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‘We owe this to Mrs Valdermeyer—you know how much she adores that cat,’ she whispered from her vantage position on the wall.
The truth was Daisy knew she owed her landlady much more than just a promise to find her cat.
When her mother, Lily, had announced she had found ‘the one’ again eight years ago, Daisy had opted to stay put. She’d been sixteen, alone in London and terrified and Mrs Valdermeyer had come to her rescue. Mrs Valdermeyer had given her a home, and a security she’d never known before—which meant Daisy owed her landlady more than she could ever repay. And Daisy always paid her debts.
‘And don’t forget,’ Daisy said urgently, warming to her subject, ‘Mrs V could have sold the Co-op to developers a thousand times over and become a rich woman, but she hasn’t. Because we’re like family to her. And family stick together.’
At least Daisy had always felt they ought to. If she’d ever had brothers and sisters and a mum who was even halfway reliable she was sure that was how her own family would have been.
She looked back at the garden, gulped down the apprehension tightening her throat.
‘I don’t think Mrs Valdermeyer would expect you to get arrested,’ Juno whispered in the darkness. ‘And don’t forget the scar on that guy’s face. He doesn’t look like the type who can take a joke.’
Daisy leaned forward, ready to slide down the other side of the wall. She stopped. Okay, maybe that scar was a bit of a worry. ‘Do me a favour—if I don’t come back in an hour, call the police.’
She could just make out Juno’s muttered words as she edged herself down into the darkness.
‘What for? So they can cart you off to jail?’
‘Forget it, I’m not conjuring up a fiancée just to keep Melrose sweet.’ Connor Brody tucked the phone into the crook of his shoulder and pulled the damp towel off his hips.
‘He went ballistic after the dinner party,’ Daniel Ellis, his business manager, replied, the panic in his voice clear all the way down the phone line from New York. ‘I’m not joking, Con. He accused you of trying to seduce Mitzi. He’s threatening to lose the deal.’
Connor grabbed the sweat pants folded over the back of the sofa and tugged them on one-handed, cursing the headache that had been brewing all day—and Mitzi Melrose, a woman he never wanted to see again in this lifetime.
‘She stuck her foot in my crotch under the table, Dan, not the other way around,’ Connor growled, annoyed all over again by Mitzi’s less-than-subtle attempts at seduction.
Not that Connor minded women who took the initiative, but Eldridge Melrose’s trophy wife had been coming on to him all evening and he’d made it pretty damn clear he wasn’t interested. He didn’t date married women, especially married women joined for better or worse to the billionaire property tycoon he was in the middle of a crucial deal with. Plus he’d never been attracted to women with more Botox and silicone in their body than common sense. But good old Mitzi had refused to take the hint and this was the result. A deal he’d been working on for months was in danger of going belly up through no fault of his.
‘Come on, Con. If he backs out of the deal now we’re back to square one.’
Connor walked across the darkened living room to the bar by the floor-to-ceiling windows, Danny’s pleading whine not doing a damn thing for his headache. He rubbed his throbbing temple and splashed some whiskey into a shot glass. ‘I’m not about to pretend to be engaged just to satisfy Melrose’s delusions about his oversexed wife,’ he rasped. ‘Deal or no deal.’
Connor savoured the peaty scent of the expensive malt—so different from the smell of stale porter that had permeated his childhood—and slugged it back. The expensive liquor warmed his sore throat and reminded him how far he’d come. He’d once had to do things he wasn’t proud of to survive, to get out. The stakes would have to be a lot higher than a simple business deal before he’d compromise his integrity like that again.
‘Damn, Con, come off it.’ Danny was still whining. ‘You’re blowing this way out of propor
tion. You must have a ton of women in your little black book who’d kill to spend two weeks at The Waldorf posing as your beloved. And I don’t see it being any big hardship for you either.’
‘I don’t have a little black book.’ Connor gave a gruff chuckle. ‘Danny, what era are you living in? And even if I did, there’s not one of the women I’ve dated who wouldn’t take the request the wrong way. You give a woman a diamond ring, she’s going to get ideas no matter what you tell her.’
Hadn’t he gone through the mother of all break-ups only two months ago because he’d believed Rachel when she’d said she wasn’t looking for anything serious? Just good sex and a good time. He’d thought they were both on the same page only to discover Rachel was in a whole different book—a book with wedding bells and baby booties on the cover.
Connor shuddered, metal spikes stabbing at his temples. No way was he opening himself up to that horror show again.
‘I can’t believe you’d throw this deal away when the solution’s so simple.’
Connor heard Danny’s pained huff, and decided he’d had enough of the whole debate.
‘Believe it.’ He put the glass down on the bar, winced as the slight tap reverberated in his sore head. ‘I’ll see you the week after next. If Melrose is bound and determined to cut off his nose to spite me, so be it,’ he finished on a rasping cough.
‘Hey, are you okay, buddy? You sound kind of rough.’
‘Just fine,’ Connor said, his voice brittle with sarcasm. He’d caught some bug on the plane back from New York that morning and now there was this whole cluster screw-up with Melrose and his wife to handle.
‘Why don’t you take a few days off?’ Danny said gently. ‘You’ve been working your butt off for months. You’re not Superman, you know.’
‘You don’t say,’ Connor said wryly, resting his aching forehead against the cool glass of the balcony doors and staring into the garden below. ‘I’ll be all right once I’ve a solid ten hours’ sleep under my belt.’ Which might have worked if he hadn’t been wired with jet lag.
