Anything but Vanilla(33)

Not her.

Not her...

‘When I told her that I wanted her to come back to work, her first concern was whether she’d have to repay you.’

The same word and this time he didn’t apologise.

‘Of course she doesn’t have to give it back. It was a redundancy payment from Ria’s business.’

‘From the business? You deducted tax and national insurance?’ He began to peel the foil off a third bottle. ‘Not that one. Not yet,’ she said, reaching out to stop him, a jolt of warmth running through her hand as it closed over his.

His knuckles were hard beneath her palm, a little rough. Sun-bleached hair, gold against his sun-darkened skin, glittered on his wrist. She wanted to slide her fingers through it. Along his arm. Feel the hard muscle beneath the skin.

Alexander was staring at her fingers wrapped around his. They looked so pale against his, her nails painted to match her suit, so shockingly bright. Then he looked up and she saw what she was feeling reflected back at her, like a wave of heat. Undisguised, raw, shocking in its intensity.

Like her older sister, she had lived with the legacy of her mother’s reputation, and had found it easy to resist temptation. Like her sister, all it took was a man with hot blue eyes to short-circuit her defences.

Speak...

She had to say something, break the spell, before she did something really stupid...

‘I’m surprised...’ Her mouth made the words, but no sound emerged and she swallowed, desperately. ‘I’m surprised that if Ria had that much cash in her bank account she wasn’t paying her bills.’

‘Ria is owed money by a couple of restaurants.’ He continued to hold her with just the power of his look. This is how it begins, she thought. This is the irresistible force that my mother felt... A phone began to ring from the depths of her handbag, shattering the tension. She ignored it. ‘I’ll get it back,’ he said.

‘Will you?’ The spell broken, it was her turn to give him the disbelieving eye. ‘Are you sure they didn’t pay her cash on delivery?’ she asked, carefully removing her fingers from his, taking the champagne bottle and setting it back on the work bench. ‘For a discount?’ Her shrug gave new meaning to the word ‘minimalist’. ‘She wouldn’t last very long on the cash I gave her.’

‘You’re catching on.’

‘Sadly not fast enough. If I’d had half a clue what kind of mess she was in...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. She didn’t seem bothered about a thing. The last time I saw her she seemed buoyed up. Excited.’ She let it go. ‘Unfortunately I now have another problem. Tomorrow is Friday, the weather men have promised us sunshine and we have no one to open up and serve the wonderful people of Maybridge with their favourite ice cream.’

‘We?’

The ‘we’ she’d been referring to was Scoop!, but she was happy to include Alexander West since, for some reason that eluded her, he appeared to be taking the whole thing so personally.

‘I’d do it myself,’ she said, ‘but, as you’re aware, I have a major event tomorrow. I should be at Cranbrook right now putting everything into place.’

‘I hope you’re not suggesting that’s my fault.’

‘You’re the one who gave Nancy the money to take off for a week,’ she said, but with a smile, so that he’d know she wasn’t mad at him for that. On the contrary, if she wasn’t very careful, she could find herself liking him. Quite a lot. Despite the fact that he needed a haircut, didn’t wear a suit and would rather hack his way through a mosquito-infested jungle than settle down and compete for the corner office like a proper grown-up.

Like Graeme, she reminded herself.

The man she’d picked out as her ideal husband. Mature, settled, everything that Alexander was not.

But then Alexander’s smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes, tucked into a crease low in his cheek, emphasising the relaxed curve of his lower lip and for a moment she forgot to breathe.

‘You do know how to use an ice-cream scoop?’ she asked. ‘You just press the handles together and...’ He glanced warningly at her and she stopped. Whatever was the matter with her? ‘It’s got to be more fun than winding up a business.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score,’ he said.

‘So, leave it until after the weekend. It seems a shame to spoil a sunny Friday doing a job that’s custom made for a wet Monday morning.’