reminded him of the horrendous circumstances surrounding his beloved uncle’s death and now the prospect of having to care for his three-year-old son was bringing up even worse memories. His mother. His father. His brother.
With ruthless determination Leo banished his memories and refocused on the one thing he could trust. Work.
He turned back to Danny. ‘What’s happening with the Thessaly ethanol plant?’
‘So, you still haven’t said. Are you going to Paris this weekend with Simon, or not?’
Lexi stopped trying to put the wheel back on a broken toy truck and looked over at her best friend and business partner, Aimee Madigan.
Aimee had one eye on the group of kids enjoying free play at the Little Angels childcare centre they had started together two years ago and the other on the yarn she was carefully winding back into a ball. ‘And please don’t tell me you have to work,’ her friend added with a sense of resigned certainty.
Lexi grimaced. She was supposed to be heading to Paris for the long weekend with a guy she’d been seeing casually for two months. And no doubt Simon would expect their relationship to advance to the next stage—sex—but Lexi wasn’t convinced that was such a good idea.
She had let herself be worn down by a man’s pursuit once before and the experience still left a bitter taste in her mouth. Only she didn’t really want to be worn down. The truth was, her life was wonderful as it was; she’d let herself be weakened once before by a man’s pursuit and the experience still left a bitter taste in her mouth. ‘You know the second centre is at a crucial stage of the planning. If I don’t get the loan approved in the next week or so, we won’t have one.’
‘I take it things didn’t go so well then with Darth Vader this morning?’
Lexi grinned at Aimee’s use of the pet moniker they had attributed to their hard-nosed bank manager and tried not to feel despondent. ‘He’s still got some concerns about how much the renovations are costing and some aspects of the business plan.’
‘I wish I could help you.’
Lexi shook her head. ‘This is my area of the business and you do enough around here. I’ll sort it somehow.’
Aimee stopped winding her wool and looked at Lexi as if she’d just had a great idea. ‘I know, maybe you could do that somewhere between the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre,’ she suggested, only half tongue-in-cheek.
‘Oh, yeah, I’m sure Simon would really love that!’ Lexi laughed.
‘Well, he is shelling out for The Ritz so it seems a shame to miss it altogether. And he does seem very nice.’
‘He is,’ Lexi replied, wishing Aimee would let the topic drop.
‘Lex, you’re still using work as an excuse to avoid having a proper relationship with a man,’ Aimee reproved.
Lexi scraped her finger on the toy car. ‘Ow, damn.’ She sucked the scratch and tried to keep her answer light and simple. ‘Maybe I just haven’t met the love of my life yet.’
‘And you won’t with the amount of hours you spend here.’
‘I’m happy.’
‘Not every man is an immature skunk like Brandon, Lex, and it has been four years.’
Lexi pulled a face. She’d been best friends with Aimee since high school and she knew her friend had her best interests at heart. And she also knew Aimee was right, but Brandon’s betrayal had echoed that of her father’s just a little too closely and Lexi wasn’t at all sure she was willing to risk her heart again any time soon.
‘I know that,’ she said on a sigh. And she did. But even thinking about having a relationship brought up all her old insecurities and the truth, which she was far too embarrassed to ever admit to anyone—including Aimee—was that she wasn’t great at sex. Wasn’t overly sexual at all. Which, if she was being completely honest, was the main reason she didn’t want to go to Paris. That and the fact that she didn’t actually want to have sex with Simon. But admitting that made her feel as if there was something wrong with her.
And maybe there was … Wasn’t that what Brandon had implied?
She walked over to give the truck back to the three-year-old who had broken it. ‘Here you go, Jake. Just be a bit more careful when you play with it this time.’ She scanned the group and didn’t even hear the high-pitched sounds of kids digging to China in the sandpit and chasing each other around the various climbing frames during their free play session. It was getting towards the end of the day and half the kids had already been collected. Her eyes fell on Ty Weston playing quietly by himself hammering at the small wooden table, and her heart gripped a little.
Professionally, Lexi would never admit to having a favourite at the centre, but personally she and Ty had clicked. Had done from the moment he’d joined the centre as a runty one-year-old. Small for his age back then, he was now veering on the taller end of the scale for three.
‘You know,’ Aimee began almost tentatively when Lexi picked up another tangled ball of wool and started winding it, ‘we could always ditch the idea of the second childcare centre.’
‘What?’ Lexi was genuinely shocked by Aimee’s suggestion. This was their dream and the area of London they were planning to open their new centre was in desperate need of decent childcare. ‘I can’t believe you would say that after all we’ve put into it. And I have no intention of quitting just because my love life is suffering and because we’ve had a few setbacks.’
‘Lex, you don’t have a love life and we’re paying rent on an empty building that’s nowhere near finished. Maybe you need to give up on the idea of us becoming the saviour of the childcare world.’
Fortunately for Aimee, Lexi didn’t get a chance to respond to that because one of their co-workers interrupted them.
‘Excuse me, Lexi.’
Lexi turned as Tina stepped through the double glass doorway leading into the main room.
‘What is it, Tina?’
Tina grinned. ‘There’s a hot guy wanting to pick up Ty Weston but I don’t know who he is.’
Hot guy? Probably a model, Lexi thought dismissively.
‘His mother is supposed to be collecting him tonight,’ Lexi said. But she wouldn’t be surprised if the flaky Amanda Weston had forgotten. The woman didn’t seem to care about her son and ever since her mother, Ty’s grandmother and main carer, had passed away two weeks ago, Amanda had become even worse. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Didn’t say.’ Tina waggled her eyebrows. ‘But I think he might be a movie star.’
Lexi laughed at Tina’s stage whisper.
‘I’ll be sure to get his autograph for you,’ she whispered back.
‘Forget the autograph. Just let him know I’m single.’
‘How do you know he is?’ Lexi countered.
Tina raised her left hand. ‘No rings.’
‘Maybe I should go,’ Aimee interrupted gravely. ‘This sounds serious.’
Lexi rolled her eyes and swiped her hands down her grubby peasant skirt. ‘Yeah, I’m sure Todd would love that! Watch Ty for me, can you? He’s been a bit fragile lately.’
She stepped inside the softly lit main room and noticed the outline of a tall, broad-shouldered man just visible through the window into her office. A sense of trepidation settled in her stomach at the very stillness he seemed to project through the glass.
Telling herself not to be dramatic, Lexi straightened her shoulders and opened the door to her office, stopping short when possibly the most divine-looking man she had ever seen turned to face her.
Hot