Sparks Fly with the Billionaire

by Marion Lennox

  ‘You have spies? Bugs on the dogs?’

  ‘On Tinkerbelle,’ he said promptly. ‘The tiny spot under her left ear isn’t a spot at all. If you ever use flea powder we’re doomed. It muffles reception no end.’

  She grinned. ‘Whoa, what a traitor.’

  But then her smile died. It was a weird time. They were standing in the schoolyard waiting for the trailer. The sun was warm on their faces, the camel was settling, the cop was on cop duty at the gate, making sure no wild animals got out or came in, and Bernie was making sure the cop’s gun stayed exactly where it belonged.

  In a moment the trailer would arrive, there’d be the vet to arrange, and the circus was due to start in an hour.

  In an hour this woman would be back in pink spangles, in charge of her world, but for now...she seemed bereft and alone, and once again he felt that urge to reach out and touch her.

  Protect her from all-comers?

  Whoa, that was a primeval urge if ever he’d felt one. This woman didn’t want a knight on a white charger even if he wanted to be one.

  But...

  What if he saved her whole circus?

  The thought was suddenly out there, front and centre. He was wealthy by anyone’s standards. He could pay off debts, fund those dratted animal retirees, keep Sparkles going into perpetuity.

  ‘Don’t even think it,’ she said into the stillness.

  ‘Think what?’

  ‘What you’re thinking.’

  ‘What am I thinking?’

  ‘The same as I was thinking all night,’ she told him. ‘I’m looking at you right now and I’m seeing sympathy. I read about you on the web last night. You’re not a minion in Bond’s Bank—you are Bond’s Bank. You could fund us a thousand times over. Last night I read about you and I thought this morning I’d head back to Margot’s and throw myself on her neck, then get her to bully you into extending the loan.’

  ‘She might do it, too.’ He was unsure where to go with this. This wasn’t your normal business discussion. This was intensely personal—and he didn’t do personal. Or did he?

  ‘I know she might,’ Allie agreed. ‘So I lay in bed all night and thought about it and decided I have an ageing circus with an ancient ringmaster with a heart condition. I have Bella who’ll break her heart when she has to move away from the circus but she already struggles to get up and down the caravan steps and the caravans are ancient themselves. I have geriatric clowns. They’re my great-uncles but I can see past that. I can see they need to retire. We have a couple of great acts but most of the circus is failing. Your news is appalling, but how much more appalling if I drag this out longer? If I plead for an extension, then it’s on my head, and I can’t wear it. I...can’t.’

  For a moment he thought she might cry, but she didn’t. Instead she bit her lip, then tilted her chin and met his gaze straight on.

  ‘The goodwill you get for selling this place, our booking rights, our name, will probably get you enough to cover our debts—apart from the animal refuge debt but I’ll worry about that later. I’ve insisted Grandpa pay into superannuation for everyone—I assume that fund’s safe?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘That’s that. You’ve given us two weeks and I don’t want more. You’re calling in the loan and you have every right. For the next two weeks we might need you as our ringmaster—and our friend—but after that...Thank you, Mr Bond, but that’s all.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  BY THE TIME they had Cleo back at the circus, the vet was waiting. All three camels had pellet wounds. The injuries were superficial but the vet was grim-faced.

  ‘It’s a wonder these guys didn’t kill themselves with fear. Someone shooting these into their flanks...I’ll talk to the police. If we could find out who, we could lay charges, but I’m betting it’ll be a bored teenager with a new air gun.’

  But what about the fencing? Mathew thought. The bolts between the fencing had been cut with speed and precision. Surely a kid would simply aim an air gun through the wire?

  Bolt cutters took strength. Adult strength. And someone must have aimed the gun from the direction of the truck, so the camels couldn’t retreat.

  He wanted to talk to the cop, but his experience with the town’s constable wasn’t encouraging.

  He glanced at Allie, who was helping wash Cleo’s side with disinfectant. He wasn’t about to share worries about thugs with bolt cutters with Allie. She had more than enough to worry about.

  But assets needed to be protected. That was a rule ingrained into his banker mind since time immemorial. These were the bank’s assets, he thought, though as he looked over the wounded camels and watched the geriatric circus crew fuss around them, he thought the word asset hardly applied.

  Still, he took himself out of earshot, made a couple of phone calls and felt happier. He’d have security guards here by tonight.

  He turned and Allie was approaching him. She looked businesslike, and he wondered how much effort it was costing to keep herself calm in the face of the future before her. What was she proposing? To spend the rest of her life paying for the keep of geriatric animals?

  ‘There’ll be no camel show today,’ she said. ‘They’ll need time to settle but it’s fine—I’ll put in an extra dog show. We’ll leave the camels in view so the kids can see them as they go in and out, and we’ll put up a notice saying what’s happened. With a bit of luck it might even out our air gunner—there’ll be kids who’ll know what’s happened. Mike’s applying lots of bright red antiseptic so their wounds look even more dramatic than they are. Meanwhile I need to amend your cheat sheet.’

  ‘My cheat sheet...’ His mind wasn’t working like it should be, or maybe he was having trouble switching from banker to outrider to teacher to...ringmaster? Or to the guy who just wanted to watch Allie.

  ‘Your notes for tonight’s performance,’ she said patiently. ‘Tinkerbelle and Fairy can put on an awesome act if needed and they’re needed now. Okay, Maestro, time to suit up.’

  ‘Maestro?’

  ‘Maestro, all the way from the vast, impenetrable reaches of Outer Zukstanima,’ she said and chuckled. ‘It’s a circus tradition. That’s who we’ve decreed you are. By the way, when you’re not in the ring can I call you Matt?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’m not calling you Mathew for two weeks,’ she retorted. ‘It’s a banker’s name. It’s the same as your grandfather’s, according to the website I read. So Mathew is your banking name and Maestro is your circus name. What do I call you when I just want to talk?’

  There was a question to take him aback. Or, actually, just to take him back.

  ‘Okay, Matt,’ he said, before he could think any more, and it was like a window being levered, opening into the past. Matt was who he really was, in his head, but he admitted it to no one.

  His memories of his big sister Lizzy were hazy, but her voice was still with him. ‘Matt, come and play with me. Matt, you’re messing up my painting. Mattie, hold my hand while we cross the street.’

  And his mother—also a banker...

  ‘Elizabeth, call your brother Mathew. Mathew, call your sister Elizabeth.’

  And the two of them grinning at each other and knowing that, regardless of how the world saw them, they were really Matt and Lizzy. He’d stayed Matt in his head, he thought, but only in his head. No one else ever used the diminutive.

  ‘What did I say? What’s wrong?’ Allie demanded and he hauled himself back to the present with a jerk. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she was watching his face. ‘I’ve hurt you. The web said your family was killed. Is that what’s wrong? Did they call you Matt?’

  How intuitive was this woman?

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said, more harshly than he intended. ‘But Matt is okay.’

 
And suddenly it was.

  For two weeks he was playing ringmaster. Make-believe. Why not extend it? For two weeks he could be Matt in his private life and he didn’t have to be a banker at all.

  With Allie. With The Amazing Mischka.

  He should stay being a banker, he thought. He should insist that at least his name stayed the same, but Allie was moving on, and she was taking him with her. She seized his hand and tugged him forward to her grandparents’ caravan, where the circus world in the form of his ringmaster’s coat and hat waited.

  Memories of Lizzy were suddenly all around him. ‘Come on, Matt...’

  The pain of knowing she wasn’t there...He’d been six years old and the agony was still fresh. Lizzy.

  Do not go there. Do not ever let yourself near that kind of emptiness again.

  But... ‘Excellent,’ Allie was saying and the pressure on his hand intensified. Strong and warm—and very, very unsettling. ‘Matt is nice and easy to say,’ she decreed. ‘And it makes you sound far less toffy. We can relax around nice, plain Matt.’

  ‘Nice and plain? Says you who’s about to force me into spangly top hat and tails.’

  ‘There is that,’ she said and she chuckled. ‘Matt and Maestro seem a fearsome combination. For the next two weeks you’re our hero. We’ll like you in both personas, and we can forget about Mathew the Banker entirely.’

  * * *

  Matt or Maestro? He was thrown off balance by both. He shouldn’t answer to either. He felt...he felt...

  Okay, he didn’t know how he felt. He had an almost overwhelming urge to head back to Margot’s, climb into his gorgeous car and go home to Sydney. Taking leave had been a bad idea.

  He’d done it to say goodbye to Margot but now Margot had no intention of dying, at least for the next two weeks.

  If he left, would she still die?

  If he left they’d have no ringmaster. And more. Allie had the weight of this whole organisation on her shoulders. How could he walk away? He couldn’t walk away from Allie, he couldn’t walk away from Margot, but cool, contained Mathew Bond was feeling way out of his comfort zone.

  Allie left him to dress herself. He put on his uniform and stared at himself in Henry’s mirror and thought...what was he doing here?

  He knew what he was doing here. He had no choice.

  A knock on the van door signalled Allie’s return. She’d transformed into Mischka faster than he’d thought possible. How on earth had she applied those eyelashes? They were...extraordinary.

  ‘I’m glad ringmasters don’t need fake eyelashes,’ he said faintly and she grinned.

  ‘You’d look awesome. I have spares if you’d like.’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’

  ‘No?’ She was teasing again, her sparkle returning with her spangles, and he felt like applauding the courage she was showing.

  And the way she looked.

  And the way she smiled...

  ‘I’m ready,’ he said, more roughly than he’d intended, and he stepped down from the van, but she didn’t move back like he’d thought she would.

  ‘The vet says you gave him your credit card details and all the veterinary costs of the camels are on you,’ she said and she was still far too close.

  ‘I...yes.’ He hesitated. ‘The circus is in receivership. That’s what receivers do.’

  ‘What, throw good money after bad? You realise these camels aren’t worth anything? They stand up and get down and kneel, and they don’t bite but there’s not much else I can teach them. Saving them isn’t a financial decision.’

  ‘No,’ he said and she looked up at him.

  He was still too close.

  She was still too close.

  ‘So it’s nothing about receivership and I do need to thank you,’ she said, and suddenly the desire to reach forward and touch her was almost overwhelming.

  Almost. They were in full view of the crowd assembling for the performance. Any move he made now would be a public move, and he had no intention of making a public move.

  Or any move, he told himself harshly. No move at all.

  ‘So let’s get this circus moving,’ she said a bit breathlessly, and her breathlessness told him she was as aware of him as he was of her—which was another reason for him to step back. And step back he did.

  ‘Let’s go show some eyelashes,’ he managed.

  ‘One set of eyelashes,’ she said and grinned. ‘Coward.’

  ‘Story of my life,’ he said and turned and headed for the circus.

  * * *

  Despite the chaos of the morning, the circus ran like well oiled clockwork. The ponies and dogs did their stuff without the camels. The act was a bit shorter than usual and not so impressive—but then Mischka moved seamlessly into a performance with just the dogs and he stopped thinking not impressive. He started thinking the opposite. Quite simply, Mischka and her two nondescript dogs left him awed.

  One girl in silver sparkles, dancing, turning, tumbling. Two adoring dogs following every move.

  They’d do anything for her, he thought, as he watched them from his position ringside. She wasn’t feeding them, bribing them or even talking to them. She moved and they moved, like shadows beside her, in front of her, behind her, depending on her direction. She danced backward, they were up on their hind legs strutting forward. She danced forward, they did the same thing backward. She tumbled, they turned somersaults with her. She spun, they spun.

  She stood on her head and they jumped across her spread legs and turned in crazy circles around her head. The crowd went wild.

  She stood and bowed and the dogs bowed with her. A camera flashed in the front row and he was momentarily distracted—no cameras were allowed and it was in the list of things he was supposed to watch for as ringmaster—but the guy put the camera away fast as soon as he saw Matt watching him, and Matt thought—why wouldn’t you want to take a picture of this girl and these dogs?

  ‘Why doesn’t she put this act on all the time?’ he asked Fizz as Allie and her dogs disappeared behind the curtains. Fluffy was out in the centre of the ring, setting up the next joke. Fizz and Mathew had a fraction of time to speak.

  ‘It takes too much out of her,’ Fizz said. ‘That’s an amazing acrobatic performance and she still has to do the trapeze act. She’s so good we could just about run the circus around her only she’d fall in a heap.’ He frowned then and glowered at Matt and Matt knew he wasn’t Matt in this guy’s eyes. He was the guy who was pulling the rug from under all of them. ‘She’s falling in a heap anyway. She’s not eating. She’s not sleeping. Her van light was on all last night, and when we bullied her to eat breakfast this morning she looked like she was going to throw up. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing any of us can do.’

  He didn’t wait for a response—maybe because he knew Matt didn’t have an answer to give.

  Instead he pinned on his clown grin, he bounced out to join Fluffy and the circus went on.

  * * *

  They took their bows as usual, they started clearing, ready for the evening performance in four hours, and at some stage Allie realised their ringmaster was no longer among them.

  Fair enough, she thought as she worked on. He had his own life. He’d agreed to play ringmaster. That didn’t mean he had to be hands-on, a true member of the circus troupe.

  So why did she feel...empty?

  No reason at all, she told herself. She had enough to worry about without Mathew...Matt Bond’s continual presence. He sort of...unnerved her.

  He’d kissed her.

  She’d been kissed before. No big deal.

  Yes, but Mathew Bond was a big deal.

  ‘He’s Matt,’ she told herself and she said it out loud as if the words could somehow make him ordinary.

  He
wasn’t ordinary.

  He’d saved her camel.

  He was killing her circus.

  No. It wasn’t him, she told herself fairly. She couldn’t hold it against him. Her grandfather had killed the circus the moment he’d taken out that loan, and he’d taken out the loan because of her.

  The guilt was killing her.

  Everything was killing her. There were so many emotions—and overriding them all was the image of one sexy banker.

  But it wasn’t just that he was sexy, she thought. Yes, there was an element—or more than an element—of reaction to the fact that he was drop dead gorgeous and he had a killer smile and when he touched her, her body burned—but there was also the way he swept into the ring as if he owned it. There was the way he’d caught the children’s interest today and turned kids and trainee teachers from antagonistic to gunning for Cleo all the way. There was the way he’d paid the vet’s bills, which would be huge. She knew it was a small amount for him but he hadn’t had to do it, and he’d smiled at her and looked worried about Cleo, and he’d stopped the cop shooting her—and then, when she’d asked about his name and he’d said Matt, he’d looked as if she’d pierced something that hurt. A lot.

  There were complexities within the man and she was intrigued as well as attracted, but she’d better not be either she told herself, because being attracted to the banker was just plain dumb. Letting him kiss her had been dumb. It was the way to get her life into an even deeper mess than it

  already was.

  ‘Just do what comes next,’ she told herself, so she did. She finished clearing up. She had three hours before the evening performance. She checked her camels again, and then changed into respectable and went to the hospital to see Henry and Bella.

  It didn’t help. Her grandmother looked worse than her grandpa. It was as if everything was being taken away from her, and the only thing she had to cling to was Henry.

  So what was there for Allie to cling to? she thought bleakly as she left them.

  Her grey mood was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to get herself together, she told herself harshly. There was another show to put on tonight.