Читать книгу Valentine's Day - Nicola Marsh, Allison Leigh - Страница 26
ОглавлениеMarch
Zander’s assistant made an appointment right at the end of his day for her to sign the contract and so walking back into EROS was only half as intimidating as it might have been if it were full of staff.
An oblivious night-guard had just sat down at Reception instead of the two gossipy girls she’d met there the first time she visited, and most of the workstations in the communal area were closed down for the evening. Georgia clutched a printout of Zander’s new contract in her hand and quietly trailed his assistant past the handful of people still beavering away at their desks. Most of them didn’t raise their heads.
Maybe she was yesterday’s news already.
Or maybe public interest had just swung around to Dan, instead, now that the calendar had flipped over to March. Drop Dead Dan. Apparently, he was fielding a heap of interest from the women’s magazines and the tabloids, all determined to find him a match more acceptable than she. More worthy. London now thought he was too good for her. Not that he’d put it like that—or ever would have—but she could read between the lines. She didn’t dare read the actual lines.
She shifted in her seat outside Zander’s office.
Behind the frosted-glass doors, an elevated voice protested strenuously. There was a low murmur where the shouted response should have been and then a final, higher-pitch burst. Moments later one of the two doors flung open and a man emerged—flushed, rushed—and stormed past her. He glanced her way.
‘A lamb to the bloody slaughter,’ he murmured, a bit too loud to have been accidental, before storming down the corridor and into one of the studios off to one side. She followed his entire progress.
‘Georgia.’ A smooth voice dragged her focus back to the doors.
She straightened, stood. Reached out her hand. The tiniest of frowns crossed Zander’s face before he enclosed her hand in his and shook it. His fingers were as warm and lingering as last time. And still pleasingly firm. ‘I was beginning to think we’d never see you again.’
‘I had to think it over.’ And over. Looking for any reasonable way out. And avoiding the whole thing, really.
‘And?’
She sighed. ‘And here I am.’
He stood back and signalled at his assistant, who was politely keeping her eyes averted, but not so much that she didn’t immediately decode and acknowledge his signal. Did that little finger-twiddle mean, Hold my calls? Bring us coffee? Or maybe, If she’s not out in five minutes interrupt me with something fake but important.
Perhaps the latter if the furrows above his brow were any indication. He didn’t look all that pleased to see her. So maybe she really had taken too long with the contract.
‘I needed to be sure I understood what you were asking.’ Ugh, way too defensive.
His eyes finally found hers and they didn’t carry a hint of judgement. ‘And do you?’
She waved the sheaf of papers. ‘All signed.’
A disproportional amount of relief washed across his face. He sat back in his expensive chair.
She tipped her head. ‘You weren’t expecting that?’ She hated the thought that maybe there’d been more room for negotiation after all. She hated being played.
‘I’ve learned never to try and anticipate the actions of people.’ His eyes drifted to the door where the man had just stormed out.
‘I had one question...’
The relief vanished and was replaced by speculation. ‘Sure.’
‘It’s about the interviews. Is that really necessary? It seems very formal.’
‘We just need an idea of who you are, so we know what we’re starting with.’
‘By filling out a questionnaire? I thought maybe if I had coffee with your assistant, told her a bit about myself—’
‘Not Casey. She’s not subjective enough.’
‘Because she’s a woman?’
‘Because she’s a card-carrying member of Team Georgia.’
Oh. How nice to have at least one person in her corner.
‘Unless you were angling for a free lunch?’
She glared at him. ‘Yes. Because all of this would be totally worth it if only I could get a free bowl of soup out of you.’
His scowl moderated into a half-smile.
‘What about one of your other minions,’ she tried.
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Minions?’
‘You have an assistant to do your bidding. And that man leaving just now didn’t look like a man who enjoyed fair and equal status in his workplace.’
His frown deepened. ‘I don’t have minions. I do have staff.’
‘Then any one of your staff.’
He studied her across the desk. ‘No. Not one of my staff.’
She sighed. ‘I’d really rather not do a questionnaire, Zander. It’s too impersonal.’ And a little bit insulting. As though a computer could tell her what was missing in her life when she was still struggling to work that out.
‘Not one of my staff and not a form.’
‘Then what?’
‘Me.’
‘You what?’
‘I’ll interview you.’ He reached for a pen.
‘N-now?’ she stammered.
The half-smile graduated. ‘No. I’m just making a couple of notes for Casey for tomorrow.’
She swivelled in her chair. ‘She’s gone?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I thought you... Didn’t you signal for her to do something for you just now?’
‘Yes, I told her to go home. Just because I keep long hours doesn’t mean she has to. She’s got a young family to get home to.’
So they were...alone? Why on earth did that make her pulse spike? Just once. She’d walked in a secluded wood with him. Being alone in an office wasn’t all that scandalous. Except that it was his office, full of his comfy, oversized furniture and all of a sudden she felt a lot like an outclassed Goldilocks.
She pushed half out of her chair. ‘I should go.’
‘What about the interview? I thought we could go and grab a drink, talk. I can get what I need.’
For a bright woman, an astonishing amount of nothing filled her head just then. He prowled to the front of his desk and stood by her chair so that she had no choice but to stand and let him shepherd her out of his office.
‘The contract...’ she breathed.
He relieved her of the pages, flicked to the back one and signed it, unread. She pressed her lips together. ‘I should have gifted myself a luxury car in small print.’
His lips parted, revealing smooth, white, even teeth. ‘Where would you drive a luxury car?’
‘You never know. Maybe that’s something I’d like to get experience with—I’ve never driven anything flashier than a Vauxhall.’
His eyes softened as they alighted on her. Then he reached deep into his trouser pocket and tossed her a bundle of keys. They were still warm from his body heat. Toasty warm. She lifted her eyes to his.
‘Never too early to get started. Consider this the first Year of Georgia activity. Driving a luxury car.’
‘Not your Jag?’ she gasped.
‘Not flashy enough for you?’
Excitement tangled with dread. ‘What if I scratch it? Or dent it?’ Or drive it into the Thames in her excitement?
‘You strike me as a careful driver.’
He ushered her out of the door, keys still lying limp and unwelcome on her palm. She closed her fingers around them.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I have outstanding insurance.’
* * *
Why would you even care?
Her words had haunted him ever since she’d uttered them, wide-eyed and confused, when he’d first hit her with his counter-proposal. He did care—very much—on a personal level that even he barely understood, so he’d been shoving the echo of her words way down deep every time it bubbled to the surface.
Rod and Nigel were already celebrating a ratings coup—even bad PR was good PR in the communications industry—but they’d left the details of what the coming year would entail up to him. As long as Zander got her on board, that was all they cared about. Locking down the contract and making the best use of the publicity windfall.
This desperate attempt to make sure she got something back for her troubles, that was all him. It just didn’t seem right to screw a girl at the most vulnerable moment of her life.
And he knew all about that moment. He’d lived it. He knew how it shaped his life.
It was stupid; he could hardly say that he’d bonded with Georgia the moment he decided to shield her from the prying eyes waiting in Reception. Back in the elevator. But he had. She’d lingered somewhere in the back of his mind from the moment she’d fallen so gratefully on the gesture, and then she’d popped up, unsolicited, when he wasn’t armed.
In the middle of important meetings.
Late at night.
Out on the roads as he thudded one foot in front of the other.
‘You seem to be dealing with this quite well,’ he murmured as the waiter topped up both their glasses in his favourite Hampstead bar. ‘Given how you felt about the whole idea last time we met.’
She took a long, steady breath. ‘It seems I’m the only one of a longish list of people who doesn’t think there’s room for improvement with Georgia Version-Two.’
‘Give yourself some credit,’ he murmured, saluting her with his glass before taking a sip. ‘You’re more together than you think.’
‘Based on what?’
‘My observations.’
‘During one quick walk in the woods?’
‘I’m paid to pay attention to first impressions.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘The elevator?’
‘That was a tough few minutes for you and you handled them well.’
She snorted. ‘Weeping while your back was turned?’
He smiled. ‘How someone reacts under extreme pressure tells you a lot about them. You were unfailingly courteous even as you were dying inside.’
Uncertainty flooded her dark eyes. ‘You saw that?’
‘But you didn’t let it have you. You stayed in control.’
‘You didn’t see what happened to me once I got home,’ she murmured.
He chuckled. ‘I said you were strong, not a machine.’
He glanced down to her twisting fingers. Elegant, sensibly manicured hands. He wondered how much else Georgia Stone was sensible about. And what secret things she wasn’t.
And he shut that curiosity down as fast as it came.
‘So. Have you given any thought to the kinds of things you might like to do with the Year of Georgia?’
‘No.’
A lie, for sure. She was human. Who wouldn’t start thinking about how to spend that kind of money?
‘Top restaurants? Boats? A-list parties? A taste of how the other half live.’
She shrugged. ‘I can see how they live. It doesn’t interest me, particularly.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s...frivolous.’
Wow. ‘That’s rather judgemental, don’t you think?’
She leaned forward. ‘More cars than one person can drive and glamorous houses and wardrobes bulging with unworn clothes?’
‘Where’d you get that impression? Television?’ She frowned. ‘I have more cars than I can drive at once. A nice house and enough suits for two weeks without laundering.’ As he knew from experience. ‘But I wouldn’t call myself frivolous. Maybe there’s more to it than you imagine.’
And he wouldn’t flatter himself that this was about him. This was an older prejudice at work.
She dropped her eyes briefly. ‘Perhaps. But I’m still not interested enough to try. I like my own world.’
‘Science and beautiful gardens? What else?’
She stared him down. ‘Classical music. Rowing. Old movies. History.’
He blew out a breath. One part of him sighed at the image of a life filled with those things. Quiet, solitary, gentle things. But the station manager in him baulked. ‘Getting our listeners excited about rowing and classical music is going to be a hard sell.’ Along with the rest.
She sat up straighter. ‘Not my problem.’
The first real emotion she’d shown him. Shame it was offence. ‘It kind of is, Georgia. You have a signed contract to honour. We need to find a way forward in this.’
Her astute eyes pinned him. ‘As long as it also works for your listeners?’
‘There must be things that they’ll enjoy that you will, too.’
She stared at him. ‘I won’t do it if it’s portrayed as me trying to find a man. Or to improve myself enough to find one.’
‘Just the Year of Georgia, then. The Valentine’s Girl getting back on her feet. You really cared for Daniel, our listeners will buy that.’ God... Could he hear himself? He sounded just like Rod. Always an angle. Always a carrot. ‘We’ll assign someone from the station to—’
‘No. I don’t want one of them with me.’
‘One of who?’
‘One of the people who were there for the proposal. I don’t want them coming with me.’
She didn’t trust them. And he understood why. Though what she didn’t understand was that the whole sodding mess was his fault. Not theirs.
‘OK, I’ll hire someone esp—’
‘No strangers, either.’ Her face pinched in several places.
‘Georgia, if I can’t use one of my team and I can’t hire someone, who am I going to get to do it?’
‘You do it. I know you.’
His laugh was as loud as it was immediate. ‘Do you know what I get paid an hour?’
‘Too much to actually get paid by the hour, I’m sure. But that is my condition.’ She did her best to look adamant. Even that was moderated by a faintly apologetic sheen to her steady gaze. ‘Take it or leave it.’
She had no idea how to negotiate. The innocence was insanely refreshing. ‘You’ve already signed the contract,’ he pointed out gently.
But even as the words came out of his mouth his brain ticked over, furiously. His assistant would jump at the chance for some extra responsibility, so he could offload some lower-end tasks to Casey. And if this was what it would take to get Georgia fully on board...
But he held his assent back, in case it had more power a few moments later.
His entire life was about holding things back until they had the most advantage.
‘My days are packed out from dawn until dusk.’
Georgia shrugged. ‘I have a job, too, so they’re going to be evening and weekend things anyway, I imagine.’
It was hard not to admire her for sticking to her guns. Not too many people made a habit of saying no to him these days. He had them all too scared.
‘I have things I like to do on my weekends,’ he argued. But not very convincingly. Hard-to-get was all part of the game.
One dark, well-shaped eyebrow lifted. ‘How badly do you want these ratings?’
A stain of colour came to her cheeks. Either she was shocked at her own audacity or she was enjoying giving him some stick. He used the time she thought he was thinking about her offer to study her features instead. She had a right-hand-side dimple that totally belied the determination of those set lips, and she had a chin built for protesting.
That was probably long enough. He hissed as if he hadn’t made his decision sixty seconds ago. ‘Fine. I’ll do it.’
Her triumph was so brief. It only took her a heartbeat to realise that his commitment had fully sealed hers. And her next twelve months.
‘One more condition,’ she hurried as a pair of drink menus arrived. It was his turn to lift a brow. ‘No one mentions Dan. No one. You will leave him completely alone.’
Loyalty blazed from her chocolate eyes.
Somewhere down deep where constancy used to live in him, he admired her for continuing to protect the man she’d injured. A man she still cared for even though he’d also hurt her horribly. It said she might have been impetuous and naïve but she was faithful. And that was a rare commodity in his world. Her hurt and anger were very clearly directed at herself. In fact, the most notable thing about her manner was the absence of the flat, lifeless lack of interest that he associated so closely with heartbreak—and knew so intimately.
He wondered if she’d even realised yet that her heart wasn’t broken.
‘OK, Daniel is out of it.’
‘And get the media to lay off him.’
He snorted. Whoever taught Georgia about manners forgot to teach her about pushing her luck. ‘No one can halt that train now that it’s moving, Georgia. I can promise EROS won’t use him, but there’s nothing I can do about him being London’s most wanted. He’s a big boy. He’ll be fine.’
Besides, judging by what he heard on the broadcast, Daniel Bradford could look after himself.
He leaned forward and locked his eyes on hers. ‘You’ve played this well—’ for a civilian ‘—but I’ve bent about as far as I’m going to go. I’ll have an amendment to the contract drawn up and ready for your signature next week.’
She nodded and sank back in her side of the booth.
‘How about some dinner?’
She just blinked at him.
‘You do eat dinner?’
‘Um, yes. Though not usually out. Except for special occasions.’
She truly hadn’t begun to imagine ways of spending her huge windfall? He tried one last time to prove that she was like everyone else. ‘Don’t tell me you’re another mad-keen home chef?’
Her laugh was automatic. ‘No, definitely not.’
‘You don’t cook?’
‘I prepare food. But it’s not really cooking. The latest in a number of reasons it was probably just as well Dan declined my proposal.’
She certainly was taking her failed marriage-bid a hell of a lot better than he’d taken his. Did that say more about her or Bradford?
Or him?
He fired up his tablet and tapped a few keys. ‘I think we just found your first official Year of Georgia idea.’
‘Eating out in every restaurant in London?’
‘Culinary school.’ He chuckled.
She stared. ‘I hated home economics at school. What makes you think I’ll enjoy it now?’
‘Half the women on my staff are right into those social cooking classes. Wine, conversation, cooking techniques from the experts. The sessions must have something going for them.’
Her lips tightened. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to go where your staff—’
‘God, no.’ He pushed his chair back and stood. ‘That’s the last thing I want, too.’
‘You?’
‘I’ll be coming along. Or have you changed your mind?’
Her delicate brows folded closer together. ‘It’s not me doing it for me if I’m doing it with you. The dynamic would be all wrong.’
Dynamic. That sounded almost credible. What was she really worried about?
‘I need to be there to record your progress, but...you have a point. We’ll do it together, but separate. Like we don’t know each other. I’ll just shadow you. Watch.’
A streak of colour ran up her jaw. ‘Won’t that be weird?’
He pushed his glass away and leaned in closer. ‘Georgia, I’m going to have a solution for any hurdle you put up. You’ve signed the contract. How about working with me on this instead of against?’
She sighed. Stared at him with those unreadable eyes. ‘OK. Sorry.’ She took a sip of white wine. ‘What did you have in mind?’
* * *
‘That’s a long list.’ Georgia stretched and read the upside-down sheet in front of Zander.
‘A year is a long time. But we don’t have to go with all of these. Plus things might come up along the way so we need to leave room for those. If you had to shortlist, which ones would you enjoy the most?’
He spun the paper around to her and passed her his fancy pen. She asterisked Wimbledon, cooking classes—which she agreed to because he’d indicated his listeners would love it, not because she actually wanted to know the difference between flambé and sauté—cocktail-making class, truffle-making, and a makeover. That last one because she got the sense he really thought it was important. She tugged her sensible shirt down further over her sensible trousers.
‘I really want to do this one.’ She circled one down near the bottom, taking a risk. It wasn’t what he’d be expecting at all. And unlike some of the others this one actually did interest and intrigue her.
‘Ice carving?’
‘How amazing would that be? Ooh, and this one...’ Another asterisk.
‘Spy school?’
She lifted excited eyes. ‘Can you imagine?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t need to imagine. I’m going to find out.’
She sipped her wine.
‘What about travel?’ he asked.
‘What about it?’
‘Not interested in the thought of a holiday?’
Flying to a whole other country seemed a lot to ask. Besides, she didn’t have a passport. Just the idea of applying for one got her blood thrumming.
‘Where could I go?’ she breathed.
His smile was almost indulgent. If it weren’t also so confused. Had he never met anyone whose gratification went so far beyond delayed it was non-existent?
‘Anywhere you want,’ he said.
As she holidayed in her apartment as a rule, anything further afield than Brighton just didn’t occur to her. ‘Where would be good for your listeners?’
Zander shrugged. ‘New York? Ibiza?’
Her breath caught... Ankara? She’d wanted to go to Turkey since seeing a documentary on its ancient history.
But no, that seemed too much. Fanciful. She wrote down Ibiza on the bottom of the list. That seemed like the kind of place EROS listeners would like to hear about. The party capital of Europe. Fast-pour bars and twenty-four-hour clubs and duelling dance arenas and swollen feet and ringing ears.
Oh, yay.
‘I might add some things, as we go along. Things that occur to me.’ Things she’d like to do but didn’t want Zander knowing about. Though of course they wouldn’t stay secret for long.
‘That’s fine. Just hook them up with Casey. I’ll just go where she sends me.’
‘That’s very accommodating of you. Compliance won’t do much for your reputation as a fearsome boss,’ she said.
One eye twitched. ‘I’m not fearsome; I just want them to think that I am.’
‘Why?’ That was no way to enjoy your work.
‘Because it gets things done. I’m not there to be their friend.’
She thought of her own boss. A whacky, brilliant man whom she absolutely adored. ‘You don’t think people would work just as hard with respect and admiration as their motivation?’
He lifted his gaze. ‘I’d like to think they respect me. I just don’t need them to like me.’
Or want them to? Something in his demeanour whispered that. But there wasn’t much else she could say about that without offending him. Besides, last time she checked he was the most successful person she knew. And she didn’t know him at all.
Silence fell. ‘What do you do on your weekends?’ she finally asked.
‘What?’
‘You said you had things to do on your weekend. What kinds of things?’
He regarded her steadily. ‘Weekend stuff.’
She lifted both her eyebrows.
‘I train.’ He frowned.
Lord. Blood from a stone! ‘For...?’
‘For events.’
She took a stab. ‘Showjumping? Clay shooting? Oh!’ She drained the last of her wine. ‘Ice dancing.’
A reluctant smile crept onto his face. ‘Endurance running. I compete in marathons.’
‘Truly?’
He chuckled. ‘Yes.’
‘What sort of distances?’
‘Forty or fifty kilometres. It depends.’
‘A weekend?’ Her half-shriek drew glances from around the noisy bar.
His lips twisted. ‘A day.’
A day! ‘Well, that explains the body—’
Horror sucked the words back in, but not fast enough. Oh, God! She quietly pushed her nearly empty glass far away from her.
‘I have to keep my fitness up, so I run every morning and I do long runs or hikes every weekend.’
‘Every weekend?’
‘Pretty much.’
Wow. ‘Just running. For hours on end?’
‘Or hard hiking. That’s why it’s called endurance.’
‘Sounds lonely.’ But also kind of...zen. Kind of what she did when she wandered deep into the dark heart of forests.
‘I don’t mind the solitude,’ he murmured.
‘Is that why you do it?’
His answer was fast. As if he’d defended himself on that point often. ‘I do it for the challenge. Because I can. And I do my best thinking out there.’
Fifty kilometres. That was a lot of thinking time.
‘Just...wow. I’m impressed.’
‘Don’t get too excited. In competition we can do that in under four hours.’
Georgia shook her head. ‘Put marathon running on the list.’
He looked up sharply. ‘You want to run a marathon?’
‘God, no. I have two left feet. But I’ve never seen one. I can just watch you. Help you train.’
Intense discomfort flooded his face.
Once again she’d managed to misread a man. This wasn’t a friendship. They weren’t bonding. This was a business arrangement with the sole purpose of tracking her activity. Why on earth would he want her around during his private time? He probably had a raft of friends actually of his choosing to hang out with—and many of them women.
‘I...uh...’
She’d stuffed up big enough to actually make a man stammer. World class.
‘You know what?’ she breezed, not feeling the slightest bit breezy. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Me watching you run would make terrible radio. Scratch that off the list.’ Was she a convincing liar? They’d find out. His pen was still frozen over the page and so there was nothing to scratch out, so she said the only other thing that came into her head.
‘Another drink?’
* * *
The list grew as long as the evening. They hit the Internet for ideas of cool things for her to do in London. Pretty soon they had learn-to-dance classes, movie premieres, and a royal polo match.
‘Aquasphering!’ she said, a little bit too loud. ‘Whatever that is.’
‘Really? That’s your kind of thing?’
‘None of it is my thing—isn’t that the point? Pushing myself out of my comfort zone.’ Wa-a-ay out of it.
‘Can we afford a seat on a commercial spaceflight?’ she blurted, tapping the tablet’s glossy screen. ‘That would be exciting.’
He smiled. ‘No. We can’t. And we don’t really have the time for it to become more mainstream.’
‘Pff. You suck.’
Zander stared at her. Assessing. ‘I think I need to get some food into you.’
‘I told you I didn’t do this for the soup.’
‘I was thinking of something a little more solid than soup.’
Judgement stung, low and sharp. She sat up straighter. ‘I’m not drunk.’
‘No, you’re not. But you will be if you keep going like this.’
‘Maybe the new me drinks more often.’
He gathered up their papers and his tablet and returned them to his briefcase. ‘Really? This is how you want to start the Year of Georgia? By getting hammered?’
She stared at him. Thought about that. ‘Have we started?’
‘First day.’
‘Then we should leave.’ Because, no, she didn’t want to start that way.
‘Let me feed you. I have somewhere in mind. We can walk. Clear your head.’
‘Why isn’t your head fuzzy? You’ve been matching me drink for drink.’
He shrugged. ‘Body mass?’
She relaxed back into the booth and smiled happily. ‘That’s so unfair.’ Then she sat bolt upright again, her fingers reaching for her phone before her mind was even engaged. ‘I should ring Dan. I need to explain.’
Zander caught her hand before it could do more than curl around her phone. ‘No. Let’s not do that on an empty stomach. Let’s go get some food.’
He was right. She needed to talk to Dan face to face, not over the phone. She stood. ‘OK. What are we having?’
‘We could start your cooking lesson tonight. Something informal.’
‘I live miles from here.’
He smiled. ‘I don’t.’
And just like that—bam!—she was sober. Zander Rush was taking her back to his place. To feed her. To teach her to make food. Something about that seemed so...intimate.
‘You know what?’ she lied. ‘I have some things to do tonight before work tomorrow. I think maybe I should just head home.’
‘What about food?’
If she was clear-headed enough to lie she was clear-headed enough to catch the tube. ‘We’re one block from the station.’
His smile grew indulgent. ‘I know. You drove us here.’
‘It’s on the same line as Kew Gardens. I used to catch it home all the time.’ So she knew it well.
‘At least let me walk you to the station, then.’
She shot to her feet. ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
He shook his head. ‘Still so courteous.’
She shrugged. ‘Old-school upbringing.’
‘Traditional parents?’
Her laugh was more of a bark. ‘Definitely not. My gran raised me mostly. To give me some stability. My mother really wasn’t...well adapted...to parenting.’
He threw her a sideways look. ‘I’m the youngest of six to older parents so maybe we were raised by a similar generation?’
It took just a few minutes to walk down to the station and something in her speech or her steady forward movement or her riveting, non-stop chatter about her childhood must have convinced him she was fine to be left alone because he didn’t try and stop her again.
He paused by the white entry gate. ‘Well...’
‘You’ll be in touch?’
‘Casey will. My assistant.’
Of course. He had minions.
‘She’ll pull together a schedule for the next few months, to get us started.’
‘So...I guess I’ll see you at the first one, then.’
‘Remember, we’ll be strangers as far as anyone else is concerned. I’m just your shadow. I won’t even acknowledge you when I arrive.’
Weird. But better. If they were doing these things together she’d just get too comfortable. And that wasn’t a good idea, judging by how comfortable she’d been for the past few hours. ‘I’ll remember. See you then.’
She stepped towards the ticket gate, then turned back and smiled. ‘Thanks for letting me drive the Jag.’
‘Any time.’
Georgia waved again and then disappeared into the station. Zander turned and jogged across the pedestrian crossing, then ducked down the commercial lane that led to the back of the garden of his nearby house where they’d parked the Jag. Except she thought they just got lucky with a street park convenient to his favourite bar, not parking in front of his house.
He was really out of practice. Who took a woman to a bar, then drank so that he couldn’t drive her home? Who let a woman ride the tube alone at night?
A man who was trying really hard not to feel as if he was on a date, that was who.
He’d first caught himself back at his office when she’d thrust her hand out so professionally and he’d felt a stab of disappointment. What did he expect, a kiss on each cheek? Of course she was all business. This was...business.
And this was just an after-hours work meeting. He’d almost sabotaged himself by inviting her back to his house to eat, but it had just tumbled from his lips. The old Zander never would have let so many hours pass without taking care to make sure they’d both eaten. It had been a long time since the new Zander came along. This Zander had perfectly defined business muscle but it had come at the expense of social niceties.
Any muscle would atrophy without use.
And then the coup de grâce. Any time. He could have said ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘think nothing of it’ but he went with ‘any time’. As though there’d be a repeat performance.
He pushed through the gate to his property and started down the long, winding path between the extensive gardens to the conservatory.
Clearly something of the old him still existed. Something that responded to Georgia’s easy company and complete failure to engage with him the way others did. She just didn’t care who he was or that he was the only thing standing between her and a lawsuit. Or maybe she just didn’t recognise it.
She stared up at him with those big brown eyes and treated him exactly like everyone else.
No one did that any more. Even Casey—the closest thing he had to a friend at work—was always super careful never to cross a line, to always stop just short of the point where familiarity became contempt. Even she was sensitive to how much of her future rested in his hands.
Because he was so thorough in reminding them all. Regularly.
His minions.
He smiled. The irony was he didn’t think that way at all. Not deep down. He believed in the power of teams and much preferred collaborative working groups to the way he did things now. They’d served him well back in the day when every programme he’d produced had been the product of a handful of hard-working people. But there was no getting around the fact that EROS really did run better with a clear, controlled gulf between himself and the people who worked for him. And he didn’t mind the gulf; it meant no complications between friendships and workplace relationships.
And driving Georgia home would have been a complication.
Having her here, in his house, would have been a complication.
He had a signed contract; the time for courting The Valentine’s Girl, professionally, was over. He should have just given her a list of activities that the station was prepared to send her to and been done with it. Instead of being a sap. Instead of reacting to an event fifteen years old and letting it colour his better judgement.
Instead of empathising.
Just because he’d been exactly where Georgia was; on the arse-end of a declined proposal. Only in his case, he got all the way down the aisle before realising his fiancée wasn’t coming down behind him because she was on her way to Heathrow with her supportive bridesmaids. What followed was a horrible half-hour of shouting and recriminations before the priest managed to clear the church. Lara’s family and friends all went wildly on the defensive—as you would if it was someone you loved that had done something so shocking. His side of the church rallied around him so stoically, which only inflamed Lara’s family more because they knew—knew—that there were a hundred better ways to not proceed with a marriage than just not turning up. Less destructive ways. But she’d gone with the one that would cause her the least pain.
And, chump that he was, he actually preferred that. He wasn’t in the business of wishing pain on people he loved back then.
The heartbreak was bad enough, slumped in the front row of the rioting church, but he’d had to endure the public humiliation in front of everyone he cared about. Their whispers. Their pity. Their side-taking. Worse, their determined, well-meant support. Every bit as excruciating and public as Georgia’s turn-down live on air. Just more contained.
Like atomic fusion.
But the after-effects rippled out for a decade and a half.
He jogged up the stairs and headed straight for his study. The most important room in his house. The work he got done there was the difference between just-hanging-on in the network and excelling. No one excelled on forty hours a week. He was putting in eighty, easy.
It was the one thing he could thank Lara for.
Setting him up for the kind of success that gave him a luxurious study in a big house in Hampstead Heath and had him rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the country.
And just like that he was thinking of Georgia again. Her crack about big houses and unworn clothes and crowded garages. There was a reason he parked the Jag on the street. Because both the cars in his garage were worth more. He liked his life. Excessive though it might be at times. He barely drove the Lotus or the Phantom but he could if he wanted to. And he could look at them whenever he wanted. But they represented something to him. As did the suits and the house and the title on his business card.
They represented the fact that no one would ever pity him again.
And, God help him, no one would ever come to his emotional aid as they’d had to in that church. Not family. Not friends. He would never allow himself to be in that kind of vulnerable position twice.
Money made sure of that.
Success made sure of that.
The corporate world might be a brutal mistress but it was constant. And if you were going to get screwed you’d always see it coming.
He’d never be hijacked again.
* * *
How pathetic that she needed a good excuse to go to Kew and accidentally see Dan. If she’d found the courage to face the truth about her reasons for proposing, could she really not face Dan himself? The man who’d been such an important and steady part of her life for the past year. Even longer if you counted their friendship before that.
She did need to speak to him face to face. Six weeks was long enough to take the sting out of everything for both of them.
And she had seeds to deliver to his colleagues for identification.
She dropped them to the propagation department and then hit the pathways across Kew to the behind-the-scenes greenhouses. That was where Dan spent most of his time—cultivating the carnivores, he called it—as popular with him as they were with the public.
She knew these paths like the freckles on her body. Long before she knew Dan.
Huh. Look at that. Life before Dan. She’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
Determined not to cut corners—even turf deserved not to be trampled—she followed the path the long way around to the plain glasshouse where Dan primarily worked. Her pulse began to thump.
As she approached it the doors opened and a woman emerged.
‘Oh, excuse me!’ Georgia exclaimed, her hand to her chest. She had crazy blonde curls, and the serviceable work-coats that everyone wore here. But she had a tight pink dress beneath it, bright, manicured nails, three inch heels and flawless make-up.
Not like everyone else here.
‘Nearly got you.’ The woman smiled, stepping back to hold the door.
That was perfect, too. Her eyes dropped briefly to the woman’s ID tag and, just like that, all Georgia’s carefully constructed excuses about why she didn’t have better clothes and better hair vanished in a puff of perfume. This woman was an orchid specialist—she worked with dirt all day. Yet she could do that and still look like this.
What excuse did she herself have?
‘Can I help you?’ the woman said.
‘I’m looking for Daniel Bradford.’
‘He’s out in the display house tending to a struggling Nepenthes tentaculata. Can I give him a message?’ The slightest hint of curiosity filled her eyes.
It was pure luck that she hadn’t run into someone she knew, someone much more familiar with the past relationship between she and Daniel. She wasn’t going to blow the opportunity for anonymity.
‘No, I know the way. I’ll chase him down there. Thank you.’ Georgia stepped back from the entrance.
The woman stepped away from the doors, smiling, and they swung shut behind her. ‘You’re welcome.’
She turned left, Georgia turned right. But she watched the woman walk away from her. Heels. They did something very special to a walk, even on gravel and grass. Pity she didn’t have a single pair above a serviceable inch.
Maybe that was something she could put on her Year of Georgia list.
Learn to walk in heels.
And not because men liked them—though the distracted glances of two groundsmen passing the woman confirmed that they did—but because heels were a side of herself that she just never indulged.
Heels and pole dancing. They could go on the side-list she was quietly developing.
Though both could easily break her neck.
It took nearly ten minutes to cross out into the public area and work her way around to the carnivorous-plants exhibit. The doors were perpetually closed to keep the ambient temperature inside right but, unlike the clunky ones behind the scenes, these opened and closed whisper quiet.
She took a breath. ‘Dan?’
The silence stayed silent, but somehow it changed. Grew loaded. And Georgia knew she’d been heard.
‘I know you’re here, Dan.’
‘Hey.’ He stepped out from behind a large sign. Confused. Wary. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘I was dropping down some stock for identification. Thought I’d come and say hi.’
Oh, so horribly bright and false.
He nodded. ‘Hi.’
Silence. Maybe six weeks weren’t enough. ‘How are you doing?’ she risked.
‘OK. Managing.’
The intense scrutiny. Right. ‘It’s not getting better?’
His lips thinned. ‘Not really.’
She nodded. More silence. ‘So...I’ve come to say I’m sorry. Again.’
‘Your emails and messages not enough?’
‘I didn’t want... Not without at least seeing you.’ God. How could it be this hard breaking up with someone when you were already broken up?
He shrugged. ‘Fodder for the paparazzi.’
She spun around, expecting to see flashes of cameras behind her. ‘Oh, God, I didn’t even think of that...’
‘That’s starting to sound familiar.’
The unkind words cut but she knew they were more than deserved. And short of ratting out Kelly to her brother, she couldn’t enlighten him otherwise. She sighed. ‘Look, Dan, if I could undo it I would. I know you didn’t ask for any of this.’
‘Done is done.’
Well... ‘Not quite, actually.’
His shaggy head tipped. But his hazel eyes darkened with warning. ‘Georgia...’
‘I’m... I signed a contract with the radio station, for the whole...’ She couldn’t even use the word proposal. ‘I have to see it through.’
‘I hope you mean “I” and not “we”.’
‘Not we. I made it a condition that you weren’t involved at all.’ Something she should have thought about originally, perhaps. ‘It’s not about us, it’s about me. Me getting myself all fixed up.’
God love him, he frowned. ‘You weren’t broken, George. It was just a really stupid thing to have done.’
‘I know. But for me that’s symptomatic of being broken. I don’t do stupid things. I’m supposed to be rock-solid and reliable and never-changing like you.’ It was why she’d allowed herself to think they might make a life together at all.
His scowl deepened.
Say what you have to say and get out. ‘So I really just wanted to make sure you were OK and to tell you why you’ll be hearing more from me on the station.’
‘Are you kidding?’ He snorted. ‘I’ll never listen to them again.’
Oh, right.
‘You realise it will just stir things up again every time you go on there?’ he huffed.
‘Zander thinks that it will help draw attention away from you. Keep it on me.’ Where it belonged.
‘Zander?’
‘He’s the station manager. It was his promotion.’
The scowl returned. ‘Forgive me if I don’t put a lot of faith in the opinion of anyone who would think up a promotion like that.’
The intense desire to defend Zander burbled up out of nowhere. ‘This is my responsibility, Dan. I’m trying to fix it as best I can.’
His brilliant mind ticked over behind carefully shielded eyes. ‘I know. Sorry. You do whatever you need to, George.’ He took a breath. ‘And I’ll do whatever I need to, to stay out of it.’
Intriguingly cryptic but fair enough. ‘OK.’
They both shuffled awkwardly. ‘So...I’ll let you get back to your sick pitcher plant.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know what I’m working on?’
‘One of your colleagues told me.’ And for no good reason at all she expanded. ‘Blonde hair, flashy dresser.’
Cripes, Georgia, you might as well just ask him outright. ‘Why wasn’t I good enough for you?’
His eyes grew even more guarded. ‘Right. Yes, she’s new.’
‘Pretty.’ Pretty different from everyone round here, that was. Because actually she was gorgeous.
He shrugged. ‘I guess.’
OK, he wasn’t going to play. She should have known. ‘Well, I should get going.’ It hit her then that she would quite possibly never see him again. She frowned. ‘I don’t quite know how to say goodbye to you for the last time ever. It feels really wrong.’
But that was all, she realised. Just intensely awkward. It didn’t really hurt.
Huh.
He walked forward, wiped the earth from his hand and then took hers. ‘Bye, George. Don’t be too hard on yourself. No one died, here.’
No. Except the part of her that used to be happy with herself. She squeezed his fingers. ‘Take care, Dan.’
‘Maybe I’ll see you round.’
She turned. Left. And then it was done. That entire of her life closed as silently and gently as the hydraulic doors of the greenhouse.
And still, no hurt. Just sadness. Like losing a good friend.
Did Dan feel the same? Was that why he’d never wanted their relationship to be more? His sister had always hinted at something big in his past, but he’d never shared and she’d never felt she could ask. Kind of symptomatic of why they weren’t right for each other, really. He didn’t want more because he didn’t have more in him to give. And maybe neither did she. How long might they have gone on like that if she hadn’t brought their non-relationship to a startling and public end?
She’d had no trouble at all imagining herself as Mrs Bradford, obligatory kids hanging off her skirts. As if it were just the natural extension of the life they’d had. She enjoyed his conversation, she liked to share activities with him, the sex was as good as she figured she would ever get. He was bomb-proof and reliable and she’d been drawn to the qualities in him that screamed stability. Because she’d had so little of it in her past. But she’d never gone breathless waiting to walk into Dan’s office. She’d never felt as cherished with him as she had standing behind a perfect stranger in an elevator as he protected her from prying eyes.
Zander.
About as unsuitable for her as any man could be, yet he’d stirred more emotion in her in a few meetings than had the man she’d been planning on marrying.
All outstanding reasons to keep her distance, emotionally.
This was the Year of Georgia. Not the year of panting after sexy, rich, unavailable men. She’d made enough bad decisions in the interests of what her friends or the rest of the world was doing; she needed to have a good look inside and see what she wanted to do.
Even if she was a bit scared that she’d look deep inside and find nothing left.
