Anything but Vanilla

chapter FIVE



Never send to know for whom the ice cream bell chimes; it chimes for thee!

—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’

‘You shouldn’t be telling me that,’

Alexander said, telling himself that he didn’t give a hoot who or what she was. Or her business. And as for Nancy, he’d paid her off...

Just like your father...

The words dropped into his head like lead weight, but what else could he do? He’d made sure she had enough money to tide her over until she found another job.

And if she didn’t...?

‘Why?’ Sorrel demanded, reclaiming his attention. She was clearly perplexed by his attitude. ‘Do you think you’re going to be trampled in the crush to buy an ice-cream parlour?’

‘No. But then I’m not interested in selling.’

‘What about Ria? What will she do if this place closes? You’re the one who suggested I offer her a job.’

‘I also told you she wouldn’t take it.’

‘Why not? I’d take care of the paperwork leaving her to concentrate on the ice cream. She’d have all the fun and none of the worry.’

If that was supposed to reassure him, to have him overcome with gratitude, she had misjudged his gullibility by a factor of ten. But then he knew Ria a lot better than she did. And he knew nothing about Sorrel Amery, except that she’d sent his hormones into meltdown. But while his body might be ready to leap blindly into bed with her, he wasn’t about to let his libido make business decisions.

‘I didn’t realise that ice cream had become such an essential ingredient in corporate entertaining,’ he said, and if he sounded as sceptical as he felt it was intentional.

‘It’s not. Yet. But I’m getting there,’ she assured him.

‘Frankly, I’m amazed it’s happening at all.’

‘Yes, your amazement is coming through loud and clear, Mr West—’

‘Alexander,’ he said, irritably. His father had been Mr West.

‘Alexander...’

His name was soft on her tongue. Like a lover’s whisper in his ear and he wished he’d let it go. ‘Mr West’ was safer. A lot safer.

‘Maybe you should come along to an event and see for yourself how we do it,’ she suggested, rather more crisply as she gave him an assessing once-over. ‘Get a haircut and if you’ve got a dinner jacket, I’ll give you a job, too. I can always use a good-looking waiter.’

He resisted the urge to rake his fingers through his hair, grab an elastic band from the pot on the desk and fasten it back. ‘I’ll pass, thanks all the same.’ She didn’t move. ‘I thought you were in a hurry to track down Nancy,’ he said, willing her to leave.

‘I am, but...’

‘What?’

‘Your, um, amazement must be catching,’ she said. ‘Cutting off the electricity would be a very simple way of getting rid of me.’

Apparently she didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her. Clearly she was smarter than she looked. But not that smart.

‘It would. Unfortunately, with freezers filled with Knickerbocker Gloria’s only asset, securing the electricity supply is top of my list.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, clearly puzzled. ‘I would have thought the cost of one would have offset the other. Ria makes fresh ices three times a week for the ice-cream parlour, so there can’t be that much stock. In your shoes I’d have flushed the lot down the sink.’

Okay. She was that smart.

‘The bill will have to be paid sooner or later.’ His brain cocked a sceptical eye at him as he took out his wallet and, using his mobile phone, called the number on the final demand, tapping in the details of his debit card in response to the prompts. ‘I’m taking the sooner option.’

He wrote ‘paid’, the time, date and card he’d used on the invoice before tossing it on top of the tax account in the ‘out’ tray. He saw her raised eyebrows and said, ‘Okay, the electric bill was my number two priority. With fines by the day, paying the Revenue had to be number one.’

‘Good decision,’ she said. The thoughtful look she gave him said a lot more, but he wanted Sorrel with her luscious mouth, chestnut hair and endless legs out of his space before he consigned his brain to the devil and let his body do the thinking.

‘If you’re feeling grateful, the coffee pot is empty,’ he said. ‘And if you’re going out to stock up on champagne and cucumbers, you can bring me back a bacon roll.’

‘Does Ria run errands for you?’

‘Landlord’s perks.’

‘Don’t bank on getting them from me,’ she said, making it clear she thought that they amounted to more than sandwiches.

‘Not one created out of ice cream,’ he warned, ‘but hot, from the baker on the corner. Heavy on the brown sauce.’

* * *

Nancy’s phone went straight to voicemail and Sorrel left a message asking her to call back as a matter of urgency. She’d already tried Ria’s mobile and got a message saying that the number was not available, which was worrying. If she’d cut all her ties...

No. Alexander had said she was safe. Presumably he had a contact number even if he wasn’t prepared to share. She wished she’d taken more notice when Ria talked about her friends in Wales. She’d sent a card the last time. She still had it somewhere...

Meanwhile, she cleaned out the coffee maker and refilled it.

Alexander West might have set her nerves jangling, disturbing her more than any man she’d ever met—irritating her, with his dismissal of her ability to run a business based on nothing but the length of her skirt—but a pot of coffee was a small price to pay for the lifeline he had, no matter how reluctantly, thrown her.

He didn’t acknowledge her as she plugged it back in and switched it on. His attention was focused on the computer screen and since he was probably trying to work out where all the money had gone—and how much he could persuade her to pay for the business—she did not disturb him.

There was only so much ‘amazement’ a woman could take in one day.

She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth as if to erase the memory of his kiss. It only brought the moment more vividly to life and he hadn’t even been trying. If he’d followed through on the heat that had come off him like an oven door opening as he’d turned to look up at her...

No.

Absolutely not.

He was just passing through and she didn’t do one-night, or even one-week stands. It had been a very long time since she’d even come close. Graeme...

She shook her head. Their relationship wasn’t about sex, it was about partnership. Their marriage, when it happened, would be based on mutual respect and support. Built to last. Not some flash-in-the-pan, here today, gone tomorrow, lust-driven madness.

Right now, her sole focus was her business; making it a household name in the events world.

She fetched her laptop from the van, checked the recipes Ria had given her, listed what she’d need to make the missing ices, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the sudden collapse of Ria’s business and Alexander West’s involvement in it all.

He was certainly not the freeloader she’d thought him. He’d put his hand in his own pocket to pay a couple of hefty bills—and not, apparently, for the first time.

Whatever his relationship with Ria, it went deep. And was, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time, none of her business.

Really.

She did need to speak to Ria, though, and tried her home number. Her call went straight to voicemail. She left a message promising to help, urging her to come back. There was nothing in her own message box that wouldn’t wait but, seeking a little steadiness to counteract the last couple of hours, she returned a call from Graeme Laing. He was not only her financial advisor and mentor since university, but everything she’d ever wanted in a man.

‘Sorrel... Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’ Calm, ordered—at the sound of his voice, her pulse rate immediately began to settle. ‘I’ve managed to get tickets for the gala opening of La Bohème and I need to know if you’ll be free on the twenty-fourth.’

‘Really?’ She tried to sound excited. ‘I thought they were like gold dust.’

‘They are. Someone owed me a favour.’ No surprise there. He was the kind of man everyone wanted on their side in the turbulent financial world. Picking up on her lack of enthusiasm, he said, ‘Puccini is at the lighter end of the operatic scale, Sorrel. You’ll enjoy it.’

‘Only one person dies?’ she said, half jokingly. The closest she’d ever wanted to get to an opera involved a Phantom and her pulse rate was now non-existent.

‘This is grand opera,’ he said, a touch impatiently—he didn’t joke about the ‘arts’, ‘not a soap opera.’

‘I read that the soap writers trawl Greek tragedies for their plot ideas.’

‘Really?’ he replied, with about as much enthusiasm for the idea as hers for a night at the opera. Graeme might have said that she was everything he’d ever want in a wife but she was, no question, still a work in progress. Her sisters weren’t entirely kidding when they referred to him as ‘Professor Higgins’.

It wasn’t like that. Well, not totally like that. Any man would want his wife to enjoy his passions and she’d always known exactly what she wanted in a man. Graeme was her perfect fit and she would do her best to be his. On the bright side she could wear the vintage Schiaparelli gown she’d found at the back of a junk shop a couple of months ago. It was perfect for mingling with millionaires at the post-gala party because it wasn’t about opera, it was about networking. Being seen with the right people, being noticed and it was the world she had aspired to since she’d chosen a business rather than an academic career. When she was a millionaire, no one would care who her mother was, or think her beneath them.

‘It’ll be fun,’ she said, doing her best to sound more enthusiastic. You didn’t get anything worthwhile without a little suffering and it could be worse. Much worse. Graeme could have been a cricket fanatic—a game that involved entire days of boredom. ‘Remind me when it is? I’ll have to call you back when I’ve checked my diary. With Elle on maternity leave I’m filling in with Rosie as well as the big events.’ At least he understood that business took priority over everything. Even death by singing. ‘Right now I’ve got a bit of a crisis on the ice-cream front.’

‘What’s that woman done now?’ And the opera was forgotten as they returned to familiar, if contentious, territory. Ria was definitely not his idea of a businesswoman. Perfect or otherwise.

‘Are you free this evening?’ she asked, avoiding the question. ‘I need to talk to you about the possibility of raising some finance.’

‘Finance? I thought I’d made it plain that you need to consolidate before thinking about taking any more risks. Next year, maybe.’

‘Yes, yes...’ he’d been saying that for the last two years and at this rate she’d be fifty-five before she achieved her ambition ‘...but it’s a matter of adapting to circumstances.’ Quoting one of his favourite axioms back at him. ‘I want to make an offer for Knickerbocker Gloria.’

‘She’s in trouble?’ he asked, with what sounded like the smallest touch of self-satisfied ‘I told you so’ Schadenfreude. ‘Well, you know what I think.’ The free-spirited, disorganised Ria and the intensely focused, totally organised Graeme were never going to find common ground. ‘Don’t let sentiment jump you into doing anything hasty.’

‘I won’t,’ she assured him, ‘but I don’t have time to talk right now,’ she said, irritated that he felt he had to remind her of business basics. She was grateful for his support, his advice, but this wasn’t about profit and loss. This was about something much more important. Friendship. The future. Magic.

Ideas were going off like rockets in her head and the minute she’d dealt with the immediate crisis, she’d put them down on paper. Prepare a business plan. If she could show him the money, he’d listen.

‘Leave it with me. This might well play into our hands. I’ll make some enquiries, find out exactly how much trouble she’s in—’

‘I appreciate the offer, Graeme, but to be honest if you have that much free time, I could do with a hand mixing up a batch of cucumber ice cream,’ she said, unable to resist a little payback for his smug satisfaction that he’d been proved right about Ria.

‘Won’t I need a hygiene certificate?’

‘Any excuse,’ she said, unable to stop herself from laughing out loud. He was so predictable!

‘Oh, you were joking.’

‘There is absolutely nothing funny about ice cream, Graeme,’ she said, mentally slapping her wrist for teasing him, but doing it anyway. ‘I’ll have to arrange a training session for you with the catering students at the local college.’

‘I’m more use to you on the financial front,’ he replied, seriously. ‘I’ll find out what I can about the financial state of Knickerbocker Gloria so that we can make the best of the situation.’ We... That implied it would be the two of them. Working together. So long as she agreed with him. The thought popped, unbidden, into her head. ‘You’ll let me know whether you’ll be free on the twenty-fourth?’

‘The twenty-fourth.’ She made a note. ‘I’ll call you this evening.’

She cut the connection wishing she hadn’t said anything about Ria’s financial problem. Obviously she needed information, but she hated the thought of him poking around in Ria’s problems, knowing that he’d put the worst possible slant on things.

Which was stupid. There was no room for sentiment in business and obviously she couldn’t go into this blind. He was right about that. That was why she always agreed with him, because he was right about everything.

Graeme was her rock, she reminded herself. He might not make her heart race, or her head swim the way Alexander West had done with nothing more than a look, the lightest of touches, a kiss that had made her toes curl. Okay, so maybe he did have a bit of a sense of humour bypass, but he was utterly dependable and that was worth a heck of a lot more than a momentary sizzle on the lips.

* * *

When she returned with everything she needed to finish the Jefferson order, there was no sign of Nancy and she still wasn’t answering her phone so as soon as she’d unloaded the van, Sorrel went to the baker’s.

She wouldn’t, ever, run ‘errands’ for any man with two sound legs but the artisan baker on the corner supplied custom-made baked goods for Scoop! and she had to pick up some more items for the Jefferson order. Since she’d had a very early start herself with no sign of a lunch break in the foreseeable future, she bought herself a sandwich while she was about it.

‘Here’s your bacon roll, Alex...’ Her voice died away as she saw him, head on his arms, fast asleep on Ria’s desk.

His shoulders appeared to be even wider spread across the desk, his back impossibly broad. His glossy hair had slipped over his face, leaving just a glimpse of a strong jaw and chin, the stubble of a man who hadn’t bothered to shave that morning throwing the sensuous curve of his mouth into stark relief. Even the thought of running her fingertips over his cheek triggered a prickle of awareness, a melting heat, shocking in its intimacy.

‘Memo to self,’ she murmured under her breath as she stepped back, away from temptation. ‘Make the coffee stronger.’

* * *

‘Thanks for the roll.’

Sorrel, whizzing up cucumbers in the blender, jumped as Alexander turned on the tap and rinsed out his mug before upending it on the draining board.

‘No problem.’ She glanced sideways at him. His cheek was slightly pink and crumpled where his head had been resting on his arm and there was a deep red imprint on his face where the heavy winder of his wristwatch had dug in. It was an old steel Rolex very like the one her grandfather had worn and which Elle had sold, along with anything else of value her family had owned.

The con man who’d left them destitute had been too smart to steal anything physical, but it had all gone anyway. First he’d stolen their security. Then their family history written in the marks on the Sheraton dining table where generations had propped their elbows, the Georgian silver brought out for celebrations, the wear on a carpet her great-grandfather had brought back from Persia. Along with the jewellery, no more than a glittering memory in old photographs, and the precious things collected over two centuries, it had all gone to the salesrooms to pay off the overdraft, the credit cards he’d applied for in their grandmother’s name. Fraud, of course, but she had signed the forms...

‘Feeling better after your nap?’ she asked.

It came out rather more snarkily than she’d intended but she should be at Cranbrook, checking that everything was in place in the Conservatory for tomorrow, instead of here, putting cucumbers through a blender.

Not his fault, she reminded herself.

‘Marginally.’ Muscles rippled under his T-shirt as he rotated his right shoulder to ease the muscles. ‘It’s going to take a couple of days for my body to catch up with this time zone.’

‘Really?’ Her mouth was unaccountably dry. She ran her tongue over her teeth, a trick Graeme had told her was used by nervous speakers to help her with early client presentations. ‘What time zone is your body loitering in?’

Well, it would have been rude not to ask.

‘Somewhere around the international date line,’ he said. ‘On an island you won’t have heard of.’

‘One with long white beaches, coconut-shell cocktails and dusky maidens in grass skirts?’ she suggested. Well, she’d seen the postcards. ‘Far too many distractions to waste time writing home, obviously.’

‘Thick jungle. Mosquitoes as big as bats, bats as big as cats,’ he countered, ‘and no corner shops selling postcards or stamps.’

‘Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun,’ she replied, covering her surprise pretty well, considering. Because it didn’t. Sound like fun. ‘You need to have a serious talk with your travel agent.’

‘I don’t think Pantabalik has made it onto this year’s must-visit list of tourist venues.’

‘I can see why,’ she said, her irritation evaporating in the unexpected warmth of his smile. Apparently ‘exploring’ wasn’t, as she’d assumed, a euphemism for living the life of a lotus-eater, but something rather more taxing. ‘So where did that last postcard come from?’

‘An airport transit lounge.’

‘You have been having a bad time. Maybe you should give your body a break and go home to bed.’

‘Thanks for your concern, but my body is used to surviving on catnaps.’ He rotated his left shoulder.

‘Don’t...’ The word slipped out.

‘What?’

‘Do that.’ The tongue-teeth thing was working overtime. ‘Your T-shirt won’t stand the strain.’

Forget his T-shirt, it was her blood pressure that was about to blow...

He turned his head and looked down at his shoulder, poking at the split with his finger, and shrugged. ‘Sweat rots the cotton.’

‘Too much information,’ she said, tearing her eyes away as the gap lengthened, grabbing the heavy jug of puréed cucumber to mix it with measured amounts of crème fraîche, lime juice and salt.

She needed two hands to lift it and he said, ‘Let me do that.’

She didn’t argue as he took it from her, not meeting his eyes as she stepped back out of the forbidden zone of warm male flesh, disintegrating clothing, a ripple of heat that lapped against her, disturbing the order of the universe whenever he was too close.

‘Thank you,’ she said, concentrating very hard on the mixture, determined to block out the thought of him sliding naked between Ria’s lavender-scented sheets, only to be assailed by the image of him stretched out in a hammock slung between trees hung with lianas, his golden body glistening with sweat beneath a gauzy mosquito net...

Whatever was the matter with her?

Her universe was fixed. Centred. Planned out to the last detail. For the moment her focus was Scoop! In a year or two she’d marry Graeme in the village church, live in the Georgian rectory next door that he’d recently bought. It would take that long to renovate it to his exacting standards. Which not only covered stationary but signalled his intention of settling down in the vicinity of her office, her family. It was solid, real...

‘I wouldn’t sleep much with oversized mosquitoes and bats flying around, either,’ she said. Concentrate on the bats... ‘What were you doing there? In Pan...?’

‘Pantabalik.’

‘Pantabalik. You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’ She glanced at him. Geography was a safe subject.

‘I was on a plant-hunting expedition.’

‘Plant hunting?’ she repeated, startled. ‘How very...’

Unlikely... Unpredictable... Unexpected...

‘How very what?’ His eyebrows invited all kinds of indiscretions.

‘How very Victorian,’ she said, primly, turning off the machine and, reaching for a plastic spoon from a pot on the work surface, she dipped it into the mixture and tasted it. Creamy, with a big hit of cucumber, but something was missing... ‘I have this image of you wearing a pith helmet as you hack your way through the undergrowth hunting for a fabled species of orchid.’

‘A hat is essential. You never know what is going to fall out of a tree.’ She glanced up and saw the betraying kink in the corner of his mouth. Felt a responding flutter... ‘Personally I favour a wide-brimmed Akubra, but each to his own.’

Oh, yes. She could see him in something wide-brimmed and battered from hard wear... ‘And the orchid?’ she asked.

‘Sorry. Not my thing.’

She shrugged. ‘Shame. There’s something so erotic about orchids...’

Exotic... She’d meant to say ‘exotic’, but correcting herself would only draw attention to the word and make things ten times worse. Turning quickly back to the mixture before he could say something outrageous, she changed the subject.

‘I followed the recipe Ria used for the original, but she must have added something else to the sample she gave me to take to Jefferson’s.’

‘The magic.’

‘Yes...’ She sighed. ‘Unfortunately I don’t have a wand to wave over it, so if you have something a little more tangible in the way of suggestion I’d be grateful.’

‘Does it matter? I mean, who’s tasted it besides you and someone in Jefferson’s marketing department?’

‘Actually, it was Nick’s wife who tasted the ices and made the final selection.’

‘In that case you are in trouble.’

‘No question.’ Nick Jefferson was married to Cassie Cornwell, the famous television cook, and she’d certainly notice that something was missing. ‘And even if it hadn’t been someone who knew the difference, this is not what I promised them.’ She took another spoon from the pot and scooped up a little. ‘Any ideas?’ she asked, offering it to him.