flashed a smile at the doorman, who held the heavy glass door open for her, but the frosty look he gave her almost sent her scurrying back outside, where it would be warmer.
With one bound she was inside the impressive building. Shaking off the rain, she looked up and froze, rocking back on her heels, trying to take in what she was looking at.
White marble flooring. Black marble pillars. Tall white orchids in white ceramic bowls shaped like something from a hospital ward. And, in the centre of the reception area, a large sculpture fabricated from steel wire and white plastic hoops hung from the ceiling like an enormous deformed stalactite.
Well, that was one spot she wouldn’t be walking under. If that monstrosity fell on her head, the tea festival would be the least of her problems.
Ha. So the interior did match the outside.
The only warmth in this room was the hot air blasting out from vents high in the walls.
Dee gazed around the reception area, from the black leather sofas in the corner to the curved white polymer reception desk.
There was no sign of Sean, but she was five minutes early.
Dee started to stroll over to the reception desk but changed her mind. The rail-thin receptionist with the stretched-back, shiny, straight ponytail and plain black fitted suit was collecting something from a large printer on the other side of the desk and probably had not even noticed her coming in.
It might be more interesting to watch Sean work from this side of the desk. As a hotel guest. People-watching was one of her favourite pastimes. And free!
Dee strode over to a black high-back chair and slid as gracefully as she could onto the narrow seat. The stainless-steel legs were about the same thickness as the heels on some of Lottie’s designer shoes and she didn’t entirely trust the chair to take her weight.
Comfort had clearly not been one of the design specifications for this place.
She stroked the skirt of her cotton dress down over her warm leggings and neatly clasped her hands in her lap.
A butterfly feeling of nerves fluttered across her stomach and into her throat as the heat from the vents started to blow on her shoulders.
Memories of sitting on a hard bench at a railway station at a tiny Indian stop waiting for her parents to come and collect her flitted through her brain. Those had been the days before mobile phones, and her parents would not have used one even if they could, so all she’d been able to do was sit there and wait with her luggage and presents. And wait, worrying that something had happened to them, alone in the heat and crush of the ladies’ waiting room, for long hour after hour before the kindly station master had offered to phone the tea estate for her.
It turned out that her dad had been working on a problem with one of the shipping agents and had forgotten that she was flying back from London to spend Christmas with them and that they had agreed that she should take the train to the nearest station that day.
Work had always come first.
Even for those who loved her best in this world.
It had been two years since she had last seen them. She couldn’t afford the air fare when she needed every penny for the tea rooms and they certainly couldn’t spare any cash to fly back to see her now they were retired.
But it would have been fun to have them here for the tea festival at a Beresford hotel of all places. They would have found this all very grand, and probably have been a bit intimidated, but she had promised to send them photos of the event and write a long letter telling them how it had gone.
And they certainly would have been impressed with Sean Beresford. Now, there was a man with a good work ethic! Her dad would like that.
With those good looks and all the money he wanted, Sean would have pre-booked dinner-and-drinks dates already scheduled into his electronic diary to share with his no-doubt lovely girlfriend.
In fact that might be her now, at the reception desk. All polished and groomed; pretty and eloquent. A perfect choice for the second in line to the Beresford hotel fortune.
Sean would probably be astonished that Dee had taken the trouble to look him up on the Internet. For research purposes, of course.
It was amazing the amount of celebrity gossip his father Tom and brother Rob featured in, but Sean? Sean was mostly photographed shaking hands with some official or other at the opening ceremony of the newest Beresford hotel.
Perhaps he did have some hidden talents.
Dee shuffled out of her padded jacket and picked up a brochure about the hotel spa treatments. She was just considering having hot rocks placed on certain parts of a girl’s body which were not supposed to have hot rocks on them when there was a blast of cool air from the front entrance and she shivered in her thin dress as she turned to see who had let the cold in.
It was Sean.
Only not the Sean who had sat on her floor the previous evening. This version of Sean was a different kind of man completely.
He stood just inside the entrance shaking the water droplets from a long, navy waterproof raincoat—a different one from last night, but just as elegant. She could tell because the smiling doorman was helping his boss out of his damp coat and she caught a glimpse of a pale-blue silk lining with a dark-blue tartan stripe. Very stylish. Classy. Smart. A perfect match for the man who wore it.
Sean’s face was glowing from the cold wind and rain and he ruffled his hair back with his right hand like a male fashion model on a photo-shoot. The master of the ship. Lord of all he surveyed.
He looked taller somehow. More in control. Last night he had invaded the tea rooms and entered a foreign territory with strange new customs and practices. But here and now the difference shone out. This was his space. His world. His domain. Confidence and authority seemed to emanate out from him like some magical force-field.
No wonder the doorman was happy to take his coat; there was absolutely no mistaking that he was the boss.
She envied him that confidence and physical presence that came from a wealthy family background and the education to match. He had probably never known what it was like to be ignored and sidelined and made to feel second rate. It was as if they were from different worlds.
Sean rolled back his shoulders, picked up his briefcase and strode out towards the reception desk. And as he turned away Dee sucked in the breath that had been frozen in her lungs.
The fine navy cloth of his superbly cut business suit defined the line of his broad shoulders. From the way his legs moved inside those trousers, she wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Sean made regular use of the gym facilities she had just been reading about in the hotel magazine.
That confident stride matched his voice: rich, confident and so very self-assured of his identity. He knew who he was and liked it.
This version of Sean could have graced the cover of any business magazine. He was the personification of a city boy. A man used to being in authority and calling the shots.
The second son and heir.
A man who would never know what it felt like to have to cash in his pension fund and savings to pay the staff wages.
A lump formed in Dee’s throat and she turned her gaze onto what passed for the floral display on the coffee table.
Her sweet, kind father had been too soft-hearted to cut the wages for the estate workers when it had become obvious that his dream tea plantation on Sri Lanka was not able to pay for itself. Those wages paid for health care and made it possible for the workers’ children to go to school. How could he take that away from them? How could he be responsible for ruining so many people’s lives? But, even when they were selling their possessions, her parents had kept reassuring her that she shouldn’t worry, they would get their savings back. It would all work out for the best in the end.
Dee exhaled very, very slowly and focused