Anything but Vanilla...

‘Jefferson Sports?’

‘They’re a major local company. Manufacturers and retailers of high-end sports gear, and clothing. Camping equipment...’

‘I know who they are.’

‘Then you’ll understand the importance of this order,’ she said, determined to press the advantage now that she had snagged his interest. ‘It’s a media event. The idea is that the gossip magazines and women’s pages will publish a lot of pretty pictures, which will get everyone rushing out to buy the sexy new racquets, pink tennis balls and the clothes that the tennis stars will be wearing at Wimbledon this year.’

‘Pink?’

‘Pink, mauve, blue...designer colours to match your outfit.’

‘Please tell me that you’re kidding.’

‘You think there will be outrage?’ She risked a smile—just a low-wattage affair. ‘Letters to The Times? Questions raised about the legality of the balls? All bags of publicity for Jefferson Sports.’

‘Always assuming that it doesn’t rain.’

‘The forecast is good, but there’s a picturesque Victorian Conservatory, a classical temple, a large marquee and a load of celebrities. The pictures will be great whatever the weather.’

She’d seized the opportunity to promote their company to Nick Jefferson when he’d called at her office to book ‘Rosie’ for his youngest child’s birthday party. Rosie had been a hit and, when he’d invited her to tender for this promotional party, she’d beaten off the competition with her idea for a ‘champagne tea’ delivered in mouth-sized bites of ice cream—witty, summery, fun.

There were going to be major sports stars amongst the guests, all the usual ‘celebrities’ as well as a couple of minor royals, and the coverage in the gossip magazines and Sunday newspapers would give them exposure to their core customer base that not even the biggest advertising budget could deliver.

Without Ria’s ices she would not only miss that opportunity, but, if she didn’t deliver, her reputation would be in ruins and all her hard work would have been for nothing.

‘Mr West...’ calling him Alexander hadn’t worked and she was in dead earnest now; it was vital to convince him ‘...if I don’t deliver a perfectly executed event for Jefferson my reputation will disappear faster than a choc ice in a heatwave.’ Worse, it could backfire on the rest of the business. ‘If that happens, Ria won’t be the only one up the financial creek without a paddle and...’ since he’d already admitted that he was in some way responsible for Ria’s problems there was no harm in playing the guilt card ‘...you’ll have two insolvencies on your conscience.’

‘If you relied on Ria,’ he replied, unmoved, ‘you deserve to sink.’

‘That’s a bit harsh.’ She had always been aware that there was an element of risk working with Ria, but until now she’d been managing it. Or thought she had.

‘It’s a harsh world.’

‘So you’re going to let the taxman take us both down?’

‘If we don’t pay our taxes, Miss Amery, everyone loses.’

‘I pay mine!’ she declared, furiously. ‘On the dot. Along with all my bills. What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Well, you’re never here, are you? Do you have a job, Mr West, or do you just live on handouts from gullible women?’

‘Is that what you think? That I’m the reason Ria is in trouble?’

His voice, soft as cobwebs, raised the gooseflesh on her arms. Had she got it totally wrong?

Renowned for being calm in a crisis, she was totally losing it in the face of the kind of body that challenged her notion of what was attractive in a man. Slim, elegant, wearing bespoke tailoring...

He was so not her type!

Not in a million years.

She mentally hung a Do Not Touch notice around his neck, counted to three and took a deep breath.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’ The ability to hang on to a calm demeanour in the face of disaster was a prime requisite of the events organiser, but right now she was running on her reserve tank with the red light flashing a warning. ‘Can we at least check and see if she’s made the sorbet?’ she suggested, resisting the urge to rub her hands up and down her arms to warm them and instead reaching for a white coat and slipping it on. Settling a white trilby over her hair. A statement of intent. ‘It has a very short shelf life and by the time you and the Revenue sort out the paperwork it will be well beyond its best-before date. So much sorbet down the drain. A waste of everyone’s money.’

‘I’m sure you’re only worried about yours.’

He was losing patience now, regarding her with undisguised irritation, and she regretted her rush to cover up. The slightest shrug would have sent a strap sliding from her shoulder.

It wasn’t the way she did business, but then he wasn’t the kind of man she usually did business with. Any distraction in a crisis... Now she was aware of the danger she would stay well out of reach.

‘If you insist,’ she continued, using the only other way of grabbing his attention that was open to her, ‘I’ll pay for it again.’ Heavy stress on the “again”. ‘I’d rather lose money on this event than my reputation.’

He didn’t leap to accept her offer despite the fact that it would help pay the outstanding tax bill.

‘That would be in cash, too, of course.’ And, since this was her mistake, it would be taken from her own bank account. She would have to forget all about that pair of pink Miu Miu sandals at the top of her shoe wish-list. There were always more shoes, but there was only one Scoop! Her sister had created it and she wasn’t going to be the one to lose it. ‘Since Ria’s bank account has presumably been frozen,’ she added, as a face-saving sop to his pride.

She assumed it would go straight into his back pocket but she’d already insulted him once—in response to gravest provocation—and doing it again wasn’t going to get her what she wanted.

She held her breath and, after what felt like a lifetime, he moved to one side to allow her to pass.

She crushed her disappointment that cash would move him when her appeal to his sense of fair play had failed. That a lovely woman should be in thrall to a man so unworthy of her. Not that she was surprised. She’d suffered the consequences of men who took advantage of foolish women.

Wouldn’t be here but for one of them.

Once they’d checked the drawers of the upright freezers in the kitchen, however, she had a bigger problem than Ria’s inevitably doomed love affair to worry about.

‘No sorbet,’ Alexander said, without any discernible expression of surprise, ‘and no cucumber ice cream, although I can’t bring myself to believe that’s a bad thing.’

‘Savoury ice cream is very fashionable,’ she said, more concerned about how long it would take her to make the missing ices than whether he approved of her flavour choices.

‘I rest my case,’ he replied, clearly believing that they were done. ‘You can take the ices you say are yours, Miss Amery. I won’t take your money, but I will have your key before you go.’

He held out his hand. She ignored it. She wasn’t done here. Not by a long chalk. But since he was in control of the ice-cream parlour, he was the one she had to convince to allow her to stay.

‘What will it take?’ she asked, looking around at the gleaming kitchen. ‘To keep Knickerbocker Gloria going?’

‘It’s not going to happen.’

She frowned. ‘That’s hardly your decision, surely?’

‘There’s no one else here.’

‘And closing it is your best shot?’

‘It would take a large injection of cash to settle with the creditors and someone with a firm grip on the paperwork at the helm.’ He didn’t look or sound optimistic. Actually, he looked as if he was about to go to sleep propped up against the freezer door.

‘How much cash?’

‘Why?’ He was regarding her sleepily from beneath heavy-lidded eyes that looked as if they could barely stay open, but she wasn’t fooled for a minute. She had his full attention. ‘Don’t tell me you’re interested.’

‘Why not?’ He didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected him to. He had her down as an idiot who thought she could get what she wanted in business by flirting. A rare mistake. Now she was going to have to work twice as hard to convince him otherwise. ‘At the right price I could be very interested, although on this occasion,’ she added, ‘I won’t be paying in cash and will definitely require a receipt.’

Sorrel heard the words, knew they had come from her mouth, but still didn’t believe it. She didn’t make snap decisions. She planned things through, carefully assessed the potential, worked out the cost-benefit ratio. And always talked to her financial advisor before making any decision that would affect her carefully constructed five-year plan.

Not that she had to talk to Graeme to know exactly what he would say.

The words ‘do not touch’ and ‘bargepole’ would be closely linked, followed by a silence filled with an unspoken ‘I told you so’. He had never approved of Ria.

Maybe, if she laughed, Alexander West would think she’d been joking.

‘You’re a fast learner,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that.’

Too late.

‘How generous.’ Possibly. Of course, it could have been sarcasm since he wasn’t excited enough by her interest to do more than lean a little more heavily against the freezer. For a man whose aim in life was to keep moving, he certainly didn’t believe in wasting energy. Presumably his exploration was confined to the local bars set beneath palm trees on those lovely beaches.

‘What kind of figure were you thinking of offering?’ he asked.

Thinking? This was not her day for thinking...

‘I’ll need to see the accounts before I’m prepared to talk about an offer,’ she said, her brain beginning to catch up with her mouth. ‘How long is the lease? Do you know?’

‘It’s not transferable. You’d have to negotiate a new lease with the landlord.’

‘Oh...’ She was surprised he knew that, but then it had been that kind of day. Full of surprises. None of them, so far, good. ‘No doubt he’ll take the opportunity to increase the rent. They’ve been low at this end of the High Street but footfall has picked up in the last couple of years.’ There had been a major improvement project with an influx of small specialist shops attracting shoppers who were looking for something different and were prepared to pay for quality. Knickerbocker Gloria had been a vanguard of that movement and had done well out of it. Very well. Which made the sudden collapse all the more surprising. ‘No doubt he’ll want to take advantage of that.’

‘It’s taken a lot of money to improve this part of the town. He’s entitled to reap the benefit, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so. Who is the landlord?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘Yes.’ The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction. ‘I am.’

With her entire focus centred on the tiny crease that formed as the embryonic smile took form, grew into a teasing quirk, her certainty on the putty question was undermined by a distinct slackening around her knees and it took a moment for his words to sink in.

He was...

What?

‘Oh...Knickerbocker Gloria...’ She pulled a face. ‘So that’s my foot in my mouth right up to the ankle, then?’

The smile deepened. ‘I’ll bear in mind what you said about increasing the rent.’

‘Terrific.’ She was having a bad day and then some.

‘I’m always open to negotiation. For the right tenant.’

‘Is that how Ria managed to get such a good deal?’ she asked.

‘Good deal?’

He didn’t move, but her skin began to tingle and her mouth dried...

‘Her rent is very...reasonable.’ There was no point dodging the bullet. The words had come out of her mouth even if she hadn’t meant them in quite the way they’d sounded. Or maybe she had. The thought of Ria haggling over money was too ridiculous to contemplate. ‘Even for the wrong end of the High Street.’

‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You’re moving from the suggestion that she’s paying me for services rendered, to me subsidising her, likewise?’

There were days when you just shouldn’t get out of bed. This was rapidly turning into one of them.

Forget ankle. They were talking knee and beyond.

‘You’re not...?’ she said, unable to actually put the thought into words.

‘I’m not. She’s not. I don’t understand why you’d think we were.’ His eyebrow rose questioningly.

‘The fact that she sent for you when she was in trouble and you came,’ she suggested.

‘We’ve known one another a long time.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s more than that.’

His shoulders shifted in an awkward shrug that in anyone else she would have put down to embarrassment. ‘I have a responsibility to her.’

‘Because you’re her landlord?’

‘It’s more complicated than that.’

‘I don’t doubt it. I found her weeping over the last card you sent her.’

‘Damn.’ He sighed. ‘That wasn’t about me but it does begin to explain what’s been happening here.’

‘Does it?’ She waited but he was lost in thought. ‘When can I see the accounts?’ she asked, finally.

He came back from wherever he’d been in his head. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Don’t I look serious?’

‘Seriously?’ He took a long, slow look that began at her shoes, travelled up the length of the white coat with a long pause at her cleavage before coming to a rest on the unflattering hat. ‘Sorry,’ he said finally, reaching out and removing the offending headgear. ‘There is no way I can take you seriously in this thing.’

‘Seriously,’ she repeated, not so much as blinking despite a heartbeat that was racketing out of control at the intimacy of such a gesture. The man was an oaf—albeit a sexy oaf—and she refused to let him fluster her. Okay, it was too late for that; she was flustered beyond recovery, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow him to see that.

He shrugged. ‘Seriously? You look like someone who said the first thing that came into her head.’

‘That is something I never do.’ Or hadn’t... Until now.

Like the kiss, it was an aberration.

A one-off.

Not to be repeated.

It was turning into quite a morning for firsts. None of them good.

‘On the form you’ve shown so far, I’d suggest that you never think before you speak.’

He might have a point about that. At least where he was concerned. She’d been leaping to conclusions and speaking before her brain was engaged ever since she’d turned from the freezer and seen him watching her.

His attention was all on her now as he spun the hat teasingly on a finger. She snatched it back but didn’t put it back on her head.

‘I’m having an off day,’ she said.

‘Just the one? You’ll forgive me if I suggest that on present form you’re not capable of running the business you already have, let alone taking on one encumbered by debt.’

‘Actually, I won’t, if it’s all the same to you.’ Her offer might have been somewhat rash, but she wasn’t going to let him slouch there and judge her on a completely uncharacteristic performance. He might have got closer to her than any man since Jamie Coolidge had done her the favour of relieving her of her virginity when she was seventeen, but he knew nothing about her. ‘My competence is no concern of yours. If I go to the wall, I won’t be texting you to come and rescue me.’

‘I have your word on that?’

‘Cross my heart and spit in your eye,’ she said, ignoring the shivery sensation that seemed to have taken up residence in her spine.

‘Crossing your fingers might be more useful,’ he suggested.

‘I can’t create a spreadsheet with my fingers crossed,’ she pointed out, sticking to the practicalities. The practicalities never answered back, never let you down, never took the fast road out of town... ‘You have to admit, this is the obvious answer to both our problems.’

‘I’m admitting nothing. Surely you could get your ice cream made somewhere else?’ he persisted. ‘You said that you have the recipes.’

‘Some of them,’ she admitted. Not nearly enough. Not the chocolate chilli ice Ria was supposed to deliver for a corporate shindig the following week. And they were experimenting with an orange sorbet for a wedding. She needed samples so that the bride could choose. ‘But I need more than recipes. I need equipment.’

‘Not much. Ria began making ices in the kitchen at home.’

‘Did she?’ How long ago was that? How long had Ria and Alexander known one another? It was always harder to pin an age on a man. They hit a peak at around thirty and, if they looked after themselves, didn’t start to sag until well into middle age, which was grossly unfair. He was definitely at a peak... Down, girl! ‘Are you suggesting that I might do the same?’

‘Why not?’

‘Perhaps because I’m not running a cottage industry, but a high-end events company?’ she replied. ‘And, since my ices are for public consumption, they have to be prepared in a kitchen that has been inspected and licensed by the Environmental Health Officer rather than one that closely resembles an annexe to the local animal shelter.’

‘Animal shelter?’ His bark of laughter took her by surprise. ‘For a moment you had me believing you.’

‘The animals are my sister’s province.’

‘Babies and animals? She has her hands full.’

‘A different sister.’

‘There are three of you?’ he asked, apparently astonished.

‘Congratulations, Mr West. You can do simple arithmetic.’

‘When pushed,’ he admitted. ‘My concern is whether the world can take you times three.’

So rude!

‘No need to worry on the world’s account,’ she replied. ‘My mother dipped into a wide gene pool and we are not in the least bit alike in looks or temperament.’

She could see him thinking about that and then making the decision not to go there.

‘Wouldn’t sister number three give you a hand scrubbing the kitchen down?’ he asked. He was beginning to sound a touch desperate. ‘Who would know?’

‘I would,’ she said, her determination growing in direct proportion to his resistance. As a last resort she could probably use the kitchens at Haughton Manor, but they didn’t have an ice-cream maker and why should she be put to even more inconvenience when she had a custom-built facility right here? ‘Anyone would think you don’t want me to rescue Knickerbocker Gloria.’

‘Anyone would be right,’ he replied. ‘I don’t.’

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