by Nicola Marsh
She summoned her temper, needing it to anchor her thread-bare control, that wavered the moment he mentioned the physical benefits to a possible marriage.
‘If you think I’d ever agree to your proposal, you’re mad.’
He shrugged, stepped away.
‘Hey, I’m not the one who wants a promotion. Ball’s in your court, Red.’
She hated hearing the nickname only he had ever called her trip from his tongue with familiarity. She hated the blunt truth of his casual statement even more.
She did need this promotion. It was the only way to get closure on a past she’d rather forget.
Studying him through narrowed eyes, she said, ‘Not that I’d contemplate your crazy scheme for one second, but if I did, what’s in it for you?’
Something furtive, mysterious, shifted behind his steady stare before he blinked, eradicating the enigmatic emotion in an instant.
‘It’s time I married.’
‘Why?’
Why now? Why me? was what she really wanted to ask, but she clamped down on the urge to blurt her questions.
Why he was doing this? Why would he suggest something so outlandish when they shared nothing these days but a residual attraction based on old times’ sake?
He shrugged and she hated his nonchalance in the face of something so important. She would’ve given everything she owned to be married to him once and now he’d reduced it to a cold, calculating business proposition that hurt way more than it should.
‘I’m expanding the business, building more hotels in key cities around the world, but overseas investors won’t take me seriously because of my age. They see a young, wealthy single guy and immediately think I’m a playboy dabbling in business for fun.’
He rolled his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side to stretch his neck and she stifled the urge to massage it as she used to. He’d always had tense muscles after a hard day’s farm work, had relaxed under her soothing hands.
Her palms tingled with the urge to reach out, stroke his tension away. So she balled her hands into fists and swallowed the unexpected lump in her throat. Damn memories.
He rubbed the back of his neck absent-mindedly, oblivious to her irrational craving to do the same. ‘Marriage will give me respectability in their eyes, solidify my entry into wider business circles and open up a whole new investment pool.’
She stared at him, so cool, so confident, admiring the powerful businessman he’d become, lamenting the loss of the bad boy who hadn’t given a toss what people thought of him.
‘That’s it?’
He nodded, showed her his hands palm up as if he wasn’t hiding anything.
‘That’s it.’
‘Why me?’
It had been bugging her since he’d first laid out his outlandish proposal, why a guy like him with charm to burn would choose her for his crazy scheme. ‘Surely the legendary Nick Mancini would have a bevy of babes around here eager to tie you down?’
His eyes glittered as she inwardly cursed her choice of words and rushed on. ‘I mean, why me in particular? What have I got to offer?’
‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
Her breath hitched at the clear intent in his loaded stare and she took a step back. ‘Yes.’
To her relief, he shrugged, the heat fading from his eyes. ‘You’re a motivated businesswoman. You wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world to make your pitch the best if you weren’t. And I need that. Someone with a clear vision in mind, a business goal.’
He pinned her with a firm glare. ‘Someone who won’t cloud the issue with emotion, which is exactly what would happen if I chose a local wife.’
His hand wavered between them. ‘This marriage between us is a straightforward business proposal, a win-win for us both. What do you think?’
She thought he was mad, but most of all she thought she was a fool for wishing his preposterous proposal held even the slightest hint of emotion she still meant something to him other than as a means to gaining respectability.
Summoning what was left of her dignity, she nodded. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘You do that.’
His confident grin grated. He knew she was buying time to contemplate his marital equivalent of a pie chart.
With her mind spinning, she stalked across the room, head held high, his soft, taunting chuckles following her out of the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SO, THE prodigal daughter returns.’
From the moment Brittany knew she’d be returning home she’d been bracing for this confrontation.
However, no matter that she told herself it was ridiculous, no amount of deep breathing, or steeling her nerves, or trying to remember how far in the past it all was could calm her in any way as she faced her father for the first time in ten years. She could feel her hands shaking.
She paused at the entrance to his apartment, one of the few in the exclusive Jacaranda special accommodation home for the elderly.
Not that Darby Lloyd would ever admit to his seventy-two years. He’d had work done on his face several times, had hair plugs to arrest a threatening bald patch and continued to wear designer clothes better suited to a man half his age.
But pots of money or cosmetic work or fancy clothes couldn’t buy health and that was one thing he didn’t have these days.
Five years ago, he’d tried to guilt her into quitting her job and returning to look after him as he grew older and more bitter. He’d nearly succeeded. However, some deep part of her had resisted his pressure. He had been a cruel tyrant who’d controlled her life until she’d come into a small inheritance from her mum when she’d turned eighteen and fled as far from him as she could get. She simply couldn’t go back to the hell she’d left behind.
In her heart, she desperately wanted to be anywhere but in front of the man who would have ruined her life if she’d let him, but her pride wouldn’t let her pay a visit to her hometown and not see him. She was older and stronger—surely she could stand to face him now? She had come here today to prove to herself she’d finally set the past to rest. Working harder, longer, than everyone else might keep the memory demons at bay, but she knew if she stopped, slowed down her frenetic pace, the old fears could come crowding back to fling her right back to the dim, dark place ten years earlier.
And she’d be damned if she let that happen. In a way, she should thank dear old Dad for shaping her into the woman she was today: strong, capable and successful, everything he’d said she’d never be.
But there was more to this visit and she knew it, no matter all her self talk to the contrary.
She was here because of hope.
Hope that he might have changed. Hope that after all this time they might actually have a shot at some semblance of a normal father-daughter relationship.
And if not? Well, she was different now: a woman on top of her career, a woman who depended on no one, a woman a far cry from the victim she’d once been.
She’d vowed back then never to be helpless again, had instigated huge steps to eradicate the confusion and fear, yet as she stood on the threshold to this room trepidation tripped across her skin as the anxiety she’d fought to conquer over the last decade clawed at her belly.
‘How are you, Dad?’
‘Much the same.’
He limped towards her, waving his cane at a seat for her. ‘No thanks to you.’
Taking several deep breaths, she perched on the edge of the chair, willing the dread to subside, hating the vulnerability being this close to him elicited.
She needed to do this, needed to see if there was the slightest chance for them before she returned to London.
‘You look good.’
He grunted in response, wouldn’t meet her gaze, his surly expression putting a serious dent in her hopes for some kind of reconciliation.
‘This place is lovely.’
Another monosyllabic grunt as his frown deepened and her patience wore a little thinner.
‘Dad, I really think it’s time to—’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
His snarl caught her off guard despite his churlishness, yet it wasn’t his response that saddened her as much as the contempt in his truculent glare.
She’d been a fool to hope for anything other than what she got: more of the same from a boorish man who didn’t give a hoot about her.
‘I’m here on business.’
He showed no interest, seemed bored more than anything else. Faced with his silence she could not help asking him:
‘Don’t you want to know how I am? What I’ve been doing? What I’ve achieved?’
His withering stare clued her into his response before he spoke.
‘I don’t give a damn any more.’
Pain sliced her heart in two, the old familiar questions reverberating through her head: What did I do wrong? Why did you stop loving me? Could I have done anything differently?
But she wasn’t the same scared teenager any more.
She had her career skyrocketing all the way to the top and she’d be damned if she sat here and took any of his crap.
Resisting the urge to jab her finger at him to ram home her point, she sat back, folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye.
‘Maybe you should give a damn. That way, you’d know I’m a senior executive at a top London ad firm, that I’m good at what I do and I’ve done it all on my own, no thanks to you.’
She’d come here with some semblance of the idealistic girl she’d once been, but that girl vanished beneath his lack of caring and she wanted to rub his nose in her independence, in her success, in the proof she’d survived despite what he’d put her through.
If she’d thought her outburst would gain a reaction, gain recognition for her achievements, she should’ve known better.
He glowered, drew himself up, resembling the towering giant of a man she remembered as he rammed his cane against the floor.
‘You’re a fool if you think I care about any of that.’
Her heart ached as she stared at the man who was her father biologically but didn’t know the meaning of the word.
She could rant and rave and fling past hurts or present triumphs in his face but what would be the point? Darby listened to no one but himself, which was why he now found himself in this place. No amount of money on offer had induced anyone locally to play nursemaid and she couldn’t blame them.
Slinging her bag higher on her shoulder, she kept her face devoid of pity for the father she’d never had.
‘Sorry you feel that way. I thought…’
What? That the old despot might’ve changed, might’ve mellowed with time and illness? Not likely. If anything, his belligerence had worsened and she’d been crazy to come here, setting the past to rest while hoping for a miracle.
‘Thought what? I’d welcome you with open arms after all this time?’
He snorted, waved his good hand towards the door. ‘Just leave the way you came in.’
She’d cried rivers of wasted tears when she was a teenager for all this man had put her through and there was no way she’d stand here now and allow him to reduce her to tears again.
With a shake of her head, she turned away, ready to walk out and never look back.
‘That’s it, run away again. Though this time, you won’t have a penny of mine to cushion you when you fall.’
Icy foreboding trickled down her spine as she slowly swung back to face him.
‘What did you just say?’
His malevolent grin raised goose bumps on her skin. ‘You heard. That money from your mother? It was a crock. She never left you a cent. That was my money you squandered on your little trip, my money that made sure you didn’t end up in the gutter.’
She staggered, leaned against the doorway for support, her gut twisting with the painful truth.
‘So, daughter dearest, looks like you owe me after all.’
With his words ringing in her ears, she stumbled from the apartment, from the accommodation and made it to her car before she collapsed, slumping over the steering wheel.
She’d thought she’d escaped his stranglehold ten years earlier, had fought hard for her independence, had found safety and confidence in her career.
She’d been wrong.
Right then, she vowed to do whatever it took to pay off her debt.
You owe me…
With the hateful truth ringing in her ears, her head snapped up as she straightened, knowing what she had to do.
There was only one thing that would clear a debt of that magnitude and, right now, gaining her promotion was a necessity.
In choosing between owing her dad a huge amount of money and agreeing to Nick’s outlandish proposal, marrying Nick would be the lesser of two evils.
She’d come.
Nick squinted at Brittany between the spokes of his Harley, trying to read her expression and coming up empty.
She’d left a message for him at the hotel desk requesting a meeting and he had suggested to meet at the farm, hoping that the memories might throw her off balance—make her vulnerable, more easily manipulated. He hadn’t anticipated that those very same memories might unsettle him as well, but with Britt standing there, dressed in a short white skirt and pink vest-top, gnawing at her full bottom lip, an action he remembered all too well, attending to his bike was the last thing on his mind.
He waited for her to speak, continued polishing the chrome, an action he found soothing. He rarely got time to lavish on his bike these days and this was the first opportunity he’d had to work on his baby in months.
Even with her forget-me-not eyes clouded with worry, tendrils of hair escaping her ponytail and draping her face in golden copper and that worried action which drew attention to her lush mouth like it always had, she looked incredible, like his greatest fantasy come to life.
Which she was, not that he’d ever told her. He’d had his chance ten years earlier and she’d made it more than clear what she’d thought of his rebuff back then.
‘You blow this chance, Mancini, you’ll never get another one. This is it, you and me, together. So what will it be?’
His answer had been pretty clear. He’d given her one last kiss, a bruising, harsh kiss to say goodbye to the best thing that could’ve happened to him, pushed her away and said, ‘There is no us, Red. And there never will be.’
She hadn’t cried and he’d admired her for it. She hadn’t clung or tried to change his mind. She’d sent him a pitying look, shook her long red mane, held her head high and walked out on him, leaving him with an ache in the vicinity of his heart. An ache that had returned tenfold despite all his self talk what they’d shared back then was nothing more than a teenage fling.
Slamming a door on pointless memories, he stood, tucked the polishing cloth in his back pocket and leaned against the bike.
‘You made it.’
For a second, he wished he hadn’t sounded so flippant as her eyes clouded with wariness.
‘Yeah, thanks for agreeing to meet me.’
The hint of vulnerability in her voice, in her expression, stunned him. The Brittany Lloyd he knew would never show weakness in front of anybody, least of all him.
‘Let’s pull up a seat.’ He pointed to the outer perimeter of the machinery shed, where a few old-fashioned plastic garden chairs lay scattered. ‘Have you given any more thought to my proposal?’
Stupid question. As if she would’ve thought of anything else since she’d stormed out of his office yesterday.
She ignored his question and said, ‘I want to talk about my father.’
No way.
If there was one topic of conversation off-limits, that was it.
Darby Lloyd was an out and out bastard. He’d controlled everything and everyone in this district, had set out to ruin Papa. Until Nick had given him what he wanted.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, ‘I don’t have much to say on that topic.’
‘Not m
any people do. But I want to know something. Did he ever approach you about me back when we were dating? Did he try to interfere?’
His blood chilled. There was no way he’d ever tell her the truth about her father. Besides, it wasn’t as if Darby were the cause of their break-up. It’d been much easier to blame their disintegrated relationship on her wanting to escape Jacaranda for the bright lights of a big city. That way, he could live with himself and what he’d done.
To help justify their break-up he’d told himself women were fickle. His aunt had run off to Melbourne with a salesman, his godmother had absconded with the butcher to Bunbury, his mum had abandoned her family and Britt had followed suit, hightailing it to London as soon as she hit eighteen.
Britt might have invited him along for the ride but he’d known that was due to the teenage fantasy she’d built in her head, the one where she saw him as some fancy Prince Charming riding his white horse to save her.
The problem with fantasies was they weren’t true and he’d been forced to burst her bubble before he did something silly—such as trust her as he’d trusted his mother.
‘What did he do? Tell me.’
She clicked her fingers in front of his face and as he looked into her luminous blue eyes a small part of him wished he’d indulged her fantasy.
Where would they be today if he had? Happily married with a brood of ruffians? Sharing confidences and dreams? Spending every night wrapped in each other’s arms, recreating the magic, the passion, that haunted him to this day? He could’ve had one hell of a life.
But he’d made his choices, his sacrifices, and, considering the successful hotelier he’d become, life wasn’t all bad.
‘Just thinking of the good old days,’ he said, trying to distract her. He didn’t want to talk about her father, not now, not ever.
‘Good old days?’
She gaped at him and he clamped down on a grin. ‘Which ones? The ones where you tied my plaits to the bus seat, or the ones where you plucked my lunch right out of my hands, or the ones where you threw my pet rock collection into the river?’
He smiled at the memories, remembering how he’d used to tease her mercilessly and how she’d given as good as she’d got. She’d been a little firebrand back then, her red hair a definite symbol of a quick-fire temper. And a symbol of a simmering passion he’d been lucky enough to unleash.