The Tycoon's Instant Family
Caroline Anderson
One boss–two kids–and a baby!When wickedly handsome business tycoon Nick Barron recruits Georgie Cauldwell to work for him he also ends up saving her shattered heart. They spend a few gorgeously romantic weeks together. But just when Georgie thinks she has finally found happiness…Nick disappears!When he returns, as suddenly as he vanished, it is with two young children in tow and a tiny baby cradled in his arms. Experience tells Georgie she shouldn't fall in love with a man with a family. But there's something about Nick and his babies that Georgie doesn't have the power to resist…
“It’s a beautiful night, and I want to go up into the tower with you and look at the moonlight on the sea, and just be alone with you.”
Georgie’s heart bumped against her ribs. She didn’t reply, just slipped her hand over Nick’s and squeezed gently.
It was enough. She unlocked the house, and he took her by the hand and led her up the carpeted stairs to the room at the top. And there in the moonlight they sat on the windowsill, staring out over the smooth, lazy swell of the sea, their fingers entwined.
Her fingers tightened on his. “I love you,” her mouth said, and her heart joined in the desperate protests from her feeble mind. Oh, damn, why had she said that?
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “I couldn’t have got through tonight without you. Thank you for being there for me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and wondered how long it would be before she came to regret those three little words that she’d never meant to say.
CAROLINE ANDERSON
has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, has run her own soft-furnishing business and now she’s settled on writing. She says, “I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realized it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband, John, and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!”
The Tycoon’s Instant Family
Caroline Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE (#u41d1ad03-e5a9-50ae-9e84-7e18fca19741)
CHAPTER ONE (#u786f58ee-e9ec-5f82-9f32-dd7a398b2e99)
CHAPTER TWO (#u257a3de8-311e-5be8-aeec-3e17b6f35fbd)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
‘GIVE me one good reason why I should help you.’
The man sitting in front of him gave a tiny, helpless shrug. He was a proud man at the end of his rope, and it gave Nick no pleasure to push him, but he needed to get to the bottom of this request, and pussy-footing around wouldn’t cut the mustard.
‘Mr Broomfield?’
Another little shrug. ‘I can’t—I can’t give you a reason. I don’t even know why I’m here—’
‘So why did you come to me?’
‘Gerry told me to. Gerry Burrows—you helped him out last year.’
‘I remember. We bought his company.’
‘Oh, you did more than that. You saved his life. He was suicidal and his wife was on the point of leaving him, and you turned his life around.’
And this man looked in need of the same kind of rescue package. Nick shifted in his chair and wondered how many more desperate friends Gerry Burrows had. One at a time, he told himself wearily. Surely there couldn’t be that many?
‘Gerry Burrows had a business worth buying. As yet I know nothing about you or your business, or even what you want from me, so why don’t you start there and tell me what exactly you have in mind?’
Andrew Broomfield’s laugh was bitter and self-deprecating. ‘I haven’t even thought that far—’
‘Then perhaps you should. If I’m going to help you, Mr Broomfield, I need a reason.’
‘There is no good reason. Only a lunatic would consider it.’ His laugh cracked in the middle. ‘We buy and sell bankrupt stock, of all things. It was doing really well, but then we overstretched ourselves, bought several shops so we could open retail outlets, and things went from bad to worse, really. They’re all mortgaged to the hilt, and our only real asset is draining so much cash it’s brought us to the brink. It was meant to save us, but it’s taking us under. We can’t go on—and if I can’t find someone to intervene, then I guess the receivers will.’
‘It might be the best thing.’
‘No.’ He closed his eyes, his head shaking slowly from side to side. ‘For me, yes, it’s what I deserve, but my wife’s pregnant, and we’ve just been told the baby’s got something wrong with him and he’ll need a whole series of operations, starting as soon as he’s born. She has no idea the business is in trouble, and I can’t do that to her—make her homeless just before the baby’s born, with all we’ve got to face there, but I just can’t see any way out of it—’
Oh, hell. He’d just hit on the one thing calculated to get to Nick, but curiously it didn’t look calculated. It looked as if it came from the heart.
‘Homeless?’ he prompted.
Broomfield nodded miserably. ‘I put the house up as security, like an idiot. It’s nothing special—just an ordinary little three-bedroomed detached house like millions of others and a drop in the ocean compared to our other debts, but it’s home, and I can’t take that away from her—’
Nick sat back, twiddling a pen in his fingertips and watching the man struggle with his emotions. God, he was getting soft in his old age. He knew he was only going through the motions here, knew he’d help Broomfield even though he didn’t know him from Adam and shouldn’t care a jot about his pregnant wife or the sick baby or the mess he’d got them in.
He stuck to the facts. ‘Tell me about this asset.’
The man shrugged again. ‘It’s just a building site—a tatty, near-derelict old school with a disused chapel and other bits and pieces, and a handful of temporary classrooms scattered about the site. I bought it a few years ago and sat on it, and last year we got planning permission for conversion and a small development on the playing fields. We should have sold it then, but—well, I thought we’d make more if we developed it ourselves, but I underestimated the cost of the work. Drastically.’
‘So you’ve started doing it.’
‘Yes, but we’ve just run out of money. We put the builder on a penalty clause to move things along faster, but we can’t afford to pay him and so everything’s come to a grinding halt. I’ve bought us a little time, managed to stop him walking out, but only because we owe them so much they won’t walk until they get their money.’
‘How much are we talking about?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m not sure—thousands. Hundreds of thousands, probably.’
Nick nodded, wondering how he could have got into so much debt and not know the figure. Presumably that was how. ‘And the other debts, on your business?’
He shrugged again. ‘The same—more, perhaps. The business is in real trouble, but if you knew what you were doing you might get something out of it, and if you could sell the shops they might almost clear the mortgage debt, but it would take time and that’s one thing we haven’t got. It’s only really the site that’s of significant value, and that’s only potential. Frankly at the moment it’s worth less than it was when we started.’
Nick’s entrepreneurial antennae twitched. Potential was one of his favourite words, and another one was honesty. Nobody could accuse Broomfield of trying to cover anything up. He was being distressingly honest at his own expense, but for Nick, at least, it worked. To a point.
‘OK. I’ll try and find time to go and see the site when I get back from New York in a few days—and in the meantime I want exact figures on the business, the mortgages and the property portfolio. If they stack up, we’ll talk again.’
‘If I could just keep my house—’
‘I’m not making any promises. I’m not in this for charity, Mr Broomfield—but I’ll do what I can.’
‘Do you know what you’re buying?’
Nick shrugged off his jacket, dropped into the big leather chair behind his desk and studied the incredulous face of his PA for a moment before he sat back, twiddling his pen.
‘Want to give me a clue what you’re talking about?’
Tory sighed and plonked herself down in the chair opposite, rolling her eyes. ‘The Broomfield deal—the building site?’
He scrunched his brows together, racking his brains and trying to dredge up something—anything!—that would have put that look on Tory’s face. ‘What about it?’ he said. ‘Some scruffy old school buildings, he said. Nothing great. Potential, I think was the word—’
‘Nothing great?’ Tory snorted and waggled a fat manila folder at him. ‘I take it you haven’t looked at the plans I carefully faxed you?’
Nick grinned. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he confessed.
‘I thought so. The scruffy old school buildings are a rather fine Victorian house in the style of an Italianate villa, with a coach house, chapel, stable block et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. With a couple of acres of playing fields. OK, there are some tatty old temporary classrooms and some other bits from the days when it was a school that need demolishing, but that’s all and they may already have gone. The rest is a gem. For goodness’ sake, it’s prime real estate, on a seafront site in a prime residential area of Yoxburgh, in Suffolk. You might at least look a bit interested.’
He sat up straighter. He knew Yoxburgh—he’d spent days there as a child, playing on the beach, and his mother lived only twenty or so miles from it now. ‘You said plans,’ he reminded Tory, eyeing the folder thoughtfully.
‘Oh, yes. Detailed planning permission for conversion to apartments and town houses, and the erection of several more dwellings on the site. Nothing very inspired for the most part, but it’s a gold mine, for all that, and it’s about to be yours, if you’ve got any sense.’
A little flicker of something that might have been excitement stirred his senses. ‘Do we know anything about the builder?’
‘Yup—local contractor by the name of George Cauldwell. He’s got an excellent reputation, apparently. I checked him out. Been in the business for years and I couldn’t find a whiff of an unsatisfied customer. It should be an interesting little development if it’s as successful as his others—and it could be worth a tidy fortune. Someone’s been very, very sloppy—or they have no idea what they’re sitting on.’
‘Desperate, I think is the word.’ He thought of Andrew Broomfield, living with his pregnant wife in a little house on the brink of repossession and with a medical crisis looming for the baby, and felt a sense of relief that maybe, just maybe, they’d come out of this smelling of roses. Sort of. Certainly from what he’d seen of the figures the business itself wouldn’t be worth anything like what it would cost to clear the debts, so the building site had to be pretty fantastic to justify his altruistic gesture.
And if the look on Tory’s face was anything to go by…
He gestured to the bulging folder. ‘Are those the plans, by any chance?’
The folder arrived on his desk, skidding towards him and coming to a halt under his outstretched hand. He flicked through it, unfolding the plans and flattening them out on the desk, the significance of the deal finally sinking in as he scanned the drawings.
He ran his mind over the things he had to do today, the things he could delegate or leave until tomorrow, and refolded the plans, shuffling them back into the folder and getting to his feet. ‘I’m going to have a look—see if I can get a feel for it.’
‘Fine. I’ll schedule a meeting—’
‘No. I’m going now.’
‘But you’ve got lunch booked with Simon Darcy—’
‘You can handle it. Simon adores you—just don’t let him talk you into going to work for him, that’s all I ask. You don’t need me there. I could do with some sea air. I’ll be back later.’
‘I’ll phone them—tell the contractor that you’re coming. They’ve been hounding Andrew Broomfield for money the whole time you were in New York and he’s getting frantic for your answer. He’s running out of lies to tell them, I think, and they’re only a small firm. They’ll be pleased to see you.’
‘No. Don’t warn them. I want to see how this George Cauldwell runs the site before I commit myself. I’d hate you to spoil my surprise.’
Tory opened her mouth, thought better of arguing and shut it again. ‘Fine. Just leave your phone on.’
Not a chance. He’d suddenly realised how bored he was, how dull and repetitive and endless his working life had become. He’d been in New York closing another deal, and he’d had six hours’ sleep in three days. He was tired, he was stifled, and he needed some down time.
And so now, today, just for a while, Nick Barron was slipping the leash.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS deathly quiet on the site.
Well, it would be, Georgie thought philosophically. She’d sent all the workmen home days ago, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t sleep at night for worry, she wouldn’t have been here either, but she had nothing else to do and she’d cleaned the house to within an inch of its life since her father had gone into hospital, so she’d come down to go over the figures—again!—to see if there was a magic trick or two she’d missed.
There wasn’t.
She propped her head on her hands and sighed, staring out over the deserted site to the sea. No magic tricks, no way out, just the bank about to foreclose and her father’s health in ruins.
Not to mention her dreams.
She stood up and pulled on her coat. Sitting here was achieving nothing. She might as well check the buildings, make sure there hadn’t been any vandalism. She reached for the obligatory hard hat and wrinkled her nose. She hated the hat, but rules were rules.
Archie was at her heels, his stubby tail wriggling with enthusiasm, and his cheerful grin made her smile. ‘Come on, then, little man. Let’s go and check it all out.’
She shut the door of the site office, crossed the site in the biting March wind and unlocked the side door of the main house—the door that, without an unprecedented stroke of luck, would never now become her front door.
They climbed the stairs together, her footsteps echoing in the emptiness, Archie’s toenails clattering on the wooden treads, and finally they emerged into the room at the top of the big square tower. It wasn’t huge, but it was her eyrie, the room she’d hoped to have as her bedroom, with windows on three sides and the most stunning views over the bay and far out to sea.
It was also the best place to view the site, and she stared down over the mangled earth, the pegged-out footings, the half-finished coach-house conversions, the sanatorium as yet untouched, the chapel almost completely concealed by the trees that had grown up to surround it.
So much to do, so much potential—such a waste. Even if Broomfield came up with the money, the design was inherently flawed and horribly over-developed.
‘In your opinion,’ she reminded herself sternly. ‘You aren’t the only person in the world. Other people are allowed a say.’
Even if they had no vision, no imagination, no—no soul, dammit. She turned away in disgust, and her eye was caught by a lone figure standing on the edge of the lawn below the house, staring out over the sea.
‘Who’s that, Arch?’ she murmured, and the dog, picking up on her sudden stillness, flew down the stairs and out of the door, racing off across the site, barking his head off.
Rats. The last thing—absolutely the last thing—Georgie needed this morning was a visitor. She’d got yet more phone calls to make, because unless she could screw some kind of sensible answer out of Andrew Broomfield by the end of the day, the bank was going to take them to the cleaners.
Big time.
And now, she realised, running down the stairs after the dog, she had some random stranger wandering around all over her site, uninvited and unannounced, and the place was a minefield. The last thing—the other last thing, in fact—that she needed at the moment was someone slapping a lawsuit on her because he’d tripped over a brick!
‘Archie! Come here!’ she yelled, but the wind caught her voice and anyway, Archie had better things to do. The little terrier was on his back, legs in the air, having the tummy-tickle of his life, and obedience wasn’t remotely on his agenda. Knowing when she was beaten, she switched her attention to the man. Maybe she’d have more luck there.
‘Excuse me!’
He straightened up, to Archie’s disappointment, and turned towards her, his expression concealed by the wrap-around designer sunglasses shielding his eyes. They didn’t hide the smile, though, and her heart did a crazy little flip-flop in response.
‘Good morning.’
Oh, lord, his voice was like rough silk, and her heart skittered again.
‘Morning.’
It was the only word she could manage. She took the last two strides across the mangled drive, scrambled up beside him on the lawn and tilted back her head, one hand clamped firmly on her hard hat.
He towered over her—not that that was hard. If only he’d been on the drive, she could have positioned herself above him on the lawn; even that slight advantage would have helped, she thought, but then he peeled off the sunglasses and she found herself staring up into eyes the colour of rain-washed slate, and her breath jammed in her throat.
No. Flat on his back he’d still have the advantage. There was just something about him, something very male and confident and self-assured that dried up her mouth and made her legs turn to jelly.
If he was a representative of the bank she was stuffed. The last man they’d sent from the bank had been small and mild and ineffectual and she’d managed to bamboozle him with one hand tied behind her back.
Not this one, in his soft, battered leather jacket and designer jeans, with his searching eyes and uncompromising jaw. This one was a real handful. Well, tough. So was she, and she had more riding on it. If he was from the bank, she’d take him by the scruff of the neck and show him exactly why they needed so much money—and he’d listen. She wouldn’t give him a choice.
Anyway, he couldn’t be all bad, because Archie was standing on his back legs, filthy front paws propped up on that expensively clad thigh, his tail going nineteen to the dozen as he licked furiously at the hand dangling conveniently in range, the fingers tickling him still.
There was a possibility, of course, that he could just be an idly curious member of the public. She straightened her shoulders, slapped her leg for the dog and sucked in a breath.
‘Can I help you? Archie, come here!’
‘I don’t know yet. I was just having a look round—getting a feel for it.’
The tension eased, replaced instantly by irritation. The idly curious were the bane of her life, and this one was no exception. Even with those gorgeous eyes.
No. Forget the eyes. ‘I’m sorry, you can’t just look round without reporting to the site office,’ she told him firmly. ‘Archie, here! Now! There’s a sign there forbidding people to walk about the site without authority. Visitors must report to the site office on the way in. You can’t just crawl about all over it, it’s dangerous—!’
‘Don’t tell me—you’re the health and safety official,’ he said, that beautifully sculptured mouth twitching with laughter, and she felt her brows climb with her temper.
‘No—I’m the site agent, and I’m getting heartily sick of people wandering about on my site as if they own it! Why is it that everybody treats building sites as public open spaces?’ she continued, warming up to her pet hate. ‘This is private property, and if you refuse to follow procedures, I’ll have no alternative but to ask you to leave—’
‘That may be a little hasty,’ he said softly.
‘You think so?’ She raked him with her eyes, then met that cool, steely blue gaze again with mounting anger. ‘Well, I’m sorry, we don’t need you suing us, so if you won’t comply with site rules, you’ll give me no choice but to ask you to leave my site before you hurt yourself.’
‘Your site?’ His voice was mocking, and she had to struggle with the urge to hit him.
‘That’s right,’ she retorted, hanging on to her temper with difficulty. ‘Mine. Now, are you going to do this the easy way, or am I going to call the police?’
His head shook slowly from side to side, and the smile which had long faded was replaced by a slow, simmering anger that more than matched her own. ‘Oh, I’m going nowhere. You might be, though, and hopefully taking your dog with you before he licks me to death. Now, I’m going to have a look around, and while I do that, perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell George Cauldwell I’m looking for him. Although I’m beginning to think I may have very little to say to him. The name’s Barron, by the way. Nick Barron.’
Uh-oh. The name meant nothing to her, but it was obviously supposed to and she was beginning to get a sinking feeling about this man. If he was looking for her father, then he might well be someone from the bank, although his jeans and leather jacket made that seem unlikely, but if not the bank, then who…?
‘He’s not here,’ she told him. ‘Are you from the bank?’
‘Not exactly. Will he be back today?’
Not exactly? What did that mean? She shook her head. ‘No. I’m his daughter, Georgia,’ she said warily. ‘I’m in charge while he’s—away.’
‘In which case, since you claim to be in charge, perhaps you’ll be good enough, in your father’s absence, to give me a guided tour of the whole development. If I’m going to be foolish enough to proceed with the purchase, I want to see every last square inch. In triplicate.’
The purchase? The whole development?
Oh, lord, what had she done? This project was the biggest development her father had ever taken on, and standing in front of her was the man who had the power to make or break them. And she’d just threatened him with the police!
Fantastic. For the last two months they’d been throwing money into the site, forging ahead with the conversions and making a start on the new builds, and all the time waiting for instructions and—most importantly—funds. They’d been trying to get to the point of another stage payment, but all the way along they’d been delayed by a lack of detail in the specifications. Although Broomfield’s company seemed big on ideas, they were miserably short on detail, and the devil, in this case, was certainly in the detail. With the clock running on the penalty clause, it was debatable whose fault it would be.
And now the man who could have been the answer to her prayers was right here in front of her, and if she hadn’t already screwed up totally, she wasn’t going to let him leave until she’d had a chance to put their side of it and hopefully secure his promise to clear their debts, at the very least.
But her first move had better be an apology—a good one. She forced herself to meet his eyes and her heart sank. He was clearly running out of patience, and his eyes were sceptical and filled with doubts—doubts she had to get rid of at all costs.
‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t been told anything about a buy-out,’ she confessed. ‘My father’s been in hospital for nearly two weeks, and I’ve been dealing with Andrew Broomfield—or trying to. He’s been avoiding me.’
‘I wonder why?’ he murmured.
She swallowed her pride. The first apology obviously hadn’t worked. She’d have to try harder, and she forced herself to hold his eyes.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I was really rude, I apologise. I’m not normally like this, but I thought you were just being nosy, so I took it out on you. We’ve had some vandalism and thefts on the site, so I’m a bit edgy when I’m here on my own—’
‘I look like a vandal?’
No, she thought, you look like an avenging angel, and this is going from bad to worse. She shook her head, closing her eyes and wondering if he’d still be there when she opened them.
He was. Damn. She tried again. ‘No, of course you don’t, but it’s been a rough day so far and I wasn’t thinking. Can we start again?’
For a moment he just studied her, then his face softened almost imperceptibly. ‘Sounds like it’s been a rough month.’
She laughed a little hysterically. ‘You could say that. Look, I’m really sorry. I had no idea you were taking it over, Andrew’s been really cagey recently. Of course you can see the site, I’d be delighted to show you round, but I do need to get you kitted out with a hard hat and you need to sign in, and maybe while we do that I can answer some of your questions.’
‘It sounds like you have more questions than I do.’
She gave a wry, slightly bitter laugh. ‘Only one that matters, and I guess that’ll have to wait. We’re owed a stage payment, and the bank’s beginning to get edgy. And I’ve just hit a brick wall with Andrew. Yesterday I got some garbled message about money in the pipeline, but nothing I can take to the bank.’
His lips tightened. ‘That may be my fault. I’ve been out of the country and I haven’t given him an answer yet.’
‘And I’ve done my best to put you off,’ she said heavily. ‘Oh, God, what a mess. I’ve sent the men home with nothing to do and I was going to have to lay them off at the end of the week because I couldn’t give them any instructions—’
‘I’m sorry.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, I’m sorry—that it’s been so difficult for you. I would have come sooner, but I’ve been in New York. I had them fax me the details of the deal when they came through, but to be honest I had no idea it was such a big site. We’ve acquired it as part of a company takeover, and I only saw the site plans this morning. Maybe I can give you some answers now, if you can spare me the time?’
She stared at him. She’d been that rude and he was apologising? ‘Of course.’ She nodded, but she didn’t really have any time, because she had things to do—not least getting back to the bank with this latest bit of news—once she had worked out what the news was! She checked her watch. ‘I can give you half an hour but I’ve got phone calls I have to make today, and footings that need to be marked out if I’m not going to get behind schedule,’ she said, but he shook his head.
‘No footings—and if you want this contract you can give me as long as I need, Ms Cauldwell. I don’t want another brick laid or footing dug until I OK it. You can make your phone calls, but that’s all. The rest of the day I want—and if I’m happy with what I hear, you get to keep the contract. If I’m not, you’re out. Either way, there are going to be changes.’
She opened her mouth, shut it again and shook her head. Lord, it got worse, not better! ‘I’ll make sure you’re happy, but I have to point out we’re on a penalty clause—’
‘Not if I stop you working. That would be unfair. Anyway, I don’t believe in penalty clauses, not if you trust your workforce. They shouldn’t be necessary.’
Her jaw sagged again. ‘Can I have that in writing?’
And to her utter amazement, he laughed. It changed his face completely, softening the harsh lines and crinkling the corners of his eyes and making them dance. And his mouth—that slow, lazy kick to one corner—
‘By all means. Perhaps we could start again?’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Nick Barron. It’s good to meet you, Ms Cauldwell.’
‘Please, call me Georgie,’ she said, putting her hand in his and wishing, just wishing she’d remembered to drown it in handcream that morning.
And then she forgot everything except the firm, hard grip of his hand, the warmth of his fingers and the sense of loss as he let it go.
‘Right. I suppose you’re going to want me to put on one of those silly hats and wear a badge that says Visitor or something.’
‘Something like that,’ she said, her heart pitter-pattering at his smile and completely forgetting that only a few minutes ago she’d been ready to kick him off the site! Well, she’d got one more chance with him, one last chance to sort out this sorry mess and emerge from it with her father’s dignity and business intact, and she had no intention of blowing it.
She straightened her shoulders, threw him a dazzling smile and gestured towards the site office. ‘Right, let’s go and get you kitted out and then we can start.’
It was amazing.
Nick stood on what in better days might have been a lawn, looking out over the sea and listening to the waves crashing onto the beach below. They were pounding the rocks of the sea defences, sending up great plumes of spray high over the prom, and the cold salt-laden wind was tugging at his hair and making him feel alive.
He laughed, just with the sheer exhilaration of the moment, and turned to Georgie, to find her watching him with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘What is it?’
‘You love it too—the sea,’ she said slowly, as if it really meant something to her, and he nodded.
‘Especially at this time of year, when it’s wild and windy and untamed.’
She turned and stared out over the pounding waves, and a little shiver ran over her. ‘It scares me, but I can’t live without it. It’s dangerous and deceptive and wonderful and powerful and I wouldn’t live anywhere else if you paid me.’
‘So where do you live?’
She gave a rueful laugh. ‘In my father’s house in Yoxburgh at the moment, but it’s only temporary. I’m going to buy one of these when they’re finished. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to help.’
Turning his back on the sea, he returned his attention to the site, studying it and trying to get a feel for it, and he began to think Tory might be right to be so excited.
A once-lovely Victorian house sat at the top of the slope, majestic in a rather shabby-chic kind of way, with bay windows and French doors facing the sea, and because of the curve of the bay they’d catch the sun all afternoon. He swivelled. The plot ended at a high retaining wall that held the garden back above the under-cliff road. The wall was about waist high on the inside of the garden, but well over head high on the other side, giving privacy without interfering with the view.
And the view from all the rooms must be spectacular, he realised, studying it again, but as if that wasn’t enough, there was a square three-storey tower at the right-hand end, soaring up over the roof level of the main house, and the room at the top had windows on three sides.
It would make a fantastic look-out, a perfect place to sit and watch the ships going in and out of Felixstowe and Harwich further down the coast. There would be yachts, as well, and dinghies. He hadn’t been here for years, but he’d been brought up only thirty or so miles away and he knew from day trips in his youth that it was a popular spot for sailors. He could picture the races that would take place in the summer, hear the children playing on the beach below, dogs chasing sticks into the sea—
And he was a romantic fool.
‘Can we get into the house?’
‘Sure. It’s a mess—we’ve started stripping it out, so you have to look where you’re going—’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t sue you. I’m a firm believer in people making their own mistakes and taking responsibility for their own actions. The litigation culture we’re all getting into makes me livid. Whatever happened to common sense?’
Georgie snorted. ‘Tell it to my father’s insurers. They’d have hysterics if they could hear you talking.’
‘No, they’d probably agree with me—or their underwriters would.’
She laughed. ‘Maybe. Come on, we’ll go in this way.’
They went in through an open door at the bottom of the tower, their footsteps echoing in the empty rooms, loud on the bare boards, and he tried to concentrate on the building, but the pint-sized fireball beside him was demanding his attention in ways he hadn’t expected at all, and he was utterly distracted.
At first glance he’d mistaken her for a girl, but in here, without the sun in his eyes, he could see she was all woman. Not that the women he usually associated with would appreciate her charms. Oh, no. There was no urbane sophistication, no glitter and glamour and not a designer label in sight, but this small, energetic woman was so vitally alive she’d put all of them in the shade.
‘So what are the plans for this building?’ he asked, dragging his mind off the subtle curves he could barely make out under her oh-so-sexy luminous jacket.
‘Two apartments in the original house, and a small town house at this end with the tower, and then the extension is destined to be four more apartments. Come, I’ll show you. The tower’s wonderful.’
It was. It was everything he’d imagined and, as he’d thought, the view from the room at the top was spectacular. It was nearly as spectacular from all the principle rooms at the front of the house, as well, but as his guide took them down a corridor and into the rear extension it took a serious downturn.
This bit of the building was a much later addition, a dull rabbit-warren, the rooms small and uninteresting and not a patch on the front. He was much more interested in studying the way her hips swayed, the way she tossed her hair out of her eyes, and he could tell she wasn’t interested in this part of the building either. This whole later addition to the house needed flattening, frankly, and he couldn’t believe they weren’t going to do that.
‘Who’s the architect?’ he asked, cutting across a stream of facts that left him cold.
‘Oh. Um—a man my father’s never worked with before. He’s a friend of Andrew Broomfield’s, I believe.’
Nick nodded. That made sense. Another bad decision, taking on a friend to save money and ending up with a design without vision, cramming in as much profit-making potential as possible and losing the plot in the process.
‘Can you go over the plans with me?’
‘Of course. If you’re very good, I might even conjure up a cup of tea.’
‘Oh, I’m good,’ he murmured without thinking, and she looked away, but not before he saw her eyes widen and soft colour touch her cheeks.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said under her breath, and then, turning on her heel, she clomped out of the building in her ridiculous boots and vile yellow jacket, the little dog at her heels, and he followed her across the messy, stony site to the tin shed she called her office, feeling more alive than he had in years…
‘You mentioned a phone call,’ he said, and she wondered if she should tell him just how close the bank was to pulling the plug, or if she should spend a little more time getting him on-side and see if she could sweet-talk the bank for another day.
No. The time for that was over. ‘The bank,’ she said, and he nodded slowly and folded his arms, propping his long, beautifully proportioned body back against the wall and regarding her thoughtfully.
‘Are they pressing you very hard?’
She nodded. ‘We’ve had to pay bills and wages. Andrew said the money was coming—’
‘But it hasn’t, and you’re in the doo-doo?’
She felt her lips twitch. ‘You could say that. They’ve given me until close of business today.’
‘How much?’
‘Pardon?’
‘How much do you need now to get them off your backs and enable you to clear existing debts?’
She sat down at her desk a little abruptly. Was he seriously going to write her out a cheque for thousands of pounds just like that?
‘A lot,’ she said bluntly. She pulled the figures towards her, did a few calculations and turned, to find he was looking over her shoulder at the calculator.
‘Is that it?’
‘Roughly. For now,’ she said, and he nodded.
‘I’ll round it up a bit, give you some working capital and a bit of breathing room.’
She felt her jaw start to sag. ‘But I thought you were going to decide if we were to complete the build—’
‘I just did.’ He punched buttons on his mobile, spoke briefly to someone called Tory and handed her the phone. ‘My PA. Give her the details of your bank account,’ he instructed. ‘She’ll get the money moved before close of business today.’
She could hardly speak for relief. Her father was lying in hospital waiting for open-heart surgery, worrying himself senseless, the workforce had been fantastic but they were running out of patience, the bank had done all and more that could be expected of them, and she hadn’t drawn any salary for weeks.
With tears threatening, she gave Tory the details she needed, handed back the phone and stared hard out of the window.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and sucked in a huge breath. It was meant to steady her, but it turned into a sob, and after a moment of stunned silence he propped his hips on the desk beside her, pulled her head against his chest and rubbed her back gently.
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ he murmured.
She fought it for a moment, but the scent of his aftershave and the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart were too much for her, and she gave in and let him hold her as the tension of the last few weeks freed itself in a storm of tears the like of which she hadn’t cried since her mother died.
Then, suddenly overcome by embarrassment, she pushed away, stood up and went outside, pausing on the steps and staring at the sea while she sucked in great lungfuls of the wild, salty air and felt it fill her soul.
It was going to be all right. It was. With Nick Barron on board, maybe the project would succeed after all and her father’s whole career wouldn’t go down the pan…
A tissue arrived in her hand, and she blew her nose vigorously and scrubbed her cheeks on the back of her hand. It was going to be all right. She wanted to scream it out loud, to run into the sea yelling it to the gulls screeching overhead—
‘Would this be a good time for that tea?’ he murmured.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ she said, turning to him with a smile that wouldn’t be held down any longer. ‘There’s a café round the corner—nothing fancy, no barista making designer bevvies, just good, strong filter coffee and the best BLT baguettes in the world. I reckon I owe you that at least—and I haven’t had breakfast yet.’
‘It’s ten to twelve.’
‘I know. My stomach’s well aware.’
He grinned, dumped his hard hat on the desk and held out his hand towards the door.
‘In that case, what are we waiting for?’
CHAPTER TWO
SHE WAS right. Good strong coffee, a glorious view—and Georgie.
She’d changed out of the dreadful rigger boots and put on a rather less blinding jacket, and suddenly she was just a pretty young woman with black smudges of exhaustion under her red-rimmed and fabulous green-gold eyes.
They’d ordered two of her BLT baguettes, and while they were cooking the waitress had brought them their coffee. He took his black, but Georgie had poured the whole pot of cream into hers, and now her hands were cradling her cup almost reverently and her nose was buried in it, savouring the aroma with almost tangible pleasure. He watched her inhale and sigh, a contented smile playing over her lips.
‘Gorgeous,’ she said, and he couldn’t have agreed more.
‘Talk to me about the plans,’ he said, dragging his attention from the full, soft lips and hoping his confidence in her father’s firm didn’t prove misplaced.
Her nose wrinkled up. ‘What about them?’
‘What do you think of them?’
She met his eyes thoughtfully, then shrugged, the little snub nose wrinkling again. ‘Too dense. Too pedestrian. The architect is dull as ditchwater.’
‘So what would you have done?’
‘Employed a better architect?’
‘Such as?’
She shrugged and laughed. ‘Me?’
That stopped him in his tracks. ‘You’re an architect?’
‘Uh-huh—and before you ask, I am old enough.’
He felt a twinge of guilt, and winced apologetically. ‘Sorry. I guess I had that coming to me. So tell me, why are you running your father’s site?’
‘Hobson’s choice. He collapsed, and I was—what is it they say in the acting world?—resting. Between roles. Actually I was taking time out and thinking about my future, and thus available at zero notice. He needs a triple bypass, and he’s in Ipswich Hospital waiting to be transferred to Papworth for the operation. I’m sure it was worry as much as anything that pushed him over the edge in the end. This project’s been nothing but trouble since it started. Rubbish specification, no answers, nobody in control, nobody taking responsibility, but they put us on a hefty penalty clause because they thought it would speed things up.’
‘Because they needed results fast to bail them out.’
She shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t have worked. The design’s awful—the planners passed it, but I don’t think they were happy. It’s just a series of boxes. As it stands, even with the view, I don’t think the individual units on the site will sell well at all. They don’t deserve to.’
‘So what would you do differently?’ he asked, getting back to his original question. ‘You must have given it some thought.’
She laughed again, the sound sending heat snaking through his veins. ‘Endless, but none of it really formulated.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said, forcing himself to concentrate. ‘Just think out loud.’
‘Now? Really?’
‘Now. Really.’
She tipped her head on one side and grinned, and those gold flecks in her eyes sparkled with an enthusiasm that was infectious. ‘Halve it,’ she said. ‘Far fewer houses, much better quality, and get rid of that hideous extension for starters. It needs a wrecking ball through it. Here—I can’t describe it, I need to show you.’ Grabbing a napkin, she rummaged in her pocket, and he held out a pen.
She flashed him a smile as infectious as her enthusiasm, and started to doodle and talk at the same time, and as she did so he found himself smiling. She was amazing. A tiny powerhouse, full of clever and interesting ideas, a lateral thinker.
And gorgeous. Utterly, utterly gorgeous.
Cradling his coffee in one hand, Nick hunched over her doodles and found himself totally distracted by the tantalising smell of shampoo drifting from her softy, glossy hair. Pretty hair. Nothing remarkable, just a light mid-brown but subtle rather than dull, threaded with fine highlights in palest gold and silver and swinging forwards as she bent her head, the blunt cut just above her shoulders giving it freedom.
Absently, she tucked it behind her ear and a strand escaped, sliding free and hanging tantalisingly close to his hand. His fingers itched to sift it, to see if it was really as soft and as sleek as it seemed, and it took a real effort to lean back, to shift away from her a little and force himself to watch the swift, decisive movements of the pen and see her vision take shape.
And then, once he’d managed to concentrate, he was riveted.
‘It’s all going to be OK, Dad.’
Her father’s brows furrowed. ‘But I don’t understand—where did he come from?’
She laughed. ‘I don’t know—heaven, maybe? I wasn’t going to question him too deeply. He’s put money into the account, and I’ve checked with the bank and it’s certainly there. We’re even in the black.’
The furrows deepened. ‘So what’s the catch?’
‘No catch. He’s buying Andrew out, for whatever reason, and we’re now dealing with him. And he hates the plans, and wants me to come up with some other ideas. He’s put everything on hold—’
‘But the penalty clause—’
‘Gone. He’s deleted it—doesn’t believe in them. Dad, it’s OK. Truly. Trust me.’
His eyes searched her face for any sign of a lie, but for once there wasn’t one, not even a tiny white one, and with a great sigh he lay back against the pillows, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, an unexpected tear oozing out from under one eyelid and sliding down his grizzled cheek. ‘I really didn’t think we’d get out of this one. I’m not sure I believe it.’
Georgie could understand that. She was still having trouble coming to terms with it herself.
‘Believe it,’ she told him firmly, and bent over to kiss the tear away, a lump in her throat. ‘You just concentrate on getting better and leave it to me. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
His eyes flickered open. ‘You going already?’
‘I’ve got work to do—plans to draw.’
He held her eyes for a while, then smiled and patted her hand. ‘Good girl. You’ve been itching to get at it for weeks. Go and do your best.’
‘I will. Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll do you proud.’
‘You always do,’ he said, his eyes sliding shut again, and with the lump in her throat growing ever bigger, she left him to his rest and went home. The light was blinking on the answering machine, and she pressed the button and a voice flooded the room. Her heart jiggled. Nick.
‘Georgie, tried your mobile but it was off. You were probably at the hospital—hope everything’s OK. Just wondering when we can meet up and go over your ideas. I’m going to be stuck in the office for the next few days, but if you can manage to get down to London in the next day or two we could get together here one evening. I’ve got a spare room, so if it’s easier you can stay the night or I can book you into a hotel, whatever you prefer. Just give me an idea of when—the sooner the better really. I’d like to get this thing underway ASAP.’
Stay the night? Stay the night? Her heart jiggled again, and she pressed the flat of her hand over it and forced herself to breathe. In, out, in, out—
Stay the night?
In the spare room.
‘Keep saying that,’ she advised herself, and, putting the kettle on, she nudged the thermostat on the boiler, grabbed a packet of biscuits and settled down at her drawing board with a cup of tea and a head full of dreams…
‘Nick?’
‘Georgie—how are you?’
All the better for hearing his voice again after twenty-four long, hard hours, but he wasn’t going to know that. ‘Fine. Look, I’ve put some ideas together, but I don’t think there’s any point in going into too much detail until you see what I’ve come up with and I get a better feel for what you’re expecting.’
‘I agree. So are you able to get down here, because I’m really stuck at the moment?’
‘Sure. When?’
‘Any time. My evenings are all free. It’s a bit late tonight; it’s gone six already—how about tomorrow?’
Her heart thumped. ‘Tomorrow?’ she squealed. She’d been hoping for longer to tweak her ideas, but needs must and tomorrow was better than today! She got a grip on her voice. ‘Um—I can do tomorrow, if you’re not too busy—’
‘What sort of time?’
‘I need to see my father—I’ll be able to get the train at about five-thirty, and it’s just over an hour to Liverpool Street. Then however long to get to you from there. Seven-ish?’
‘Great. I’ll meet you at the tube.’ He told her which station to head for. ‘Ring me when you get there,’ he told her. ‘I’ll come straight over. It’ll take me five minutes from when I get your call.’
It took six, and every one of them was endless, but by then Georgie was in such a ferment a second seemed to take an hour and yet the day hadn’t been long enough. She’d gone over the plans again and again, tweaking and fiddling, quickly dropped into the hospital to visit her father and then had to rush through the shower and leave her hair to drip-dry on the train.
So she had a slightly soggy collar on her coat, and as she hovered outside the tube station the March wind whipped up and chilled her to the marrow.
She was scouring the traffic and trying to guess the sort of vehicle he might be driving when a low, sleek sports car growled to a halt beside her and the door swung open. ‘Jump in,’ he said, leaning across with a grin and giving her a tantalising glimpse of his broad, hard chest down the open neck of his shirt, and she slid into the low-slung seat, hugely grateful that common sense had prevailed over vanity and she wasn’t wearing a skirt.
‘Nice car,’ she said, trying not to think about the chest, and his grin widened.
‘It’s my one indulgence,’ he told her, but somehow she didn’t believe him. The man had the air of one who indulged himself just whenever the fancy took him, and she fancied it took him pretty darned often.
‘Buckle up,’ he instructed, and then shot out into the tiniest gap in the traffic with a squeal from the tyres and the sweetest, throatiest exhaust note she’d ever heard. Just the sound was enough to make her knees go weak. That and the fact that it could pull enough Gs to squish her into the leather!
‘I’d love a car like this,’ she said with a sigh, ‘but it would get ruined on a building site and anyway, I’m not a millionaire playboy.’
‘And you think I am?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Fair cop. Guilty on at least one count,’ he chuckled.
‘There you are, then. Anyway, I’d look ridiculous driving it.’
‘I think you’d look gorgeous driving it, but in this traffic it might not be a good idea to try for the first time.’
He shot down the outside of a queue, cut across the lights just as they were changing and whipped into the entrance of an underground car park before she could register their whereabouts. Moments later he was helping her from the seat and ushering her towards the lift, while she wondered if she’d ever master the art of extracting herself from his car without loss of dignity. Not that it would be a perennial problem, she had to accept. Sadly.
He was totally out of her league, light-years away from her in terms of lifestyle and aspirations, and so far the only things they had in common were a love of the sea, and his car.
Oh, and disliking the original plans for the site.
She began to feel more cheerful, and it lasted until he ushered her into the lift, inserted a keycard into a slot and whisked her straight past all the numbered floors. When the display read ‘P’, the door hissed open and she walked out of the lift and stopped dead.
‘Oh, wow,’ she said softly.
All she could see were lights—so many lights that the night was driven back, held at bay by the fantastic spectacle of tower blocks like giant glass bricks stood on end and lit from within, layer upon layer of them, explosions of stardust as far as the eye could see.
She could make out the wheel of the London Eye revolving slowly in the distance with Big Ben beyond, and—oh, more, so many more famous London landmarks stretched out in front of them—Norman Foster’s gerkin, the old Nat West tower, City Hall—with the broad black sweep of the Thames snaking slowly past, so close it must almost brush the foundations.
Wonderful. Magical. Stunning.
For a moment she thought they were on the roof, but then he touched a switch and she realised they were standing in a room, a massive open-plan living space with a sleek kitchen at one end and huge, squashy sofas at the other. Between them, the dining area overlooked the deck and the fantastic view beyond the glass walls. And they really were—acres of glass, almost featureless and all but invisible.
‘Oh, wow,’ she said again, and he smiled, a little crooked smile, almost awkward.
‘I wondered if you’d like it.’
‘I love it,’ she said, running an appreciative hand over the back of a butter-soft brown leather sofa and wondering what on earth she was doing here in this amazing place. ‘I’m surprised. I don’t normally like this kind of thing, I’ve always thought they’re a bit cold and unfriendly, but it just does it so well. And the view!’
‘I bought it for the view. It’s got a three-hundred and sixty degree deck. All the rooms open onto it.’
He touched the switch again and clever, strategic lighting lit up planters full of architectural foliage, artfully placed sculptures and even—
‘Is that a hot tub?’
He pulled a face and nodded. ‘Bit of an indulgence.’
‘I thought the car was your only indulgence?’ she teased, and he laughed.
‘Oh, the tub isn’t an indulgence, it’s purely medicinal. I couldn’t cope without it. After a stressful day at the office or a long flight, it’s just fantastic. And anyway, not many people get to see my apartment so it’s pretty much a secret vice, so it doesn’t count,’ he added with a grin.
She found that knowledge curiously comforting. Not that it was any of her business how many people he chose to entertain. Not at all. But somehow…
‘Drink?’
‘Tea would be nice.’
He nodded, put the kettle on and produced a couple of mugs. ‘What about supper? Do you want to go out, or shall I order in? There’s a restaurant downstairs that delivers.’
She didn’t doubt it. So far she’d seen the car park and the view from his apartment, but that was enough. She had sufficient imagination to fill in the bits in between, and she just knew they’d be equally impressive.
‘Here would be lovely,’ she said, unable to drag her eyes from the view. ‘And it’ll give us more time to look at the plans,’ she added, trying to stick to the plot.
‘OK—have a look at the menu and choose something.’
She looked, blinked and handed it back. ‘Anything. All of it. Just looking at it is enough to make me drool. I had a cup of tea for lunch and a biscuit for breakfast, and I’d settle for a bag of greasy chips right now.’
His mouth quirked. ‘I think we can do rather better than that,’ he said, and picked up the phone and ordered in a low, crisp voice, while she watched a little boat make its way slowly up the Thames and wondered what it would be like to live here all the time. He came over and stood beside her, two steaming mugs of tea in his hands, and held one out to her.
‘Come outside and have a look,’ he suggested, and the wall of glass slid effortlessly aside and he gestured for her to go out.
It was gorgeous. Huge, for the roof terrace of a London apartment block, and, as she walked all the way round past what must be the bedrooms and back to the doors they’d come out of, it gradually sank in just how much money he must have.
The car had been a bit of a giveaway, but his one indulgence? She didn’t think so. Not by a country mile.
And yet it was curiously homely. The furnishings were simple, the plants on the deck were well cared for, and she had the feeling he didn’t take his privileged position for granted. Unless he just had a designer with a gift for homemaking and a gardener to keep the roof terrace in order. Goodness knows it was big enough to demand it.
And then there was that other indulgence that was purely medicinal, the cedar hot tub that kept drawing her eye. She could see it was made of solid wood, not one of the timber-clad moulded-acrylic ones which, although very comfortable and easy to install, just wouldn’t have had the same understated dignity as the cedar planks.
This was like a huge, shallow barrel set into a raised area, and with the wooden lid in place it acted as a seat. She perched on it to sigh over the view again, and felt the warmth seeping through the timber. ‘It’s on!’ she said, surprised, and he grinned.
‘Of course. This is the best time of year for them. We can go in if you want—sit in it and unravel and talk about the plans.’
She did want to. She was aching to, but she didn’t quite trust herself, and she wasn’t sure of the clothing etiquette, and anyway, she was here to work, she reminded herself firmly.
‘Don’t you want to look at the ideas on paper first?’ she said with a touch of desperation, and he shrugged and ushered her back inside, to her disappointment and relief. No, just relief…
‘We’ll look at them now while we eat. There’s always later,’ he added, and the relief gave way to a flutter of nervous anticipation.
‘Maybe,’ she agreed, and, picking up the long cylindrical case she carried her drawings in, she un-screwed the end and pulled the sketches out.
‘They’re only rough,’ she warned, but he just shrugged, helped her spread them out on the huge coffee-table and stood a little statue on one corner to hold it down.
She blinked. She recognised the artist, and that piece had probably cost more than she’d earned last year. Oh, dear God, why on earth had she let him talk her into this? There was no way he was interested in what she had to say. He was so far out of her league—
‘Right. Talk me through them. What’s this thing here?’
She dragged her eyes back to the plans, took a deep breath and launched her sales pitch.
‘That was amazing!’
He laughed softly at her as she pushed her plate away and sighed with contentment. ‘I said they did good food.’
‘You lied. It was perfection. Good doesn’t even begin to do it justice.’
‘Coffee?’
She nodded. ‘Please—if it’s not too much trouble?’
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