by Liz Fielding
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 w
asn’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.’
FOUR
Man cannot live on ice cream alone. Women are tougher.
—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’
Sorrel was momentarily taken aback by his frankness. But only momentarily.
‘Fortunately, Mr West, that’s not your decision to make. I’m sure Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would be more than happy to negotiate with me if it means they’ll get their back taxes paid.’ She paused, briefly, but not long enough for him to respond. ‘You are aware that fines for non-payment are levied on a daily basis?’
‘I had heard a rumour to that effect.’
‘And, for your information, while I do keep records of the recipes that Ria has developed for my clients, they are her intellectual copyright. I can’t just hand them over to another ice-cream manufacturer and ask them to knock me up a batch.’
Always assuming she could find one who could be bothered.
It hadn’t been easy to find anyone prepared to work with her to create her very special requirements. Sorbets tinted to exactly match the embroidery on a bride’s gown. Ices the colours of a company logo, or a football-team strip. Who wouldn’t suggest she needed her head examined when asked to produce the ice cream equivalent of a cucumber sandwich, but accepted the challenge with childlike glee.
And even if she had been that unscrupulous, there was no way she’d allow herself to be put in this position again. If Knickerbocker Gloria folded she would have to set up her own production plant from scratch. It would take time to find the right premises, source equipment, train staff and be inspected before she could be up and running. And time was the one thing she didn’t have.
And she’d still be missing the one vital ingredient that made what she offered so special. Ria.
She might very well have said the first thing that came into her head, but taking over Knickerbocker Gloria, putting it on a proper, well-managed footing, could save both Ria and Scoop! And if, in the process, she wiped that patronising expression from Alexander West’s face, then it would be worth it.
‘Not without her permission,’ she added. ‘And unless you can tell me where she is right now that is a non-starter.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Jefferson party is tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’ Now she had his attention.
‘I believe I mentioned that the sorbet has a very short shelf life.’
‘I wasn’t sure that you were listening.’
‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘you’ve had my undivided attention from the moment you walked in.’
‘Yes, I had noticed.’
‘If you will go around half dressed...’
Half dressed?
‘This is not half dressed! On the contrary. I’m wearing a vintage Mary Quant suit that belonged to my grandmother!’
‘Not all of it, surely?’
‘The jacket is in my van. I didn’t expect to be more than five minutes. Now, are there any more comments you’d like to make about my clothes, the hygiene headgear designed by someone who hates women or the way I run my business? Or can we get on?’
He raised his hands defensively. Then, clearly with some kind of death wish, said, ‘Your grandmother?’
‘She was a deb in the sixties. Vidal Sassoon hair, Mini car, miniskirts and, supposedly, the liberation of women.’
‘Supposedly?’
‘Since I’ve met you, I’ve discovered that we still have a long way to go. And, while we’re putting things straight, this is probably a good time to mention that any negotiations to purchase the business will be conditional on the completion of the Jefferson order.’
‘In other words,’ he said, grabbing the opportunity to get back to business, ‘you’re just stalling me out.’ He leaned back against the freezer, crossing his sinewy arms so that the muscles bunched in his biceps, tightening the sleeves of his T-shirt again. They looked so...hard. It was difficult to resist the urge to touch... ‘Until you’ve got what you want,’ he added.
‘No!’ She curled her fingers tightly into her palms. Well maybe. ‘Until I can talk to Ria.’
She knew Ria had friends in Wales from her old travelling days. She went back a couple of times a year and was probably holed up with them in a yurt, drinking nettle beer, eating goat cheese and picking wild herbs for a salad. A place that Sorrel knew, having tried to contact her there back in the summer, didn’t have a mobile-phone signal.
Right now, though, she had to deal with her gatekeeper, Alexander West. It was time to stop drooling like a teenager and act like a smart businesswoman.