Loe raamatut: «Falling For The Secret Millionaire»

CHAPTER ONE

‘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 nodded. ‘Thank you. I’ll call you if there’s anything I’m unsure about when I get it.’

‘Good, good.’ He gave her another of those avuncular smiles.

As soon as Nicole had left the office, she grabbed her phone from her bag and called her mother—the one person she really needed to talk to about the bequest. But the call went straight through to Susan’s voicemail. Then again, at this time of day her mother would be in a meeting or with one of her probationers. Nicole’s best friend Jessie, an English teacher, was knee-deep in exam revision sessions with her students, so she wouldn’t be free to talk to Nicole about the situation until the end of the day. And Nicole definitely didn’t want to discuss this with anyone from work; she knew they’d all tell her to sell the place to the company who wanted to buy it, for the highest price she could get, and to keep the money.

Her head was spinning. Maybe she would sell the cinema—after all, what did she know about running a cinema, let alone one that hadn’t been in operation for the last five years and looked as if it needed an awful lot of work doing to it before it could open its doors again? But, if she did sell the Electric Palace, she had no intention of keeping the money. As far as she was concerned, any money from Brian Thomas ought to go to his daughter, not skip a generation. Susan Thomas had spent years struggling as a single mother, working three jobs to pay the rent when Nicole was tiny. If the developer really was offering a fair price, it could give Susan the money to pay off her mortgage, go on a good holiday and buy a new car. Though Nicole knew she’d have to work hard to convince her mother that she deserved the money; plus Susan might be even more loath to accept anything from her father on the grounds that it was way too late.

Or Nicole could refuse the bequest on principle. Brian Thomas had never been part of her life or shown any interest in her. Why should she be interested in his money now?

She sighed. What she really needed right now was some decent caffeine and the space to talk this through with someone. There was only one person other than her mother and Jessie whose advice she trusted. Would he be around? She found the nearest coffee shop, ordered her usual double espresso, then settled down at a quiet table and flicked into the messaging program on her phone. Clarence was probably busy, but then again if she’d caught him on his lunch break he might have time to talk.

In the six months since they’d first met on the Surrey Quays forum, they’d become close and they talked online every day. They’d never actually met in person; and, right from the first time he’d sent her a private message, they’d agreed that they wouldn’t share personal details that identified them, so they’d stuck to their forum names of Georgygirl and Clarence. She had no idea what he even looked like—she could have passed him in the street at any time during the three years she’d been living at Surrey Quays. In some ways it was a kind of coded, secret relationship, but at the same time Nicole felt that Clarence knew the real her. Not the corporate ghost who spent way too many hours in the office, or the much-loved daughter and best friend who was always nagged about working too hard, but the real Nicole. He knew the one who wondered about the universe and dreamed of the stars. Late at night, she’d told him things she’d never told anyone else, even her mother or Jessie.

Maybe Clarence could help her work out the right thing to do.

She typed a message and mentally crossed her fingers as she sent it.

Hey, Clarence, you around?

* * *

Gabriel Hunter closed his father’s office door behind him and walked down the corridor as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

What he really wanted to do was to beat his fists against the walls in sheer frustration. When, when, when was he going to stop paying for his teenage mistake?

OK, so it had been an awful lot worse than the usual teenage mistakes—he’d crashed his car into a shop front one night on the way home from a party and done a lot of damage. But nobody had been physically hurt and he’d learned his lesson immediately. He’d stopped going round with the crowd who’d thought it would be fun to spike his drink when he was their designated driver. He’d knuckled down to his studies instead of spending most of his time partying, and at the end of his final exams he’d got one of the highest Firsts the university had ever awarded. Since then, he’d proved his worth over and over again in the family business. Time after time he’d bitten his tongue so he didn’t get into a row with his father. He’d toed the party line. Done what was expected of him, constantly repented for his sins to atone in his father’s eyes.

And his father still didn’t trust him. All Gabriel ever saw in his father’s eyes was ‘I saved you from yourself’. Was Evan Hunter only capable of seeing his son as the stupid teenager who got in with a bad crowd? Would he ever see Gabriel for who he was now, all these years later? Would he ever respect his son?

Days like today, Gabriel felt as if he couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was time to give up trying to change his family’s view of him and to walk away. To take a different direction in his career—though, right at that moment, Gabriel didn’t have a clue what that would be, either. He’d spent the last seven years since graduation working hard in the family business and making sure he knew every single detail of Hunter Hotels Ltd. He’d tried so hard to do the right thing. The reckless teenager he’d once been was well and truly squashed—which he knew was a good thing, but part of him wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t had the crash. Would he have grown out of the recklessness but kept his freedom? Would he have felt as if he was really worth something, not having to pay over and over for past mistakes? Would he be settled down now, maybe with a family of his own?

All the women he’d dated over the last five years saw him as Gabriel-the-hotel-chain-heir, the rich guy who could show them a good time and splash his cash about, and he hated that superficiality. Yet the less superficial, nicer women were wary of him, because his reputation got in the way; everyone knew that Gabriel Hunter was a former wild child and was now a ruthless company man, so he’d never commit emotionally and there was no point in dating him because there wasn’t a future in the relationship. And his family all saw him as Gabe-who-made-the-big-mistake.

How ironic that the only person who really saw him for himself was a stranger. Someone whose real name he didn’t even know, let alone what she did or what she looked like, because they’d been careful not to exchange those kinds of details. But over the last six months he’d grown close to Georgygirl from the Surrey Quays forum.

Which made it even more ironic that he’d only joined the website because he was following his father’s request to keep an eye out for local disgruntled residents who might oppose the new Hunter Hotel they were developing from a run-down former spice warehouse in Surrey Quays, and charm them into seeing things the Hunter way. Gabriel had discovered that he liked the anonymity of an online persona—he could actually meet people and get to know them, the way he couldn’t in real life. The people on the forum didn’t know he was Gabriel Hunter, so they had no preconceptions and they accepted him for who he was.

He’d found himself posting on a lot of the same topics as someone called Georgygirl. The more he’d read her posts, the more he’d realised that she was on his wavelength. They’d flirted a bit—because an internet forum was a pretty safe place to flirt—and he hadn’t been able to resist contacting her in a private message. Then they’d started chatting to each other away from the forum. They’d agreed to stick to the forum rules of not sharing personal details that would identify themselves, so Gabriel had no idea of Georgygirl’s real name or her personal situation; but in their late-night private chats he felt that he could talk to her about anything and everything. Be his real self. Just as he was pretty sure that she was her real self with him.

Right now, it was practically lunchtime. Maybe Georgygirl would be around? He hoped so, because talking to her would make him feel human again. Right now he really needed a dose of her teasing sarcasm to jolt him out of his dark mood.

He informed his PA that he was unavailable for the next hour, then headed out to Surrey Quays. He ordered a double espresso in his favourite café, then grabbed his phone and flicked into the direct messaging section of the Surrey Quays forum.

And then he saw the message waiting for him.

Hey, Clarence, you around?

It was timed fifteen minutes ago. Just about when he’d walked out of that meeting and wanted to punch a wall. Hopefully she hadn’t given up waiting for him and was still there. He smiled.

Yeah. I’m here, he typed back.

He sipped his coffee while he waited for her to respond. Just as he thought it was too late and she’d already gone, a message from her popped up on his screen.

Hello, there. How’s your day?

I’ve had better, he admitted. You?

Weird.

Why?

Then he remembered she’d told him that she’d had a letter out of the blue from a solicitor she’d never heard of, asking her to make an appointment because they needed to discuss something with her.

What happened at the solicitor’s?

I’ve been left something in a will.

That’s good, isn’t it?

Unless it was a really odd bequest, or one with strings.

It’s property.

Ah. It was beginning to sound as if there were strings attached. And Gabriel knew without Georgygirl having to tell him that she was upset about it.

Don’t tell me—it’s a desert island or a ruined castle, but you have to live there for a year all on your own with a massive nest of scary spiders before you can inherit?

Not quite. But thank you for making me laugh.

Meaning that right now she wanted to cry?

What’s so bad about it? Is it a total wreck that needs gutting, or it has a roof that eats money?

There was a long pause.

It needs work, but that isn’t the bad thing. The bequest is from my grandfather.

Now he understood. The problem wasn’t with what she’d been left: it was who’d left it to her that was the sticking point.

How can I accept anything from someone who let my mother down so badly?

She’d confided the situation to him a couple of months ago, when they’d been talking online late at night and drinking wine together—about how her mother had accidentally fallen pregnant, and when her parents had found out that her boyfriend was married, even though her mother hadn’t had a clue that he wasn’t single when they’d started dating, they had thrown her out on the street instead of supporting her.

Gabriel chafed every day about his own situation, but he knew that his family had always been there for him and had his best interests at heart, even if his father was a control freak who couldn’t move on from the past. Georgygirl’s story had made him appreciate that for the first time in a long while.

Maybe, he typed back carefully, this is his way of apologising. Even if it is from the grave.

More like trying to buy his way into my good books? Apart from the fact that I can’t be bought, he’s left it way too late. He let my mum struggle when she was really vulnerable. This feels like thirty pieces of silver. Accepting the bequest means I accept what he—and my grandmother—did. And I *don’t*. At all.

He could understand that.

Is your grandmother still alive? Maybe you could go and see her. Explain how you feel. And maybe she can apologise on his behalf as well as her own.

I don’t know. But, even if she is alive, I can’t see her apologising. What kind of mother chucks her pregnant daughter into the street, Clarence? OK, so they were angry and hurt and shocked at the time—I can understand that. But my mum didn’t know that my dad was married or she would never have dated him, much less anything else. And they’ve had twenty-nine years to get over it. As far as I know, they’ve never so much as seen a photo of me, let alone cuddled me as a baby or sent me a single birthday card.

And that had to hurt, being rejected by your family when they didn’t even know you.

It’s their loss, he typed. But maybe they didn’t know how to get in touch with your mother.

Surely all you have to do is look up someone in the electoral roll, or even use a private detective if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself?

That’s not what I meant, Georgy. It’s not the finding her that would’ve been hard—it’s breaking the ice and knowing what to say. Sometimes pride gets in the way.

Ironic, because he knew he was guilty of that, too. Not knowing how to challenge his father—because how could you challenge someone when you were always in the wrong?

Maybe. But why leave the property to *me* and not to my mum? It doesn’t make sense.

Pride again? Gabriel suggested. And maybe he thought it would be easier to approach you.

From the grave?

Could be Y-chromosome logic?

That earned him a smiley face.

Georgy, you really need to talk to your mum about it.

I would. Except her phone is switched to voicemail.

Shame.

I know this is crazy, she added, but you were the one I really wanted to talk to about this. You see things so clearly.

It was the first genuine compliment he’d had in a long time—and it was one he really appreciated.

Thank you. Glad I can be here for you. That’s what friends are for.

And they were friends. Even though they’d never met, he felt their relationship was more real and more honest than the ones in his real-life world—where ironically he couldn’t be his real self.

I’m sorry for whining.

You’re not whining. You’ve just been left something by the last person you expected to leave you anything. Of course you’re going to wonder why. And if it is an apology, you’re right that it’s too little, too late. He should’ve patched up the row years ago and been proud of your mum for raising a bright daughter who’s also a decent human being.

Careful, Clarence, she warned. I might not be able to get through the door of the coffee shop when I leave, my head’s so swollen.

Coffee shop? Even though he knew it was ridiculous—this wasn’t the only coffee shop in Surrey Quays, and he had no idea where she worked so she could be anywhere in London right now—Gabriel found himself pausing and glancing round the room, just in case she was there.

But everyone in the room was either sitting in a group, chatting animatedly, or looked like a businessman catching up with admin work.

There was always the chance that Georgygirl was a man, but he didn’t think so. He didn’t think she was a bored, middle-aged housewife posing as a younger woman, either. And she’d just let slip that her newly pregnant mother had been thrown out twenty-nine years ago, which would make her around twenty-eight. His own age.

I might not be able to get through the door of the coffee shop, my head’s so swollen.

Ha. This was the teasing, quick-witted Georgygirl that had attracted him in the first place. He smiled.

We need deflationary measures, then. OK. You need a haircut and your roots are showing. And there’s a massive spot on your nose. It’s like the red spot on Mars. You can see it from outer space.

Jupiter’s the one with the red spot, she corrected. But I get the point. Head now normal size. Thank you.

Good.

And he just bet she knew he’d deliberately mixed up his planets. He paused.

Seriously, though—maybe you could sell the property and split the money with your mum.

It still feels like thirty pieces of silver. I was thinking about giving her all of it. Except I’ll have to persuade her because she’ll say he left it to me.

Or maybe it isn’t an apology—maybe it’s a rescue.

Rescue? How do you work that out? she asked.

You hate your job.

She’d told him that a while back—and, being in a similar situation, he’d sympathised.

If you split the money from selling the property with your mum, would it be enough to tide you over for a six-month sabbatical? That might give you enough time and space to find out what you really want to do. OK, so your grandfather wasn’t there when your mum needed him—but right now it looks to me as if he’s given you something that you need at exactly the right time. A chance for independence, even if it’s only for a little while.

I never thought of it like that. You could be right.

It is what it is. You could always look at it as a belated apology, which is better than none at all. He wasn’t there when he should’ve been, but he’s come good now.

Hmm. It isn’t residential property he left me.

It’s a business?

Yes. And it hasn’t been in operation for a while.

A run-down business, then. Which would take money and time to get it back in working order—the building might need work, and the stock or the fixtures might be well out of date. So he’d been right in the first place and the bequest had come with strings.

Could you get the business back up and running?

Though it would help if he knew what kind of business it actually was. But asking would be breaking the terms of their friendship—because then she’d be sharing personal details.

In theory, I could. Though I don’t have any experience in the service or entertainment industry.

He did. He’d grown up in it.

That’s my area, he said.

He was taking a tiny risk, telling her something personal—but she had no reason to connect Clarence with Hunter Hotels.

My advice, for what it’s worth—an MBA and working for a very successful hotel chain, though he could hardly tell her that without her working out exactly who he was—is that staff are the key. Look at what your competitors are doing and offer your clients something different. Keep a close eye on your costs and income, and get advice from a business start-up specialist. Apply for all the grants you can.

It was solid advice. And Nicole knew that Clarence would be the perfect person to brainstorm ideas with, if she decided to keep the Electric Palace. She was half tempted to tell him everything—but then they’d be sharing details of their real and professional lives, which was against their agreement. He’d already told her too much by letting it slip that he worked in the service or entertainment industry. And she’d as good as told him her age. This was getting risky; it wasn’t part of their agreement. Time to back off and change the subject.

Thank you, she typed. But enough about me. You said you’d had a bad day. What happened?

A pointless row. It’s just one of those days when I feel like walking out and sending off my CV to half a dozen recruitment agencies. Except it’s the family business and I know it’s my duty to stay.

Because he was still trying to make up for the big mistake he’d made when he was a teenager? He’d told her the bare details one night, how he was the disgraced son in the family, and that he was never sure he’d ever be able to change their perception of him.

Clarence, maybe you need to talk to your dad or whoever runs the show in your family business about the situation and say it’s time for you all to move on. You’re not the same person now as you were when you were younger. Everyone makes mistakes—and you can’t spend the rest of your life making up for it. That’s not reasonable.

Maybe.

Clarence must feel as trapped as she did, Nicole thought. Feeling that there was no way out. He’d helped her think outside the box and see her grandfather’s bequest another way: that it could be her escape route. Maybe she could do the same for him.

Could you recruit someone to replace you?

There was a long silence, and Nicole thought maybe she’d gone too far.

Nice idea, Georgy, but it’s not going to happen.

OK. What about changing your role in the business instead? Could you take it in a different direction, one you enjoy more?

It’s certainly worth thinking about.

Which was a polite brush-off. Just as well she hadn’t given in to the urge to suggest meeting for dinner to talk about it.

Because that would’ve been stupid.

Apart from the fact that she wasn’t interested in dating anyone ever again, for all she knew Clarence could be in a serious relationship. Living with someone, engaged, even married.

Even if he wasn’t, supposing they met and she discovered that the real Clarence was nothing like the online one? Supposing they really didn’t like each other in real life? She valued his friendship too much to risk losing it. If that made her a coward, so be it.

* * *

Changing his role in the business. Taking it in a different direction. Gabriel could just imagine the expression on his father’s face if he suggested it. Shock, swiftly followed by, ‘I saved your skin, so you toe the line and do what I say.’

It wasn’t going to happen.

But he appreciated the fact that Georgygirl was trying to think about how to make his life better.

For one mad moment, he almost suggested she should bring details of the business she’d just inherited and meet him for dinner and they could brainstorm it properly. But he stopped himself. Apart from the fact that it was none of his business, supposing they met and he discovered that the real Georgygirl was nothing like the online one? Supposing they loathed each other in real life? He valued his time talking to her and he didn’t want to risk losing her friendship.

Thanks for making me feel human again, he typed.

Me? I didn’t do anything. And you gave me some really good advice.

That’s what friends are for. And you did a lot, believe me. He paused. I’d better let you go. I’m due back in the office. Talk to you later?

I’m due back at the office, too. Talk to you tonight.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes with your mum.

Will do. Let me know how it goes with your family.

Sure.

Though he had no intention of doing that.