The Billionaire's Convenient Bride. Liz Fielding
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as her struggle to maintain a swan-like calm while paddling frantically to keep ahead of her creditors, already stretched to breaking point, finally snapped. ‘The miserable old goat knows he’ll be paid as soon as the lawyers stop faffing around and settle the probate.’
She’d not only snapped but, far worse, she was lying. She was that desperate.
Probate had been granted a week ago but between her grandfather’s lack of judgement and a looming inheritance tax bill, she was about to descend into negative equity in a big way. Her only chance of keeping the castle was to convince the bank that it was a viable business, but if the boiler wasn’t fixed the comments on the review sites would ensure that there would be no more guests to feed the maintenance bills and the bank that liked to say yes would be saying not a chance...
‘Can I speak to him?’ she asked.
Another voice said, ‘The miserable old goat has you on speaker phone, Miss Prideaux, and to answer your question, yes, if Jimmy wants to keep his job, he can.’
She swallowed. ‘Mr Bridges—’
‘Priddy Castle business is always welcome,’ he said, cutting off her apology before she could even think how to recover the situation, ‘but our terms are one month. We’ll be happy to oblige just as soon as the outstanding account is settled.’
She held the phone to her ear for a long moment, but the connection had been cut. She’d been left hanging in space with nowhere to go.
‘Problem?’
Agnès jumped at the unexpected sound and swung round on her chair.
The guests were all supposed to be safely out of earshot in the barn creating collages but the man leaning against the doorframe didn’t look as if he spent his weekends messing about with scraps from the attic. At all. What was clear was that he’d been there long enough to have heard every word of her embarrassing conversation with the heating engineer.
She took a breath and did her best to arrange her face into a welcoming smile. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I have a reservation,’ he said, ‘but there’s no one at the reception desk.’
‘I’m so sorry. Suzanna must have been called away.’
‘A complaint about the lack of hot water, perhaps?’
She felt the hot flush rush to her cheeks but rose to her feet, indicating with a gesture that he should lead the way. ‘Are you here for the class?’ she asked, reminding herself not to judge by appearances. He might want to tap into his creativity. ‘It’s already started but—’
‘I haven’t come here to upcycle rubbish into art.’
He hadn’t used his fingers to make quote marks but the way he’d said ‘art’ he might as well have done. He had, however, paraphrased the poster pinned up on the wall behind her that listed the craft weekends she’d organised to bring in guests during the winter months.
His tone did suggest that he had something on his mind and her heart sank. Was this another of her grandfather’s debts come to haunt them?
She cleared her throat to ask, since there was no use putting off bad news, but he beat her to the question.
‘You don’t recognise me, Agnès?’
Distracted by the crisis with the boiler, eyes gritty from scouring the accounts in a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul attempt to find money for the outstanding plumbing bill—not to mention the eye-avoiding embarrassment—she hadn’t given him much more than a glance. Total good hostess fail.
But then he said her name and a flicker of butterflies stirred beneath her waist.
He waited for her brain to catch up with what she had heard, what she was seeing.
A fuzz of the misty rain that had blanketed the creek since dawn clung to a familiar mop of unruly dark hair, olive skin...
The close cut beard was new but as she met the steady gaze of dark eyes, the years fell away, she was in her teens and in the desperate, painful throes of first love...
‘Kam?’ Agnès breathed the name, reached out to touch his jacket, as if to reassure herself that he was real. Curled back her fingers before they came into contact with the damp leather.
His beautiful boyish face had been battered into manhood, his shoulders had widened and the growth spurt that came later to boys had taken him past six feet. He seemed twice the size of the youth who’d been banished from the castle by her grandfather. Larger, tougher.
‘Kam Faulkner,’ she said.
‘There,’ he said, the corner of his mouth pulling up in the nearly smile that had stolen her heart the first time she’d seen him and, she discovered, still had the power to make it leap. ‘That wasn’t so difficult.’
Difficult enough. She’d been holding her breath and his name had been little more than a whisper.
‘No...’
She was still holding it. Her chest hurt and she was feeling giddy...
If she hadn’t been so distracted by the leaking roof, the dodgy boiler, the fact that the castle was on the knife-edge of financial disaster, she would have known him despite the beard, the fact that his nose had been broken and a scar now ruined the symmetry of his brows.
Breathe...
‘Breathe,’ he said, catching her elbow as she grabbed for the back of her chair.
Easier said than done when the warmth of his palm, the touch of his fingers was sending shock waves through her body.
‘Yes...sorry... I didn’t expect... I wasn’t thinking...’ She made an effort to pull herself together. She should remove her arm. Touching was... ‘It’s been a long time,’ she said, not wanting to think about what touching him had done.
A long time but eyes never changed. She had dreamed about those eyes. Dreamed about his hand taking hers. Wanting so much. Seeing that same want echoed back at her even as he stepped back, turned and walked away.
With an effort of will she removed her elbow from his hand and straightened, but as he took a step back she had to stop herself from reaching out, grabbing a handful of jacket to keep him close.
It was ridiculous. It had been years ago. She had been a teenager with a crush. But in all those years, the hideous school proms with a ‘suitable’ date, the marriage market debutant parties, no one had ever come close to that moment when he’d reached out a hand...
She swallowed, mouth dry, unable to think of anything appropriate to say.
How unexpected.
How wonderful to see him after all this time.
How disturbing to still feel the same knee-weakening desire...
That he’d reached out now meant nothing. It had been an automatic response when he’d thought she was going to fall. Nothing in his expression, in his manner suggested that this was a happy homecoming, that he was here to catch up with old friends. To catch up with her.
His smile had been fleeting, ironic rather than warm, his voice cool. And why wouldn’t it be? She was the reason he and his mother had been banished from the castle, from their home. Which begged the question—why had he come back?
‘How is your mother?’ she asked, when the silence had stretched to breaking point. Desperately falling back on the conventional. Sounding like her grandmother talking to the youth who worked in the garden.
‘It’s a little late to be asking about my mother’s health,’ he said, giving her nothing back. Nothing to work with.
‘She’s—?’ She left the question unasked. ‘Grandfather...’ Kam’s face darkened. ‘He died last year.’
‘I heard.’
He didn’t