by Anne Oliver
Her mouth tingled, like sherbet fizzing on her tongue, as she thought about kissing that full mouth of his with joy at the news. Now the ball was in her court she could probably do whatever she wanted to him and he’d have to put up with it if he wanted her back. And he evidently did, considering he’d come all the way over here after hours with his tail between his legs to talk to her.
Of course he needed someone with her experience to take over the Breakfast Show. It would be virtually impossible to find someone else with the skills needed to step in at such short notice and do a good job.
He needed her.
She had a flash of memory about how empowering it had felt to call the shots with him last night and wondered whether she could bring herself to do it again. To get her own back on him for his unfair treatment of her today.
The memory of Tristan’s cold expression when he’d fired her sprang into her mind again and the decision was made. She’d be lax if she didn’t make him work at least a little bit hard for her forgiveness. She was sick of putting up with men pushing her around and taking her good nature for granted.
‘So what are you offering me?’ she asked, tipping up her chin.
He frowned, appearing confused. ‘I’m offering you your job back and the opportunity to take over the Breakfast Show, which I know you’ve been interested in for quite some time.’
‘Yes, I got that. I mean what sort of wage hike are you offering? How far are you going to extend my contract on the show to make sure I’m allowed a good run at it? Perks, that kind of thing.’
He stared at her, the surprise clear in his eyes. Apparently he thought he could waltz over here, toss her the offer of the Breakfast Show and she’d fall on her knees in gratitude.
Well, you can think again, Mister.
Even though she wanted that show with a passion, she needed to go back to the station feeling as though she had some power in her new position and wouldn’t just be ousted by a new Station Manager the moment Tristan slunk off back to Edinburgh.
He closed his eyes and laughed to himself, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what he’d got himself into here. Of course, he’d only meant to come over for the day to dish out his father’s orders and he’d somehow found himself with a mutiny on his hands.
That would teach him to get involved in other people’s affairs.
‘Okay,’ he said, running a hand over his, by now, rather rumpled hair. ‘You can have a ten per cent wage increase to reflect your importance to the station and we’ll give you a year-long contract to show our commitment to you.’
She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.
Tristan cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes. ‘Okay, playing hardball, huh? A two-year contract and fifteen per cent wage hike.’
‘I’d expect nothing less than a three-year contract and twenty per cent,’ she said levelly, digging her nails into her palms under her crossed arms to force herself to stand tough.
There was a long pause while Tristan digested her demands, his pragmatic gaze raking her face.
Finally, he nodded, drawing himself up to his full height as he pushed himself away from the doorframe and stood back.
A bubble of glee rose from deep inside her, making her skin tingle all over. She’d bloody well done it. She’d beaten him into submission.
Despite the urge to blurt out her acceptance of his terms and get straight down to the time-consuming business of planning the show for the morning, she made herself take a breath and a mental step away. After all, she’d had a tough day and shouldn’t jump into anything without giving it some proper consideration first.
It occurred to her too that he hadn’t apologised for accusing her of sleeping with him to sway his decisions.
She needed to hold her nerve for a bit longer to totally pay him back and restore her pride.
He was looking at her confidently, waiting for her agreement, his expression more relaxed now he seemed to think he’d sorted out the mess he’d made.
Flipping him as assertive a smile as she could muster, she put her hand on the door and straightened her posture, hoping he wouldn’t notice how much she was trembling.
‘Thanks for coming over. I have another job offer on the table, so I’ll think about yours and let you know my decision soon.’
He looked at her as if she’d just spoken complete gibberish. ‘But I need you at work tomorrow.’
She smiled sweetly. ‘Sorry, I have plans tomorrow. But I’ll get back to you in the next day or two.’
He opened and closed his mouth, apparently lost for words.
‘Bye, Tristan.’ She swung the door shut in his face, hearing it close with a satisfying click.
FIVE
Tristan had never been so stressed in his life.
It had taken him the rest of the evening to find someone willing to step in to present the Breakfast Show on such short notice. Darla, the woman who had taken over Tallulah’s old Drivetime Show, point-blank refused to help him out because of the way he’d treated Jez ‘so appallingly’ and the rest of the presenters seemed unwilling to help because he’d fired Tallulah.
Added to that, he’d spent the night tossing and turning in his hotel bed as flashes of her face kept springing into his head. She knew exactly the trouble she was causing him—he’d seen the mischief in her eyes as she’d swung the door shut in his face.
Admittedly, he’d been floored when she’d refused to take his more than generous offer right away, but after chewing on it for a while he wondered whether he’d actually deserved the rejection. In his rush to get past his frustration about the night he’d spent with her, he’d not done his job properly and let his emotions get in the way of common sense.
He should have tried to smooth things over with her first.
Clearly this problem wasn’t going to be resolved with cold hard cash like most things he came across in his life either. Judging by the fact she lived in a large, swanky apartment in central London perhaps money wasn’t her driving force. Maybe she had wealthy parents or a large inheritance behind her? Her wage from the radio station certainly wouldn’t have covered a mortgage, or even the rent, on a place like that.
Whatever it was that drove her, she’d certainly got his attention.
Unsurprisingly, the Breakfast Show was a total chaos of missed cues and fumbled links and the poor guy who he’d pulled from the sleepy graveyard shift to take over let Tristan know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t prepared to do it again the following day.
There had been a fair number of complaints from the listeners too.
If Tristan weren’t careful, the advertisers—who kept the station running with their regular imbursements—would start making a fuss and then they’d be in real trouble.
Unfortunately, his father wasn’t contactable for another month as he and his new yoga-obsessed wife had decided to shroud themselves in solitude in the middle of Asia to ‘become one with the earth’ so it was totally down to Tristan to handle things here.
He’d already arranged for Andrew, his second-in-command at the company he ran from Edinburgh, to carry on caretaking in his place whilst he was down here in London so he could concentrate fully on getting the station back up and running with a new manager.
Right now, his main priority was to get Tallulah to agree to return tomorrow. He suspected he’d need to be creative about how he went about it too, because, without a doubt, she was holding off on giving him an answer to pay him back for firing her in the first place.
And perhaps for his less than objective suggestion that she’d only slept with him to gain a competitive edge. Hot embarrassment trickled through him as he remembered the accusations he’d made in the heat of the moment.
It hadn’t been his finest hour.
He had to have imagined al
l her slightly odd behaviour when they first met, retrofitting it afterwards into his conviction that she’d been playing him for a fool, when maybe it had been something else? But what?
Not that he should be worrying about that at the moment. He needed to focus on the job in hand.
He sat for a few minutes staring into space as he considered the best way to get her attention.
Lightning finally struck.
He smiled, an unexpected feeling of excitement rising from deep within his chest. She liked playing games? Well, okay then, he was going to present her with the best brain-teaser of her life.
* * *
Tallulah slept in late and woke to find bright sunlight streaming in through the chinks in her curtains.
After all the tension of the previous day, it was absolute bliss to lie there for a while and not have to spring out of bed to get ready for her shift at work.
Not that she could hold off from giving Tristan an answer for long. She knew she couldn’t push him too hard, or he’d soon find someone else to step in and snap up her contract. The benefits of having experience on the show and a good track record at the station would only give her the edge over a newcomer for so long.
Still, it had been satisfying to see the comical stunned expression on his face when she’d shut the door on him. It had more than made up for the cold look of disapproval she’d last experienced on that handsome face of his.
Unbidden memories from their night together swam through her head as she thought about him, leaving a warm afterglow in the most intimate of places. She wriggled around in frustration, clamping her thighs together to quell the sensation. The very last thing she should be doing was lusting after Tristan again. Look what kind of mess she’d got herself into when she’d last given in to that impulse.
No. Sadly, that had to have been the one and only time there was any intimacy between them. The man was a shark.
Her reflections were interrupted by the sound of the buzzer.
Hauling herself out of bed and wrapping up in her large towelling robe, she raced to the door, half wondering in a nervy excited way whether it would be Tristan again. The Breakfast Show couldn’t have been a roaring success with no one at the station with experience in hosting it to take over at such short notice. Perhaps he’d come to camp out on her doorstep until she agreed to come back? Her heart did a loop-the-loop as she pictured stepping over Tristan’s gorgeous prostrate body on her way out for milk.
Hmm, she quite liked the idea of that.
It was a flower delivery. The bouquet was so large she could hardly see the delivery person behind it. After accepting it with an excited squeak, she carried it into the living room and set it on the coffee table, brushing aside the debris from the day before to make room for it. As she looked at it more carefully, she realised there were jigsaw pieces with words written on them spiked on sticks and dotted in amongst the flowers.
After rummaging through the whole bouquet and finding sixteen different pieces, she made room on the table so she could fit them together and make up the handwritten note. Once she’d completed it she stared in amusement at the words spelled out in front of her:
Since you’ve been gone, things around here have fallen to pieces...
There wasn’t a name anywhere on the note. Even so, she had a strong suspicion she knew who it was from. A burst of laughter bubbled up from inside her and broke free. Was this Tristan’s way of trying to persuade her to agree to take back the job? If so, it was a pretty good shot.
Leaning down, she sniffed the beautiful fragrant bouquet, delighting in the heady mixture of scents as they wound through her nostrils. No one had ever bought her flowers as grand as this before and they certainly hadn’t gone to the trouble of leaving her a message to puzzle out.
Standing up, she shook herself. She really shouldn’t let a few stems and a jigsaw turn her head so easily. It was important to remember that he needed something from her and there wasn’t any kind of romance in the gesture. It was purely mercenary on his part.
She took herself off for a shower, mulling it all over, and just as she got out there was the loud rasp of the buzzer again.
Hurrying to the door in just a towel—praying it really wasn’t Tristan this time—she pulled it open to reveal a tall, lanky youth with a brown cardboard box in his hands.
‘I have a delivery for Tallulah Lazenby,’ he said, desperately trying to keep his gaze averted from her dripping wet, skimpily towelled body and looking somewhere off to the left of her head, his eyes wide and the skin on his neck flushed a deep red.
‘Thanks,’ Lula said, taking the box gently from him. ‘Where has it come from?’
‘I work at The Magic Store on Oxford Street. A customer gave me fifty quid to come over and deliver this to you in my break.’ He still couldn’t meet her eyes and she decided to be kind and put him out of his misery. ‘Thanks very much.’ She gave him a nod to release him and he backed away quickly and ran off down the hallway leading out of her apartment block.
She opened up the box right there by the door. It looked as if there was a glass ball inside. Lifting it out carefully, she examined it. It sat on a wooden base and the whole thing was heavy and solid, the glass thick.
It took her a few seconds to realise what she was holding. It was a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.
Shaking her head, she laughed to herself.
Nice.
He’d remembered her flip remark about how being able to see into the future would be a useful skill. It really would have been the night they’d met. None of this mess with Tristan would have happened if they’d both known what was about to unfold.
Carrying it into the living room, she put the ball on the sideboard and turned her attention back to the box. There was an envelope taped to the top of it, which she tore open, shifting the cardboard box under one arm so she could hold up the note and read it.
Once I realised, I wanted to let you know...
Once he realised what? That he’d been an arrogant arse for not even listening to her side of the story before jumping to conclusions?
That he liked her a lot more than he was letting on and wanted to see her again in a non-work capacity?
Even though the thought of that gave her a warm flutter in her belly, she knew she needed to quash it quickly. There couldn’t be any more sexy times with him—she wasn’t going to sleep with someone she worked for ever again.
No.
Not going to happen.
Tossing the card onto the table, she went to get dressed and dry her hair.
She was in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea when the buzzer went for the third time.
Fishing the tea bag out of the cup so as not to stew her drink, she went to answer the door again.
Since the last note had arrived she’d turned the question of what he would write next over and over in her mind, spending rather more time than she should have thinking about him.
The guy knew exactly what he was doing—she had to give him credit for that.
A tall, raven-haired lady with a bright red-lipsticked smile waited patiently on the other side of her door. Lula recognised her from the café round the corner—the place that did the most amazing breakfasts.
The smell of the bacon sandwich the woman was now proffering hit her nostrils. Lula’s stomach rumbled and her mouth filled with saliva in anticipation of the intensely sweet, salty taste of the bacon and the glorious soft bloomer roll. She took the sandwich and thanked the still beaming lady, who waved away her offer of money. ‘It’s already been taken care of,’ she said, giving Lula one last knowing grin.
She only noticed the writing on the greaseproof wrapper—which appeared to be in different handwriting to the rest of the notes—after she’d shut the door. He must have got the lady from the café to write it.
It read:
Right or wrong—wrong as it turns out—I thought I was making things right...
Huh.
Well, at least he’d fully admitted he was wrong to fire her, even if he was still trying to defend his actions.
She stared at the sandwich in her hand, which looked and smelled all delicious and tempting.
Well, there was no sense in wasting food. She peeled back the wrapper and sank her teeth into the soft floury roll.
Heavenly.
* * *
It was just after lunchtime when the next delivery arrived. Lula rushed to the door, trying not to get too excited, aware of the manic beat of her heart and how foolish it was to allow herself to respond like this.
This time a courier held out something the size and shape of a shoebox to her.
She took it inside and opened it up.
It was a pair of black mule-style slippers with six-inch heels and a fluff of feathers framing the open toe.
She’d never have to answer the door feeling short again.
There was a strange tingling feeling behind her eyes as she opened the note attached to the shoebox.
Respect to you for standing your ground...
Something squeezed hard in her chest. Brushing the feeling off, she stooped and slid the slippers onto her feet. They were totally over the top for wearing indoors and she’d never owned anything so ridiculous in her life—but she loved them.
Striding into her bedroom, she stood in front of the long cheval mirror and stared at her reflection. She couldn’t help but laugh, the impulse surging up in great bursts of joy from deep inside her.
It had been a long time since she’d felt this buzzed.