Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

CHAPTER FOUR

ANNIE hadn’t been aware of holding her breath, but the minute the back door closed she covered her hot cheeks with her hands and let out something very close to a, ‘Whew.’

That had been intense.

She appeared to have got away with it, though. For now, at any rate. And she hadn’t told any outright lies, just left George to answer his own questions. A bit of a grey area, no doubt, but she was sure he’d rather not know the truth and twenty-four hours from now she’d be miles away from Maybridge with no harm done.

The cat leapt from the chair as she crossed to the fridge, chirruping hopefully as it nuzzled its head against her ankle.

‘Hello, puss. Are you hungry too?’

She poured a little milk into a bowl, then sat back on her heels, watching the cat lap it up.

‘Trouble,’ she said, grinning in spite of everything that had happened. ‘He said I was trouble. Do you know, puss, that’s the very first time anyone has ever looked at me and thought “trouble”.’ The cat looked up, milk clinging to its muzzle, and responded with a purr. ‘I know,’ Annie said. ‘It is immensely cheering. Almost worth wrecking Lydia’s car for.’ Then, since the cat made a very good listener, ‘Tell me, would you describe George Saxon as a likely beach bum?’

The cat, stretching out its tongue to lick the last drop from its whiskers, appeared to shake its head.

‘No, I didn’t think so, either.’

Surely ‘laid-back’ was the very definition of beach-bum-hood, while George Saxon was, without doubt, the most intense man she’d ever met.

With Xandra on his case, she suspected, he had quite a lot to be intense about, although if he really was an absentee father he undoubtedly deserved it. And what was all that about closing down the garage? How could he do that while his own father was in hospital? It was utterly appalling-and a private family matter that was absolutely none of her business, she reminded herself.

She just wanted to get the car fixed and get back on the road. Take in the sights, go shopping unrecognised. But, despite Xandra’s build-up and her assurance that she wouldn’t miss it, she’d be giving the Maybridge Christmas market a wide berth.

Less ho, ho, ho…More no, no, no…

The thought made her feel oddly guilty. As if she’d somehow let the girl down. Which was stupid. If it hadn’t been for Xandra, she would have been picked up by some other mechanic who wouldn’t have given her nearly as much grief.

A man without the careless arrogance that was guaranteed to rouse any woman with an ounce of spirit to a reckless response. One who wouldn’t have held her in a way that made her feel like a woman instead of a piece of porcelain.

Someone polite, who would not have made uncomplimentary comments about her driving, but would have promised to deliver her car in full working order the next day because that was on the customer relations script he’d learned on his first day on the job.

In other words, all the things that she wanted to get away from.

Whatever else George was, he certainly didn’t follow a script. And locking horns with a man who didn’t know he was supposed to show due deference to the nation’s sweetheart was a lot more interesting than being holed up in a budget hotel room with only the television remote for company.

For all his faults, George Saxon did have one thing in his favour-he was the complete opposite of Rupert Devenish, a man who had never rated a single ‘whew’. Not from her, anyway.

There was nothing textbook about George.

Okay, so he was tall, with shoulders wide enough to fill a doorway-no doubt like the lines carved into his cheeks, around those penetrating grey eyes, they came from hard use.

And he was dark.

But he wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, classically handsome. On the contrary, his face had a lived-in quality and there was enough stubble on his chin to suggest a certain laissez-faire attitude to his appearance. He certainly wasn’t a man to wait for some woman to pluck him off the ‘ideal husband’ shelf, she thought. More the kind who, when he saw what he wanted, would act like a caveman.

The thought, which was supposed to make her smile, instead prompted the proverbial ripple down her spine. Something which, until today, she’d foolishly imagined to be no more than a figure of speech.

He was, by any standard, anything but ideal and she had the strongest feeling that her wisest course of action would be to make his day and get out of there, fast.

But, then again, why would she when, for the purposes of this adventure, he could almost have been made to order.

Exciting, annoying, disturbing.

She’d wanted to be disturbed, jolted out of her rut. Wanted to be excited and, maybe, just a little bit reckless.

She swallowed as she considered what being reckless with George Saxon would entail.

He was right. She should definitely leave. As soon as possible. Not because the idea appalled her. On the contrary, it was much too excitingly disturbing, recklessly appealing and she’d call a taxi to take her to the motel.

Just as soon as she’d cooked the hot meal she’d promised them.

Her stomach rumbled at the thought. Lunch had been a very long time ago and she’d been too nervous to eat more than a mouthful of that. Not that she’d eaten much of anything lately, a fact that had been picked up by one of the gossip magazines looking for a new angle. An eating disorder was always good copy.

Now, for the first time in months, she felt genuinely hungry and, leaving the cat to its ablutions, she stood up and returned her attention to the fridge.

It was well stocked with the basics, but it wasn’t just the bacon, eggs, cheese and vegetables that were making her hungry. She’d already seen the large homemade meat pie sitting on the middle shelf, gravy oozing gently from the slit in the centre, just waiting to be slipped into the oven.

Presumably it had been made by George’s mother before she’d left to visit her husband in the hospital. That Xandra knew it was there was obvious from her earlier performance but, anxious to keep her grandfather’s garage functioning, desperate, maybe, to prove herself to her father, she was prepared to take any chance that came her way and she’d grabbed her offer to make dinner for them all with both hands.

Good for her, she thought. If you had a dream you shouldn’t let anyone talk you out of it, or stand in your way. You should go for it with all your heart.

Annie put the pie in the oven, then set about the task of peeling potatoes and carrots. It took her a minute or two to get the hang of the peeler, then, as she bent to her task, the annoying glasses slid down her nose and fell into the sink.

She picked them out of the peelings and left them on the draining board while she finished.

Her only problem then was the vexed question of how long it took potatoes to boil. She’d left her handbag in the car, but she’d put her cellphone in her coat pocket after calling for help. She wiped her hands and dug it out to see what she could find on the Web.

The minute she switched it on she got the ‘message waiting’ icon.

There was a text from Lydia with just a single code word to reassure her that everything had gone exactly according to plan, that she’d reached the airport without problem-or, as she’d put it, being twigged as a ‘ringer’.

Even if they hadn’t agreed that contact between them should be on an emergency-only basis-you never knew who was tuned into a cellphone frequency-she’d still be in the air so she couldn’t call her and tell her everything that had happened, confess to having cut her hair, wrecking her car. Instead, she keyed in the agreed response, confirmation that she, too, was okay, and hit ‘send’.

There was, inevitably, a voicemail from her grandfather asking her to call and let him know when she’d touched down safely. Using any excuse to override her insistence that she wanted to be left completely alone while she was away.

‘You’ll have to call me at King’s Lacey,’ he said. ‘I’m going there tomorrow to start preparations for Christmas.’ Piling on yet more guilt. ‘And the Boxing Day shoot.’

As if he didn’t have a housekeeper, a gamekeeper, a houseful of staff who were perfectly capable of doing all that without him.

‘And of course there’s the Memorial Service. It will be twenty years this year and I want it to be special. You will be home for that?’

It was the unexpected touch of uncertainty in his voice that finally got to her.

‘I’ll be there,’ she murmured to herself, holding the phone to her chest long after the voicemail had ended.

It was twenty years since her parents had died in a hail of gunfire in the week before Christmas and every year she’d relived that terrible intermingling of grief and celebration that made the season an annual misery.

And worse, much worse, the centuries-old Boxing Day shoot that nothing was allowed to interfere with. Not even that first year. Cancelling it would have been letting her parents’ killers win, her grandfather had said when he’d found her hiding beneath the stairs, hands over her ears in terror as the guns had blasted away.

‘God help me,’ she said again, ‘I’ll be there.’

Then she straightened, refusing to waste another minute dwelling on it. Having come so close to losing this little bit of freedom, she was absolutely determined to make the most of every moment. Even something as simple, as unusual for her, as cooking dinner. But as she clicked to the Net to surf for cooking times, the sound of something hitting the floor made her jump practically out of her skin.

She spun round and saw George Saxon in the doorway, her bag at his feet.

How long had he been there? How much had he heard?

George hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but when he’d opened the door Annie had been half turned from him, so tense, the cellphone so tight to her ear that she hadn’t noticed him and he’d frozen, unable to advance or retreat.

He’d heard her promise to ‘be there’, but the ‘God help me…’ that had followed as she’d clutched the phone to her chest had been so deeply felt that any doubts about the kind of trouble she was in vanished as, for a moment, all control had slipped away and she’d looked simply desolate.

At that moment he’d wanted only to reach out to her, hold her. Which was when he’d dropped her bag at his feet.

And she’d visibly jumped.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Just shatter the spell that she seemed to be weaving around him.

‘You didn’t,’ she said, a little too fiercely. Then blushed at the lie. ‘Well, maybe just a bit.’

She looked down at the cellphone, then crammed it quickly into the back pocket of her jeans. Unlike her clothes or the holdall he’d just brought in from the car, which was definitely from the cheap-and-cheerful, market-stall end of the spectrum, it was the latest in expensive, top-end technology. He had one exactly like it himself and knew how much it had cost. And he wondered what kind of wardrobe she’d left behind in London, along with her driving licence, when she’d made her bid for freedom.

A woman whose partner could afford to employ a security company to keep an eye on her would be dressed from her skin up in designer labels. Silk, linen, cashmere. Would wear fine jewels.

What had he done to her to make her run? If not physical, then mental cruelty because she was running away from him, not to someone. His hands bunched into fists at the thought.

‘I was just catching up on my messages,’ she said.

‘Nothing you wanted to hear, by the look of you.’ For a moment she stared at him as if she wanted to say something, then shook her head. ‘You do know that you can be tracked by your phone signal?’ he asked.

Not that it was any of his business, he reminded himself, forcing his hands to relax.

‘It was only for a minute. I need to know what’s happening.’

Long enough. Who was important enough to her that she’d take the risk? Make that kind of promise?

A child?

No. She’d never have left a child behind.

‘Use some of that money you’ve got stashed away to buy the anonymity of a pay-as-you-go,’ he advised abruptly.

‘I will,’ she said, clearly as anxious as he was to change the subject. Then, lifting her chin, managing a smile, ‘I found a pie in the fridge so I’ve put that in the oven. I hope that’s all right?’

‘A pie?’

‘A meat pie.’

‘Ah…’

A tiny crease puckered the space between her beautifully arched brows.

‘Is that a good “ah” or a bad “ah”?’ she asked. Then, raising her hand to her mouth to display a set of perfectly manicured nails, she said, ‘Please don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.’

‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Have you got something against vegetarians?’

‘No, but…’

‘Relax. You’re safe. What you’ve found is the equivalent of the fatted calf…’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘For the prodigal son.’

‘I’m familiar with the metaphor.’ She regarded him intently. ‘Just how long is it since you’ve been home?’ she asked.

‘A while,’ he said.

Which was why his mother, even with his father in hospital, had taken the time to make him one of her special steak-and-mushroom pies, just as she’d been doing ever since he’d gone away on his first school trip. More to avoid his own sense of guilt than tease her, he said, ‘Judging by your reaction, I suspect we’ve both had something of a narrow escape.’

‘Escape?’ Annie, swiftly recovering from whatever had upset her, placed a hand against her breast in a gesture perfectly calculated to mime shocked surprise and said, ‘Are you suggesting that I can’t cook, Mr Saxon?’

Despite everything, he found himself grinning at her performance. ‘I sensed a lack of conviction in your assurance that you could do better than Xandra.’

‘That was no more than simple modesty,’ she declared.

‘You’ll forgive me if I reserve judgement until I’ve tasted your mashed potatoes.’

‘Mashed?’ The insouciant air vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Is that another favourite?’

‘Food for the gods,’ he assured her. ‘At least it is the way my mother makes it.’

‘Well, I’m not your mother, for which I’m deeply grateful since you appear to be as casual a son as you are a father, but I’ll do my best not to disappoint.’ Then, as he scowled at her, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea how long it takes to boil potatoes?’

Which suggested he’d been right about the narrow escape.

‘Sorry. That’s not my area of expertise.’

‘No?’ She lifted those expressive brows, inviting him to tell her what he was an expert in, then, when he didn’t oblige, she gave a little shrug and said, ‘I don’t suppose there’s a lot of call for potato mashing on the beach.’

‘You know how it is with sand,’ he replied, wondering what kind of woman didn’t know how to cook something as basic as potatoes.

The kind who’d never had to cook, obviously. Or close car doors behind her.

Who the devil was she?

‘It gets in everything?’ she offered. Then, because there really wasn’t anything else to say about potatoes, ‘Thanks for bringing in my bag.’

‘I didn’t make a special journey,’ he said and, irritated with himself for getting drawn into conversation, he took a glass from the dresser and crossed to the sink to fill it.

‘Thirsty work?’ she asked, watching him as he drained it.

‘No matter how much water I drink on long-haul flights, I still seem to get dehydrated.’

‘Excuse me?’

He glanced back at her as he refilled the glass.

‘Are you telling me that you flew from California today?’ she demanded, clearly horrified.

‘Overnight. I slept most of the way,’ he assured her. The first-class sky-bed he could afford these days was a very different experience from his early cattle-class flights.

‘Even so, you shouldn’t be working with machinery. What about Health and Safety?’

‘Goods and Services, Health and Safety? What are you, Annie? A lawyer?’

‘Just a concerned citizen.’

‘Is that so? Well, if you don’t tell, I won’t,’ he replied flippantly, refusing to think about how long it had been since anyone, apart from his mother, had been concerned about him. It was his choice, he reminded himself.

‘I’m serious,’ she said, not in the least bit amused. ‘I wouldn’t forgive myself if you were hurt fixing my car. It can wait until tomorrow.’

‘You’re that concerned?’ Then, because the thought disturbed him more than he liked, ‘Don’t worry, I’m only there in a supervisory capacity. Xandra’s doing all the hard work.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

‘It’s supposed to make you feel grateful,’ he said, determined to put an end to the conversation and get out of there. ‘Since you’re so eager to be on your way.’ Then, as he noticed her glasses lying on the draining board, he frowned. ‘And actually,’ he said thoughtfully as he picked them up and, realising that they were wet and muddy, rinsed them under the tap, ‘I’m hoping a taste of the real thing will encourage her to reconsider a career as a motor mechanic and finish school.’

‘Always a good plan,’ Annie agreed. ‘How old is she?’

‘Sixteen.’

He picked up a dish cloth and, having dried the frames, began to polish the lenses.

‘In that case, she doesn’t have much choice in the matter. She can’t leave school until she’s seventeen.’

‘I know that. You know that. Which may go some way to explain why she went to so much trouble to get herself suspended from her boarding school.’

Annie frowned. ‘She’s at boarding school?’

‘Dower House.’

‘I see.’

She could sympathise with her father’s lack of enthusiasm at her career choice after he’d sent her to one of the most expensive boarding schools in the country. The kind that turned out female captains of industry, politicians, women who changed the world. The school where, two years ago, she’d given the end-of-year address to the girls, had presented the prizes.

She clearly hadn’t made that much of an impression on young Xandra Saxon. Or maybe the haircut was worse than she thought.

‘Obviously she’s not happy there.’

‘I wanted the best for her. I live in the States and, as you may have gathered, her mother is easily distracted. It seems that she’s on honeymoon at the moment.’

‘Her third,’ Annie said, remembering what Xandra had said.

‘Second. We didn’t have one. I was a first-year student with a baby on the way when we got married.’

‘That must have been tough,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t much fun for either of us,’ he admitted. ‘Penny went home to her mother before Xandra was due and she never came back. I don’t blame her. When I wasn’t studying, I was working every hour just to keep us fed and housed. It wasn’t what she’d expected from the son of George Saxon.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

Then, because he clearly didn’t want to talk about it and she didn’t much want to hear about a youthful marriage that appeared never to have had a chance, she said, ‘So, what did she do? Xandra. To get herself suspended.’

‘She borrowed the head’s car and took it for a joyride.’

‘Ouch.’ Sixteen years old, so she wouldn’t have a licence or insurance. That explained a lot. ‘Attention-seeking?’

‘Without much success. Presumably anticipating something of the sort, Penny had the foresight to switch off her cellphone.’

‘Then it’s just as well Xandra has you.’

His smile was of the wry, self-deprecating kind. ‘I’m the last person she’d have called, Annie. Much as I would have wished it otherwise, I’m little more to my daughter than a signature on a cheque.’

‘You think so?’

George held the spectacles up to the light to check, amongst other things, that they were smear-free before looking at Annie.

‘I know so. I’m only here because my father had a heart attack,’ he said, taking a step towards her and, as she looked up, he slipped her spectacles back on her nose, holding them in place for a moment, his thumbs against the cool skin stretched taut over fine cheekbones.

Her lips parted on a tiny gasp but she didn’t protest or pull away from him and for what seemed like an eternity he simply cradled her face.

There was no sound. Nothing moved.

Only the dark centre at the heart of eyes that a man might drown in widened to swallow the dazzling blue. He’d have had to be made of ice to resist such a blatant invitation, but then, according to any number of women he’d known, he was ice to the bone…

‘The first rule of wearing a disguise, Annie…’ he began, touching his lips briefly to hers to prove, if only to himself, that he was immune.

Discovering, too late, that he was not.