Anything but Vanilla(51)
She’d continued thinking as she’d soaked in the bath and then she’d spent a large part of the night drafting a proposal to put to Ria. A proposal that Graeme would understand—if he would just look beyond his prejudice and see the potential.
‘I’m going to commission Geli to create a retro design for Knickerbocker Gloria and, once we’ve made it the best ice-cream parlour ever, I’m going to franchise it.’
‘Franchise it? Are you mad? Have you any idea what that would entail?’
‘I did some research last night and I got in touch with—’
‘Sorrel.’
She turned to Alexander and he took her hand from his arm and held it in his. ‘Now,’ he said.
‘Now?’ she repeated, distractedly.
‘I said I’d tell you when.’ He raised one of those expressive eyebrows and the penny dropped. Two hours of her time. He’d tell her when.
Could he have chosen a worse time? Couldn’t he see that this was important, not just for her, but for Ria?
She glared at him and then turned to Graeme. The contrast between the two men couldn’t be more striking.
Graeme looked as if he’d just stepped out of an ad in the pages of one of those upmarket men’s magazines. Whipcord slender, exquisitely tailored from head to toe, hair cut to within a millimetre, the faintest whiff of some fabulously expensive aftershave and an expression suggesting he’d sucked on a sour lemon.
Alexander had a touch of lipstick on his cheek, a smear of what looked like strawberry-shortcake ice on his sleeve and an expression that suggested he was enjoying himself.
Right at that moment she wanted to smack them both.
‘I’m sorry to spoil your plans, Mr Laing,’ Alexander said, before she could do anything, ‘but Miss Amery and I have unfinished business and she’s promised me a couple of hours of her time.’
‘What business?’ he demanded.
‘Don’t worry, Graeme,’ she said, furious with him, furious with Alexander and, aware that she’d made a complete hash of it, not exactly thrilled with herself. ‘It’s got absolutely nothing to do with money.’
ELEVEN
Don’t wreck the perfect ice-cream moment by feeling guilty.
—Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’
Neither of them said a word until they reached the car park, where Sorrel snatched back her hand.
‘Thanks for that.’
‘He wasn’t hearing you, Sorrel.’
‘I know.’ He wasn’t hearing her about a lot of things. Or maybe she was the one not getting the message. ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that, but it’s what happens when you spend all night building castles in the air instead of getting a solid eight hours.’ When you were distracted by desire and Mr Right was suddenly Mr Totally Wrong. ‘My timing was off.’
‘I may have caught him on a bad day, but Graeme Laing doesn’t look like a castles-in-the-air kind of man to me. I doubt there’s ever going to be a right time to sell him that deal.’
‘No,’ she said, leaping to his defence. ‘You don’t understand. He requires solid foundations, a business plan, a well-constructed spreadsheet to support the figures.’ And even then he was hard to convince. She’d floated several carefully worked-out ideas by him during the last year and he’d shot them all down as ‘impractical’, or ‘too soon’. She was never going to win him over by flinging something at him without careful preparation. ‘He’s not a man to talk things through on a walk by the river, throwing sticks for the dogs,’ she added, more to herself than him.
‘He’s not a dog person, either?’
‘What? Oh, no.’ At least not excitable mongrels. If Graeme had a dog it would be as sleek and well groomed as he was. An Irish Setter, perhaps.
‘Does he have any redeeming features?’
‘He was brilliant when I was starting out, needed advice, support, finance. It’s just...’
‘He was talking to you as if you were a wilful child, Sorrel.’
‘No... Maybe. A bit.’ A lot. It was almost as if he didn’t want her to expand. Wanted to keep her where she was. Which was ridiculous. He’d done so much to help her. ‘I know how he thinks and I should have waited until I could lay out my business plan in a calm manner instead of jumping in with both feet.’