Her fingers were warm and soft and the sensation of that simple contact of her skin against his forehead was so startling and unexpected that Sean’s breath caught in his throat at the reaction of his body at that simple connection.
Her voice was even warmer, with a definite accent that told him that she has spent a lot of time in Asia.
‘You don’t seem to have a temperature. But it is cold outside. Don’t worry. You’ll soon warm up.’
It he did not have a temperature now, he soon would have, judging by the amount of cleavage this girl was flashing him as she leant closer.
Her chest was only inches away from his face and he sat back a little to more fully appreciate the view. She was wearing one of those strange slinky sweaters that his sister Annika liked to wear on her rare weekend visits. Only Annika wore a T-shirt underneath so that when it slithered off one shoulder she had something to cover her modesty.
This girl was not wearing a T-shirt and a tiny strip of purple lace seemed to be all that was holding up her generously proportioned assets. At another time and definitely another place he might have been tempted to linger on that curving expanse of skin between the top of the slinky forest-green knit and the sharp collar bones and enjoy the moment, but she tilted her head slightly and his gaze locked onto far too many inches of a delicious-looking neckline.
It had been a while since he had been so very up close and personal to a girl with such a fantastic figure and it took a few seconds before what was left of the logical part of his brain clicked back into place. He dragged his focus a little higher.
‘Nice top,’ he grinned and pressed his hands against the floor to steady his body. ‘Bit cold for the time of year.’
‘Oh, do you like it?’ She smiled and then looked down and gasped a little. In one quick movement she slid back and tugged at her top before squinting at him through narrow eyes. Clearly not too happy that he had been enjoying the view while she was checking his temperature.
‘Cheeky,’ she tutted. ‘Is this how you normally behave in public? I’m surprised that they let you out unsupervised.’
A short cough burst out of Sean’s throat. After sixteen years in the hotel trade he had been called many things by many people but he had never once been accused of being cheeky.
The second son of the founder of the Beresford hotel chain did not go around doing anything that even remotely fell into the ‘cheeky’ category.
This was truly a first. In more ways than one.
‘Did you just deck me?’ he asked in a low, questioning voice and watched her stand up in one single, smooth motion and lean against the table opposite. She was wearing floral patterned leggings which clung to long, slender legs which seemed to go on for ever and only ended where the oversized sweater came down to her thighs. Combined with the green top, she looked like a walking abstract painting of a spring garden. He had never seen anything quite like it before.
‘Me?’ She pressed one hand to her chest and shook her head before looking down at him. ‘Not at all. I stopped you from falling flat on your face and causing serious damage to that cute nose. You should be thanking me. It could have been a nasty fall, the way you burst in like that. This really is your lucky day.’
‘Thank you?’ he spluttered in outrage. Apparently he had a cute nose.
‘You are welcome,’ she chuckled in a sing-song voice. ‘It is not often that I have a chance to show off my judo skills but it comes in handy now and then.’
‘Judo. Right. I’ll take your word for it,’ Sean replied and looked from side to side around the room. ‘What is this place?’
‘Our tea rooms,’ she replied, and peered at him. ‘But you knew that, because you were hammering at our door.’ She flicked a hand towards the entrance. ‘The shop is closed, you know. No cake. No tea. So if you are expecting to be fed you are out of luck.’
‘You can say that again,’ Sean whispered, then held up one hand when she looked as though she might reply. ‘But please don’t. Tea and cakes are the last thing I came looking for, I can assure you.’
‘So why were you hammering on the door, wearing a business suit at nine on a Tuesday evening? You have obviously come here for a reason. Are you planning to sit on my floor and keep me in suspense for the rest of the evening?’
His green-eyed assailant was just about to say something else when the sound of female laughter drifted out from the back of the room.
‘Ah,’ she winced and nodded. ‘Of course. You must be here to pick up one of the girls from the Bake and Bit...Banter club. But those ladies won’t be ready for at least another half-hour.’ One hand gestured towards the back of the room where he could hear the faint sound of female voices and music. ‘The cakes are still in the oven.’ Her lovely shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug. ‘We were late getting started. Too much bit...chatting and not enough baking. But I can tell someone you are here, if you like. Who exactly are you waiting for?’
Who was he waiting for? He wasn’t waiting for anyone. He was here on a different kind of mission. Tonight he was very much a messenger boy.
Sean reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and checked the address on the piece of lilac writing paper he had found inside the envelope marked ‘D S Flynn contact details’ lying at the bottom of the conference room booking file. It had been handwritten in dark-green ink in very thin letters his father would instantly have dismissed as spider writing.
Well, he certainly had the right street and, according to the built-in GPS in his phone, he was within three metres of the address of his suspiciously elusive client who had booked a conference room at the hotel and apparently paid the deposit without leaving a telephone number or an email address. Which was not just inconvenient but infuriating.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not here to pick up anyone from your baking club. Far from it. I need to track someone down in a hurry.’
He waved the envelope in the air and instantly saw something in the way she lifted her chin that suggested that she recognized the envelope, but she covered it up with a quizzical look.
That seemed to startle her and he could almost feel the intensity of her gaze as it moved slowly from his smart, black lace-up business brogues to the crispness of his shirt collar and silk tie. There was something else going on behind those green eyes, because she glanced back towards the entrance just once and then swung around towards the back of the room, before turning her attention on him again.
And when she spoke there was the faintest hint of concern in her voice which she was trying hard to conceal and failing miserably.
‘Perhaps I could help if you told me who you were looking for,’ she replied.
Sean looked up into her face and decided that it was time to get this over with so he could get back to the penthouse apartment at the hotel and collapse.
In one short, sharp movement he pushed himself sideways with one hand, curled his knees and effortlessly got back onto his feet, brushing down his coat and trousers with one hand. So that, when he replied, his words were more directed towards the floor than the girl standing watching him so intently.
‘I certainly hope so. Does a Mr D S Flynn live here? Because, if he does, I really need to speak to him. And the sooner the better.’
TWO
Tea, glorious tea. A celebration of teas from around the world.
‘A woman is like a tea bag: you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.’ Eleanor Roosevelt.
From Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea
‘What was that name again?’ Dee asked, holding on to the edge of the counter for support, in a voice that was trembling way too much for her liking. ‘Mr Deesasflin. Was that what you said? Sounds more like a rash cream. It is rather unusual.’
A low sigh of intense exasperation came from deep inside his chest and h
e stopped patting down his clothes and stretched out tall. As in, very tall. As in well over six feet tall in his smart shoes which, for a girl who was as vertically challenged as she was, as Lottie called it, seemed really tall.
Worse.
He was holding the envelope that she had given to the hotel manager the first time she had visited the lovely, posh, boutique hotel to suss out the conference facilities.
They had gone through everything in such detail and double-checked the numbers when she had paid the deposit on the conference room in October.
So why was this man, this stranger, holding that envelope?
Dee racked her brains. Things had been pretty mad ever since Christmas but she would have remembered a letter or call from the hotel telling her that it had been taken over or they had appointed a new manager.
Who made house calls.
Oh no, she groaned inside. This was the last thing she needed. Not now. Please tell me that everything to do with the tea festival is still going to plan...please? She had staked her reputation and her career in the tea trade on organizing this festival. And the last of her savings. Things had to be okay with the venue or she would be toast.
‘Flynn. D. S.’ His voice echoed out across the empty tea room, each letter crisp, perfectly enunciated and positively oozing with annoyance. ‘This letter was all that I could find in the booking system. No name or telephone number or email address. Just an address, a surname and two initials.’
What? All that he could find?
Great. Well, that answered that question: he was from the hotel.
She was looking at her gorgeous but grumpy new hotel manager or conference organizer.
Who she had just sideswiped.
Splendid. This was getting better and better.
The only good news was that he seemed to think that his client was a man, so she could find out the reason for his obvious grumpiness without getting her legs swiped from under her. With a bit of luck.
As far as he knew, she was just a girl in a cake shop. Maybe she could keep up the pretence a little longer and find out more before revealing her true credentials.
‘You don’t seem very pleased with this Mr Flynn person.’ She smiled, suddenly desperate to appear as though she was just an outside party making conversation. ‘They must have done something seriously outrageous to make you come out on a wet night in February to track them down.’
Ouch. That was such a horrible expression. The idea that he had made it as far as the tea rooms and was actually hunting her was enough to give her an icy cold feeling in the pit of her stomach which was going to take a serious amount of hot tea to thaw out.
From the determined expression on his face, right down to the very official business suit and smart haircut, this man spelt ‘serious’.
As serious as all of the finance people who had tried their hardest to crush her confidence and convince her that her dream was a foolish illusion. She had been turned down over and over again, despite the brilliant business plan she had worked on for weeks, and all the connections in the tea trade that she could ever need.
The message was always the same: they could not see the feasibility of a new tea import business in the current economy. All of the statistics about the British obsession with tea and everything connected with it had seemed to fly over their heads. Not enough profit. Too risky. Not viable.
Was it any wonder that she had gone out on a limb and offered to organize the tea festival so that she could launch her import business at the same time?
Lottie had been her saviour in the end and had pulled in a few favours so that the private bank her parents used was aware that it was a joint business with the lovely, seriously wealthy and connected Miss Rosemount as well as the equally lovely but seriously broke Miss Flynn.
Come to think of it, the banker had been a girl in a suit. But a suit all the same.
‘On the contrary, Mr Flynn has not done anything. But I do need to speak to him as soon as possible.’
‘May I take a message?’ she asked in her best ‘innocent bystander’ voice, and smiled.
He paused for a second and she thought that he was going to slide over to her counter but he was simply straightening his back. Oh lord. Another two inches taller.
‘I am sorry but this is a confidential business matter for my client. If you know where I can find him, it is important that we talk on a very urgent matter about his booking.’
A cold, icy pit started to form in the base of Dee’s stomach and something close to panic flitted up like a bucket of cold water splashed over her face.
She blinked, lifted her chin and stuck out her hand. ‘That’s me. Dervla Skylark Flynn. Otherwise known as Dee. Dee S Flynn. Tea supplier to the stars. I’m the person you are looking for, Mr...?’
He took two long steps to cross the room and shake her hand. A real handshake. His long, slender fingers wrapped around her hand which Dee suddenly realized must be quite sticky from dispensing cake and biscuits and clearing away bowls covered in cake batter.
His gaze was locked on her face as he spoke, and she could almost see the clever cogs interconnecting behind those blue eyes as he processed her little announcement, took her word that she was who she said she was and went for it without pause.
Clever. She liked clever.
‘Sean Beresford. I am the acting manager of the Beresford Hotel, Richmond Square. Pleased to meet you, Miss Flynn.’
‘Richmond Square?’ She replied, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘That’s the hotel where I booked a conference room for February. And...’
Then her brain caught up with the name he had given her and she inhaled through her nose as his fingers slid away from hers and rested lightly on the counter.
‘Did you just say Beresford? As in the Beresford family of hotel owners?’
A smile flickered across his lips which instantly drew her gaze, and her stupid little heart just skipped a beat at the transformation in this man’s face that one simple smile made.
Lord, he was gorgeous. Riveting.
Oh, smile at me again and make my blood soar. Please?
And now she was ogling. How pathetic. Just because she was within touching distance of a real, live Beresford did not mean that she had to go to pieces in front of him.
So what if this man came from one of the most famous hotel-owning families in the world? A Beresford hotel was a name splashed across the broadsheet newspapers and celebrity magazines, not Cake Shop and Tea Room Weekly.
This made it even more gut-clenching that he had just been in close and personal contact with her floorboards.
‘Guilty as charged,’ he replied and touched his forehead with two closed fingers in salute. ‘I am in London for a few months and the Richmond Square hotel is one of my special projects.’
‘You’re feeling guilty?’ she retorted with a cough. ‘What about me? You almost had an accident here tonight. And I could have dropped you. Oh, that is so not good. Especially when you have come all the way from the centre of London late in the evening to see me.’
Then she shook her head, sucked in a long breath and carried on before he had a chance to say anything. ‘Speaking of which, now we have the introductions sorted out, I think you had best tell me what the problem is. Because I am starting to get scared about this special project you need to see me about so very urgently.’
He gestured towards the nearest table and chairs.
‘You may need to sit down, Miss Flynn.’
A lump the size of Scotland formed in her throat, making speech impossible, so she replied with a brief shake of the head and a half-smile and gestured to one of the bar stools next to the tea bar.
She watched in silence as he unbuttoned his coat, scowled at the missing buttons then sat down on the stool and turned to face her,
one elbow resting on the bar.
Nightmare visions flitted through her brain of having to tell the tea trade officials that the London Festival of Tea was going to going to be cancelled because she had messed up booking the venue, but she fought them back.
Not going to happen. That tea festival was going ahead even if she had to rent the damp and dusty local community centre and cancel the bingo night.
She had begged the tea trade organization to give her the responsibility for organizing the event and it had taken weeks to convince the hardened professionals that she could coordinate a major London event.
Everything she had worked for rested on this event being a total success. Everything.
Suddenly the room started to feel very warm and she dragged over a bar stool and perched on it to stop her wobbly legs from giving way under her.
Focus, Dee. Focus. It might not be as bad as she was thinking.
‘I only took over the running of the hotel today so it has taken me a while to go through all of the paperwork. That’s why I only started working through the conference-booking system this afternoon. I apologize for not calling in earlier but there has been a lot of catching up to do and I didn’t have any contact details.’
She swallowed down her anxiety. ‘But what happened to the other manager? Frank Evans? He was taking care of all my arrangements in person and seemed very organized. I must have filled in at least three separate forms before I paid the deposit. Surely he has my contact details?’
‘Frank decided to take up a job offer with another hotel company last Friday. Without notice. That’s why I came in to sort out the emergency situation at Richmond Square and get things back on track.’
She gasped and grabbed his arm. ‘What kind of emergency do you have?’ Then she gulped. ‘Has something happened? I mean, has the hotel flooded or—’ she suddenly felt faint ‘—burnt down? Gas explosion? Water damage?’
‘Flooded?’ he replied, then tilted his head a tiny fraction of an inch. ‘No. The hotel is absolutely fine. In fact, I went there straight from the airport and it is as lovely as ever. Business as usual.’
Trouble on Her Doorstep Page 2