Anything but Vanilla.... Liz Fielding

mentally hung a Do Not Touch notice around his neck, counted to three and took a deep breath.

      ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’ The ability to hang on to a calm demeanour in the face of disaster was a prime requisite of the events organiser, but right now she was running on her reserve tank with the red light flashing a warning. ‘Can we at least check and see if she’s made the sorbet?’ she suggested, resisting the urge to rub her hands up and down her arms to warm them and instead reaching for a white coat and slipping it on. Settling a white trilby over her hair. A statement of intent. ‘It has a very short shelf life and by the time you and the Revenue sort out the paperwork it will be well beyond its best-before date. So much sorbet down the drain. A waste of everyone’s money.’

      ‘I’m sure you’re only worried about yours.’

      He was losing patience now, regarding her with undisguised irritation, and she regretted her rush to cover up. The slightest shrug would have sent a strap sliding from her shoulder.

      It wasn’t the way she did business, but then he wasn’t the kind of man she usually did business with. Any distraction in a crisis... Now she was aware of the danger she would stay well out of reach.

      ‘If you insist,’ she continued, using the only other way of grabbing his attention that was open to her, ‘I’ll pay for it again.’ Heavy stress on the “again”. ‘I’d rather lose money on this event than my reputation.’

      He didn’t leap to accept her offer despite the fact that it would help pay the outstanding tax bill.

      ‘That would be in cash, too, of course.’ And, since this was her mistake, it would be taken from her own bank account. She would have to forget all about that pair of pink Miu Miu sandals at the top of her shoe wish-list. There were always more shoes, but there was only one Scoop! Her sister had created it and she wasn’t going to be the one to lose it. ‘Since Ria’s bank account has presumably been frozen,’ she added, as a face-saving sop to his pride.

      She assumed it would go straight into his back pocket but she’d already insulted him once—in response to gravest provocation—and doing it again wasn’t going to get her what she wanted.

      She held her breath and, after what felt like a lifetime, he moved to one side to allow her to pass.

      She crushed her disappointment that cash would move him when her appeal to his sense of fair play had failed. That a lovely woman should be in thrall to a man so unworthy of her. Not that she was surprised. She’d suffered the consequences of men who took advantage of foolish women.

      Wouldn’t be here but for one of them.

      Once they’d checked the drawers of the upright freezers in the kitchen, however, she had a bigger problem than Ria’s inevitably doomed love affair to worry about.

      ‘No sorbet,’ Alexander said, without any discernible expression of surprise, ‘and no cucumber ice cream, although I can’t bring myself to believe that’s a bad thing.’

      ‘Savoury ice cream is very fashionable,’ she said, more concerned about how long it would take her to make the missing ices than whether he approved of her flavour choices.

      ‘I rest my case,’ he replied, clearly believing that they were done. ‘You can take the ices you say are yours, Miss Amery. I won’t take your money, but I will have your key before you go.’

      He held out his hand. She ignored it. She wasn’t done here. Not by a long chalk. But since he was in control of the ice-cream parlour, he was the one she had to convince to allow her to stay.

      ‘What will it take?’ she asked, looking around at the gleaming kitchen. ‘To keep Knickerbocker Gloria going?’

      ‘It’s not going to happen.’

      She frowned. ‘That’s hardly your decision, surely?’

      ‘There’s no one else here.’

      ‘And closing it is your best shot?’

      ‘It would take a large injection of cash to settle with the creditors and someone with a firm grip on the paperwork at the helm.’ He didn’t look or sound optimistic. Actually, he looked as if he was about to go to sleep propped up against the freezer door.

      ‘How much cash?’

      ‘Why?’ He was regarding her sleepily from beneath heavy-lidded eyes that looked as if they could barely stay open, but she wasn’t fooled for a minute. She had his full attention. ‘Don’t tell me you’re interested.’

      ‘Why not?’ He didn’t answer, but she hadn’t expected him to. He had her down as an idiot who thought she could get what she wanted in business by flirting. A rare mistake. Now she was going to have to work twice as hard to convince him otherwise. ‘At the right price I could be very interested, although on this occasion,’ she added, ‘I won’t be paying in cash and will definitely require a receipt.’

      Sorrel heard the words, knew they had come from her mouth, but still didn’t believe it. She didn’t make snap decisions. She planned things through, carefully assessed the potential, worked out the cost-benefit ratio. And always talked to her financial advisor before making any decision that would affect her carefully constructed five-year plan.

      Not that she had to talk to Graeme to know exactly what he would say.

      The words ‘do not touch’ and ‘bargepole’ would be closely linked, followed by a silence filled with an unspoken ‘I told you so’. He had never approved of Ria.

      Maybe, if she laughed, Alexander West would think she’d been joking.

      ‘You’re a fast learner,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that.’

      Too late.

      ‘How generous.’ Possibly. Of course, it could have been sarcasm since he wasn’t excited enough by her interest to do more than lean a little more heavily against the freezer. For a man whose aim in life was to keep moving, he certainly didn’t believe in wasting energy. Presumably his exploration was confined to the local bars set beneath palm trees on those lovely beaches.

      ‘What kind of figure were you thinking of offering?’ he asked.

      Thinking? This was not her day for thinking...

      ‘I’ll need to see the accounts before I’m prepared to talk about an offer,’ she said, her brain beginning to catch up with her mouth. ‘How long is the lease? Do you know?’

      ‘It’s not transferable. You’d have to negotiate a new lease with the landlord.’

      ‘Oh...’ She was surprised he knew that, but then it had been that kind of day. Full of surprises. None of them, so far, good. ‘No doubt he’ll take the opportunity to increase the rent. They’ve been low at this end of the High Street but footfall has picked up in the last couple of years.’ There had been a major improvement project with an influx of small specialist shops attracting shoppers who were looking for something different and were prepared to pay for quality. Knickerbocker Gloria had been a vanguard of that movement and had done well out of it. Very well. Which made the sudden collapse all the more surprising. ‘No doubt he’ll want to take advantage of that.’

      ‘It’s taken a lot of money to improve this part of the town. He’s entitled to reap the benefit, don’t you think?’

      ‘I suppose so. Who is the landlord?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

      ‘Yes.’ The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction. ‘I am.’

      With her entire focus centred on the tiny crease that formed as the embryonic smile took form, grew into a teasing quirk, her certainty on the putty question was undermined by a distinct slackening around her knees and it took a moment for his words to sink in.

      He was...

      What?

      ‘Oh...Knickerbocker Gloria...’ She pulled a face. ‘So that’s my