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CHAPTER TWO

DOMINIC SAT ANDIE NEWMAN down on the higher of the two sofas that faced each other over the marble coffee table—the sofa he usually chose to give himself the advantage. He had no need to impress her with his greater height and bulk—she was tall, but he was so much taller than her even as he sat on the lower seat. Besides, the way she positioned herself with shoulders back and spine straight made him think she wouldn’t let herself be intimidated by him or by anyone else. Think again. The way she crossed and uncrossed those long legs revealed she was more nervous than she cared to let on.

He leaned back in his sofa, pulled out her business card from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and held it between finger and thumb. ‘Tell me about Party Queens. This seems like a very new, shiny card.’

‘Brand new. We’ve only been in business for three months.’

‘We?’

‘My two business partners, Eliza Dunne and Gemma Harper. We all worked on a magazine together before we started our own business.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Now you’re “party queens”?’ He used his fingers to enclose the two words with quote marks. ‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘We always were party queens—even when we were working on the magazine.’ He quirked an eyebrow and she paused. He noticed she quirked an eyebrow too, in unconscious imitation of his action. ‘Not in that way.’ She tried to backtrack, then smiled. ‘Well, maybe somewhat in that way. Between us we’ve certainly done our share of partying. But then you have to actually enjoy a party to organise one; don’t you agree?’

‘It’s not something I’ve given thought to,’ he said. Business-wise, it could be a point either for her or against her.

Parties had never been high on his agenda—even after his money had opened so many doors for him. Whether he’d been sleeping rough in an abandoned building project in the most dangerous part of Brisbane or hobnobbing with decision makers in Sydney, he’d felt he’d never quite fitted in. So he did the minimum socialising required for his business. ‘You were a journalist?’ he asked, more than a little intrigued by her.

She shook her head. ‘My background is in interior design but when a glitch in the economy meant the company I worked for went bust, I ended up as an interiors editor on a lifestyle magazine. I put together shoots for interiors and products and I loved it. Eliza and Gemma worked on the same magazine, Gemma as the food editor and Eliza on the publishing side. Six months ago we were told out of the blue that the magazine was closing and we had all lost our jobs.’

‘That must have been a shock,’ he said.

When he’d first started selling real estate at the age of eighteen he’d lived in terror he’d lose his job. Underlying all his success was always still that fear—which was why he was so driven to keep his business growing and thriving. Without money, without a home, he could slide back into being Nick Hunt of ‘no fixed abode’ rather than Dominic Hunt of Vaucluse, one of the most exclusive addresses in Australia.

‘It shouldn’t have come as a shock,’ she said. ‘Magazines close all the time in publishing—it’s an occupational hazard. But when it actually happened, when again one minute I had a job and the next I didn’t, it was...soul-destroying.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I soon picked myself up.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s quite a jump from a magazine job to a party planning business.’ Her lack of relevant experience could mean Party Planner Number Four would go the way of the other three. He was surprised at how disappointed that made him feel.

‘It might seem that way, but hear me out,’ she said, a determined glint in her eye. If one of the other planners had said that, he would have looked pointedly at his watch. This one, he was prepared to listen to—he was actually interested in her story.

‘We had to clear our desks immediately and were marched out of the offices by security guards. Shell-shocked, we all retired to a café and thought about what we’d do. The magazine’s deputy editor asked could we organise her sister’s eighteenth birthday party. At first we said no, thinking she was joking. But then we thought about it. A big magazine shoot that involves themes and food and props is quite a production. We’d also sometimes organise magazine functions for advertisers. We realised that between us we knew a heck of a lot about planning parties.’

‘As opposed to enjoying them,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ she said with a smile that seemed reminiscent of past parties enjoyed. ‘Between the three of us we had so many skills we could utilise.’

‘Can you elaborate on that?’

She held up a slender index finger, her nails tipped with orange polish. ‘One, I’m the ideas and visuals person—creative, great with themes and props and highly organised with follow-through.’ A second finger went up. ‘Two, Gemma trained as a chef and is an amazing food person—food is one of the most important aspects of a good party, whether cooking it yourself or knowing which chefs to engage.’

She had a little trouble getting the third finger to stay straight and swapped it to her pinkie. ‘Then, three, Eliza has her head completely around finances and contracts and sales and is also quite the wine buff.’

‘So you decided to go into business together?’ Her entrepreneurial spirit appealed to him.

She shook her head so her large multi-hoop gold earrings clinked. ‘Not then. Not yet. We agreed to do the eighteenth party while we looked for other jobs and freelanced for magazines and ad agencies.’

‘How did it work out?’ He thought about his eighteenth birthday. It had gone totally unmarked by any celebration—except his own jubilation that he was legally an adult and could never now be recalled to the hell his home had become. It had also marked the age he could be tried as an adult if he had skated too close to the law—though by that time his street-fighting days were behind him.

‘There were a few glitches, of course, but overall it was a great success. The girl went to a posh private school and both girls and parents loved the girly shoe theme we organised. One eighteenth led to another and soon we had other parents clamouring for us to do their kids’ parties.’

‘Is there much money in parties for kids?’ He didn’t have to ask all these questions but he was curious. Curious about her as much as anything.

Her eyebrows rose. ‘You’re kidding, right? We’re talking wealthy families on the eastern suburbs and north shore. We’re talking one-upmanship.’ He enjoyed the play of expressions across her face, the way she gesticulated with her hands as she spoke. ‘Heck, we’ve done a four-year-old’s party on a budget of thousands.’

‘All that money for a four-year-old?’ He didn’t have anything to do with kids except through his anonymous charity work. Had given up on his dream he would ever have children of his own. In fact, he was totally out of touch with family life.

‘You’d better believe it,’ she said.

He was warming to Andie Newman—how could any red-blooded male not?—but he wanted to ensure she was experienced enough to make his event work. All eyes would be on it as up until now he’d been notoriously private. If he threw a party, it had better be a good party. Better than good.

‘So when did you actually go into business?’

‘We were asked to do more and more parties. Grown-up parties too. Thirtieths and fortieths, even a ninetieth. It snowballed. Yet we still saw it as a stopgap thing although people suggested we make it a full-time business.’

‘A very high percentage of small businesses go bust in the first year,’ he couldn’t help but warn.

She pulled a face that told him she didn’t take offence. ‘We were very aware of that. Eliza is the profit and loss spreadsheet maven. But then a public relations company I worked freelance for asked us to do corporate parties and product launches. The work was rolling in. We began to think we should make it official and form our own company.’

‘A brave move.’ He’d made brave moves in his time—and most of them had paid off. He gave her credit for initiative.

She leaned forward towards him. This close he could appreciate how lovely her eyes were. He didn’t think he had ever before met anyone with genuine green eyes. ‘We’ve leased premises in the industrial area of Alexandria and we’re firing. But I have to be honest with you—we haven’t done anything with potentially such a profile as your party. We want it. We need it. And because we want it to so much we’ll pull out every stop to make it a success.’

Party Planner Number Four clocked up more credit for her honesty. He tapped the card on the edge of his hand. ‘You’ve got the enthusiasm; do you have the expertise? Can you assure me you can do my job and do it superlatively well?’

Those remarkable green eyes were unblinking. ‘Yes. Absolutely. Undoubtedly. There might only be three of us, but between us we have a zillion contacts in Sydney—chefs, decorators, florists, musicians, waiting staff. If we can’t do it ourselves we can pull in the right people who can. And none of us is afraid of the hard work a party this size would entail. We would welcome the challenge.’

He realised she was now sitting on the edge of the sofa, her hands clasped together and her foot crossed over her ankle was jiggling. She really did want this job—wanted it badly.

Dominic hadn’t got where he was without a fine-tuned instinct for people. Instincts honed first on the streets where trusting the wrong person could have been fatal and then in the cut-throat business of high-end real estate and property development. His antennae were telling him Andie Newman would be able to deliver—and that he would enjoy working with her.

Trouble was, while he thought she might be the right person for the job, he found her very attractive and would like to ask her out. And he couldn’t do both. He never dated staff or suppliers. He’d made that mistake with his ex-wife—he would not make it again. Hire Andie Newman and he was more than halfway convinced he would get a good party planner. Not hire her and he could ask her on a date. But he needed this event to work—and for that the planning had to be in the best possible hands. He was torn.

‘I like your enthusiasm,’ he said. ‘But I’d be taking a risk by working with a company that is in many ways still...unproven.’

Her voice rose marginally—she probably didn’t notice but to him it betrayed her anxiety to impress. ‘We have a file overflowing with references from happy clients. But before you come to any decisions let’s talk about what you’re expecting from us. The worst thing that can happen is for a client to get an unhappy surprise because we’ve got the brief wrong.’

She pulled out a folder from her satchel. He liked that it echoed the design of her business card. That showed an attention to detail. The chaos of his early life had made him appreciate planning and order. He recognised his company logo on the printout page she took from the folder and quickly perused.

‘So tell me,’ she said, when she’d finished reading it. ‘I’m puzzled. Despite this briefing document stating the party is to be “A high-profile Christmas event to attract favourable publicity for Dominic Hunt” you still insist it’s not to reference Christmas in any way. Which is correct?’

* * *

Andie regretted the words almost as soon as they’d escaped from her mouth. She hadn’t meant to confront Dominic Hunt or put him on the spot. Certainly she hadn’t wanted to get him offside. But the briefing had been ambiguous and she felt she had to clarify it if she was to secure this job for Party Queens.

She needed their business to succeed—never again did she want to be at the mercy of the whims of a corporate employer. To have a job one day and then suddenly not the next day was too traumatising after that huge personal change of direction she’d had forced upon her five years ago. But she could have put her question with more subtlety.

He didn’t reply. The silence that hung between them became more uncomfortable by the second. His face tightened with an emotion she couldn’t read. Anger? Sorrow? Regret? Whatever it was, the effect was so powerful she had to force herself not to reach over and put her hand on his arm to comfort him, maybe even hug him. And that would be a mistake. Even more of a mistake than her ill-advised question had been.

She cringed that she had somehow prompted the unleashing of thoughts that were so obviously painful for him. Then braced herself to be booted out on to the same scrapheap as the three party planners who had preceded her.

Finally he spoke, as if the words were being dragged out of him. ‘The brief was incorrect. Christmas has some...difficult memories attached to it for me. I don’t celebrate the season. Please just leave it at that.’ For a long moment his gaze held hers and she saw the anguish recede.

Andie realised she had been holding her breath and she let it out with a slow sigh of relief, amazed he hadn’t shown her the door.

‘Of...of course,’ she murmured, almost gagging with gratitude that she was to be given a second chance. And she couldn’t deny that she wanted that chance. Not just for the job but—she could not deny it—the opportunity to see more of this undoubtedly interesting man.

There was something deeper here, some private pain, that she did not understand. But it would be bad-mannered prying to ask any further questions.

She didn’t know much about his personal life. Just that he was considered a catch—rich, handsome, successful. Though not her type, of course. He lived here alone, she understood, in this street in Vaucluse where house prices started in the double digit millions. Wasn’t there a bitter divorce in his background—an aggrieved ex-wife, a public battle for ownership of the house? She’d have to look it up. If she were to win this job—and she understood that it was still a big if—she needed to get a grasp on how this man ticked.

‘Okay, so that’s sorted—no Christmas,’ she said, aiming to sound briskly efficient without any nod to the anguish she had read at the back of his eyes. ‘Now I know what you don’t want for your party, let’s talk about what you do want. I’d like to hear in your words what you expect from this party. Then I can give you my ideas based on your thoughts.’

The party proposals she had hoped to discuss had been based on Christmas; she would have to do some rapid thinking.

Dominic Hunt got up from the sofa and started to pace. He was so tall, his shoulders so broad, he dominated even the large, high-ceilinged room. Andie found herself wondering about his obviously once broken nose—who had thrown the first punch? She got up, not to pace alongside him but to be closer to his level. She did not feel intimidated by him but she could see how he could be intimidating.

‘The other planners babbled on about how important it was to invite A-list and B-list celebrities to get publicity. I don’t give a damn about celebrities and I can’t see how that’s the right kind of publicity.’

Andie paused, not sure what to say, only knowing she had to be careful not to babble on. ‘I can organise the party, but the guest list is up to you and your people.’

He stopped his pacing, stepped closer. ‘But do you agree with me?’

Was this a test question? Answer incorrectly and that scrapheap beckoned? As always, she could only be honest. ‘I do agree with you. It’s my understanding that this party is aimed at...at image repair.’

‘You mean repair to my image as a miserly Scrooge who hoards all his money for himself?’

She swallowed a gasp at the bitterness of his words, then looked up at him to see not the anger she expected but a kind of manly bewilderment that surprised her.

‘I mightn’t have put it quite like that, but yes,” she said. ‘You do have that reputation and I understand you want to demonstrate it’s not so. And yes, I think the presence of a whole lot of freeloading so-called celebrities who run the gamut from the A to the Z list and have nothing to do with the charities you want to be seen to be supporting might not help. But you are more likely to get coverage in the social pages if they attend.’

He frowned. ‘Is there such a thing as a Z-list celebrity?’

She laughed. ‘If there isn’t, there should be. Maybe I made it up.’

‘You did say you were creative,’ he said. He smiled—the first real smile she’d seen from him. It transformed his face, like the sun coming out from behind a dark storm cloud, unleashing an unexpected charm. Her heartbeat tripped into double time like it had the first moment she’d seen him. Why? Why this inexplicable reaction to a man she should dislike for his meanness and greed?

She made a show of looking around her to disguise her consternation. Tamed the sudden shakiness in her voice into a businesslike tone. ‘How many magazines or lifestyle programmes have featured this house?’ she asked.

‘None. They never will,’ he said.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘The house is both magnificent and unknown. I reckon even your neighbours would be willing to cough up a sizeable donation just to see inside.’ In her mind’s eye she could see the house transformed into a glittering party paradise. ‘The era of the house is nineteen-twenties, right?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was originally built for a wealthy wool merchant.’

She thought some more. ‘Why not an extravagant Great Gatsby twenties-style party with a silver and white theme—that gives a nod to the festive season—and a strictly curated guest list? Guests would have to dress in silver or white. Or both. Make it very exclusive, an invitation to be sought after. The phones of Sydney’s social set would be set humming to see who got one or not.’ Her eyes half shut as her mind bombarded her with images. ‘Maybe a masked party. Yes. Amazing silver and white masks. Bejewelled and befeathered. Fabulous masks that could be auctioned off at some stage for your chosen charity.’

‘Auctioned?’

Her eyes flew open and she had to orientate herself back into the reality of the empty room that she had just been envisioning filled with elegant partygoers. Sometimes when her creativity was firing she felt almost in a trance. Then it was her turn to frown. How could a Sydney billionaire be such a party innocent?

Even she, who didn’t move in the circles of society that attended lavish fund-raising functions, knew about the auctions. The competitive bidding could probably be seen as the same kind of one-upmanship as the spending of thousands on a toddler’s party. ‘I believe it’s usual to have a fund-raising auction at these occasions. Not just the masks, of course. Other donated items. Something really big to up the amount of dollars for your charity.’ She paused. ‘You’re a property developer, aren’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Among other interests.’

‘Maybe you could donate an apartment? There’d be some frenzied bidding for that from people hoping for a bargain. And you would look generous.’

His mouth turned down in an expression of distaste. ‘I’m not sure that’s in keeping with the image I want to...to reinvent.’

Privately she agreed with him—why couldn’t people just donate without expecting a lavish party in return? But she kept her views to herself. Creating those lavish parties was her job now.

‘That’s up to you and your people. The guest list and the auction, I mean. But the party? That’s my domain. Do you like the idea of the twenties theme to suit the house?’ In her heart she still longed for the choristers on the staircase. Maybe it would have to be a jazz band on the steps. That could work. Not quite the same romanticism and spirit as Christmas, but it would be a spectacular way to greet guests.

‘I like it,’ he said slowly.

She forced herself not to panic, not to bombard him with a multitude of alternatives. ‘If not that idea, I have lots of others. I would welcome the opportunity to present them to you.’

He glanced at his watch and she realised she had been there for much longer than the ten-minute pitch he’d allowed. Surely that was a good sign.

‘I’ll schedule in another meeting with you tomorrow afternoon,’ he said.

‘You mean a second interview?’ she asked, fingers crossed behind her back.

‘No. A brainstorming session. You’ve got the job, Ms Newman.’

It was only as, jubilant, she made her way to the door—conscious of his eyes on her back—that she wondered at the presence of a note of regret in Dominic Hunt’s voice.