Her Client from Hell (3 page)

Something pricked at the back of her eyes. She squeezed them closed. Oh, for goodness’ sake, no tears.

When she opened them again he was still staring at her. Just staring, with a niggly frown dancing across his forehead.

After that outburst he was bound to go, but it felt strangely good to get it off her chest. Even to a grumpy stranger who clearly thought she was mad.

His head cocked to one side as he sat down again and indicated for her to do the same. ‘You can’t hire someone? A bookkeeper? An admin assistant?’

Besides the fact she had no desire to hand over her precious business management to someone else again, she had no cash for even part-time wages. ‘Not unless I can pay them in doughnuts.’

‘I hear they’re considered legal tender in some parts of the world. Or at least they should be.’

He could joke too at a time like this? So maybe he was human after all. Surprising. Nice, actually. A glimpse of another side to him—something softer. Definitely more that she was intrigued by. Dammit.

She raised her glass to him and noted her hand was still trembling. ‘Unfortunately, man cannot live by doughnuts alone.’

‘No, I suppose not. But it would be interesting to try. For a day or two.’ He picked up his glass and his hand brushed against hers. At the contact their eyes met for a beat, two. His gaze roved her face, her mouth, then dipped to her throat. Lower. And heat intensified in all the places he looked at. Unexpected. Inconvenient.

And something simmered there in his gaze too.

She pulled her hand away, reframing her thinking. She needed to get out of here quick sharp. She’d exposed her soul to him and now she was thinking strange thoughts. Was it hot out here? No, she was hot inside. ‘So, take these menus to Lizzie. Show her. Discuss them with her. Tell her I’m more than happy to make other suggestions. I’d love to know what she thinks and to meet her, and the groom. Then, when you’re done showing her, call me and we can talk further.’

‘No.’ He shook his head, his hand reaching out to her wrist, but she stepped back before he reached it. No more skin-on-skin action needed, thank you. ‘I need to have this sorted. I’m away in Reykjavik next week, and after that it’s getting far too close. I need certainties and decisions.’

‘Well, like you, I have no time to waste and I am trying to be fair and honest with you.’ Cassie sighed, projecting a calm that she didn’t feel. ‘She may insist she’s going to do it herself; it may be her lifelong dream to do it—who knows? She’s probably already started prepping and freezing things, then all this talk here with you is a complete waste of time.’

‘Really? You think so?’ He looked at her again and something zipped between them.

Under his searching gaze, Cassie felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. For some reason his intensity slammed up against her resolve and threatened it. Luckily, Frankie arrived with the food. She hoped that would be enough to distract her from Jack Brennan’s dark eyes and even darker voice—although she seriously doubted it.

THREE

So he’d been
sucked in by a bleeding heart and a pretty face. Not for the first time and probably not the last.

No. Definitely the last. Jack didn’t usually allow himself to be carried away by a sob story—unless it was for work, in which case it was the soppier the better; soppy made damned good TV. Soppy falling headlong into breakdown turned compelling into a road crash—the ratings always peaked. Great for his career, but out of bounds for his personal life.

But those big wide eyes and the crack in her voice had tugged at something deep inside him. He knew exactly what it was like to have someone steal his dreams. Time and again—and always just as he started believing they might finally come true.

So he’d stopped making dreams, simple as that. He’d clamped down on any kind of wishful hope that he was important enough for anyone to care about. Buried himself in study and work and stayed away from deep and dangerous, too burnt to foster anything more than a flimsy connection that he could break before someone else did.

But Cassie deserved a break. Right? And that was easy enough to do. So why did he feel as if he’d made a huge mistake just sitting here?

She looked a little nervous as she spoke between mouthfuls of the best taco shells he’d ever tasted.

Less hysterical, but nervous. ‘Does your sister know about the car and the photographer?’

He wondered just how much more to tell her and decided to give her the basics. ‘She wasn’t going to have any frills. Friends are taking photos and she asked me to drive her to the venue in my car. She’s a struggling artist marrying an equally struggling musician. They don’t have cash to throw around; they can barely make the weekly rent. She’s also a self-taught cook, and pretty bad, never having anyone to show her how to do these things growing up. But you try telling a woman that. Chances are she’ll give everyone botulism.’

‘I imagine the closest she’ll get to hurting anyone would be killing you when she finds out about all this.’ Cassie’s brow furrowed into tiny lines. ‘Provocation. Any jury would let her off.’

He ignored her little joke. ‘Look, I want to give her the magical day she always talked about growing up—the whole meringue dress and rose petals shindig. But I’d like to get to the end of it without a trip to the emergency department or fending off an insurance claim.’

The frown deepened. ‘Are you always this negative?’

Negative? Him? ‘You don’t know my sister. I prefer to see it as realistic. Plan for the worst, and so on.’

‘And hope for what? The saying is: plan for the worst and hope for the best, right?’ She pierced him with those eyes.

Hope that this marriage-fest would be over soon and he could get on with his life, guilt-free.

He watched Cassie take a long slow lick of a drip down the side of her hand and swallow the coriander and minty goodness. The way her tongue dipped across her suntanned flesh, the curl of a lock of hair framing her face, the light in her eyes as she caught him watching—a guilty twinkle.
God.

His groin tightened.

Hope for what, indeed? A taste of her?

What? No way. No way. Na-ah. Pretty, yes. Attractive, even. But more than looking he couldn’t—wouldn’t—contemplate.

He ignored it. Tried to ignore it. Tried, too, to shake off the unnerving feeling that when she looked at him she saw a whole lot more than he wanted her to see.

Luckily, he was heading to Iceland tomorrow afternoon. The great thing about his job was that he was never anywhere for long. Guaranteed to stop any kind of meshing of minds. Meshing of bodies he could do—that didn’t take too much investment. ‘Hope that I can find a caterer who cuts me a bit of slack and stops talking in a foreign language about food stations.’

At this her eyes twinkled some more. ‘My mum used to say that often things you’re looking for are right in front of you. Which is usually the case for me—things I want are way too often in front of me, in a shop window display begging to be bought. Now, talking of mothers, what about the mother-of-the-bride? Is she likely to want to give her opinion too? Father?’

He felt his shoulders snap up at the mention of the woman who’d given birth to him and his sister, the blackness that filled that corner of his heart. She’d been no mother. Or the subsequent string of women who’d tried in vain to create the one thing he’d craved but had always had ripped away. Connection. Connection—like Lizzie was trying to create with Callum. He felt the blackness rise—that would mean putting his heart on the line again. No way. ‘It’s just the two of us.’

Pink patches took up residence on her cheeks, seeping down her neck in a rush. ‘Oh. Okay. I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped—’

‘Don’t be. Now, are we done here?’ He waved a pen-scribble action towards the door and a waiter nodded and disappeared for the bill. He needed space.

‘I guess.’ She looked a little put out at his brutal tone, and it might have been easy to clear the air—easy, maybe, for someone else. But hearts on sleeves was messy. Messy wasn’t his thing.

While they waited for the bill he searched for something uncontroversial to cut through the heavy silence. Which was, after all, his fault. ‘So what made you go into catering?’

‘You mean my sister didn’t give you the low-down of my life already?’

‘Your sister’s pretty protective where you’re concerned.’

‘She’s lovely and everything, just sometimes a little stifling.’ Fiddling with her bag, Cassie gave a gentle smile. ‘Make that a lot stifling. Like you, maybe? With Lizzie?’

He felt the guilt shimmer through him. ‘No. I don’t stifle; it’s hard to stifle when you’re not even in the same country for most of the year. I’m always on the road shooting or editing. I’m not here enough, so she tells me. But I was asking about you and your career choice.’

Hell, he didn’t need to have his relationships analysed. He knew he was bad at them. That was what this whole wedding food thing was about—making amends. Being the better guy. The better brother. Trying to create a happy medium between work and life. Instead of work and work...and work. Which until now had
been
his life.

Cassie shrugged her delicate shoulders as another curl fell from the chopsticks. And now his imagination ran riot with a few too many scenarios of that vivid red spilling over his bed, his back...

Whoa. Not a good idea.

She carried on chatting in her sing-song voice. ‘Bottom line—I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school so I dabbled in a few things, none of them particularly successful, but everything came back to how much I loved food. Eating, cooking, and I get a kick out of making food for other people to enjoy. My mum said it was my nurturing side. My sisters think it’s all about the praise and attention.
Oh, such amazing flavours, Cassie...what adorable presentation, Cassie...you’re so clever, Cassie
... And you’ve got to admit, you can’t beat a bit of adulation, right? Mr Award-winning Film-man.’

‘I’m more proud about the films than the awards. It’s the craft I love, not the praise. The interesting and sometimes reluctant subjects...’

Her laugh rang through the evening air. ‘My shy sister, a subject. She’d love that idea. Not. I can’t believe you persuaded her to even be in one of your films.’

‘It was for a good cause. They wanted to promote their charity work. Seemed a good trade-off for a fly-on-the-wall of their lives.’

In all his conversations with Sasha she’d missed out a lot of details. Like Cassie’s hotness. Her irritating habit of telling people how to live their lives. Her scattiness. The humour.
The hotness
. ‘She was definitely one of my more challenging interviewees. I had to work hard to get information out of her. But now I know a little about her life, about your dad.’

‘Oh. Right. My dad? My dad.’ Cassie swallowed her shock, but her eyes widened. ‘You just come out and say it. Like that? Most people tiptoe...no, actually, most people don’t mention it at all. Is that your media thing? Catch her off guard, throw in a curveball?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘Are there hidden cameras?’

‘Not at all.’ He almost laughed at the thought. The stiffening of her back and the eye contact dodge wasn’t lost on him, though; clearly, this was a subject she wasn’t comfortable discussing. And who could blame her? He hadn’t meant to stray into such difficult territory. And now he was here he didn’t know how to reverse.

Her voice rose again. ‘Wow. Well, that’s another skeleton out of the cupboard then, but I think everyone knows that story now—it was front page for long enough. Your direct approach doesn’t surprise me, though, Mr Brennan. Nor does it affect me—if that was your intention.’

Liar. She was a tight bundle of gelignite that looked about to explode at any moment.

Her father’s betrayal by his business partner and subsequent suicide had been pretty high profile; it hadn’t been hard for Jack to delve deeply enough to find that out. The effects on her family had been long-term and damaging. Not least that the Sweet sisters struggled to give trust easily—Sasha had been definitive about that.

So whatever had happened between Cassie and her ex business partner must have added deeply to her sense of mistrust. No wonder she was like a hot potato dancing in embers trying to make her business a success. She needed something to believe in. To make something hers. Just hers. ‘I’m sorry, really. Wrong subject?’

‘Understatement of the year. Seems we both have private things we don’t like to discuss during a
business
meeting, Mr Brennan. I asked you about family because it was relevant. I’m not sure at all why you asked about mine. Now, where’s that bill got to?’ Scraping her chair back, she stood, shot him a wavering business smile and scooted to the door.

* * *

After a debate during which they agreed to split the bill—at her absolute insistence—Jack walked Cassie out on to the busy street. The bare skin on her arms shone in the street light. He’d never really noticed a woman’s skin before, unless it was in front of his camera lens. Or the depth of blue in their eyes. Eyes that darkened to navy with anger, that glittered like a shimmering ocean when she laughed. And now he was thinking like a pathetic poet. While pure irritation shimmered through her.

‘Do you want to get a cab, Cassie? I could drop you off.’

‘No, thanks. I’ll walk. Saves cash and the environment. Look, there’s a taxi coming now—you want it?’ She raised her hand to the oncoming black cab. It slowed towards them. ‘I presume you’ll call me when you’ve spoken to Lizzie?’

‘Of course.’ He’d been wrong about her. He’d thought the scattiness and the sensitivity were signs of weakness. But they were a sideshow. She had steel in that ramrod back and a streak of determination that bordered on reckless.

Nevertheless, he still seriously doubted she could pull off a decent wedding dinner without some sort of major mishap. The jury was still out on whether to take a risk and hire her.

Still, he wasn’t prepared to allow her to walk the London streets on her own in the dark. She might not like it, but that wasn’t under debate. He waved the cab on. ‘Nah, it’s okay. I’ll walk too. You’re on my way.’

‘I’m further down Holland Park Avenue than you and then a little way off the main drag.’

‘You’re only a short detour.’

Her hand slipped to her hip. ‘Seriously, I’m fine. I do this all the time.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t.’ Could she not listen? He knew these streets. He would not let any woman walk home alone. He’d spent far too much time fighting for survival in the adjacent neighbourhood to know the dangers. ‘It’s not safe. I said I’ll walk you.’

‘Stifling much?’ He didn’t need to see her face to know she was rolling her eyes, and the thought of it amused him. ‘It’s fine, Mr Macho. I use knives for a living, remember? I know how to gut and bone and de-vein just about anything that moves. What’ll you do?’ Her eyes flicked to his jeans pocket. ‘Wallet an attacker to death?’

‘What do you know? I have black belt wallet ninja skills.’ And a working knowledge of street fighting. Because he’d had to learn the hard way. Wrong kid, wrong street, wrong background. Every single time. Shifted from pillar to post. From house to house. His face had rarely fitted and he’d had to fight his way out of too many arguments.

But all she saw was a successful film-maker who had butted into his sister’s wedding plans. Good. Because the less she knew about him the better. The past might have shaped him, but he didn’t ever let it impinge on how he lived his life now.

At least that was what he told himself.

Cassie shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I don’t need a bodyguard but keep up, I’ve got sums to do when I get home and I want a good sleep because I have an early meeting tomorrow. I don’t have time to wait for stragglers.’ Laughing, she wrapped a cream shawl around her shoulders and kept a brisk pace as they descended the hill towards Holland Park. This was no evening stroll for romantics. Not that he would ever use his name and the word
romantic
in the same breath.

He met her step for step. Too easy for a man who ran marathons to keep flab and feelings at bay. ‘So the personal chef gig—why did you choose that instead of opening your own place?’

‘Are you still here?’ She increased her pace past the still open shops and overflowing pubs. He wondered if she ever stopped. Just stopped. A fleeting image of her, slick and spent on his bed, flickered in his mind. Her eyes closed, body soft against his sheets, slow deep breathing. Relaxed. Still.

Sometimes being a film-maker played havoc with his sanity—he saw too many things in fast flickering images in his brain. Zooming in could be a pleasure and a curse. Right now, the latter.

She kept right on chattering, the tension from the café dissipated. Or it could have been that she was trying to keep him on side; it was no secret she needed his money, the job. So he supposedly had the upper hand. If only he could see it through the fog of chaos she created.

‘This way I get to meet my clients in a more intimate environment, much preferable to working in a hot, noisy restaurant. Probably like you and your documentaries? You get the best out of people when there’s less of a crowd, right?’