her friend had organised for her but wasn't sure what day she would be back. Charles stopped asking when he would see her again when she was going away. So now that he'd met someone like Molly who seemed to like to talk to him, he thought why can't I get to know her, even for just a coffee somewhere? That has to be a lot more innocent than what Rebecca was probably up to so he refused to feel guilty about arranging anything with Molly.

"Oo that sounds serious. Earning a right? You'll have to let me know how to do that then." Molly replied quietly.

The train's brakes suddenly came on hard which made everyone who was standing up fall forward a few steps. Molly was no exception. Her hand came away from the handrail and she fell onto Charles body, with her hands hitting against his sculptured chest and her face just landing under Charles chin. Molly's heart started racing being so close to him and touching his body and smelling his distinctive aftershave.

"Shit, sorry." Molly stated, taking her hands slowly off his chest. She then noticed his left hand had gone to the small of her back to hold her close to him when she fell forward so she didn't hurt herself.

"It's okay. Seems like the train driver's still waking up." Charles said quietly as he cleared his throat and moved his hand from her back, moving it round within touching distance of her arm.

"Hows Matthew and Emily? Still keeping you busy?" Charles asked, trying to ease the sexual tension that was hanging in the air that he was sure Molly could sense too.

"Yeah, they're okay. Matthew's all about his Xbox and cars at the minute. David, his Dad's trying to get him into football but he's more interested in getting the latest car games. He's a nice kid though and Emily's just Emily really. Absolutely loving the colours pink and red at the moment and we're going through a real Barbie phase. She's always drawing them and I think she's got about 4 or 5 dolls already."

"Dolls I know nothing about but however cars on the other hand I do know something about. You should invite Matthew and David over to the racetrack one day and I'll show them round the development hangar where we've got the latest models at the moment waiting to be tested". Charles suggested. "You could come as well, if you fancied it?"

"Well they would love that but I don't know about me. I don't know the first thing about cars. If there's a coffee shop I'll sit and watch you all show off who knows the most if you want?" Molly giggled.

"There may be a few garden chairs, a Thermos flask and a plate of plain digestive biscuits on the field. They don't really do coffee shops there. " Charles replied smiling. Molly, noticing as Charles spoke, that his left arm was holding onto the rail above Molly's head meaning he was leaning very close to her. "But of course if you're up for that, I'll have to take you for a proper coffee first. Show you that I'm not a total skinflint making you sit on garden chairs." Charles smirked and Molly could see his tongue rolling behind his bottom teeth when he opened his mouth.

"Maybe I will. But I'll want a better biscuit than plain digestive mind, if it's a proper coffee shop we're going to. I'm talking at least a Rocky Road biscuit" Molly said smiling and giggling slightly.

"Okay I think I can stretch to that. How about Thursday night? You finish work at 8. I can meet you at the coffee shop in Harpenden when you get off the train at about 8:30. There's a new one just opened. Unless you would be in a rush to get home?"

"Okay, you're on." Molly replied, as she realised she was biting her own bottom lip. "No I wouldn't be in a rush to get home at all."

"Good then, it's a date." Charles said softly, looking deeply into Molly's eyes.

"Seems like it is" Molly replied, but subconsciously she needed to know more about Rebecca before she would allow herself to think romantically about Charles and being on a date with him. However, it was only right, she decided, that she continued with the fantasies of him.

They both stood there in silence while they looked into each other's eyes. They hoped they knew what the other must be feeling looking at each other like this but it was too soon to say. Their intense looks were interrupted by the voice coming over the loudspeaker stating loudly that they were 5 minutes from King's Cross.

Thursday at 8:30pm

Molly's heart felt like it could burst out of her chest, she was so nervous and excited. The semi-mysterious person, who she admitted she didn't know too much about, was only 5 minutes away and she thought how she felt was like something out of one of those romantic novels.

She got changed at work into a knee length short sleeved black dress and it had diamante detailing on the sleeves and at the bottom of the dress. Her hair was down and had loose curls cascading around her shoulders. She also wore black strappy sandals with also a diamante detailing at the front to match her dress. She had just got out of the train and walked through the station foyer area. She crossed the road immediately seeing the coffee shop in front of her. It was designed in an old fashioned 1940's style and looked to be pretty full. Molly took a deep breath as she saw Charles inside waiting for her. He walked over from the table inside and opened the door for her.

"You look beautiful." Charles beamed and took her hand gently as a guided her inside.

Molly couldn't remember ever feeling as happy as she did now.

A/N. So sorry to end right when the first proper meeting's just started (I won't call it a date yet from Molly's POV as Molly needs to find out more about Rebecca) but the chapter seemed quite long and I thought I'd stop there for the moment before things get too involved at the Cafe. Let's see how the evening continues in the next chapter. Thank you so much for the lovely reviews. They mean so much especially for a first time writer like me. xx