‘Good.’
‘I can’t very well paint in this condition, but I can help you get our collaboration off the ground. Can’t promise from my track record I’ll be much good with the paperwork, mind.’
Nina gave him a level look. ‘Stop that. She can’t have your self-esteem like that, she’s not getting to have it, Polly, or whatever her name is.’
‘Eleanor James, the investigating officer said.’ Mutt sniffed an ironic laugh.
‘Well, Eleanor put you down and took advantage of your kind nature, because she was a crook, not because you’re not smart or talented or a good businessman. You’re all those things. I won’t let her take those things, not when she’s already had so much from me.’
‘From you?’
‘From you, I mean, obviously.’
Mutt watched her. ‘So we’re business partners?’
‘Yep,’ Nina nodded slowly. ‘Good, right?’
‘Hmm, not sure really.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Nina was alarmed.
‘It means, I hoped… maybe, when you flew all the way back across the ocean to, what did you used to call it, oh aye, the back of bloody beyond, the middle of nowhere… that maybe you were missing something?’
‘I was,’ Nina smiled shyly. ‘I was missing the ingredients for the next big thing in fragrance.’
‘Ah, is that all.’ Mutt nodded sagely.
‘One vital ingredient is still missing though,’ Nina conceded.
Mutt quirked a scarred eyebrow, then winced. ‘Oww, that hurts.’
‘Well don’t do it then!’
They both laughed and she stepped across the floor to him. ‘When I was standing in front of all those execs all I could think about was how much fun I’d had with you, and how much I missed you, and if I was going to do anything with our Highland fragrance, I only wanted to do it with you involved at every stage. You helped me make it, you should help me sell it.’
Mutt reached his hand out to take hers and pulled her gently onto his lap.
‘I can’t, I’ll hurt you,’ she yelped.
‘Everything hurts anyway, you can only make it better,’ he said, his voice low.
She settled across his lap, face turned to his, her hand still in his grasp.
‘Nina, when I realised you’d gone to the airport and I’d missed you that morning, I felt something I never felt with Polly, or anybody else for that matter. I was utterly lost. I was leaving on my bike, going anywhere, because I couldn’t hang around here and not see you every day. The thought of not knowing what you were doing or if you were OK was too much for me, and I just got on my bike and… God knows where I’d have ended up, but I know one thing; I’d never have forgotten you. I’d always have wanted you.’
Nina couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. ‘I came back thinking you’d want to be my friend at best. I was ready to accept that, just to have you in my life,’ she told him.
‘Idowant to be your friend, and everything else I can be to you. You’re the missing ingredient in my life. I can’t be without you.’
First, Nina brought her lips down to the cut above his brow and pressed a soft kiss against it, making him inhale deeply. As her lips travelled across each little graze and scrape on his cheekbone and jaw, Mutt drew his hand up her arm until he cradled her face. He lifted himself a little in the chair to reach her lips, and she tipped her mouth to his.
If she could have kissed him better in that instant she would have, but Nina was satisfied to know they’d have the rest of their lives to recover and grow stronger, and that would take many, many kisses.
When they drew apart, smiling into each other’s eyes, they heard the knock. Nina jumped up from his lap but Mutt wouldn’t surrender her completely, keeping her hand clasped in his.
‘Come in,’ Mutt called.
There was a muffled sound of struggle behind the door, then a soft bump of something small and bouncing jumping from a height. As the door pushed ajar, in bound Bear, wriggling and drooling just like before. He had leaped into Mutt’s lap before the inspector was even inside the room.
