Read Online 44 Charles Street by Danielle Steel - Free Book Online

made Francesca wonder if she needed to set some kind of guidelines about bringing people to the house, but realized she had no right to do that. She was her landlady, not the resident adviser in a girls’ dorm, or her mother. They were both adults with their own lives, and who Eileen brought home was going to be her business, not Francesca’s. So she didn’t say anything. She just went back upstairs munching on her apple, and left Eileen alone to her pursuits. If she met men on the Internet, it was up to her, whether it seemed wise to Francesca or not. All she knew was that it wasn’t for her.
    Francesca hadn’t even thought of dating till then, and didn’t want to yet. She wasn’t ready. Eileen was full of life, and trying to meet people in a new city. Francesca was older and more cautious. Online matchmaking services had no appeal to her whatsoever. If she met a man, it was going to have to be the old-fashioned way, through friends, or at some kind of social gathering, or at the gallery. But she didn’t even want to meet a man right now, nor start dating. She didn’t have time anyway, and the only thing she wanted to find online were two more tenants.
    It finally happened two weeks later, in mid-January. She got a response from a man who sounded sane. He said he was a graphic designer who worked from home a lot of the time, traveled occasionally for business, said he was solvent, and was looking for a setup like the one she was offering. He said he was recently divorced, had no furniture, and needed a bedroom and a small study to set up his drafting table and his computer. Her currently unoccupied second floor, where the dining room had been, sounded adequate for him. They made an appointment for him to come and see the house. He mentioned that he was thirty-eight years old, and when he came to meet her, he explained that he had a seven-year-old son who spent alternate weekends with him.
    “Will that be a problem?” he asked, looking worried. He had already come across several similar arrangements, but none was willing to include children. Francesca hesitated for a long moment before she answered and then nodded.
    “I think that’ll be okay, as long as he’s not here all the time.” Two weekends a month didn’t seem like a lot to her, and Chris Harley looked relieved. He was tall, thin, had sandy blond hair, gray eyes, and a serious expression. He was so pale he looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in years. He would have been good-looking if he hadn’t been so somber.
    He said very little to her during their meeting, except his question about his son. He looked at the rooms, seemed satisfied, and said in a quiet subdued voice, “I’ll take it.” He didn’t ooh and ahh the way Eileen had. He said almost nothing. He seemed extremely withdrawn to Francesca, but she didn’t mind that either. This wasn’t a date, they didn’t need to like each other, get to know each other, and become friends. All she needed to know was if he was a responsible person and would pay the rent. This wasn’t romance. And he didn’t look interested in that either. After showing him his rooms, Francesca led him downstairs to look at the kitchen, and see the garden unit. But he said he liked the one on the second floor better. The garden studio seemed too small to him, and he didn’t need or want to be that close to the kitchen. He offered to purchase furniture for the bedroom, which was fine with her.
    Eileen was in the kitchen when they went down to see it, and she was on the computer again, as she was a lot of the time, not just looking for potential dates, but usually doing e-mail. She looked up and smiled when she saw Chris. As she told Francesca later, he was “cute.” Eileen was beginning to seem a little boy crazy to Francesca. She went out a lot at night, but none of her potential suitors had come to the house or been a problem for Francesca. Chris Harley seemed like an excellent tenant, although she didn’t know