by Liz Fielding
‘So I understand.’ There was a slightly ironical twist to his voice. ‘I look forward to meeting her some time soon.’
Meeting her? That sounded promising. And the sooner the better. Claudia would pull out all the stops for a man like Luke Devlin. In the meantime Fizz wasted no time in obeying his instruction to sit down, quickly lowering herself onto one end of the sofa.
Its smooth leather exterior was deceptive. The horrid thing swallowed her up, leaving her struggling for her dignity with a skirt that in the mirror had seemed demure enough, but was suddenly far too short. Or maybe it was just that her legs had rather more thigh than she realised.
Luke Devlin relieved her of the portfolio she was still clutching awkwardly and occupied the far corner of the sofa, settling back with the ease of a man perfectly at home with himself and his surroundings.
Fizz, struggling with her skirt, wished that she was still wearing her comfortable cords; the suit certainly hadn’t made the hoped for impression. Quite the opposite. As he flipped through the contents of the folder, outwardly oblivious to her difficulties, she could have sworn that behind that detached expression Mr Devlin was positively enjoying her discomfort. But when he looked up, eyes the colour of rain-soaked slates levelled at her expectantly, his thoughts were unreadable and Fizz made a mental note never to play poker with the man.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Her mind was wandering again. She didn’t have the faintest clue how to play poker. And the idea of playing anything with Luke Devlin was so immediately disturbing that she switched the thought off before it could get out of hand.
‘Mr Devlin, you know why I’m here,’ she said, dismayed to discover that suddenly her voice was more breath than substance.
‘You’re here to part me from my money,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
‘I’m here to convince you to continue this company’s support of Pavilion Radio,’ she replied, evenly, refusing to be put off.
‘Right now this company doesn’t have any money spare to support anyone or anything but itself.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But you have fifteen minutes of my time so I suggest you don’t waste any more of it.’
Despite his lack of encouragement, Fizz felt the tiniest surge of optimism. Luke Devlin was clearly not a man to prevaricate. If he had decided to cut their sponsorship completely, he would have said so and shown her the door.
No.
He wouldn’t have wasted even fifteen minutes of his time. He would have simply stated the position in a letter and told his secretary to keep her out of his hair.
Hope blossomed and she resisted the urge to give her skirt another sharp tug. Saving the station from financial disaster was far more important than her dignity. And if a couple of extra inches of thigh would help, she wasn’t about to begrudge it.
Instead she briefly outlined the history of her family’s involvement with the pier, the disastrous storm that had put its viability in doubt and Michael Harries determination to save it, calling on his old friend Edward Beaumont for support when it seemed that it might have to be demolished. And the idea of reviving the pavilion, giving it new life as the studio for a local radio station.
‘The idea was dreamed up by the two of them?’ he asked.
Public opinion subscribed to that view. There didn’t seem any point in disabusing him.
‘Michael was excited by the idea. Did you know that it was the founder of Harries Industries who built the pier in 1835? He used it originally to ship the goods made in his factory to the continent. Before that everything, passengers and merchandise, had to be ferried out to the cross-channel packets in rowing-boats,’ she pointed out, but this attempt to win his sympathy made no impression on Luke Devlin’s lean, hard features and she quickly ducked her head, leaning across to point out the projections for the next three years.
‘What is this?’ Luke Devlin pointed to a figure and their hands collided, his cool touch setting off a minor earthquake in her midriff.
Fizz almost leapt back and his curious look at this overreaction did nothing to calm the after shocks that continued to reverberate through her body.
It was ridiculous. Stupid. He might exude the kind of sexual magnetism that could be bottled, but she knew what that was worth. She didn’t even like the man for heaven’s sake.
‘Well?’ he asked, apparently tired of waiting for her answer.
For a moment her mind went a complete blank. Then she dropped her eyes to the point where his fingertip rested lightly on the plan.
‘Oh,’ she said, collecting herself. ‘That’s new since we made our original projections to the bank. When we started the restaurant conversion we had to clear the storage area of a century of accumulated junk. We discovered we had far more space than we needed so we’ve leased part of it to a dance and fitness centre.’
‘You’ve had to spend money on repairs and decoration,’ he said, picking up the costs. ‘You’re not charging enough.’
‘It’s a new venture. The rent will be revised next year if it’s successful.’
‘And if it’s not?’
‘The initial response has been very good.’
He didn’t seem impressed, but half a rent was surely better than none? It brought people onto the pier to spend money even in the middle of winter and the chef had ensured the lunch time buffet in the restaurant included the kind of food that health conscious women were looking for. Not that there was any shortage of takers for the calorie laden puddings. Expensive calorie laden puddings.
‘What do you intend to do with the rest of the space?’
‘I’m working on it.’ She had hoped that the restaurant would be successful enough to expand into it, but it was too soon to voice that idea. She needed to see how the summer season went first.
He nodded, thoughtfully. ‘You don’t appear to have missed anything.’ He tossed the portfolio onto a nearby table. ‘Except, of course for the possibility that your cosy relationship with Michael Harries might not last.’
‘I ... that is, we ... my father and I ... hope that you will want to continue to support us for the coming year, or at least until we can find other sponsors.’
‘I’m sure it is rather more than a hope. If you don’t fulfil your programme commitments, the Radio Authority are not going to look favourably on the renewal of your franchise,’ he said.
She was surprised he knew about the Radio Authority, or the way it worked. She was equally surprised that he was interested in the running of a very small radio station. But then she supposed a man didn’t reach his dizzy heights of success without taking the smallest detail into account. And it was the small details that got you every time.
‘Our programme commitments were made before you took over our sponsors,’ she reminded him. ‘The Radio Authority will understand our problems.’
‘Will they?’ He knew she was bluffing. ‘Let us hope for your sake they do because the repayments on the bank loan for the new restaurant must be making heavy inroads into your profits. You have no experience of the restaurant business?’
The question was purely rhetorical. He knew the answer. It was clear that he knew all the answers. She had assumed he would be too busy with Harries to worry about the details of the radio station it sponsored, but it had been a mistake to underestimate the man. He wasn’t too busy for anything that interested him. But why on earth should he be interested in Pavilion Radio?
He was either going to support them or he wasn’t. It couldn’t be worth so much of his time.
‘It’s a little early in the season to start counting profits from that direction,’ she replied, answering the question he hadn’t asked, ‘although local reaction so far has been good.’
‘Didn’t it occur to you to lease it to someone who knew what they were doing? Let them take the risk.’
Of course it had. Once planning permission for the restaurant had been granted she had been inundated with offers from every kind of fast food chain wanting to install pizza pa
rlours and burger bars. She had wanted more than that.
‘I wanted to keep it under my control, to provide something more than a repeat of every other cheap and cheerful seaside cafe. I’ve a first class chef, an excellent staff -’
‘And a wages bill to match I have no doubt.’
‘And as soon as the season begins -’ she ploughed on, refusing to be sidetracked, but Luke Devlin had other ideas.
‘That’s usually Easter isn’t it? It’s late this year, but I’m sure you’ve taken that into account.’
As late as Easter could be. Ten weeks. Ten long weeks before the invasion of people eager to throw off winter, seventy long days before the Easter holidays brought children bursting out of school and families down to the coast to fill the caravan parks and the guest houses.
‘People will start arriving as soon as the weather picks up a little. The antique shops in the Wynds bring them long before it will be warm enough to sit on the beach.’
‘And why should they venture out along a cold and windy pier when the Wynds can offer them any number of attractive little bistros?’ He leaned towards her, fixing her with a glance that pinned her back against the sofa. ‘Let’s drop the pretence, Miss Beaumont and admit that without my support you’re in deep trouble.’
It took all her self control to keep her voice pitched low, thoughtful.
‘The loss of sponsorship from Harries would be a serious blow, Mr Devlin, I would be a fool to pretend anything else. It will take time to find new sources of support. But since you kept your activities very discreet and Michael preferred to keep his problems to himself I had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. After all, if your takeover had been a week later, the money would have been in the bank right now.’
‘You think you’ve just been the victim of bad timing?’ He shook his head. ‘Let me disabuse you of that fantasy. The truth of the matter is, Miss Beaumont that if my “activities” had been delayed even for a week, there would have been no money to put in the bank. In business, as in drama, timing is everything. And even a local radio station has to be run as a business if it’s to survive.’
Fizz clamped down hard on her teeth at this. That was precisely why they had needed to spend so much money on diversification. If only she had known, or at least been given some warning when things had started to go wrong…
‘Yes, of course it must.’
She lifted her chin a little. Luke Devlin was right. She should have known. It was her job to know that the sponsorship was on a handshake. That their sponsor was about to go to the wall.
‘As you can see from the figures, the reason for our expansion is precisely that. I wanted to give the station a broader base to avoid just this kind of difficulty.’ She remembered her intention to issue an invitation. ‘Perhaps you would like to come and look around, see for yourself what we’re doing? Saturday morning is always lively and you could have lunch with us in the new restaurant. As the station’s guest, of course.’
‘No. Thank you.’ Those disconcerting eyes could apparently read her mind. ‘Harries Industries is in trouble because the previous chairman ran it like a philanthropic society and it will take considerable cost cutting to put it back on its feet. It would be quite wrong to encourage you to squander your financial resources on entertaining me, since there is no possibility that I would change my mind once it is made up.’
Fizz swallowed. ‘And is it made up?’
‘Yes. It was made up long before you made your touching little speech.’
‘I see.’ Could she have been that wrong? Time was money to this man. Why would he waste it listening to her?
‘I may continue with sponsorship for the time being subject to certain conditions.’
‘All of it?’ The words escaped before she could bridle them as her heart performed a somersault, pure relief mixed with joy. The emotion was intense, but short lived.
‘You might not care to take it when you’ve heard my conditions,’ he continued, in the same careless voice.
‘Within the guidelines we’ll be happy to provide you with any additional advertising messages of course -’
‘Miss Beaumont, I have no doubt that you’d put my name in lights above the pavilion if I asked it.’
‘I doubt we’d get approval from the Planning Committee,’ she replied, unable to stop a grin from widening her generous mouth.
She felt glorious, as if some great weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she was perfectly willing to forgive him his earlier rudeness. Good grief, she’d walk on her hands down the pier, somersault its length, if that would make him happy.
‘I won’t bother the borough council on this occasion,’ he assured her. ‘My conditions have nothing to do with advertising.’ His voice, cool, distant, brought her crashing back to earth.
‘What do you want?’
‘As you must realise, Miss Beaumont, Harries is in no state to give money away.’
‘It isn’t entirely a one way street,’ she protested. ‘The public relations aspect has been very valuable to Harries in the past. Perhaps you don’t understand -’
‘Don’t I?’ His voice hadn’t changed much. Just the tiniest inflection to warn Fizz that she had said something rather silly. ‘That argument might be a little subtle for the men and women who will be made redundant, don’t you think?’
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘Will there be many? Redundancies?’
‘I can’t say until Phillip has made his report.’
His cousin? That dry, humourless man. She looked towards the door he had disappeared through. ‘Then heaven help them,’ she murmured.
‘Phillip might not be your idea of fun, Miss Beaumont, but I can assure you he has a highly developed sense of what is right. He won’t lightly waste a well-trained work-force.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘In this instance you can trust me.’
Fizz, fastened by his intent gaze was compelled to believe that he meant exactly what he said. In fact, she was sure that he never said anything he didn’t mean. And he had said they could have their funding.
She frowned. ‘And the sponsorship money? You said we could have it. Can I trust you in that instance too?’
His eyes mocked her doubtful tone. ‘I am prepared to write you a cheque now. My personal cheque. And I can assure you that I won’t require any public relations, corporate entertainment, or personal publicity in return. Quite the reverse, in fact.’ He paused, briefly, before adding, ‘And if I use your restaurant I will be more than happy to pay for my own lunch.’
Fizz wasn’t fooled into heart-stopping gratitude a second time.
‘But there are conditions attached to your generosity?’ Of course there were. Nothing about Luke Devlin suggested that he was simply an easy touch and she had a sudden ominous sense of foreboding. ‘Conditions that I’m not going to like?’
For a long moment Luke Devlin said nothing, but subjected Fizz to an intense and level regard from the coolest pair of eyes she had ever seen. Clear, incisive, ransacking eyes that made her feel transparent. The eyes of a man who would be very hard to fool. And who would make you pay with everything you had if you ever succeeded. She held his glance for as long as she could, matching his determination until she began to feel slightly dizzy, as if leaning over the edge of a precipice.
‘I think you’d better tell me.’
He turned away abruptly as if he too had found the intensity of that exchange uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps, after all, it would be better if I discussed it with your father. I’m sure that he will be able to take a less emotional view of my proposition.’
Edward Beaumont thrived on emotion, it was his life-blood, but Fizz didn’t think it advisable to say so. Luke Devlin had used the word in a manner that suggested he didn’t much approve of emotion. There was no place for it in business. He had said so.
‘But he is not here, Mr Devlin,’ she pointed out. ‘I am. And I can assure you that I am fully empowere
d to make any decisions on behalf of Pavilion Radio.’
Her determination must have filtered through because he turned back to face her and she met his questioning glance head on, refusing to be the first to back down. Fortunately he did not put to the test, but after a moment, nodded.
‘Very well.’ But he didn’t immediately explain his proposition.
First he took a cheque book and fountain pen from his inside jacket pocket, then casually propping one ankle on his knee and using his leg as a table, he proceeded to write a cheque which he tore from the book and handed to her.
Fizz took it almost reluctantly, with a feeling of apprehension. Luke Devlin was showing her the money. Putting it into her hand. She recognised the technique. They both knew how hard it would be to give it back, no matter what he asked. He was banking on that and that made her nervous. It suggested that he thought she might say no. She glanced at the cheque and her heart sank further. It was nowhere near the level of sponsorship she needed.
‘Cheer up, Miss Beaumont. That is just the first instalment.’
‘Instalment?’
‘I realise that in the past the sponsorship money was paid in a lump sum. However this will help to keep the bank manager happy at the end of the month. Won’t it?’
And it would keep him in control, she knew. Ensure that she kept him happy too.
‘This is for one month? But that means you will be giving us more than Michael agreed.’
‘The additional sum is to cover the cost of employing another member of staff.’
Fizz met his impassive gaze. ‘Only one? It’s an awful lot of money for one person.’
‘Only one,’ he confirmed. ‘But I think you’ll be happy enough to take her on.’
She. Of course it would be a woman but why on earth did her heart plummet at the word? She should be relieved. She recalled the moment she had set eyes on him, her body’s explosive reaction. That instant, almost cataclysmic, recognition had only happened to her once before. But if Luke Devlin were involved with someone she was safe from him. From herself.
‘I think perhaps you had better explain exactly what you want in return for such overwhelming generosity,’ she said.