Good Girl or Gold-Digger? (12 page)

‘Oh, yes, I don’t deny he’s nice looking.’ A tinkling laugh. ‘But he’s so
dull!’

Tabitha had taken everything he’d given her and still asked for more, and it looked as if Daisy intended to do the same. He’d already agreed to a big sponsorship deal with the fairground, but it clearly wasn’t enough for her.

After all he’d promised himself, it seemed he’d made the same mistake all over again: he’d let himself fall for a woman who saw him for his bank account instead of for himself. He’d thought that Daisy was different, that what they shared was special. He’d let himself fall in love with her, let himself believe that she was falling for him. And all along she’d seen him as someone who could prop up her failing business.

How stupid could he get?

So much for once bitten, twice shy. He might just as well have been carrying a placard saying, ‘I’m rich and I’m a sucker for a pretty face and a sob story. Come and fleece me’.

Pain made him sharp. ‘So you’re hoping that the bank of Felix Gisbourne will sort out the fairground, hmm?’

She stared at him in apparent shock.

Ha. As well she might. He had her measure now.

And then her lip curled. ‘Forget I said anything.’

Too late. She’d already said it.

‘And you know what? I think it’s time to call a halt. To everything.’ She lifted her chin. ‘It’s just as well we haven’t started building work on the hall. I wasn’t asking you for money, Felix.’ Her eyes were filled with disgust. ‘You can keep your precious money. Send me an invoice for the time you’ve spent at the fairground. And I don’t ever want to see you again.’

‘Good. Because I never want to see you again, either.’ And he’d never, ever trust another woman for as long as he lived.

In answer, she slammed his front door. Hard.

And Felix had to stifle his urge to smash every piece of glass in the place.

Daisy caught the first train back to Suffolk, shocked beyond belief.

Her entire life appeared to be sliding into an abyss. The man she loved had just accused her of expecting him to prop up her business, when she hadn’t asked him anything of the kind; she’d been trying to tell him about Bill and the problems they were facing.

And he’d said he never wanted to see her again.

So much for thinking he might be falling for her. He was cold, unfeeling—
impossible.
How could she have been so stupid?

And everything was going wrong at the fairground. The estate agent she’d seen the day before, when she’d been hoping that she could raise some cash by selling her house, had warned her that in the current market she’d have to take a big drop in the asking price to get a quick sale. Given that she already had a loan to pay back for the plate-glass windows and would need to keep some of the proceeds of the sale to rent a small flat somewhere, she knew that if she sold the house at a knock-down price she wouldn’t have enough to plug the hole in the fairground’s finances for more than a few months.

And, with Bill retiring, she’d be stuck doing admin instead of the job she loved so much.

Life sucked.

Big time.

As soon as Daisy was back home, she changed back into her jeans and an old T-shirt and cycled over to the fairground, but her workshop didn’t seem to hold its usual magic. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing; all she could hear was Felix’s voice echoing in her head. I
never want to see you again, either.

She stayed working until long after everyone else had gone, but her mood wouldn’t lift. She didn’t want to dump her problems on Ben and Alexis, and as it was a Saturday night Annie would no doubt be out somewhere with her fiancé. It wasn’t fair to dump things on her, either.

‘Looks like it’s just you and me, Titan,’ she told the cat.

But even curling up on the sofa with him, a tub of ice-cream and one of her favourite musicals didn’t help. She couldn’t stop thinking about Felix, remembering how it had been between them—and then seeing the rejection on his face when he’d told her that he never wanted to see her again.

How had it all gone so badly wrong? Everything had vanished in a matter of seconds.

Well, now she knew for sure that she wasn’t cut out for relationships. And she was never,
ever
going to let herself fall in love with anyone again.

Just over a week later, Felix reached the last item of his post: his regular report from the cuttings agency containing articles clipped from newspapers over the past month about projects he’d been involved with during the last year.

He flicked through it. The second he saw Daisy’s picture, he closed the file and shoved it in a drawer without reading it.

He really didn’t want to think about Daisy. He’d just
started to trust again, to think that maybe it was possible she’d want to be with him for his own sake, not because of his bank account—and she’d shattered his trust. It hurt far more than Tabitha’s betrayal because he’d really believed that Daisy was different.

But the article nagged at him.

All morning.

And mid-afternoon he finally gave in, fished the file out of the drawer and turned to the page that had stopped him in his tracks.

The article was written by Annie Sylvester, Features Editor—the one who’d written the original article about the vandalism. Daisy’s best friend:

E
ND OF AN
E
RA

What?

He glanced at the date. It had been written three days ago.

Frowning, he skimmed through the piece. And when he reached the end he was stunned. Bill was retiring through ill health, and the Bells were selling the fairground at the end of the season.

It didn’t make sense. Daisy loved that fairground more than anything else. She’d taken out a loan on her house to pay for the cafe windows, and she was capable of selling every single one of her personal possessions if she thought it would save the fairground.

Why were they selling up? Why hadn’t she asked him to help her broker some kind of deal to save the fairground?

And then it hit him.

She had asked him—or she’d tried to, at least. That
weekend when he’d been in a foul temper after bumping into Tabitha.

Felix, I hate to ask…

She’d used a trigger phrase that had immediately put him on the defensive. The phrase he’d always associated with a request for money, thanks to his ex.

We’re going to need a lot more investment.

He’d jumped straight to the conclusion that she wanted his money. But had she really?

You can keep your precious money. Send me an invoice for the time you’ve spent at the fairground.

She hadn’t actually asked him to make the investment himself. Now he’d cooled down and could look at it dispassionately, he realised she’d included him in the ‘we’, as part of the fairground management team. So she’d obviously wanted to discuss it with him, talk about the impact of Bill’s retirement on the business and the best way to deal with it.

And he’d been so full of resentment and anger from seeing Tabitha that morning he’d gone off at the deep end, not seeing what was right in front of his nose. He’d made the biggest mistake of his life, a far bigger error than trusting Tabitha.

He hadn’t trusted Daisy.

How could he have been so stupid? This was the woman who’d insisted on buying him dinner because he’d bought the theatre tickets and she wanted to pay her way. She certainly wouldn’t have seen him as the trophy husband who would give her a generous allowance as well as picking up the tab for designer clothes and shoes, an exclusive gym membership and an account at her favourite beauty salon, the way Tabitha had. Apart from the fact that Daisy would be bored stiff
by the lifestyle of a lady who lunched, she was proud. Independent. She’d reacted really badly when he’d just bought her a dress.

He’d seen something in her that simply wasn’t there. He’d judged her by the standards of his ex and the kind of women that his well-meaning but clueless mother kept trying to fix him up with.

He needed to see her. To apologise face to face.

And he knew exactly where he was going to find her.

T
HE
rush-hour traffic was ridiculous, and it was well past closing time when Felix parked at the fairground. Though he knew Daisy was still there, because he could see the light glimmering through her office window.

The gate was locked, but he still had the key Bill had given him. A key he should really have returned a week ago, but he’d blocked out the fact that he still had it. It took a matter of seconds to unlock the gate and secure it again behind him.

He couldn’t hear her singing as he drew nearer. Well, she wouldn’t be, would she? She was stuck in the office instead of in the workshop she loved.

Maybe he could do something about that.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her as she worked. The shadows under her eyes had deepened, and she’d lost weight. Right at that moment, she looked vulnerable. Fragile. His heart ached for her; she was carrying such a burden. And, when she’d come to him for help, he’d pushed her away and hurt her.

Quietly, he rapped on the door.

She glanced up and he could see the shock on her face. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘I’ve come to apologise.’

Her lip curled. ‘Don’t bother. And you know the way out.’

‘I’ve come to apologise,’ he said again, walking in and sitting on the chair opposite her desk, ignoring the fact that she’d told him to go. ‘To explain. And to listen.’

‘I’m not interested.’

‘If you keep hitting keys at random, eventually you’re going to delete stuff you actually need,’ he pointed out softly. ‘Daisy, I’m sorry. I was completely in the wrong. I didn’t listen to you or give you a chance to tell me about Bill. I let other stuff get in the way, and I accused you of something I know you’d never do. I know I don’t have the right to ask this, but…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Will you let me explain?’

She looked at him for a long moment. Finally she nodded.

Getting her to agree to listen had been the easy part. Now he had to talk. Say the words he’d never told anyone else, even his family.

‘I was…involved with someone,’ he said. ‘It didn’t end well. I bumped into her the morning you came to London, and I guess it rattled me. So I wasn’t in the mood to listen when you tried to tell me what was going on at the fairground.’

‘And that’s it?’ Daisy folded her arms. ‘That’s your explanation? You’d seen someone who rattled your cage, so you took it out on me?’

‘It’s not quite like that.’ He knew it wasn’t enough of an explanation. He was going to have to tell her the rest of it.

How he hated saying it out loud. It was like pressing on a bruise that went all the way through him. But if
he was ever to have a chance of working things out with Daisy he was going to have to talk to her. ‘I came home early one day, planning to surprise her. She was on the balcony.’

Daisy’s face was so open; he could see the conclusion she’d jumped to. ‘She wasn’t alone,’ he confirmed. ‘But it wasn’t what you’re thinking. She wasn’t with a lover.’ Maybe he would’ve found it easier to deal with if she had been. At least then he’d have known that it was love and passion that had driven Tabitha, not sheer, calculating, mercenary greed. He could’ve understood that. Forgiven it.

‘What then?’ Daisy asked.

‘She was talking to her friends. None of them heard me come in, so they didn’t stop talking or change the topic. And that’s when I found out how she really felt about me.’

More pressure on the bruise.

He looked away, unable to face the pity he knew he’d see in Daisy’s eyes as he said the words he’d kept locked inside for so long. ‘She said she didn’t love me, but she loved the lifestyle I could give her. I was nice looking, she said, but I was oh, so
dull’

‘She said
what?’

‘She didn’t want me for me,’ Felix said, saying it out loud for the first time. ‘She wanted me for what I could give her.’

‘That’s…’ Daisy shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say. I can’t understand how anyone could think like that.’

Neither could he. But it had made him doubt everything: his family, his friends, and later girlfriends. Catastrophically, it had made him doubt Daisy. ‘When you started talking to me that day,’ he said, ‘you used a few of the phrases I associate with her.’

The outrage and shock on Daisy’s face grew deeper. ‘You thought I was like
her?
That I was only with you because of your money?’

He closed his eyes. ‘I told you I owed you an apology. A big one.’

‘What she did to you was cruel and unfair, and I’m sorry she hurt you like that, but how…?’ She shook her head, her eyes sparking with anger. ‘How could you possibly think I was like that, Felix? You
know
I’m not. Money isn’t important to me. For pity’s sake, I don’t even take a full-time salary from the fairground!’

‘When I’m thinking straight, of course I know that. I wasn’t thinking straight that day.’ He moistened his suddenly dry lips. ‘I heard you speak, but she was in my head, and I jumped to the wrong conclusion.’ Though, to be fair, he wasn’t the only one who’d behaved that way. ‘Just as you did when I bought you that dress and you accused me of wanting to change you, the way your ex had.’

She folded her arms. ‘So that’s it? You were getting revenge on me?’

‘No. Nothing like that at all. What I’m saying is that when an idea’s stuck in your head it can stop you from seeing things how they really are. What happened with Tabitha made me doubt a lot of things. Even my family.’

‘I can see now why you see marriage as a trap, when yours ended up like that,’ Daisy said thoughtfully.

‘We weren’t married. Not quite,’ he amended.

Daisy frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’

‘The wedding was booked for that weekend.’ He paused. ‘I called it off and told everyone I had cold feet.’

‘Hang on. She was the one in the wrong, but you took the blame?’

He shrugged. ‘I was the one who walked out.’

‘With good reason.’

‘It was that or let the whole world know the woman I planned to marry only saw me in terms of my bank account and thought that I was dull,’ he said dryly. ‘And I was a teensy bit too proud to play the victim.’ He looked away. ‘I’m just glad I overheard that conversation when I did, and not a week after the honeymoon. It saved a legal mess.’

‘Felix, that’s so…’ Her words tailed off.

‘I’d rather you didn’t pity me, thank you.’

‘I don’t pity you. But you didn’t deserve to be treated that way.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Now I know why you went all arctic on me when I teased you about all work and no play that time. You thought I was calling you dull.’

Just as his ex-fiancée had done.

He remained silent.

‘You’re not dull, Felix. Not in the slightest. Surely you must know that?’

‘Considering the way your ex treated you made you believe that you’re not feminine enough,’ he said, ‘are you telling me that you realise now you’re all woman?’

She was silent for a long time. ‘No,’ she admitted eventually. ‘I’m paranoid. Like you. You’re right—the memories do get in the way sometimes.’ She shook her head. ‘So you haven’t told anyone the truth about what happened? How could you let them blame you?’

He shrugged. ‘I’d rather people think me cold than an easy target.’

‘There’s nothing easy about you, Felix,’ she said dryly.

‘That’s what my family said.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘And Tabitha made me doubt them, too. I looked back at my childhood with new eyes.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Remember when you asked if I had a lonely childhood? You were right, I did, because I was away at boarding school and my sisters went to school locally. And after Tabitha…’

‘You thought your parents sent you away because you weren’t interesting enough, because they didn’t love you?’

She’d said the words he couldn’t bring himself to say, and it felt like wire wool scrubbing at his heart. ‘It happens,’ he said tonelessly.

‘You also once told me your family’s big on tradition. Did your father go to the same school by any chance?’

‘Yes. And my grandfather.’

‘That’s the real answer, Felix. They were doing things the way they’d always been done, instead of seeing that maybe their son needed something different.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Ask them,’ Daisy said. There was a long silence, and then she asked softly, ‘Are you still in love with her?’

‘No. I was in love with a woman that I thought loved me all the way back. It turned out that wasn’t who she was. I’m over it now.’

Her expression called him a liar.

‘I don’t love her.’ Because he was in love with Daisy. But he’d hurt her so badly that he wasn’t sure she could ever bring herself to love him. There was one thing he could do for her, though: fix the fairground’s finances and make her life easier. ‘So, now we’ve got that out of the way, we need to talk about the fairground. So what’s this about Bill?’

‘Heart condition. He needs to retire, for his health’s sake.’

‘Which makes you the manager?’

She nodded.

‘With no time for your restoration work and the stuff you love doing. Not to mention the fact that you need to pay someone else to take your place. You’re short of money. Well, I can sort that for you.’

She folded her arms. ‘I don’t want your money, Felix.’ Her voice was very cool, very precise. ‘Get that straight. Not everyone sees people in terms of what they can get out of them. And you haven’t sent me that invoice yet.’

‘What invoice?’

‘For the time you’ve spent on the fairground. Consultancy fee, remember?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not going to send you an invoice. Not now, not ever. Daisy, you can’t afford to pay me.’

‘Yes, I can.’ She gave him a stubborn glare. ‘I’ll find the money somewhere. I’m not accepting your charity.’

He sighed. ‘So your solution is to put the fairground up for sale—when it’s the love of your life.’

She shrugged. ‘Didn’t work out. Guess that’s the story of my love life. Time to move on.’

‘To what? Work as a more conventional mechanic and be miserable? Surely you’d rather be here?’

Her eyes glittered. ‘Don’t rub it in.’

‘I’m not. I’m saying that I can fix this for you and I want to help.’

She shook her head. ‘You seriously think I’m going to work with you again, after what happened between us?’

‘I know I’m asking a lot here, but I think we can make this work together.’

She was silent, and he began to hope.

Then she lifted her chin. ‘Strictly business. Nothing personal.’

‘A business partnership,’ Felix said. ‘Forget about sponsorship deals. The fairground’s up for sale.’

‘And you’re offering to buy it?’

‘Part of it,’ he said. ‘Which should free up enough funds to employ a full-time office manager, and take the stuff you hate off your shoulders so you can go back to doing what you love instead of feeling trapped in the office. You’ll still be in charge, but you don’t have to do the grinding stuff.’

‘What happens when you decide you’ve had enough and want to sell your share?’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because someone once told me,’ he said softly, ‘that seeing the good in things is a lot healthier than being cynical and believing that everyone’s out solely for what they can get.’

‘But your experience told you that…’ Her voice tailed off.

‘That Tabitha was out solely for what she could get,’ he finished. ‘But not everyone’s like her. You’re definitely not. And I’m sorry I hurt you, Daisy.’

She dragged in a breath. ‘I can understand why you acted the way you did. But it’s business only between us from now on. I can’t deal with anything else.’

It wasn’t what he’d wanted her to say.

But it was better than having her out of his life completely. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to Bill tomorrow.’

‘No. I don’t want him stressed.’

‘So the deal’s between you, me and the lawyers?’

‘And when we’ve come to an agreement
then
we’ll talk to Bill,’ she said. ‘Not before.’

He looked at her. ‘When did you last eat?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll eat when I get home. With Titan.’

In other words, she didn’t want to eat with him.

‘Can I at least give you a lift home?’ he asked.

‘No.’

Pushing her now would be the wrong thing to do, Felix knew. It would just deepen the rift between them. ‘Then perhaps we can meet tomorrow at ten, for preliminary discussions?’

‘Sure. You know where to find me.’

Over the next fortnight, Felix worked with Daisy. He kept it strictly business between them, as she’d asked: official meetings, the occasional email with suggestions and attached legal documents. Though when he did see her he ached to touch her. To wrap his arms round her and tell her that everything was going to be fine from now on, because he’d support her and he’d never let her down again. Because he loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone in his entire life.

But he knew he was going to have to take this at Daisy’s pace, give her time to learn to trust him again. And then, please God, she might let him back into her life the way she had before. Give him a second chance.

Strictly business. It had been Daisy’s own suggestion. How did the old saying go?
Be careful what you wish for You might get it.

She’d got it, all right.

And it wasn’t what she wanted.

Meetings with Felix were getting harder and harder. He was perfectly polite to her, and always talked business to her, but she wanted their old relationship back. The one where he called her by that ridiculous nickname and stole kisses and challenged her.

Most of all, she wanted to fall asleep in his arms. Maybe then she wouldn’t wake up at stupid o’clock, worrying about the future, because she had him by her side and they’d get each other through it.

Sometimes she caught an expression in his eyes, but it was always so fleeting that she thought she’d imagined it. Had seen what she wanted to see.

Love.

But Felix didn’t love her. After the way his ex had hurt him, she wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to love again. So it was pointless wishing for something she’d never be able to have.