Stepping into her office, she slumped into her desk chair and reached for the phone, her fingers still trembling. Dialling the familiar number, she let it ring, waiting for Neal to pick up. He’d be there, she was sure, waiting by the phone. After all, he had to know she’d be calling.
‘I’m sorry,’ Neal said, the moment he answered.
‘So you bloody well should be. What were you thinking? Why didn’t you tell me? Never mind, I think I know.’ Which didn’t make her any happier about the subterfuge. Not one bit.
‘You’d have said no,’ Neal explained anyway. ‘But, Sadie, he really wants to help. And you need him.’
‘I don’t need a pity save.’ Sadie could feel the heat of her anger rising again and let it come. Neal deserved it. ‘I’m not some bank that’s too big to fail. I don’t need Dylan Jacobs to sweep in and—’
‘Yes,’ Neal said, calm but firm. ‘You do. And you know it.’
Yes, she did. But she wished that wasn’t true.
‘Why did it have to be him, though?’ she whined.
‘Who else do we know with millions of pounds, a tendency to jump at random opportunities and a soft spot for your family?’ Neal teased lightly.
‘True.’ Didn’t mean she had to like it, though. Although Neal was right about the jumping-at-opportunities thing. Dylan was the ultimate opportunist—and once he’d jumped it was never long before he was ready to move on to the next big thing. This wasn’t a long-term project for him, Sadie realised. This was Dylan swooping in just long enough to give her a hand, then he’d be moving on. She needed to remember that.
‘Is this really a problem?’ Neal asked. ‘I mean, I knew your pride would be a bit bent out of shape, but you told me you wanted to save the Azure, come hell or high water.’
She had said that. ‘Which is this, exactly?’
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Sadie began to regret the joke. The last thing she needed on top of Dylan Jacobs in her hotel was Neal showing up to find out what was going on.
‘Why does he bother you so much?’ He sounded honestly curious, like he was trying to riddle out the mystery of Sadie and Dylan. The same way Neal always approached everything—like a puzzle to be solved. It was one of the things Sadie liked most about him. He’d taken the problem of her failing hotel and had started looking for answers, rather than pointing out things she’d done wrong. ‘It can’t be that he reminds you of Adem too much or you’d have kicked me to the kerb after the funeral, too. So what is it?’
Sadie sighed. There was just no way to explain this that Neal would ever understand. His riddle would have to go unsolved. ‘I don’t know. We just...we never really managed to see eye to eye. On anything.’
Except for that one night, when they’d seen each other far too clearly. When she’d finally realised the threat that Dylan Jacobs had posed to her carefully ordered and settled life.
The threat of possibility.
‘He’s a good man,’ Neal told her. ‘He really does want to help.’
‘I know.’ That was the worst part. Dylan wasn’t here to cause trouble, or make her life difficult, or unhappy. She knew him well enough to be sure of that. He was there to help, probably out of some misguided sense of obligation to a man who was already two years dead, and the friendship they’d shared. She could respect that. ‘And I need him. I should have called him myself.’ She thought of the sympathy card sitting with a few others in a drawer in her bedroom. The one with a single lily on the front and stark, slashing black handwriting inside.
I’m so sorry, Sadie. Whatever you need, call me. Any time.
D x.
She hadn’t, obviously.
‘So we’re okay?’ Neal asked.
‘Yeah, Neal. We’re fine.’ It was only her own sanity she was worried about. ‘I’ll call you later in the week, let you know how things go.’
‘Okay.’ Neal still sounded uncertain, but he hung up anyway when she said goodbye.
Sadie leant back in her chair, tipping her head to stare at the ceiling. All she needed to do was find a way to work with Dylan until he moved on to the next big thing—and from past experience that wouldn’t take long. Jobs, businesses, women—none of them had ever outlasted his short boredom threshold. Why would the Azure be any different? The only thing Sadie had ever known to be constant in Dylan’s life was his friendship with Adem and Neal. That was all this was about—a feeling of obligation to his friend, and the wife and child he’d left behind. She didn’t need him, she needed his money and his business.
A niggle of guilt wriggled in her middle at the realisation that she was basically using her husband’s best friend for his money, milking his own sense of loss at Adem’s death. But if it was the only way to save the Azure...
She’d convince him that the Azure was worth saving, and he’d stump up the money out of obligation.
Then they could both move on.
Copyright © 2015 by Sophie Pembroke
ISBN-13: 9781460387290
The Baby Who Saved Christmas
Copyright © 2015 by Alison Roberts
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