Beaumont Brides Collection (32 page)

She made it sound like an insult.

He smiled directly at her and she blushed. Definitely an insult.

‘I think,’ he said, weighing his words carefully, ‘that the pier is a museum piece rather than an attraction. Broomhill pier was the liveliest and sauciest entertainment venue on the south coast in its day. Everything from “what the butler saw” machines and performing fleas, to firework displays and a bandstand. It brought in over a million visitors a year. According to the local guidebook.’

‘And all without the bother of Health and Safety Regulations,’ she replied.

‘Does the HSR have rules to cover performing fleas?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘You’ve only seen the pier in winter, Luke,’ Edward interrupted, before things got quite out of hand. ‘In the summer we have live entertainers, jugglers, mime, that sort of thing. And the bandstand is in use most days. It really is very lively.’

‘And the income from a fast food vendor would enable us to increase that entertainment,’ Fizz continued, smoothly. ‘I would like to suggest that we invite local traders to put forward their ideas along with a tender for the space. And since the season will so soon be upon us we do not have the luxury of time if the Trust is to benefit from the additional income this year, which is why the matter has to be discussed today.’

Then she turned and looked straight at him and he saw with a slight shock the hint of defiance, even of triumph, that had brought the colour flooding back into her cheeks.

Well, well. He would give a good deal to know whether she was genuine, or whether she had realised she wasn’t going to get away with pushing her plans through on the nod and had bluffed her way out of a sticky corner. Either way, it was an impressive performance.

It was extraordinary the way he continued to under-estimate her. He would never have made the same mistake with a man.

He would not normally have made the mistake with a woman but he hadn’t looked beyond the image of a failed actress with a sinecure job in the family firm.

Now he was certain that it was an image she had created herself. That it was what she wanted people to believe. Why? There had to be an answer. And Patrick March hadn’t provided it. But then maybe he hadn’t been telling the entire truth.

Suddenly all the trustees had something urgent to say on the question of renting space to a fast food outlet. Only Luke and Fizz remained silent, each a small oasis of thought as the debate rolled over them.

A decision was made to invite tenders, the meeting was adjourned and Edward invited everyone to join him in his office for a glass of sherry. Fizz, Luke noticed, took the opportunity to escape. His own presence claimed by Edward, he let her go. For the moment.

Fizz was consumed with anger, shock, waves of them leaving her shaking and weak. How dare he! How bloody dare he! He knew that her throwaway line about joining the pier trustees had been a joke and he’d left her in no doubt at the time that it was a bad one.

And he hadn’t been in the boardroom five minutes before he was trying to make her look like a rapacious, money-grabber who would use her position as a trustee to feather her own nest.

Well she wasn’t going to make his day by staying to make polite small talk while he smiled at her, emphasizing his triumph, relishing her discomfort and she found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

She would have preferred not to be in the same building as the man. In the same town. She staggered from the board room and took refuge in the ladies loo. At least she was safe from him in there. But not from Susie, who found her sitting in the old basket chair that had been unearthed in the basement and staring into space.

‘Well, that was the most entertaining meeting we’ve had since Ellie Stockley broke her false teeth on a ginger nut. Why aren’t you knocking back the sherry with the rest of the gang?’

‘I’m not in the mood to fawn at the feet of genius.’

‘Oh. I see. You’re hiding from the delicious Mr Devlin.’

‘Delicious?’ she enquired. ‘Have you been licking-’

‘Fizz Beaumont!’

‘- his boots?’

Susie, tidying her hair, gave her a sideways look out of the mirror and changed the subject. ‘Pity about the hot dog stall. John will be disappointed. Are you going to put in a tender for it?’ she asked, cheekily.

‘One of these days you’ll go too far, Susie.’

‘One of these days I’ll apply for your job. I get plenty of practise. I’ve been doing it all day.’

‘Go ahead. You’re welcome to it. But it’s not all smiling over the boardroom table at Luke Devlin,’ she snapped.

‘Oh, come on, Fizz, lighten up. Luke Devlin spoiled your plan to make some quick money, so what? It was a chance in a million it would slip through unchallenged. Most of your fellow trustees have an axe of their own to grind.’ Then she looked at Fizz more closely. ‘Oh, I see. That isn’t it. So what’s the matter?’

‘What could possibly be the matter?’ Susie simply waited and Fizz sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my troubles out on you. I haven’t been sleeping very well, that’s all.’ Susie’s look suggested it was far from all, but Fizz ignored it. ‘Was there some reason for you to come hunting me down?’

‘Oh, yes. Someone called Julian says he has to speak to you and that if you were in the building I was to find you and get you to ring him straight back. He may just be an over-eager admirer who you’re avoiding like the plague, but I thought I’d better find you and pass on the message.’

‘Oh, heavens ...’ She made a grab for her bag, fumbled and it fell over, spewing its contents all over the floor. She bent to gather up her scattered belongings and Susie joined her on the floor, retrieving a lipstick, which had rolled beneath the table, then picking up an unopened envelope.

She held it out, slightly crumpled, faintly stained with some green stuff and the unmistakable touch of a teabag.

‘Tell me, Fizz. Is the postman using the dustbin instead of the letterbox for your mail these days?’

Fizz almost snatched the letter from her and stuffed it out of sight in her bag. She didn’t know why she’d bothered the rescue the thing from the bin. She hadn’t opened it. Had no intention of reading it. Ever.

‘Actually, Susie, since you’re obviously not busy…’ - she ignored a “humph” - ‘…there is something I meant to ask you to start on when I came in this morning. Dad thought it would be a good idea to have a small party of some kind at the restaurant. A sort of launch. A buffet, I thought. Do you think two weeks on Friday is too soon?’

‘What’s the rush?’ Susie held open the loo door for her. ‘I mean I can take a hint. If you don’t want to talk about your letter just tell me to mind my own business. It is from Luke Devlin, isn’t it? His handwriting is unmistakable.’

‘Mind your own business,’ Fizz responded, leading the way up the stairs.

‘And he delivered it by hand. Are you going to read it, or just carry it about as a trophy?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t take any notice.’

‘Even so, planning a party simply to avoid giving me a straight answer is a bit over the top, even for you. Why don’t you give the poor guy a chance?’

‘He isn’t poor and he doesn’t wait to be given chances, he takes them. Remember that next time you’re grinning at him over the boardroom table. And after you’ve organised the party, Susie, remind me to sack you.’

‘You did that last week,’ Susie reminded her, with a grin. ‘If you do it more than twice in one month I’ll be forced to take you seriously.’

‘Some hopes. The next time anyone in this office takes me seriously will be the first time,’ she said, pushing open her office door.

‘I take you seriously. In fact I’m beginning to take you very seriously indeed.’ The smile died from her lips as she turned from Susie to be confronted with Luke’s broad back silhouetted against the window. ‘Come in, Fizz,’ he said, without bothering to turn around. ‘And close the door behind you. I want to talk to you.’

‘Susie…’ But Susie, like a rat deserting a sinking ship, had disappeared.

For a long moment Fizz was unable to speak, unable to move. Then Luke turned round to look at her and the flare of passion that he hadn’t quite managed to quench, jerked a nervous, involuntary response from her.

‘What do you want, Luke? I’m very busy.’

‘Now is that really any way to speak to your major sponsor?’ he enquired, softly. ‘After Saturday night’s little demonstration of how far you’re prepared to go to keep me happy.’ His shoulders lifted in an expressive little shrug that suggested he had every right to expect a warmer welcome, clearly trying to goad her into some unwise response.

She declined the invitation, took a shaky breath and wondered as she stretched her lips in an attempt at a smile whether the effect was more like a grimace. It certainly felt like it.

‘If you would like to discuss sponsorship details then naturally I’m happy to see you, although it is wiser to telephone first and make an appointment.’ The grimace stretched a little further. ‘However, since you’re here, please do sit down,’ she invited, pointedly polite. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

He ignored the chair she indicated. ‘And if I wanted something else?’ He regarded her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes with a look that suggested far more than his words.

The fixed smile disappeared as she flushed painfully, but she remained on her feet, her head high. ‘If you’d prefer tea, Luke, you only have to say.’ She made a move to pick up the telephone and summon Susie, but Luke’s hand clamped down hard over hers.

‘Don’t play games with me, Fizz. You can’t win.’ Her heart jolted at the velvet threat of his voice.

‘I’m not the one playing games. Why are you here, Luke?’ she demanded.

‘I came here to talk to Jim Ryan and to take up your invitation to join the Pier Trust. I do hope your bad temper is not because I spoiled your plan to recoup your fortunes with a hot dog stand.’

‘It would take more than hot dogs to do that,’ she replied. ‘It would take hamburgers, ice cream and possibly candy floss as well.’ A glint of amusement lit the depths of his eyes. ‘And I am not in a temper of any kind. But I am busy. So, why are you here? In my office? Now?’ she added, just to make sure he understood. ‘If this is personal I believe we covered everything there was to say last night.’

‘Did we?’ He paused briefly, as if considering something and she noticed the faint mark of a bruise on his cheekbone. He saw her look and with a tightening of the lines about his mouth that might have suggested a smile, or might not, he lifted her hand from the telephone and turned it over, lightly touching her finger, swollen and painful where the vein had been bruised when she struck him. ‘Some things are better dealt with in an entirely business-like way.’

‘What things?’ He didn’t answer immediately. ‘Well?’ she demanded, furious that he was playing with her.

‘Well?’ He repeated, mimicking her with a cruel precision that should have been comic. But she wasn’t laughing, and when he continued, she knew she was right not to be amused. ‘Aren’t you just a little concerned that I might want to forget all about sponsoring you?’

Of course the thought had crossed her mind, but it wasn’t what had kept her awake most of the night. Luke Devlin had been responsible in one way and another for a considerable shortfall in her sleep during the last few days. ‘You’re not sponsoring me, Luke. You’re sponsoring a number of programmes on my radio station. We have an agreement,’ she reminded him.

‘Pavilion Radio has an agreement with me,’ he corrected her, ‘although you do seem to take it extremely personally.’

Her heart was beating wildly out of control. The hand that had been clamping hers to the telephone receiver was now grasping her fingers in a gesture far too intimate for comfort, but to pull away would show that it mattered. That she cared.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, quickly. ‘Pavilion Radio. Of course that’s what I meant.’

‘Is it? I’m not entirely convinced that it is. You never discussed the details with your father, did you?’

She swallowed. He obviously hadn’t wasted his time in those few minutes when he had spoken to her father at the party. ‘He was very busy.’

‘He seems to take a very relaxed attitude to his business affairs. Or maybe it’s only the radio station. In all other respects I found him very astute.’

Fizz gave a little shrug. ‘He leaves the day-to-day running of the radio station to me,’ she confessed.

‘Sponsorship?’

‘Sponsorship,’ she agreed.

‘Finance?’ he nodded. ‘Staff?’

‘Luke -’

‘And the inclusion of Melanie in the cast?’

‘I told him about it.’

‘But you didn’t seek his consent?’ She didn’t enjoy being found out in a blatant lie, but she didn’t duck it.

‘No.’

‘So all the time this has just between the two of us?’ He was staring at her long delicate fingers in a way that utterly unnerved her.

‘Luke?’ she prompted, gently tugging at her fingers.

He stiffened, released her hand. ‘And since I’ve only given you the first month’s payment -’

‘I don’t believe you would back out now,’ she said.

‘Your faith in my integrity touches me deeply, Fizz. Of course it does surprise me, just a little. Last night I received the very strong impression that there was nothing of which you thought me incapable.’