“We should talk about sourcing,” Stephanie murmured.
Willow considered slapping her. Pity you could so rarely do that in real life. Instead, she said, “So I won’t poison anybody, you mean, because I cooked that dinner where people fell ill,” and both Amanda and Stephanie stiffened. If she didn’t address it, though, Stephanie would be filling Jessica and Kate’s heads with it all the way back to Brissy. “Except that I didn’t poison anybody. The mushroom substitution was deliberate, and it’s being investigated. I’ll list every vendor for you.” She pulled two sheets of paper out of her book and slid them across the table. “Here are the ones we use now, including Ben Bankside. I’ll keep on sourcing mushrooms from him, because he’s the best, and he doesn’t make mistakes. I’d stake my livelihood on it. In fact, I just did. I’ve made a copy for each of you. You could look them up online. Organic fruit and veg, free-range, hormone-free meats, because not only are they better for the planet, they taste better, too, and seafood vendors I can count on to deliver caught-that-day fresh. And here are the results of our latest kitchen inspection, done the day after the poisoning.” Two more pieces of paper. “And my diplomas from the Cordon Bleu, with a list of the food safety curriculum. You can come watch me cook, or send anybody you like to do it. Test us any way you like, and compare our food to any other caterer’s. If you don’t think we’re better, choose them instead.”
Amanda said, “Willow,” and laughed, the sound brittle and artificial. “That’s a bit confrontational, surely. I stand behind the safety of my kitchen,” she told Stephanie. “I have twenty years in this business.”
“Seriously?” Jessica asked Willow. “Somebody was trying to sabotage you? Or the party?” She bit off another chunk of ice block. “Sounds like quite the mystery. That’s a rubbish thing to do. Do you think they did it to get at you, or was it about the people who were eating it?”
“The police are looking into the idea that it was a poisoning aimed at the event,” Willow said. They probably weren’t, but it had been reported to them. Sort of. Brett had talked to a cop. “If it was a real attempt at harm, it didn’t work, thank God. Nobody died, and only two people were ill for more than a few hours.”
“You’d just have to not eat it yourself,” Jessica said. “Or better yet—do eat a bit, so you’re falling ill as well. Cover your tracks.”
“Huh.” That one made Willow stop and consider. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that.”
“I work for the fraud department of an insurance firm,” Jessica said. “You can’t surprise me anymore.” She laughed, all irrepressible sparkle and deep dimples. “Makes going to work interesting, hey. Always some new depth of depravity to explore.”
“I wish we’d had insurance for this,” Willow said. “Bloody awkward.” Jessica laughed, but Amanda closed her eyes and nearly moaned. Brett was right, though. Sales was about focusing in, about finding out what that one person wanted and figuring out how to give it to them. It wasn’t about you, and it wasn’t about the average person.
“I love all of it,” Jessica said, with a glance at her mum, “and I’d sign a contract today, but Nick told me when we spoke last night that he’d heard about somebody particular he wanted to use, so I have to see if I can talk him out of it.” She dimpled up some more. “I’m guessing I can, though.”
“Who is it, can I ask?” Willow tried to keep her heart from sinking. You have to keep trying, that’s all, Bailey had said, and it was true. She wasn’t giving up at the first fence. She had this.
“He couldn’t remember the name,” Jessica said, and rolled her dark eyes. “Men, hey. She’s Rafe Blackstone’s cousin. The actor. Nick was at an event last month with Rafe, some sort of fundraiser for kids in LA, and he met him and his wife. Good thing I wasn’t there, because I’d have asked for his autograph and embarrassed Nick. Bloody fit, and I’ve seen all those werewolf movies at least twice, but don’t tell Nick I said so. Also, his wife’s pregnant, so I probably shouldn’t be thinking it. I said, ‘Just because she’s his cousin, that doesn’t mean she can cook.’ I wanted to say, ‘Using his cousin for our catering isn’t going to make him ask that you be cast in his next film. It’s some desert action flick anyway. No need for a surfer.’ I didn’t say it, though. Tact, my mum keeps telling me.” She laughed again. “Pity Nick isn’t getting any tact.”
“I reckon he knows that by now,” her mum said.
“Not my best thing, either,” Willow said. “But . . . here.” She scrolled through her photos again on her phone and held it out. “I can help you with that as well.”
It was a shot from Rafe and Jace’s double wedding. She was standing between her big, dark cousins, her arms thrown into the air, in a 1920s-inspired blue beaded dress Azra had found for her, while they made a chair with their linked arms and hoisted her into the air between them, laughing in their black dinner jackets. One of her favorite snaps, possibly because it was almost the only time in her life that she’d actually looked glamorous.
“Wait,” Jessica said. She looked at Willow, then down at the photo again. “You’re joking.”
“Nah,” Willow said. “Rafe’s my cousin.” She smiled, as much at the look on Amanda’s face as anything else. “He’s a total sweetheart, but don’t tell anybody. And I can get you his autograph.”
It wasn’t even five o’clock in the morning, but Willow wasn’t sleeping, and she wasn’t surfing. First, because it was finally Tuesday, and Brett had arrived. Dave had delivered him an hour earlier from the airport, had declined the offer to come inside, and was returning for both of them in half an hour, “after I get a coffee. Mad hours you keep, mate.” And second, because she was about to go up in a hot-air balloon, and they’d be departing before dawn, when the breeze was lowest.
It had been Brett’s idea. “Actually,” he’d said last week, when she’d phoned him in triumph, barely able to make it half a kilometer before she’d had to stop the van to do it, “it was my marketing VP’s idea. She said that the aerial view from a balloon would be the perfect sales tool for the U.S. market, and as usual, she’s right. You’ll be able to get an idea of what’s it like to drive along that ridge and look out over the hills and valleys, and how peaceful it feels. Like the Napa valley without all the people and cars.”
“And, of course,” Willow said, “there’s the sea. Which is why I’m going up and not you, though I wouldn’t say no anyway, especially as it’s my day off. Which really is a day off, because I actually worked the last three days. At last.”
“I prefer to think that it’s because you’re prettier than I am,” he said. “And that your face is so much more animated. You can use the footage yourself, too. We’ll double-dip. You can put it on the website, assuming you stay. But to be clear—I’m sharing it with you, not with Nourish.”
He didn’t offer any other reasons, but she knew the answer anyway. To take her mind off things and give her a treat, as if he hadn’t done enough of that already. “That’d be brilliant,” she said, “but I’ll only share it if Amanda lets me do the website. Which she may, though I could need a bit of coaching help for how to present it. She was subdued today. Hardly the Queen Bee at all.”
“We’ll send you up with a cameraman,” Brett said, “but you should take a couple others with you, if you can scrounge them up on a weekday. There’s room for six, so figure four of you max, not counting the pilot and the cameraman. A very good-looking guy, preferably. Get some pointing and laughing going on. A person looks like an idiot pointing and laughing by themselves.”
“Jamie,” Willow said gloomily. “He’s the best-looking bloke I know, other than you and Rafe. Rafe’s not here, and you don’t want to go. All my other mates will be working, anyway, or not interested in getting up at five. I’ll ask him and Crystal. They’re both pretty, and if I use it for Nourish, the faces will be familiar to the clients, which is good. But I am not paying them to do it.”
“Good idea,” Brett said. “It costs three hundred fifty per pe
rson. Drop that casually into the mix.”
“I’m going to abandon my independence,” she said, “and ask you how to sell it to him. Just this once. Azra’s scared of heights.”
“You sell it like this. ‘I’m supposed to get a couple people to go with me to be filmed. It’s three hundred fifty dollars per person, normally, but Brett’s saying that if I want to take somebody up, he’ll subsidize it. I think I can get him to pay the whole freight. If I do, can you think of anybody who’d like to go? It does have to be good-looking people, because it’ll be all over his sales materials. Or . . . you and Crystal wouldn’t like to, would you?’ If that guy likes looking in the mirror half as much as I think he does, he’ll fall all over himself for the chance. He’ll put it on his modeling résumé.”
She was laughing. “He does not have a modeling résumé.”
“You think not? I suspect otherwise. Make a bonding moment of it, though. Easier to casually ask, later on, if they happened to see Amanda carrying a bag of mushrooms.”
Now, Brett was here, having a cup of tea at the kitchen table with her and Azra, and Willow had to restrain herself from holding onto his arm with both hands. And possibly sitting on his lap. How could you be this glad to see somebody? It was like being sixteen, like champagne fizz in your blood and your whole body tingling. It was falling in love for the first time, or the best time.
Maybe even the last time.
Brett was telling Azra, “I have a plan for you, if you’re ready to hear it. A way out of your visa problem, though I can’t fix the family problem.”
“If you have any ideas,” Azra said, “I’d love to hear them. I’m down to ten days. I think you may have helped with the family problem, though. I shouldn’t tell you that my mum’s objections faded a bit after she met you and Willow in the lounge and saw you with your butler, not to mention that box from Harry Winston, because it’ll make her seem shallow. She doesn’t just want a rich man for me. He should be kind, too.” The skin around her eyes crinkled in a completely satisfying way as she laughed. Azra had an awesome laugh.
“And generous,” Willow put in. “Don’t forget generous. Also Egyptian.”
Azra waved a hand and laughed some more. “Easy-peasy. Know any single Egyptian multi-millionaires?” she asked Brett.
“Not so far,” he said with a smile, “but I’ll keep a look out, shall I?”
“Do,” Azra said. “Just in case.”
“If you haven’t solved that problem,” Willow asked him, “which one have you?”
“Her in-between stay, until her work visa comes through.” He told Azra, “New Zealand, Thailand, Nelson—that’s in Canada, and it’ll be winter—or Washington state, on the coast. None of those should be a problem with a British passport, and there’s a place available in any of them for you. Your choice.”
Azra said, “Seriously? How?”
Brett’s smile was so warm. “Seriously. Because I own them, and they’re sitting empty now. I’d have offered before, but . . . you could say I wanted to be more sure of Willow first. Not just throwing my weight around, as we diamond-buyers tend to do.”
“My mum won’t like it being your house.” Azra laughed again, sounding giddy with relief. “Though maybe we shouldn’t put that to the test. Wow. That was worth waking up early for. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Brett said. “I won’t be using any of those places during the next few months, so you won’t be putting me out. If you need help getting yourself there, let me know. In either case, I’ll have somebody meet you at the airport and get things set up for you. That’s not always easy in a new country. Just tell me which, and when. We’ll put a three-month max stay on it, how does that sound?”
“Brett,” Willow said. “How many houses do you have?”
“Seven,” he said. “At the moment. Plus the rental here. Most are condos, though. Easier maintenance.”
“And they’re all appreciating.”
“That’s the idea. Also, different economies. Diversification is always wise.”
Azra helped her get dressed. “Not white,” she said, “not on camera. It’ll wash you out. Not black, either, because nobody’s eye will linger on you in black, and no prints. It’ll be colder up there, though, right?” She shivered. “Glad it’s not me. Hanging over the edge, the thing jerking around underneath you . . . like being on a carnival ride, only worse, because you aren’t on the rails. Ugh.”
“I can’t wait,” Willow said, “and, no, they say it’s warmer than on the ground. You’re under a burner. Like sitting beside a patio heater.”
“Ugh,” Azra moaned. “Ugh. Ugh. A carnival ride that’s come unmoored and is on fire, hundreds of meters above the earth. I’m not watching the video, either, so don’t ask. Here. Wear the sleeveless red one we got you. Red’s always good, and you have toned arms. Take a warm jumper, though. I don’t care what they say, I’ll bet it’s freezing.”
It wasn’t freezing, just a bit chilly, when Dave pulled up at the launch site in the gray light of almost-dawn. It was, in typical Byron fashion, in a paddock near Ewingsdale with some sheep cropping the grass. Willow scrambled out fast and waited for Brett to join her.
“Hang on,” he said, but he was smiling. “Don’t rush a guy.” He told Dave, “Come on and watch, if you like.”
Dave said, “I’m good. I’ve got a game to look at on my phone, and it’s warmer in the car. It’s a balloon. I’ve seen them before.”
Ahead of them, a gigantic sheet of fabric striped in all the colors of the rainbow lay on green grass, attached to a brown wicker basket on its side that was held down by guy ropes and sandbags. A white gout of flame shot out horizontally into the opening of the balloon in a fairly frightening way, like the biggest browning torch you’d ever seen, aimed by a bearded fella in a khaki jumper, who appeared remarkably unconcerned by his nearness to fiery death. The balloon was filling. Slowly. The way a . . . well, a balloon did fill, rising slowly from the ground and beginning to take shape.
A green people-mover van with a trailer attached stood a ways off, and there was a knot of people around the bloke. He clearly hadn’t heard Azra’s message about the proper clothing for being on camera, but a lean man with a gray ponytail and beard was filming him nonetheless. The cameraman, then. Jamie was on hand as well, on time for once, wearing a skin-tight blue T-shirt that matched his eyes and two days’ growth of black scruff, and looking like he was ready for his close-up. Brett was probably right about the modeling résumé. Crystal, at his side, looked keyed up, too, and to Willow’s surprise, Amanda and Tom had come as well. Amanda was talking urgently to Crystal, Tom was holding the edge of the basket as it slowly tipped upright, and Willow got a rush of silver fireworks straight through her body. She was actually going to do this.
Amanda came over to Willow in her own rush. “Good,” she said. “You’re here. Ten more minutes, and you’d have missed it, Andy says, because he can’t wait. I was getting worried. Crystal’s nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, the silly sook. I thought she was going to back out, and we need this footage for the site.” As if it had been her idea. She looked Willow over more critically. “You’re going to clash with her, though. We should have coordinated colors. Blue or green would have been much better with fuchsia, and surely, redheads shouldn’t wear red.”
Brett looked at her with his patented polite detachment and said, “I asked Willow to wear red. I want her to be the focus of this shoot, since I’m guessing she’ll be the best on camera.” He hadn’t chosen Willow’s outfit, but she was happy with the lie. It wasn’t Amanda’s outing. Why was she taking ownership?
“Well, never mind,” Amanda said, clearly thinking, Are you mad, mate? She’s a ginger in a red jumper. That’s horrible. “Can’t be helped. You can stand . . .” She waved a hand vaguely at the basket. “Diagonally across from her, or something, Willow, so the clash in the colors won’t be so obvious. I’m sure Andy will want you to do that anyway, to balance th
e weight.” Crystal thought she was waving at her, apparently, because she came forward. “And, Crystal, of course you can do this. I don’t want to hear any more about it. They take balloons up every day, and they hardly ever have accidents. Right, Tom?”
“Pilot error, that’s all,” Tom agreed. “Hitting a power line and the like.” He was wearing a Byron Bay T-shirt today, with a puffer vest open over it, and the balloon loomed behind him, swaying a little in the early-morning breeze. Like a circus tent, somehow, carrying the promise of thrills.
“Oi, mate,” Andy-the-balloon-man said, heading over while wiping his hands on a bit of white rag. “I don’t hit power lines.”
“Are you an expert at ballooning?” Brett asked Amanda. “I didn’t realize that.” Still politely, but there was an edge to it.
“Tom is,” Amanda said, “or near enough, as many times as he’s come along to lend Andy a hand. But then, there isn’t much that Tom can’t put his hand to.”
Or, Willow thought, it could be that Tom’s a lazy sod who likes to play with toys. If he had the wit and the energy to cook up an elaborate scheme of siphoning off funds from the catering firm, much less researching how to poison forty people’s dinner without killing anyone, then actually pulling it off, she’d be more than surprised. The idea was ludicrous. Tom knew which side his bread was buttered on.
She forgot about that, because Crystal was hugging Jamie’s arm and staring at the balloon. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “I didn’t realize it’d be so . . . big. Or so hot. I’m not sure I can do this.”
I’ll bet you say that to all the boys, Willow thought, and couldn’t help a little snort. Brett got it, because his mouth twitched, which made her have to feign a coughing fit. The more she tried not to laugh, the more she did, until she was turned away and bent double, and Brett had a solicitous arm around her.
“Stop it,” he muttered. “You’re making me laugh, too.”
Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3) Page 40