Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Boss?. Nina Harrington
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claim her life.
The little girl who she’d promised to take care of the morning their parents died was a young woman now with her own life.
Amy was amazing and was going to go far in life. She knew exactly what she wanted and how she was going to get it. It had been Amy’s idea to talk to the university professors who were going to be teaching her and find out what kind of expedition would suit the coursework. Thinking ahead. Planning her future.
She had taught her sister well.
They had watched the dawn come up together in the garden of their little family house early on New Year’s morning and made promises to one another that could not be broken.
In three months’ time both of their lives would be completely different. Amy would be in Peru and working hard. And she would have finished this portrait, cleared out the clutter from their little house and redecorated every room. All ready for their cute London house to be rented out for the next three years while Amy was at university.
This was her chance to take her photography career to the next level and she was ready to grab it with both hands and do what it took to learn from the best. Travel. Live a little. Maybe even find the time to enjoy herself.
It was scary to think of the transformation that was going to take place but it was make the change now or stay locked in the same groove forever.
She chose now.
By the time she was thirty, her plan was to have the Antonia Baldoni photographic studio up and running. No more working for someone else. No more being taken for granted. No more being used by other people.
Three more years’ experience and training and she would be ready to start out on her own.
Starting with this portrait.
This was not the time to let one man who refused to have his portrait painted get in the way of Amy’s education.
Scott Elstrom was not going to escape that easily. And if she had to become a total pest to make that happen? Then so be it.
Because the new and improved version of Antonia Baldoni had decided to make some changes in her life and it all kicked off today.
Look out, world. Here I come. Bring it on.
* * *
Scott strode down the busy London pavement in the light morning sleet, wincing in pain.
His senses were assaulted by a cacophony of noise which seemed to come from every direction. Cars, buses, taxi cabs and motorcyclists. And people. So many people all crushed together. Jostling and pushing and manoeuvring around one another.
What were they all doing here at this time on a Sunday morning? Strange. He had forgotten what the barrage of noise and bustle of city life was like. Right now, his life in Alaska seemed like a distant dream. A fantasy of calm and quiet and beauty and...
He jumped out of the way as a cycle courier flashed across the path in front of him at high speed with only inches to spare. The light sleet mixed with loose snow that had been falling most of the night had made the pavements treacherous for cyclists.
Control. In Alaska he was in control of where and what and how he lived his life. The climate and the harsh conditions were all part of the job. He respected that. But here? Here, he had to battle very different challenges.
And every one of them was just as tough as climbing a mountain range or crossing sea ice.
But that was what he was here for.
He had promised his father and sister that he would give the family business six months of his life and stay in London until early September.
Six long and arduous months which right at that moment felt like an eternity of living in the city.
It was Freya who’d filled Scott in on the details when they had taken off to the hospital café to leave their father to rest.
The plan was to sell the building to property developers, who would give them a serious amount of money to build apartments in such a prestigious address. Any remaining charts and maps would be snapped up by collectors and specialist museums. With the money from the sales there would enough to pay off the debts and have some left over for their father’s retirement.
Because otherwise? Otherwise, things were going down so fast that it would mean bankruptcy and their father couldn’t tolerate the idea of not paying his bills to the suppliers who had been so loyal for the past few years.
Last resort? They had an amazing offer from a marketing company who wanted to create tacky mapping merchandise using the Elstrom company name.
Freya had been quite shocked at his expletive-laden reply to that suggestion and had to ask him to lower his voice.
No way. He was not going to see two hundred years of his family heritage handed over as a prestige symbol on cheap magnifying glasses and plastic rulers.
Little wonder that Freya had telephoned him to ask him to come home. His baby sister certainly knew what buttons to press to bring on even more guilt.
Lars Elstrom had just handed him the keys to the shop. He would be damned if he was going to be the one turning the lights out on the day they closed for good.
But it was more than that and he knew it.
It had been his decision to walk away and leave the company two years ago when things went off the rails in his life. He could have fought his father’s decision to appoint Travis to run the company through hard evidence and facts.
Instead, he had forced his father to choose between his apparently charming and talented and inspirational new stepson, Travis, and the angry man who Scott had become.
And that one decision had cost the company.
And now the stepson was long gone, the money had run out and suddenly his father needed him to step in and help the company with as much peace and dignity as he could.
How ironic was that?
But one thing was not so clear. Had he come back in time to save Elstrom Mapping? Because that was precisely what he intended to do. Or go down trying.
It was going to take all of his strength and ingenuity to survive the next six months.
Just as he had survived when his world was destroyed two years ago. Taking things one day at a time.
Starting right now.
Head back, chin up, Scott stopped outside the antique facade of Elstrom Mapping and glanced up at the old three-storey building which had been his playground and school as a boy, his centre in the middle of his parents’ divorce and then his chance to get close to his father again when he came to work here.
It had been two years since he had stood outside this door and waved goodbye to Freya as casually as if he were heading to the pub instead of a series of long arduous flights to a remote environmental survey base in Alaska.
It felt a lot longer.
Freya had organised a very casual meal out for the family before he took off and he had been a bear the whole evening. Bad-tempered and sullen and quiet. He couldn’t even recall why. Probably some snide remark his father had made about how much the business needed him to bring some new orders—with Travis managing the company they could use someone experienced to work with clients on operational mapping projects in the field.
Scott could see that now in hindsight but he had been blind to just how overwhelmed his father had been at the time by everything that had happened.
Two stubborn men. As different as possible from one another. It was hard to believe that they were even related.
They were from different planets which only collided in astrological time zones.
Neither of them ready to admit that the other person might need help.
Neither of them willing to talk about the real problem that was never going away.