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‘I’m just not good at relationships. It feels like a risk,’ Nicole told him.
‘You took risks all the time at the bank. You’re taking a risk now on the Electric Palace.’
‘Those were all calculated risks,’ she pointed out. ‘This isn’t something I can calculate.’
‘Me, neither. But I like you, Nicole. I like you a lot. And I think if we’re both brave we might just have the chance to have something really special.’
‘I’m not sure how brave I am,’ she admitted.
‘It’s harder to be brave on your own. But you’re not on your own, Nicole. We’re in this together.’
Falling for the Secret Millionaire
Kate Hardy
KATE HARDY always loved books and could read before she went to school. She discovered Mills & Boon books when she was twelve and decided this was what she wanted to do. When she isn’t writing, Kate enjoys reading, cinema, ballroom dancing and the gym. You can contact her via her website: www.katehardy.com.
For my friend Sherry Lane, with love (and thanks for not minding me sneaking research stuff into our trips out with the girls!). xxx
Contents
‘ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, Miss Thomas?’ the lawyer asked.
‘Fine, thank you,’ Nicole fibbed. She was still trying to get her head round the news. The grandfather she’d never met—the man who’d thrown her mother out on the street when he’d discovered that she was pregnant with Nicole and the father had no intention of marrying her—had died and left Nicole a cinema in his will.
A run-down cinema, from the sounds of it; the solicitor had told her that the place had been closed for the last five years. But, instead of leaving the place to benefit a charity or someone in the family he was still speaking to, Brian Thomas had left the cinema to her: to the grandchild he’d rejected before she’d even been born.
Why?
Guilt, because he knew he’d behaved badly and should’ve been much more supportive to his only daughter? But, if he’d wanted to make amends, surely he would’ve left the cinema to Nicole’s mother? Or was this his way to try to drive a wedge between Susan and Nicole?
Nicole shook herself. Clearly she’d been working in banking for too long, to be this cynical about a stranger’s motivations.
‘It’s actually not that far from where you live,’ the solicitor continued. ‘It’s in Surrey Quays.’
Suddenly Nicole knew exactly what and where the cinema was. ‘You mean the old Electric Palace on Mortimer Gardens?’
‘You know it?’ He looked surprised.
‘I walk past it every day on my way to work,’ she said. In the three years she’d been living in Surrey Quays, she’d always thought the old cinema a gorgeous building, and it was a shame that the place was neglected and boarded up. She hadn’t had a clue that the cinema had any connection with her at all. Though there was a local history thread in the Surrey Quays forum—the local community website she’d joined when she’d first moved to her flat in Docklands—which included several posts about the Electric Palace’s past. Someone had suggested setting up a volunteer group to get the cinema back up and running again, except nobody knew who owned it.
Nicole had the answer to that now. She was the new owner of the Electric Palace. And it was the last thing she’d ever expected.
‘So you know what you’re taking on, then,’ the solicitor said brightly.
Taking on? She hadn’t even decided whether to accept the bequest yet, let alone what she was going to do with it.
‘Or,’ the solicitor continued, ‘if you don’t want to take it on, there is another option. A local development company has been in touch with us, expressing interest in buying the site, should you wish to sell. It’s a fair offer.’
‘I need a little time to think this through before I make any decisions,’ Nicole said.
‘Of course, Miss Thomas. That’s very sensible.’
Nicole smiled politely, though she itched to remind the solicitor that she was twenty-eight years old, not eight. She wasn’t a naive schoolgirl, either: she’d worked her way up from the bottom rung of the ladder to become a manager in an investment bank. Sensible was her default setting. Was it not obvious from her tailored business suit and low-heeled shoes, and in the way she wore her hair pinned back for work?
‘Now, the keys.’ He handed her a bunch of ancient-looking keys. ‘We will of course need time to alter the deeds, should you decide to keep it. Otherwise we can handle the conveyancing of the property, should you decide to sell to the developer or to someone else. We’ll wait for your instructions.’
‘Thank you,’ Nicole said, sliding the keys into her handbag. She still couldn’t quite believe she owned the Electric Palace.
‘Thank you for coming in to see us,’ the solicitor continued. ‘We’ll be in touch with the paperwork.’
She