by Nikki Logan
She turned her head back to him, quite liking the idea of being partners in something with Nathaniel Moore. Even if it also meant tolerating his son. ‘You own the whole building?’
She hadn’t realised quite how wealthy the Moores were. Entire buildings in the heart of the central business district didn’t come cheap.
‘Did your price just go up?’ Aiden asked.
‘Aiden—’ Disapproving brown eyes snapped his way.
‘I’m interested because that means you don’t need to get the buy-in of the other tenants. That will save a lot of time and hassle.’
Nathaniel nodded. Satisfied and even pleased with her answer. ‘So, shall we talk design?’
* * *
In Tash’s experience, the number of times a man glanced at his watch during a business meeting was directly proportional to how important he believed he was. A man like Aiden should have been flicking his eyes down to his wrist on the minute.
But he never did. Or if he did, she never caught him at it. He gave her one hundred and ten per cent of his attention.
Nathaniel was similarly absorbed and entirely uncaring about the passing of time, it seemed. But at the back of her mind, she knew what ninety minutes of a company’s two top personnel must be worth.
‘I think I have enough to get started with,’ she said. ‘I can email you some early designs next week.’
‘Bring them in,’ Nathaniel volunteered and Aiden’s eyes narrowed. ‘We can have lunch next time. It’s a bit late to have it now.’
Not if you asked her gurgling stomach. She’d been too nervous to eat beforehand. Still, there were more than a dozen cafés between here and the railway station. Hopefully, their kitchens would still be open. ‘Okay. That sounds lovely.’
Aiden frowned again. If he kept that up, he was going to mar that spectacular forehead perpetually.
Their goodbyes were brief; she could hardly give Nathaniel the open-armed hug she wanted to in an office full of eyes—even if his all-seeing son weren’t standing right there—and so she left him standing as she’d found him, on the landing to MooreCo’s floor. Aiden summoned the elevator for her and then held the door as it opened. As if to make sure she actually got in it. When she did, he stepped in as well.
‘You must have somewhere better to be,’ she hinted. Somewhere other than stalking her.
‘I’ll call you a cab,’ he murmured.
‘I’m taking the train.’
He stayed on her heels as she stepped out into the foyer. ‘I’ll walk you to the station.’
‘I’m stopping for something to eat.’
‘Great. I’m starving.’
She slid her glance sideways at him. Subtle. Most men at least feigned some reason to hang around her long enough to hit her up. Aiden Moore didn’t even bother with excuses. She slammed the brakes on his galloping moves.
‘I’m not going to go out with you, Aiden.’
He turned. ‘I don’t recall offering.’
‘No. You just assumed. Our relationship is professional.’
Speaking of excuses...
His pale eyes narrowed. ‘It’s just lunch, Natasha. I’m hardly going to proposition you over a toasted sandwich.’
She straightened her shoulders. ‘In my experience that’s exactly how it goes.’
The assumption. The entitlement.
His head tipped. Something flickered across his expression. ‘Then you’ve had the wrong experiences.’
She laughed. ‘Hard to disagree.’
She spent the last four years of high school disappointing the raging hormones of boys who thought her hippy clothing reflected her values. Being disappointed by them in turn. Waiting for the one that was different. The one who liked her for who she was, not for what they thought she might do for them. To them.
And then, after graduation, the men who wanted an unconventional arty sort on their trophy wall. And then Kyle...
‘Lunch. That’s it.’ He peered down on her, a twist to his lips. ‘Until you tell me otherwise.’
Ugh. Such a delicate line between confidence and conceit. One she couldn’t help being drawn to, the other sent her running. She’d had her fill of supercilious men. She fired him her most withering stare and turned for the exit. In the polished glass of the building’s front, she saw the reflection of his smile. Easy. Genuine.
And her gut twisted just a hint.
Nice smile for a schmuck.
They stopped outside a café called Reveille two blocks down, probably better for breakfast but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Aiden chose a table at the back.
‘So how do my father and your mother know each other?’
The question took her aback. She’d not expected him to ask outright.
‘Did.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She died last year.’
He frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’
‘No reason you should.’
‘How did they originally know each other?’
‘They went to the same university.’
True. And yet not complete. The whole truth wasn’t something she could share if he hadn’t already done the maths. It wasn’t her place.
‘That means your mother and mine may have known each other, too. That’s where my parents met. Although she dropped out before graduating so perhaps not.’
Tash held her breath and grabbed the subject change. ‘She didn’t finish?’
He smiled at the waiter who brought their coffees. ‘My fault, I’m afraid. Universities weren’t quite so family friendly back then. My grandparents pulled her out of school when she got pregnant.’
‘She never went back? Finished?’
‘I think child-rearing and being the wife of an up-and-coming executive rather took over her life.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘She sacrificed a lot for me.’
‘You’re her son.’
‘I’m still grateful.’
She didn’t want to give him points for being a decent human being. Or respond to his openness. She wanted to keep on loathing him as a handsome narcissist. ‘Do you tell her that?’
He glanced up at her and she found herself drawn to the innate curiosity in his bottomless eyes. Opening up in a way she normally wouldn’t have risked. ‘The first thing I regretted when I lost Mum was not telling her all the obvious things. Not thanking her.’
For life. For opportunity. For all the love. Every day.
His eyes softened. ‘She knows.’
Was he talking about his mother or hers? Either way, it was hard not to believe all that solid confidence. He didn’t understand. How could he? Plus, Aiden Moore’s business was none of hers, and vice versa.
She handed him a menu. ‘So were you serious about a toasted—?’
‘Are you a natural blonde?’ he asked at the same time. The menu froze in her fingers. But he hurried on, as if realising how badly she was about to take that question. ‘It’s your eyes...I thought blonde hair and brown eyes was genetically impossible. Like all ginger cats being male.’
Her frost eased just a little and she finished delivering the menu to his side of the table.
His eyes grazed over the part of her visible above the table before settling back on hers. ‘Unless they’re contacts?’
‘I’ve had both since birth. And I’ve met a female ginger cat, too. It happens.’
Kyle’s old ginge was a female. One of the things that let her get so close to him was how loving he was of that cat. Turned out how people treated animals wasn’t automatically a sign of how they’d treat people. Just another relationship myth.
Like the one about love being unconditional.
Or equal.
She opened the menu and studied the columns.
* * *
Aiden took his cue from Natasha, but he knew what was on the menu and he didn’t really care what he had. The meeting before theirs had been a luncheon so he wasn’t hungry. At least not for food.
Information he was greedy for.
Her mother was dead. That explained why the woman wasn’t hovering on the scene discouraging her daughter from dating a man twice her age. Maybe it explained the vulnerability in her gaze, too. But one personal fact wasn’t nearly enough.
He’d work his way slowly to what he really wanted to know.
‘Have you been a glass-blower all your life?’
She didn’t look old enough to have had time to become a master at her craft. With her sunglasses holding her shaggy hair back from her lightly made-up face, she looked early twenties. Fresh. Almost innocent.
But looks could be deceiving. She was old enough to have a reputation for excellence in art circles and old enough to have worked out that there were faster ways to make money than selling vases when you looked as good as she did.
‘Twelve years. We went to a glassworks when I was in school and I grew fascinated. I started as a hobby then took it up professionally when I left school.’
‘No tertiary study?’
Her chin came up. ‘Nothing formal. I was too busy getting my studio up and running.’
‘It’s a good space,’ he hinted. ‘Arts grants must be pretty decent these days.’
Her lips thinned. ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had one for years.’
He studied her closely. ‘You’re fully self-sustainable just on your sales?’
‘I traded pieces for studio space until I was established enough to sell commercially.’
‘So somewhere there’s a crazy Tash Sinclair collector with a house full of glass seahorses?’
She shrugged. ‘He had empty commercial space and I had investment potential. Our boats rose together.’
‘Ah, a patron.’ Of course.
Her eyes darkened for a heartbeat, then flicked away. ‘At the time. Now he’s the mayor.’
Kyle Jardine. He knew the man. Big fish, small pond. Always a little bit too pleased with himself given what little he’d actually achieved in life—mid-level public office. Exactly the sort of man to be suckered by a hot, intriguing gold-digger.
‘A notable patron.’
Her lips twisted. ‘Notable enough to drop his support the moment he had candidacy.’
Ironic that an opportunist should find herself so treated. And now she was working up his father to fill the vacancy for sucker?
She flicked back her hair. ‘Except him cutting me free made me discover that I could stand on my own. So, yes, I’ve been self-sufficient for two years now. I own my studio thanks to him, I own my house, thanks to Mum, and I make my rates and put something better than fast-boil noodles on the table at night thanks to my seven-day-a-week glass habit.’
‘And thanks to your reputation. Your pieces don’t come cheap.’
She shifted in her seat but held his eyes. ‘As you’re about to find out.’
He chuckled and then asked something off-script. Something just because he was curious. ‘It doesn’t bother you that Jardine got rich on your talent? Then cut you loose?’
She looked as if she wanted to say a whole lot more on the subject but thought better of it. ‘He can only sell them once. I can make a new one every week. Besides—’ she smiled at the woman who came to take her order ‘—when you’re an artist, every single piece you sell is going to make someone else more money than it made you. Nature of the beast. It doesn’t pay to get attached.’
Did that go for people as well? Was that a survival tactic in her world?
She turned to order. All-day breakfast. Totally unapologetic that it was nearly four o’clock. He ordered something small and a second coffee. This was going to be an interesting meal.
‘So why the fascination with nature?’ All those sea creatures and birds and stormy colours.
She considered him and then shrugged. ‘I make what the glass tells me to. Usually it’s something natural.’
‘“The glass made me do it.” Really? That’s not a bit...hippy?’
She smiled. ‘I am a hippy. Unashamedly so.’
If she was, she’d reined it in today. Dark crop top with an ornate bodice over the top, and a full skirt. Feminine and flowing. He couldn’t see her feet but he itched to know whether she’d have sandals or painted nails or—something deep inside him twisted sharply—a toe ring. Maybe tiny little bells on her ankle. Some ink?
Get a grip, Moore. Fantasising about a woman’s foot decoration. Pervert.
‘What?’ she asked, a breadstick halfway to her mouth.
He composed his expression. What had he betrayed? He scrabbled his way to something credible. ‘I have a memory,’ he said. ‘Of my parents. When I was young. My mother was dressed a bit like you. I think they might have been a bit...organic...in their day.’
She smiled. ‘What was that, mid-eighties? The New Age movement would have been burgeoning about then. It’s very possible. Or did you think your father was born in a business suit?’
The memory that his subconscious spat up when he needed the lie became manifest. He did remember his mother dressed loose, earthy and free. Down by a river somewhere. Laughing with his father, her arms wrapped around Aiden as a toddler. The memory even had that Technicolor tinge, the way old photos from the eighties did.
But, it was his mother’s happiness that struck him as incongruous. It had been a long time since he’d had any memories at all where she’d looked at his father like that. Adoring. Engaged.
Maybe it was more figment of imagination than of memory.
Because he kind of had thought his father was born in a suit. And some days it felt as if he had been, too. Mergers and acquisitions did that to you after a decade or two. He couldn’t imagine father or son on their back in the grass by a river. Picking shapes out of the clouds. Breathing in synch with the tumbling water.
The water feature out front of MooreCo was about as close as they got. And the last time he was on his back in the grass...?
Not a thought for a public place.
‘So you don’t know a lot about your parents’ past, then?’ she asked, her face carefully neutral. As if he wouldn’t notice her poor attempts to elicit information about his father. Maybe information she could use in her seduction.
He fixed his jaw. ‘Before I came on the scene? No, not really. I know they met at uni. He was doing a double-major in commerce and law and she studied arts until she withdrew at the end of second-year.’ All pretty much public record. ‘That’s about it.’
‘Aren’t you curious?’
‘Not especially. It’s ancient history.’ If they’d had any friends at university, they didn’t stay in touch into adulthood. If they had, he’d have known. They’d be amongst the endless honorary aunts and uncles that visited the Moore home when he was younger.
Which made it strange that Tash’s mother didn’t rank amongst them, now that he thought about it.
Almost as strange as realising he now thought of her as Tash.
She lifted one brow. ‘Or is it more that it doesn’t involve you so it doesn’t rate?’
Ouch. Had he been that much of a jerk since meeting her?
Yeah, probably.
‘My family are close but they’ve always tried to keep the kids out of the old business.’ In fact, in his family the kids got knuckle-rapped for sticking their noses into anything adult.
Which was how he knew exactly how pissed his father was going to be when he realised his son was running interference with a gold-digger. But he didn’t care. He was hardly going to stand around and let Natasha Sinclair lure his father’s attention away from his wife of thirty years like some toe-ring-wearing siren.
> His father was a handsome, rich man. Ambitious women came and went regularly. But generally they didn’t make a ripple. In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never seen his father so fixated on a woman. Especially such a young woman. Though he knew there’d been at least one time.... It was infamous in his family and no one talked about it above a whisper.
So, like it or not, he was going to keep himself right up in their faces and on alert. If she wanted to mess with a wealthy Moore, she could have a crack at the heir. He was more than capable of taking her on, and—as his body tingled at the thought—more than willing.
Maybe some of her free spirit would rub off on him like a breath of fresh air.
* * *
He didn’t know.
Or, if he did, he had an outstanding poker face.
Nothing about that had changed in the week since she’d first sat in this boardroom.
Tash glanced out at the suburbs across the river stretching off beyond the horizon. The MooreCo building executive floor had to have one of the best views in town.
Aiden Moore seemed entirely oblivious to their parents’ shared past. Exactly as oblivious as she was before she’d opened that first diary. For a whispered-about family secret, this one was surprisingly well maintained. She was hardly in a position to enlighten him.
She glanced at both men. By the way, did you know that my mother and your father were lovers?
She didn’t owe Aiden any loyalty just because they were offspring-in-the-dark in common. Her loyalty lay with Nathaniel—her mother’s love—and outing them both to Aiden would damage more than just his relationship with his own father. They were close, she could see. Not close enough to share secrets—and she had no doubts that Aiden had his fair share, too—but they were respectful of each other where it counted and disrespectful enough to speak of a close, affectionate relationship. Much closer than she could ever imagine with her own father. Their humour was pretty much aligned with hers and she had to concentrate on not smiling as they gently ribbed each other.
She wasn’t part of this family, even if she felt like it.
She was an outsider.