had the presentation in his head. He had time to spare to calm down and clear his head before facing one of the greatest challenges in his life. Bring it on.
Ten minutes later Rick turned the corner towards the address that Angie had given him, his hands in the trouser pockets of his designer denims and the breeze at his back.
A flock of pigeons swooped down in front of him into the tall oak and London plane trees which filled the small residential square. Families and dog walkers flittered between ornamental flower beds and wooden benches in the broken sunshine. On the face of it, just another quiet city square.
But one thing was certain, in the crazy world that was his life—you never knew what to expect.
Like now, for example.
It wasn’t every day that you saw an executive secretary having a row with a delivery driver in the middle of a prestigious London street, but it certainly made a change from dodging tiny dogs on glittery leads. Even if the pretty girls on the other end of those leads had been trying to catch his eye.
Rick slowed his steps.
He needed to take some time out before facing an incredulous wine buyer around a conference table in some soulless, stuffy meeting room. Or the first person to mention the words ‘dead man’s shoes’ would end up being decked, which would be a seriously bad move in more ways than one.
This was a far more entertaining option.
His girl was standing with her pretty hands splayed out on both hips and she was definitely a secretary but an executive one.
She was wearing a slim-fitting skirt suit in that strange shade of grey which his mother liked, but had never clinched a tiny waist with a cream coloured sash. He could just make out the tiny band of cream fabric at the cuffs of the jacket. Her long, sleek sandy coloured hair was gathered into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck.
Her very lovely long, smooth neck.
Now that was a neck he could look at all day.
As he watched, the shorter older man in the overalls who she was talking to in a low, patient, but very assertive voice, which reminded him of his junior school headmistress, suddenly shrugged, gave her a ‘nothing to do with me’ flick of both hands, jumped into a white delivery van and drove off, leaving the city girl standing on the pavement, watching the tail lights of the van disappear around the corner.
She stood frozen to the spot for a few seconds, her mouth slightly open, and then turned to glare at a pair of large shiny navy blue ceramic pots which were standing next to her on the pavement.
A five feet tall cone of what looked to Rick like a green cypress tree spilled out over the top of each planter then whirled upwards in some deformed mutant spiral shape which had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with so-called style.
Rick looked at the two plants and then back to the girl, who had started to pace up and down the pavement in platform high heeled slingback shoes, which most of the girls at his mother’s office back in California seemed to wear.
Not exactly the best footwear for moving heavy pots.
But they certainly did the trick when it came the highlighting a pair of gorgeous legs with shapely ankles.
So what if he was a leg man and proud? And she had brightened up his morning.
He could make time for some excellent distraction activity.
‘Good morning,’ he said in a bright casual voice. ‘Do you need some help with those?’
Her feet kept walking up and down. ‘Do you have a trolley handy?’
He patted his pockets. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Then thank you but no.’ She nodded, then stopped and stared at the huge plants, with the fingers of one hand pressed against her forehead as though she was trying to come up with a solution.
‘Good thing it’s not raining.’ He smiled. ‘In fact it is turning out to be a lovely September morning.’
Her head slowly turned towards him and Rick was punched straight in the jaw by a pair of the most stunning pale blue eyes that he had ever seen. The colour of the sky over Mont Blanc at dawn. Wild cornflowers in an alpine meadow.
Dark eyelashes clashed against the creamy clear complexion and high elegant cheekbones. Full-blown lips were outlined in a delicious shade of blush lipstick, and as she gawped at him a faint white smile caught him by surprise.
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ She blinked. ‘But, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to find some way of moving these plants—’ she flung the flat edge of her hand towards the nearest plant and almost knocked it flying ‘—from the pavement into my porch and some time in the next ten minutes would be good.’
‘The delivery driver?’ he asked casually.
She sniffed and closed her eyes, teeth gritted tight together, then lifted her chin and smiled. ‘Bad back. Not part of his job description. Just delivery to the kerbside.’ Her voice lifted into a slightly hysterical giggle. ‘Apparently he was expecting a team of porters to be all ready and waiting. Porters! As if I could afford porters. Unbelievable.’
‘Ah. I understand completely,’ Rick replied, nodding slowly and scratching his chin, which seemed rather stubblier than he had expected. ‘May I make a suggestion?’
She glanced up at him through her eyelashes as she pulled out a cellphone, and sighed out loud. ‘Thank you again, but I can manage very well on my own and I am sure that you have some urgent business to attend to. Somewhere else. In the meantime, I need to call a burly bloke moving company. So good morning and have a nice day.’
Rick chuckled under his breath. It was not often that pretty girls gave him the brush-off and maybe a city girl had reasons to be cautious.
‘Did your mother tell you not to talk to strangers? Relax. I can spare five minutes to help a lady in distress.’
Her fingers paused and she glared up at him, her eyebrows lifted in disbelief. ‘Distress?’ There was just enough amusement in her voice to make him take one step forward, but she instantly held up a hand. ‘You are mistaken. I am not in distress. I don’t do distress. I have never done distress, and I have no intention of starting now. Look.’ She popped her phone in her jacket pocket and gingerly wrapped her fingertips around the edge of a pot. And tried to lift it an inch closer.
The pot did not move and she threw a single glance up at him, daring him to say something, but he simply smiled, which seemed to infuriate her even more.
This time she squared her shoulders, gritted her teeth and bent slightly at the knees to go at it again. The pot wobbled slightly then shuddered back to the ground as she hissed in disbelief and stood back with a look on her face as though she wanted to kick the pot hard.
Rick had seen enough. He stepped forward and gently took her arm. ‘No need for that. You have all the lifting power you need right here. It’s a simple matter of leverage.’
‘Leverage!’ She laughed and nodded. ‘In these shoes? I don’t think so.’
‘I could move those pots for you. No problem.’
Biting down on her lower lip, the suit looked up at him and he could feel her gaze take in his new Italian boots, denims and leather biker jacket, slowly inching its way up his body until their eyes locked.
And stayed locked.
He watched her expression change as she mentally jostled between necessity and asking for help, which was clearly something she didn’t like to do.
Necessity won.
Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips before she lifted her chin and asked, ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’