Anything but Vanilla... (5 page)

It wasn’t the reaction he had expected. He’d assumed that getting close was part of her plan, but apparently he’d misread her and now he was the one being tormented by X-rated images of those long legs, that hot body and sweet strawberry lips...

‘Because I can? You can deduct it from the rent,’ she said, recovering before him.

‘Nice try, but then the business will owe you money.’

‘As well as ice cream. I know, but I can’t run the business without electricity, Mr West. Or did you really think I was just stringing you along until I’d finished this order?’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ he said abruptly, plucking the invoice from her hand and returning it to the pile.

‘Well, uncross it. I’ve got another business function next week,’ she said, the sharpness of her voice undermined by the faintest wobble on the word ‘function’. Despite her swift move out of the danger zone, the heat had not been all one way. The thought that she might be suffering too went some small way to easing his own discomfort...

‘Another function?’

‘You needn’t sound so surprised,’ she said. ‘A local company holding a gala dinner has commissioned us to provide miniature ice-cream cones late in the evening. When everyone is hot from dancing,’ she added, presumably in case he didn’t get it.

He got it. He was hot...

‘I’ll rephrase that,’ he said. ‘I was
hoping
that you were stringing me along until you finished this order. That this was a one off.’

‘You didn’t believe I was serious? About making an offer for the business?’

‘Not for a minute.’

Her forehead buckled in the faintest of frowns as if she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking her seriously. Maybe he was underestimating her. Judging her on appearance. Or just plain distracted by the flash-over of heat whenever they came within touching distance.

‘I’ve got events booked throughout the summer, Mr West. Weddings, hen parties, business parties. They must be in Ria’s diary.’

‘Ria and her diary are no longer in the ice-cream business so you’d better find another supplier or come up with an offer very quickly,’ he replied.

‘I will. Just as soon as I’ve seen the accounts.’ He waited for her to flounce out of the room. She didn’t. Flounce, bounce or depart with the kind of door-banging pique warranted by the way he’d spoken to her. Instead she continued to regard him with that slightly puzzled frown. ‘You must realise that it’s in your best interests to sell the business as a going concern.’

‘Must I?’

Her throat moved as she swallowed.

She might be sticking to her guns, no matter what he threw at her, but she was nowhere near as composed as she would have him believe. What would she do if he looped his arm around her waist, pulled her down onto his lap and let her feel just how discomposed he was?

‘You could keep Nancy on to run the ice-cream parlour,’ she suggested, when he offered no encouragement. ‘That way money will still be coming in and there’s more likelihood that the creditors will be paid. And the business will be worth more to any buyer.’

‘That it would be in your best interests, I have no doubt,’ he replied as the ground beneath him shifted, sucked him in.

What would she do if he slid his hands beneath that scrap of cloth masquerading as a skirt and lifted her onto the desk?

‘Hardly.’ She leaned back, her bottom propped on the desk, almost as if she could read his mind, were inviting him to run his hand up the inside of her thigh... ‘I could wait until you’re selling up, buy the equipment and freezers at a knock-down price and rent a unit near my office.’

‘You’d lose the ice-cream parlour,’ he said, not sure why he was even wasting his time discussing it with her. Except that it kept her beside him, touching close.

‘That’s the upside,’ she pointed out, with a gesture that lifted her skirt another inch. ‘I have no use for a retail outlet.’

‘And the downside?’

All he had to do was move his chair a few inches, slip his hand inside the starchy white coat, under her skirt and his hands would be cradling that peachy backside...

‘I’d have to start from scratch...’ her voice faded to fragments ‘...take time...transport problem...’

...fill his mouth with the taste of ripe strawberries and honey...

‘And it would be difficult for Nancy to get to Haughton Manor on the bus.’

Haughton Manor?

So, she was the offspring of minor gentry. No surprise there. The sexy clothes, the casual attitude, the silly ice creams were all the marks of a woman playing at business until the right man came along. One who could support her shoe habit.

And he was reacting exactly like his father. A man who’d used his wealth and position to indulge his love of bright, shiny things. Cars, boats, women...

See it, want it, discard it when the novelty wore off...

It was a thought as chilling as a cold shower on a January morning.

FIVE

Never send to know for whom the ice cream bell chimes; it chimes for thee!

—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’

‘You shouldn’t be telling me that,’
Alexander said, telling himself that he didn’t give a hoot who or what she was. Or her business. And as for Nancy, he’d paid her off...

Just like your father...

The words dropped into his head like lead weight, but what else could he do? He’d made sure she had enough money to tide her over until she found another job.

And if she didn’t...?

‘Why?’ Sorrel demanded, reclaiming his attention. She was clearly perplexed by his attitude. ‘Do you think you’re going to be trampled in the crush to buy an ice-cream parlour?’

‘No. But then I’m not interested in selling.’

‘What about Ria? What will she do if this place closes? You’re the one who suggested I offer her a job.’

‘I also told you she wouldn’t take it.’

‘Why not? I’d take care of the paperwork leaving her to concentrate on the ice cream. She’d have all the fun and none of the worry.’

If that was supposed to reassure him, to have him overcome with gratitude, she had misjudged his gullibility by a factor of ten. But then he knew Ria a lot better than she did. And he knew nothing about Sorrel Amery, except that she’d sent his hormones into meltdown. But while his body might be ready to leap blindly into bed with her, he wasn’t about to let his libido make business decisions.

‘I didn’t realise that ice cream had become such an essential ingredient in corporate entertaining,’ he said, and if he sounded as sceptical as he felt it was intentional.

‘It’s not. Yet. But I’m getting there,’ she assured him.

‘Frankly, I’m amazed it’s happening at all.’

‘Yes, your amazement is coming through loud and clear, Mr West—’

‘Alexander,’ he said, irritably. His father had been Mr West.

‘Alexander...’

His name was soft on her tongue. Like a lover’s whisper in his ear and he wished he’d let it go. ‘Mr West’ was safer. A lot safer.

‘Maybe you should come along to an event and see for yourself how we do it,’ she suggested, rather more crisply as she gave him an assessing once-over. ‘Get a haircut and if you’ve got a dinner jacket, I’ll give you a job, too. I can always use a good-looking waiter.’

He resisted the urge to rake his fingers through his hair, grab an elastic band from the pot on the desk and fasten it back. ‘I’ll pass, thanks all the same.’ She didn’t move. ‘I thought you were in a hurry to track down Nancy,’ he said, willing her to leave.

‘I am, but...’

‘What?’

‘Your, um, amazement must be catching,’ she said. ‘Cutting off the electricity would be a very simple way of getting rid of me.’

Apparently she didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her. Clearly she was smarter than she looked. But not that smart.

‘It would. Unfortunately, with freezers filled with Knickerbocker Gloria’s only asset, securing the electricity supply is top of my list.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, clearly puzzled. ‘I would have thought the cost of one would have offset the other. Ria makes fresh ices three times a week for the ice-cream parlour, so there can’t be that much stock. In your shoes I’d have flushed the lot down the sink.’

Okay. She
was
that smart.

‘The bill will have to be paid sooner or later.’ His brain cocked a sceptical eye at him as he took out his wallet and, using his mobile phone, called the number on the final demand, tapping in the details of his debit card in response to the prompts. ‘I’m taking the sooner option.’

He wrote ‘paid’, the time, date and card he’d used on the invoice before tossing it on top of the tax account in the ‘out’ tray. He saw her raised eyebrows and said, ‘Okay, the electric bill was my number two priority. With fines by the day, paying the Revenue had to be number one.’

‘Good decision,’ she said. The thoughtful look she gave him said a lot more, but he wanted Sorrel with her luscious mouth, chestnut hair and endless legs out of his space before he consigned his brain to the devil and let his body do the thinking.

‘If you’re feeling grateful, the coffee pot is empty,’ he said. ‘And if you’re going out to stock up on champagne and cucumbers, you can bring me back a bacon roll.’

‘Does Ria run errands for you?’

‘Landlord’s perks.’

‘Don’t bank on getting them from me,’ she said, making it clear she thought that they amounted to more than sandwiches.

‘Not one created out of ice cream,’ he warned, ‘but hot, from the baker on the corner. Heavy on the brown sauce.’

* * *

Nancy’s phone went straight to voicemail and Sorrel left a message asking her to call back as a matter of urgency. She’d already tried Ria’s mobile and got a message saying that the number was not available, which was worrying. If she’d cut all her ties...

No. Alexander had said she was safe. Presumably he had a contact number even if he wasn’t prepared to share. She wished she’d taken more notice when Ria talked about her friends in Wales. She’d sent a card the last time. She still had it somewhere...

Meanwhile, she cleaned out the coffee maker and refilled it.

Alexander West might have set her nerves jangling, disturbing her more than any man she’d ever met—irritating her, with his dismissal of her ability to run a business based on nothing but the length of her skirt—but a pot of coffee was a small price to pay for the lifeline he had, no matter how reluctantly, thrown her.

He didn’t acknowledge her as she plugged it back in and switched it on. His attention was focused on the computer screen and since he was probably trying to work out where all the money had gone—and how much he could persuade her to pay for the business—she did not disturb him.

There was only so much ‘amazement’ a woman could take in one day.

She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth as if to erase the memory of his kiss. It only brought the moment more vividly to life and he hadn’t even been trying. If he’d followed through on the heat that had come off him like an oven door opening as he’d turned to look up at her...

No.

Absolutely not.

He was just passing through and she didn’t do one-night, or even one-week stands. It had been a very long time since she’d even come close. Graeme...

She shook her head. Their relationship wasn’t about sex, it was about partnership. Their marriage, when it happened, would be based on mutual respect and support. Built to last. Not some flash-in-the-pan, here today, gone tomorrow, lust-driven madness.

Right now, her sole focus was her business; making it a household name in the events world.

She fetched her laptop from the van, checked the recipes Ria had given her, listed what she’d need to make the missing ices, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the sudden collapse of Ria’s business and Alexander West’s involvement in it all.

He was certainly not the freeloader she’d thought him. He’d put his hand in his own pocket to pay a couple of hefty bills—and not, apparently, for the first time.

Whatever his relationship with Ria, it went deep. And was, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time, none of her business.

Really.

She did need to speak to Ria, though, and tried her home number. Her call went straight to voicemail. She left a message promising to help, urging her to come back. There was nothing in her own message box that wouldn’t wait but, seeking a little steadiness to counteract the last couple of hours, she returned a call from Graeme Laing. He was not only her financial advisor and mentor since university, but everything she’d ever wanted in a man.

‘Sorrel... Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’ Calm, ordered—at the sound of his voice, her pulse rate immediately began to settle. ‘I’ve managed to get tickets for the gala opening of La Bohème and I need to know if you’ll be free on the twenty-fourth.’

‘Really?’ She tried to sound excited. ‘I thought they were like gold dust.’

‘They are. Someone owed me a favour.’ No surprise there. He was the kind of man everyone wanted on their side in the turbulent financial world. Picking up on her lack of enthusiasm, he said, ‘Puccini is at the lighter end of the operatic scale, Sorrel. You’ll enjoy it.’

‘Only one person dies?’ she said, half jokingly. The closest she’d ever wanted to get to an opera involved a Phantom and her pulse rate was now non-existent.

‘This is grand opera,’ he said, a touch impatiently—he didn’t joke about the ‘arts’, ‘not a soap opera.’

‘I read that the soap writers trawl Greek tragedies for their plot ideas.’

‘Really?’ he replied, with about as much enthusiasm for the idea as hers for a night at the opera. Graeme might have said that she was everything he’d ever want in a wife but she was, no question, still a work in progress. Her sisters weren’t entirely kidding when they referred to him as ‘Professor Higgins’.

It wasn’t like that. Well, not totally like that. Any man would want his wife to enjoy his passions and she’d always known exactly what she wanted in a man. Graeme was her perfect fit and she would do her best to be his. On the bright side she could wear the vintage Schiaparelli gown she’d found at the back of a junk shop a couple of months ago. It was perfect for mingling with millionaires at the post-gala party because it wasn’t about opera, it was about networking. Being seen with the right people, being noticed and it was the world she had aspired to since she’d chosen a business rather than an academic career. When she was a millionaire, no one would care who her mother was, or think her beneath them.

‘It’ll be fun,’ she said, doing her best to sound more enthusiastic. You didn’t get anything worthwhile without a little suffering and it could be worse. Much worse. Graeme could have been a cricket fanatic—a game that involved entire days of boredom. ‘Remind me when it is? I’ll have to call you back when I’ve checked my diary. With Elle on maternity leave I’m filling in with Rosie as well as the big events.’ At least he understood that business took priority over everything. Even death by singing. ‘Right now I’ve got a bit of a crisis on the ice-cream front.’

‘What’s that woman done now?’ And the opera was forgotten as they returned to familiar, if contentious, territory. Ria was definitely not his idea of a businesswoman. Perfect or otherwise.

‘Are you free this evening?’ she asked, avoiding the question. ‘I need to talk to you about the possibility of raising some finance.’

‘Finance? I thought I’d made it plain that you need to consolidate before thinking about taking any more risks. Next year, maybe.’

‘Yes, yes...’ he’d been saying that for the last two years and at this rate she’d be fifty-five before she achieved her ambition ‘...but it’s a matter of adapting to circumstances.’ Quoting one of his favourite axioms back at him. ‘I want to make an offer for Knickerbocker Gloria.’

‘She’s in trouble?’ he asked, with what sounded like the smallest touch of self-satisfied ‘I told you so’
Schadenfreude
. ‘Well, you know what I think.’ The free-spirited, disorganised Ria and the intensely focused, totally organised Graeme were never going to find common ground. ‘Don’t let sentiment jump you into doing anything hasty.’

‘I won’t,’ she assured him, ‘but I don’t have time to talk right now,’ she said, irritated that he felt he had to remind her of business basics. She was grateful for his support, his advice, but this wasn’t about profit and loss. This was about something much more important. Friendship. The future. Magic.

Ideas were going off like rockets in her head and the minute she’d dealt with the immediate crisis, she’d put them down on paper. Prepare a business plan. If she could show him the money, he’d listen.

‘Leave it with me. This might well play into our hands. I’ll make some enquiries, find out exactly how much trouble she’s in—’

‘I appreciate the offer, Graeme, but to be honest if you have that much free time, I could do with a hand mixing up a batch of cucumber ice cream,’ she said, unable to resist a little payback for his smug satisfaction that he’d been proved right about Ria.

‘Won’t I need a hygiene certificate?’

‘Any excuse,’ she said, unable to stop herself from laughing out loud. He was so predictable!

‘Oh, you were joking.’

‘There is absolutely nothing funny about ice cream, Graeme,’ she said, mentally slapping her wrist for teasing him, but doing it anyway. ‘I’ll have to arrange a training session for you with the catering students at the local college.’

‘I’m more use to you on the financial front,’ he replied, seriously. ‘I’ll find out what I can about the financial state of Knickerbocker Gloria so that we can make the best of the situation.’ We... That implied it would be the two of them. Working together. So long as she agreed with him. The thought popped, unbidden, into her head. ‘You’ll let me know whether you’ll be free on the twenty-fourth?’

‘The twenty-fourth.’ She made a note. ‘I’ll call you this evening.’

She cut the connection wishing she hadn’t said anything about Ria’s financial problem. Obviously she needed information, but she hated the thought of him poking around in Ria’s problems, knowing that he’d put the worst possible slant on things.

Which was stupid. There was no room for sentiment in business and obviously she couldn’t go into this blind. He was right about that. That was
why
she always agreed with him, because he was right about everything.

Graeme was her rock, she reminded herself. He might not make her heart race, or her head swim the way Alexander West had done with nothing more than a look, the lightest of touches, a kiss that had made her toes curl. Okay, so maybe he did have a bit of a sense of humour bypass, but he was utterly dependable and that was worth a heck of a lot more than a momentary sizzle on the lips.

* * *

When she returned with everything she needed to finish the Jefferson order, there was no sign of Nancy and she still wasn’t answering her phone so as soon as she’d unloaded the van, Sorrel went to the baker’s.

She wouldn’t, ever, run ‘errands’ for any man with two sound legs but the artisan baker on the corner supplied custom-made baked goods for Scoop! and she had to pick up some more items for the Jefferson order. Since she’d had a very early start herself with no sign of a lunch break in the foreseeable future, she bought herself a sandwich while she was about it.