Unlocking the Tycoon's Heart

by Ella Hayes

  I saw right away that she was seeing things about him that she had not seen before or maybe had seen but, in the heat of romance, had dismissed. I think he saw her blossoming awareness, too, because he turned begrudgingly to me and with the outmost reluctance asked after the dog.

  “What kind of dog?”

  “He’s a dachshund. He’s wearing a sailor suit.”

  The man—I decided I hated him in general, and him for her in particular—raised an eyebrow at her that spoke absolute volumes. We’re going to miss Carlene’s opening set for a crazy old lady who probably doesn’t even own a dog. But he set off the way they had come.

  “His name is Max,” I called out helpfully, but I realized that man was not going to go through the crowd shouting for the dog.

  I began to tremble uncontrollably, partly from the pain in my ankle, but mostly from thinking of Max lost out there in this absolute sea of people.

  “Are you hurt?” the young woman asked me.

  “I seem to have turned my ankle.”

  She quickly had her shoulder under my arm, and again I realized she was much stronger than she appeared. She practically carried me out of the press of the crowd and off to a tea stand set up under a colorful yellow-striped awning, with a scattering of mismatched plastic tables and chairs under it.

  A young woman was just getting up from a table. She was clutching her Carlene ticket as if she had waited her whole life for this moment. She saw me, crying, and she saw my angel, and she hesitated, and then made a decision.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, approaching us. She had short dark hair and she was quite petite, like she could be cast for Tinker Bell in Peter Pan. She had some kind of instrument slung over her shoulder in a case—perhaps a violin or a ukulele, making me think that, as well as being desperate to see the Carlene concert, she might be one of the lesser known performers here. She was British, like me, and for some reason I found that quite comforting.

  “Not really. My friend has lost her dog. And hurt her ankle, I’m afraid.”

  Friend.

  Not Crazy lady keeping her from the concert.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, and then I had two angels, as she rushed to support my other side. The tent café was empty—of course it was, everyone was heading to the concert—so we had no problem finding a nearby table.

  “Do you think you need medical attention?” the British girl asked.

  “I need my dog!” I said and my voice came out in an embarrassingly quavering wail.

  “What kind of dog?” she asked gently.

  Again, I was so grateful not be asked why I had brought a dog to the event. Even though Denmark is one of the most dog-friendly nations I have ever visited, obviously bringing Max this evening had been pushing it just a wee bit.

  “A dachshund.”

  She won me forever when she smiled at me, her green eyes sparking with good humor, and said, “I adore dachshunds. What’s his name? I’ll go have a look.”

  “His name is Max.” I hesitated a moment, thinking of the man’s reaction, but anything that would help had to be divulged. “He’s wearing a sailor suit.”

  “A dachshund in a sailor suit,” she said. “Honestly, you have made my day. Maybe my whole week.”

  This from someone on her way to the most coveted concert of the year! But she put the Carlene ticket in her pocket, as if it didn’t matter a whit to her, and was soon lost in that crowd, shouting after Max.

  My remaining angel went and fetched me a cup of hot tea.

  She was just the loveliest girl in an understated kind of way. She was dressed in a rather unexciting pair of capris and a knit tank top I could only describe as the color of porridge. Aside from her eyes, which were quite astonishing in both the doe-darkness of them and their size, she was what I might call plain. She had shoulder-length, light brown hair, and even, but unremarkable features, and the willowy build of those disinterested in food.

  She obviously intended to distract me, because she chatted, even though she had that reserved air about her of the type who would not enjoy being chatty with strangers. She told me her name was Jessica Winton, and that she was from a small town in Canada, where she owned a bookstore named, adorably, The Book and Cranny.

  “Difficult to compete with the online giants,” I commented.

  “Not really,” she said, “because my view is that a bookstore is no longer just about selling books. If anything, the online world is creating an even deeper need for connection.”

  She went on to say that people thought brick-and-mortar bookstores were going to go the way of the dinosaur, but she disagreed. She felt bookstores needed to reinvent themselves as the hub of the community.

  I could see she did have a gift for connection, because I felt connected just talking to her. I could also see that she was an astute businesswoman, and she reminded me, just a bit, of my younger self. She had succeeded in taking my mind off both my missing dog and my throbbing ankle.

  I indulged my curiosity about her. “Do you travel a great deal?”

  She gave a little self-deprecating snort. She told me she had never traveled abroad before, and that this was her first real adventure. She said that all her previous adventures had been between the covers, and then added of books and gave a little laugh. I could tell, even as distracted and panicky as I was about poor Max, that her adventure might not be turning out exactly as planned.

  “Is that man your boyfriend?” I asked, putting unnecessary emphasis on that. One of the few perks of being old is you can be as direct as you want.

  Jessica hesitated, and then looked uncomfortable. “We’ve been back and forth online for nearly a year. This is our first actual time together. I thought...”

  She let her sentence drift off, but I’m afraid I could tell exactly what she thought, poor thing.

  With an ocean between them, and his rather stellar good looks, she had thought he was her Prince Charming.

  I had nearly finished the tea, and despite how much I might have enjoyed my companion in other circumstances, I felt deflated and exhausted, and as if I needed to go back to my hotel room, to the inevitable finger-shaking of my head of security, and to begin to mourn the loss of my beloved Max.

  But just as I had given up hope, that girl who had put her ticket in her pocket emerged from the crowd, and she was with another girl. They could have been sisters, they looked so much alike with that spiky, very short hair, and both of them with petite builds.

  The other girl’s hair was lighter, and she had freckles, and it was she who had a squirming Max held firmly in her arms. Both the young women were laughing, and they looked so vivacious and full of life. It was such a beautiful thing to see—plus the miracle of Max being returned to me—that I started to cry all over again.

  I suddenly found Max in my arms. The little monkey—his outfit utterly destroyed—licked my face as though he had not deliberately run away and was delighted to see me. The two young women who looked like sisters introduced themselves. The British girl was Daisy, which is a name I find very old-fashioned and completely lovely.

  It turned out the third girl—her name was Aubrey and she was Australian—had scooped up the loose dog as he had continued his mad dash through the crowd. How appropriate is that, that my little joey had been snagged by an Australian? That girl had a “life of the party” way about her.

  And then Daisy had come upon her as Aubrey stood there, not quite sure what to do with her find, and brought her—and darling Max—back to me.

  We ordered tea all the way around, and I found out a bit about each of them. Daisy was, indeed, a budding musician who would be playing some of the minor stages at the festival. Aubrey, despite being so outgoing, had something faintly fragile about her, that made me feel concerned about illness. She was involved in some kind of custom painting family business with her brothers. She sou
nded less than enthused.

  I was enjoying visiting with those young women so much I nearly overlooked the fact I was keeping them from their concert, which would be starting momentarily.

  I gathered Max, and stood to go. The delight of being in the company of all that vigorous youth had been so lovely I had forgotten the injury to my ankle. But when I stood pain shot through it, and I sank back down with a defeated yelp.

  I caught sight of that man, Ralph, on the edge of all those moving people, craning his head, obviously looking for Jessica. He saw her and came to the table, casting a terrible shadow on it.

  “I see the dog has been found,” he said tightly, not at all humbled by the fact there was a real dog. He was obviously more than annoyed that his time had been wasted in the search, and that he was about to miss Carlene’s show. “Jessica, let’s go.”

  She tilted her chin at him, and I was happy to see a spark of pure fire in those soft, dark eyes.

  “Actually, my friend is going to need some help getting home. She’s hurt her ankle.”

  I could have protested that I did not need help, but it really seemed far more important to see how this played out.

  “We’re missing the concert,” he said.

  “Yes, we are,” she returned, calmly.

  “These other women can help her.”

  “So our enjoyment of the concert is more important than theirs?”

  The other two girls sat, wide-eyed, eyes going back and forth, as if they had front row seats at Wimbledon.

  Ralph drew in his breath, gave Jessica a withering look and stalked off in the direction of the stadium.

  It seemed like all of us had been holding our breath.

  “Well,” Aubrey said, breaking the silence. “What an ass.”

  And then we were all giggling like schoolgirls. It made me feel a part of things, something I certainly had never felt when I was an actual schoolgirl.

  “I can manage,” I said. “Please go enjoy the concert.”

  “I don’t see how you can manage, at all,” Aubrey decided. “I’m going to go see if I can flag down one of those golf cart things that are driving around.”

  The lady who was running the tea stand came out to collect dishes and I ordered a crumpet for my dear little Max.

  The lady brought Max his treat and said, “I’m going to close up now, if you don’t need anything else?”

  I looked at her and realized she looked exhausted, and also, of course, I knew exactly what she needed.

  She needed to feel like everyone else in the park tonight, as if life could have some happy bits in it, and things to look forward to, not just be a sea of endless drudgery.

  “Here,” I told her. “I don’t have any need for this.”

  I gave her my ticket for the Carlene concert.

  Jessica said, “If you’ve got a friend who can come on short notice, you can have mine, too.”

  And then Daisy chimed in, and the waitress was suddenly holding three tickets to Carlene. The weariness evaporated from her face and she stared at the tickets as if they had fallen straight from heaven.

  “My kids were dying to go. We live close. They can be here in a blink. These tickets are impossible to get,” she breathed.

  “Nothing is impossible,” I told her sternly. She looked hopeful, as the evidence of that very thing was resting in her hand.

  Daisy was smiling at me. “I like that. Nothing is impossible.”

  “But you could still have gone! I don’t need all three of you to miss the concert!” I told her, but she was watching that waitress, and I could tell she would not have traded anything for the look on that woman’s face. In a world where “self” seems to reign, how had I been lucky enough to run into these three women?

  A golf cart came careening down the path, Aubrey in the front with a young man who had on a first aid attendant uniform.

  He grabbed a bag, and peeled off my sock and shoe, and poked and prodded at my ankle.

  “I think it might be broken,” he said. He took a radio off his belt and, ignoring my protests, ordered an ambulance to meet us at one of the exits.

  Even when I insisted, my angels, bless their hearts, refused to leave me, even Aubrey, who still had her ticket.

  “What will happen to Max at the emergency room?” Daisy asked, practically. “No, we’ll come and take turns staying outside with him until you’re released.”

  And so, we all ended up in the golf cart, though it hilariously overloaded it.

  Aubrey said, “I feel as if I’m in a carload of clowns heading for the center ring,” and we all laughed, and despite my ankle throbbing, that golf cart ride through Faelledparken felt very spontaneous and joyous. There was an ambulance waiting at the exit, manned by two swoonworthy Danish men. Jessica came in the ambulance with me, and Aubrey and Daisy followed with Max in a cab.

  Hours later, outside the hospital, with my ankle bandaged—thankfully just severely bruised, not broken—we exchanged hugs. We were beaming at each other as if we had known one another forever, the most delicious little bond between us, the kind that only a closely averted catastrophe can create.

  Finally, I was able to look at the young women who had put their own agendas so selflessly aside to help me.

  Really look at them.

  I’ve had this unusual gift since I was a child.

  My mother was appalled by it and called me fey. She went as far as to discourage my use of it by saying she thought maybe I wasn’t a real Ascot, after all, but an Irish traveler baby, fallen off the caravan.

  I’m afraid the thought of really being an Irish traveler, instead of a member of a very stuffy aristocratic family, bound by rules and customs and most especially by what will people think, gave me many fantastic hours of make-believe and much needed respite from my mother.

  I certainly wasn’t fey in the way most people would think of that. I was unable to speak to dead people, an enviable talent that has become so popular there are now entire television programs about it.

  It was just that I could look at people and sense what they needed.

  In my younger years, it had been quite overwhelming, especially in a crowd. People’s needs, both large and small, swarmed around me like restless bees, buzzing...

  She needs to see a doctor...he needs a long walk in the forest...he needs glasses...she needs a new life...he needs a new wife...

  As I had gotten older I’d learned to keep my observations mostly to myself. People didn’t really appreciate a complete stranger approaching them with life advice. I’d also gotten better at shutting off some of it, and had learned that knowing what someone needed—even when sometimes they did not know themselves—gave me quite a sharp advantage in business.

  Looking at my rescuers right now, I knew with startling clarity exactly what each of them needed.

  Still, you didn’t attain the incredible successes in business that I had, by relying on your instincts alone.

  “I have ordered a car for Max and me. I’ll make my way back to my hotel.” Jessica was going to protest, but she had done enough for me, so I held up my hand. “But I would so love to keep in touch. I’m brand-new to social media. Would you mind if...”

  Of course they saw me as entirely adorable, and wrote their full names and all their social media contact information—Facebook and Twitter and Instagram—on a scrap of paper I provided. They had already exchanged information with each other, but they had put that directly into their phones. No scraps of paper for their generation.

  Having all that information meant I could spy on their private lives shamelessly—young people were so oblivious to who was watching what they revealed online—to confirm if what I thought they needed really was what they needed.

  And then, I was in the unique position of being able to give it to them. I felt no rush, at all. They were youn
g, and at that age where their needs could change in a heartbeat. I would be patient. Bide my time. Wait until I was 100 percent certain.

  I realized, gleefully, all the girls had accepted me introducing myself simply as Viv, and not one of them had any idea who I really was—Vivian Ascot, one of the sponsors of the music festival and CEO of one of the largest and oldest corporations in the world.

  “What a good little boy you’ve been,” I told Max. “You’ve brought me this wonderful opportunity.”

  I watched the girls walk away, arm in arm, lifelong friendships appeared to be budding. Jessica was going to stay with Aubrey tonight instead of running the risk of running into Ralph at her hotel, and then they were all planning to go together to watch Daisy’s “gig” at the festival the next day. I contemplated what those young women, my rescuers, needed. They were so young. So filled with hope. So confident that they knew everything they wanted and needed for happiness. Naturally, they had no idea.

  Of the three of them, I had gotten to know Jessica the most. I loved the way she had described Timber Falls, the small resort town in the Canadian Rockies where she had grown up and ran her bookstore, and where her parents still lived.

  But, while it had sounded like a great place for aging parents, and possibly for a short holiday, and while Jessica undoubtedly felt safe there, what longing had led her to Copenhagen? Whatever she had told herself, I felt her journey to the music festival was not so much about a romance as it was about a longing for a larger world. Young people need challenges to make life seem fresh and interesting.

  The small town had to be quite stifling for someone so smart and ambitious. And single. But now, after the Ralph fiasco, it seemed there was a possibility Jessica would go back there and be more reluctant than ever to explore all life had to offer.

  Well, not if I had anything to do with it.

  Waiting for my car to come, I felt the most delicious wave of happiness. I decided playing fairy godmother to those three young women was probably going to be just about the most fun I had ever had.

  Copyright © 2020 by Cara Colter