Harlequin Romance February 2016 Box Set

by Barbara Wallace

  Her bluntness left him for the first time in his life slightly speechless. But then anger rose up in him. ‘I don’t do breakfast...or small talk. I’m not going to be your friend. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get ready for work.’

  He marched away, down the long corridor and up the stairs to the master bedroom, yanking off his tee shirt as he went. Irritation ate into his bones.

  As he stood in the shower he scrubbed his hair and defended himself against what she’d said. He wasn’t controlling...or taciturn. She was exaggerating. She was saying he was wrong for being decisive. Well, ‘decisive’ had got him where he was today.

  But as the water pounded down on his scalp the uncomfortable realisation that her words might have some truth began to creep into his consciousness.

  Had focusing solely on work for so long numbed him to others’ feelings? Yes, he was decisive and logical...but did he sometimes steamroller over others?

  And as he dressed he began to grasp why he had been so disturbed by her attempts to make him breakfast. Why it had irked him so much.

  It had unsettled him just how good it was to arrive home to activity, to the comfort of having another person in the house. Of course the fact that it was Aideen, looking so happy and gorgeous, added to that uncomfortable realisation. Because it would be so easy to fall into the trap of enjoying her company, of wanting more with this woman.

  * * *

  Aideen emitted a low groan and dropped her head down on to the smooth mahogany wood of the library desk.

  Could this day get any worse? First she had messed up with Patrick at breakfast. What was supposed to have been a small gesture of thanks had blown up in her face. Why hadn’t she just let him walk away? Did it really matter that he hadn’t wanted to accept her gesture of thanks?

  He had left for meetings soon after, with a curt goodbye, and she had spent the day alone in this breathtakingly beautiful chateau, on a hill overlooking the Seine, annoyed about their argument but having to be cheery as she made phone calls to organise her own meetings for the coming days.

  Several times with prospective new clients she hadn’t even got past the receptionist. But she had eventually managed to organise enough meetings to make the trip worthwhile—some with colleagues she hadn’t seen since she’d lost her old business.

  Just now she had ended another call to an ex-client. The entire call had been a tense mixture of arduous questioning and awkward silences that had left her feeling completely flustered.

  ‘Tough call?’

  Her head jerked up and her stomach lurched as she saw Patrick standing in the doorway.

  ‘The usual.’

  She was cross with him—and hurt, and embarrassed. And she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. But when he came and sat on the table she was working at she couldn’t help but glance in his direction.

  ‘I’m sorry for not being tidy...for taking over the kitchen. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you have done by making you breakfast... I guess it backfired.’

  ‘You don’t need to thank me. I suppose I’m finding it a little strange to be sharing my home with someone else.’

  She’d only been here a day and he was regretting it already. She shuffled some books and placed fistfuls of marker pens and pencils into canisters, glad that her hair had fallen forward and blocked his view of her face. Which was burning in embarrassment.

  ‘I can move out, if this isn’t working for you.’

  The touch of his hand on her arm had her jerking back in surprise. Her stomach flipped and her throat tightened when she looked at him, her eyes transfixed by the perfection of his thick dark eyebrows, now drawn into a frown, and by the length of his fingers when he drew a hand over his cheek in a gesture of exasperation.

  ‘No. That’s not what I mean. I think we need to give each other space, but also adapt to the other person’s way of doing things. I’ve been under time pressure recently, with the demands of my work. I might have rushed to make decisions without taking how you would feel into consideration.’

  She felt stupidly relieved by his words, and without much thought said teasingly, ‘Are you apologising to me in a very roundabout way?’

  His lips quirked a fraction. ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘So, basically, I need to stop making a mess of your kitchen and you’ll try not to be so grumpy?’

  His gaze challenged hers playfully. ‘And I’ll try to eat some breakfast.’

  ‘You have a deal.’

  He pushed himself back a little further along the table, creating more distance between them. ‘Now, do you want to talk about that call? Who’s Ed?’

  Her stomach flipped over. The designer had asked her bluntly why she should use her consultancy over Ed’s—her ex. She had put forward her track record in designing, her competitive price points, but she knew the designer was still unconvinced.

  As she knew to her cost, Ed could be very persuasive and economical with the truth. There had been little point in protesting that a lot of the designs Ed claimed as his own were in fact hers. The designer wasn’t likely to believe her. Of course she could take Ed to the courts as a way to claim her rightful ownership, but she didn’t have the financial resources to do so.

  And Patrick had heard her conversation.

  Embarrassment flamed on her cheeks. She had only told her friends and family some of the details, too hurt and humiliated to tell them everything. So how on earth could she be expected to tell a billionaire that she had been so naïve and trusting? This stunning chateau alone told the story of his incredible success and obvious business acumen.

  Also, as stupid as she knew it was, it still hurt that he hadn’t wanted her breakfast. And every time she saw him she fancied him even more, which was starting to drive her a little crazy.

  She lifted a box on to the table. She couldn’t speak. Hurt, attraction, embarrassment all swirled away inside her, turning her brain to mush and catching hold of her tongue.

  She worked with her back to him, but Patrick could still see how her fingers trembled as she scattered folders and loose cuts of material on to the desk. It was clear that she was going to pretend not to have heard his question. The surface of the desk was quickly disappearing under a mountain of her belongings.

  Who was Ed and what hold did he have over her to cause this unease? Something that felt suspiciously like jealousy twisted in his stomach. He breathed it out. He wasn’t going there. This was about helping her professionally. Nothing more. And although he was curious about this he would hold off asking her about him again...for now.

  As she fought with the now empty cardboard box a low sigh of exasperation sang from her lips. Strangely compelled to ease her upset, to see her smile again, he stepped towards her and took the box, twisting it flat. A quick glance at the messy desk had him saying, ‘This won’t do. This room is all wrong. Come with me.’

  He grasped her hand in his and almost at a run led her down the corridors of the vast chateau.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  What on earth was he doing? She should be protesting, should be working. But it felt so good to be chasing down corridors with him, to have his hand holding hers.

  He brought her to a vast empty room, bathed in evening sunshine, with the warmth of the sun bouncing off the parquet flooring. White wooden doors and windows formed the entire length of the garden-facing walls.

  ‘This is the orangery, but while you’re here you can use it as your studio. The library is too dark and small—especially for someone like you, who likes to...’ His mouth lifted ever so slightly and after some thought he said, ‘Who likes to spread their work around. This is a better space for you to work in. There are some trestle tables stored in an outside storage room. There’s other pieces of furniture stored there, too, that you can use. I can get my staff to move them in here tomorrow morning, when they start work, or if you want we could go and get them now ourselves.’

  She
was completely thrown, and moved by his suggestion. The room would be perfect to work in. She had two options: thank him and run the risk of the emotion in her chest leaking out in gushing thanks, or brazen it out and tease him back.

  It was an easy decision. ‘Are you saying I’m messy?’

  ‘Based on the evidence of the papers scattered around the library just now...and the kitchen this morning...then, yes, I’d say pretty confidently that you’re messy.’

  She gave him a mock withering look. Once again she felt completely disarmed by his thoughtfulness. ‘This would be perfect. The light and space in here is incredible. Thank you.’

  ‘Good. Now, how about we go and get those tables?’

  * * *

  A little while later, as he helped to unpack a box, he gestured towards her company’s logo.

  ‘Where did you get the idea for your business name? Little Fire?’

  ‘It’s what Aideen means in Gaelic.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It also felt like a very apt name for the type of business I want. I want to create a small bespoke design consultancy—to be an innovator in the industry. A consultancy that is respected for its passion.’

  ‘It suits your personality, too.’ He said it in a deadpan voice, but once again there was a faint hint of humour sparking in his eyes.

  Taken aback, she looked away. When she eventually glanced back the humour was gone.

  ‘Are you going to tell me who Ed is?’

  She didn’t want to. She wanted to bury him in the past. But she needed to answer his question in some form.

  ‘He was my business partner. I set up the company by myself and he joined me a few years later. I was having cash flow problems and he was able to inject capital into the business. We had been to university together and it felt like a good fit for him to come on board.’

  ‘I’m hearing a big but here.’

  ‘A very big “but”, unfortunately. He insisted on taking a majority share in the business. After that we expanded too rapidly—spent capital on projects we shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have agreed to him having a majority share—it led to an inequality in our partnership and gave him the leeway to overrule me. We started arguing. Eventually it became clear that he wanted me out of the business and he made life difficult for me. I tried hanging in there, but in the end I knew I had to go.’

  Perched on a trestle table opposite her, he looked at her sombrely. ‘What did he do?’

  She pulled a wooden bistro chair to the trestle table she’d been working at and sat. She needed to do something while she spoke to avoid having to look at him. To pretend this was an inconsequential conversation. So she started to order by colour the pile of swatches she would take to her meetings in the coming days.

  ‘He overruled all my decisions. He belittled me in front of clients. He dropped heavy rumours that I was difficult to work with.’

  ‘Is that why you’re so hesitant about visiting clients?’

  ‘Yes. It’s embarrassing. I don’t really know how much he said to our clients and whether they believed him. I’m hoping not... But I’m going to do everything I can to make this a success. I love my job. Adore the creativity involved and all the opportunities I get to work with different designers. No two days are the same. I just have to make sure I build up my client base quickly to meet my overheads.’

  She glanced up and caught his eye.

  ‘And you know what? I want to prove Ed wrong, too. He said I would never make it on my own.’

  ‘That’s understandable, but be careful that proving him wrong doesn’t distract from your energy, from your focus.’

  She wasn’t quite certain what his point was...and she wasn’t sure she wanted to fully understand...so she shrugged it off. ‘It won’t.’

  And he knew she had, because without missing a beat he said, ‘Okay, tell me what you’re going to do differently with this business.’

  It was a good question. She knew instinctively a lot of things she would do differently, but hadn’t consciously addressed them. She had been in too much of a rush to start again.

  For a few minutes she thought about it, her fingers flicking against the edges of a blue cotton swatch. What would she do differently?

  ‘I need to manage my cash flow better—not expand too quickly. Meet with my clients on a more regular basis...communicate with them.’

  He nodded at her answer, but fired another question at her immediately. ‘Fine, but at a strategic level what are you going to do differently?’

  For a while she was lost as to how to answer him. And then she thought about her client base. ‘I need to think through what my target market is... Perhaps I’m too diversified at the moment.’

  ‘Spend time thinking about those issues—those are what matter. Not Ed. Don’t waste any more time on him. He’s not worth it. You lost that business, which was tough. But it’s in the past now. Your focus must be on the future.’

  Her pulse raced at his words but she forced herself to smile. ‘I know. You’re right. I need to go and get some more files from the library.’

  She practically ran from the room. She heard him call her name but she didn’t turn back. Of course he was right. But the hurt of losing the business lingered stubbornly inside her and it was hard to move on from it. To just push it aside. Everything he said was true and right, but she wasn’t ready to hear it yet...especially from a billionaire.

  * * *

  His assistants in Dublin and Berlin had long gone home, but after finishing a conference call with his development team in Shanghai later that evening Patrick checked in with his assistant in Palo Alto. He updated his calendar with her for the coming days and ended the call.

  He spent the next hour reading the daily reports he expected each of the managing directors of his subsidiaries to file.

  The projected revenue for a new construction industry project management database was not performing as expected. He emailed the management team responsible and listed the new sales strategy he wanted them to follow.

  When that was done he checked the time on his monitor. It was not yet nine. In recent months he had frequently worked until twelve. It felt a little strange to have all this spare time. He switched off the bank of monitors on his desk and walked over to the windows overlooking a dense copse of trees. In the dusk, flocks of birds swirled above the treetops, a pink-tinged sky behind them.

  How was Orla doing? Should he call her? One of them would have to end this impasse between them. But it was she who had caused it. It was up to her to call.

  From the corner of the window he caught a glimpse of Aideen working in the orangery. She was sitting at a trestle table, staring out towards the garden, lost in thought.

  Anger bubbled in his stomach at the treachery of her former business partner. He could understand her desire to prove him wrong. If it was him he would exact revenge. But the guy wasn’t worth it. She needed to focus on the future and not on the past.

  He was tempted to go and speak to her. What was it about her that drew him to her? He certainly admired her tenacity and her determination to start again. And the moment he was in the same room as her, he was sidetracked by her radiance and beauty. By her positive outlook on life. By her smile. By the thick curtain of hair that seemed to change colour according to the light—chocolate-brown at times, filled with highlights of cinnamon and caramel at other times. By her body, which called to the most elemental parts of him...

  Yes, she talked too much, and was way too messy...but after two years of silence part of him yearned for her chatter, for her warmth, for her positive outlook on life.

  Another part of him wanted to shut it all out. At least that way he wouldn’t be able to mess up a relationship again.

  And at times her honesty and openness left him floundering. This morning and this evening she had spoken with an emotional honesty that had made him stop and think. And he wasn’t sure if he liked that. She spoke about the past while he preferred
to ignore it.

  Knowing now, though, what she had gone through with her business collapse, made him want to protect and help her even more. He wanted her business to succeed and he would give her all the support that she required.

  He just needed to ensure that he kept it strictly professional.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WEARING FOUR-INCH HEELS on a day when she had to race from meeting to meeting using the Paris Métro hadn’t been one of her best ideas.

  At least her short-sleeved silk button-down dress, which she had designed and created using one of her new range of textiles, was comfortable. And thankfully it had also proved to be a major hit with many of the designers she had met with today. They had commented on the dress the moment she had walked into their studios, and it had been the perfect icebreaker for her to introduce the rest of her range.

  Her toes were pinched, though, in her never-before-worn shoes, as she walked out of the headquarters of one of Europe’s leading online luxury fashion retailers. But she still didn’t regret her refusal to use Patrick’s chauffeur for the day.

  It was bad enough that they had travelled to Paris on his private jet. That they were staying in his unbelievably beautiful chateau. She couldn’t accept any further help from him.

  This morning they had travelled together into the centre of Paris and he’d had his chauffeur, Bernard, drop her at her first meeting. She had been too nervous to chat, and for once had been grateful for Patrick’s silence.

  But as she had been about to leave the car he had looked at her with a gentle kindness that had almost floored her and said, ‘Believe in yourself.’

  She stepped through the automatic sliding doors out on to the street and paused. The building was at the corner of an intersection of five boulevards. Which way was the Métro again? And would it look odd if she walked barefoot?

  And then, a little further down the street, she spotted him—leaning against a lamppost, watching her. She faltered at the intensity of his gaze. And then his mouth curled into a smile and she came to a complete stop. He’d smiled at her. He’d actually smiled at her.