Sparks Fly with the Billionaire

by Marion Lennox

  It wasn’t possible to keep it going. He’d looked long and hard at the figures. Even without that appalling pension fund for retired animals, the performers were ageing, the superstructure needed major refurbishment and the whole organisation was winding down.

  But she’d fight for what she had left, he thought. He could see her on this farmlet she dreamed of but it wasn’t a dream he was seeing. It was a nightmare. One girl working her heart out to provide for the remnants of a finished circus.

  That was why he was feeling protective?

  That was why he was feeling cracks in his armour?

  He needed to get a grip. He was her banker, nothing else.

  Except for the next two weeks he was her ringmaster.

  ‘Yes, but that’s all,’ he said aloud and Allie stirred in her sleep and he felt...he felt...

  As if he needed to head along the beach and walk, or maybe run. He needed to get rid of this energy, get rid of this weird jumble of heart versus head.

  The dogs looked up at him, questioning.

  ‘You guys stay here,’ he told them. ‘I’m not going far. You’re in protection mode.’

  They snuggled down again as if they agreed.

  He walked but not out of sight. His jumble of thoughts refused to untangle.

  He was in protection mode as well, whether Allie wanted it or not.

  Whether he wanted it or not.

  ‘Matt,’ he said out loud and the sound of the name he hadn’t used for years startled him. ‘Matt.’

  Put the armour back on, he told himself harshly. Turn yourself back into Mathew.

  The problem was...what?

  He glanced up the beach, to the sleeping woman with her huddle of protective dogs and he thought...

  He thought the problem was that he didn’t know how to turn back into what he’d been. Mathew seemed to be crumbling.

  He’d get himself back together, he told himself, after two weeks as ringmaster. Two weeks as knight on white charger?

  She doesn’t want me to be knight on white charger, he told himself and hurled a few pebbles into the sea and tried to figure what he wanted.

  Sydney. The bank. Normality.

  Yeah? He glanced back at the sleeping girl and normality seemed a million miles away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TWO HOURS LATER he dropped Allie back at the circus. She’d woken subdued. They’d driven back in near silence. She’d hesitated before she left the car but in the end she’d said a simple thank you. Then she’d paused. A guy in a security uniform was standing by the gate.

  ‘You are?’ she’d said while Matt waited.

  ‘From Bond’s Security,’ the man said. ‘We have security covered.’

  She looked back at Matt, and then she sighed.

  ‘You’re taking care of your own?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said because there was nothing else to say, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod and disappeared back into a life that was almost over.

  He had half an hour to evening performance. He needed to go back to Margot’s to put his good trousers and white shirt on so he could don his ringmaster apparel over the top.

  He walked in the front door and Margot was bundled up like a snow bunny: two coats, fur boots, mittens, fur hat and rug.

  ‘It’s um...summer, Margot,’ he said and she snorted.

  ‘Says you who have body fat.’ Then she paused and looked at him critically. ‘Body mass, I should say. Muscle. You look like you could be Allie’s catcher.’

  ‘Rather Valentino than me,’ he said, suppressing a shudder. It was the one part of the circus he didn’t enjoy—watching Allie fly through the air, totally dependent on a great bull of a man whose grip was like iron but whose intelligence...

  ‘He hasn’t dropped her yet,’ Margot said gently, watching his face. ‘So I can’t see why he would tonight. Come on then, get changed. I don’t want to miss anything.’

  ‘You’re coming?’

  ‘Yes. Hurry up.’

  ‘They can hardly start without the ringmaster,’ he said dryly and she cast him a sharp look.

  ‘Neither they can,’ she said softly. ‘How fortunate.’

  * * *

  Things went well that night. Allie’s dog routine was even more spectacular—their time on the beach seemed to have done them good. No one dropped anything or was dropped. The audience roared when they were supposed to roar and they hushed when they were supposed to hush.

  Margot had an awesome seat. Tickets had been sold out for days but Allie saw her arrive and someone ran for a chair and she was placed right up the front, supervising all.

  Matt was aware of her as he worked.

  She was a force to be reckoned with, his Aunt Margot. He knew she disapproved of the way he’d been raised. She’d never criticised his grandfather to him, but he’d overheard a couple of heated conversations with his grandfather. Very heated.

  ‘You’re bringing that boy up to be a financial calculator, not a child,’ she’d told her brother. ‘For heaven’s sake, give him some freedom.’

  Margot was a Bond—stern, unyielding, undemonstrative—yet she’d never had anything to do with the bank. She’d lived on her own income. She’d refused family help. She was an independent spirit. So maybe a part of her wasn’t a Bond.

  A true Bond would choke seeing Mathew Bond in glittery top hat and tails, Matt thought, but Margot cheered and gasped with the rest of them, and at the end of the performance he watched Allie rush around to talk to her and, to his astonishment, he saw his normally undemonstrative aunt give Allie a hug.

  As the big top emptied he strolled across to join them. Casually. As if it didn’t do anything to his head to see these two women together. Allie was kneeling beside Margot’s chair, smiling and holding her hand, her affection obvious, and the old woman, who only days ago had decreed she was dying, was holding her hand back and smiling and chuckling at something Allie was saying.

  He’d given the circus a two-week reprieve, he thought, but it had also given Margot two weeks.

  And after two weeks?

  Worry about that then, he told himself. Maybe he could pick Margot up and forcibly take her back to Sydney...

  Yeah. She’d be about as at home in his Sydney apartment as Allie’s camels would be.

  The women broke apart as he approached, both looking at him critically. Banker in spangles. He could see a twinkle in Margot’s eyes and half of him loved seeing mischief again, and the other half thought—uh oh.

  ‘You look splendid,’ Margot declared. ‘And you make a wonderful ringmaster. I just wish your grandfather was alive to see it.’

  ‘He’ll be rolling in his grave right now,’ he said, smiling down at her. He loved this old lady and, no matter what, these two weeks were a gift. ‘The whole Bond dynasty will be. My father, my grandfather and his grandfather before them. What do you reckon, Margot—should I give up banking and run away with the circus?’

  ‘There’s not a lot of money in circusing,’ Allie said, smiling but rueful. ‘Plus you’ll have to look for another circus.’

  ‘I don’t know why this one’s closing.’ Margot suddenly sounded fretful. ‘Mathew, you should buy it. You’re rich enough to buy it. He is, you know,’ she said to Allie, as if Matt was suddenly not there. ‘Rich as Croesus. He’s rolling in banking money like his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather before him. Not that it’s made any of them happy. Mathew, buy a circus and have some fun.’

  Allie’s smile remained but it started to look fixed.

  ‘It wouldn’t work,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you for offering,’ she told Margot, with only a sideways glance at Matt. ‘But, even though this has been an appalling shock and we’re not as prepared as I thought we were, this is a circus on its
last legs. Look round, Margot. Half our crew is geriatric.’

  ‘They don’t look geriatric to me,’ Margot snapped.

  ‘You’re how old?’ Allie said and her smile returned. ‘Get real, Margot. Could you manage a trapeze or two? There’s a time to move on.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Margot said and glared at her nephew. ‘That’s what I’ve been telling Mathew.’

  ‘I don’t mean dying,’ Allie said indignantly. ‘Just...not playing with the circus any more. Taking life seriously.’

  ‘Why don’t you mean dying then?’ Margot said morosely. ‘You can’t get any more serious than that.’

  ‘Margot...’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, girl,’ Margot ordered with a decisive nod. ‘Tell me, are you making plans to see these elephants of yours? Mathew tells me you didn’t even know where they were.’

  ‘I can’t worry about them now. I’ll figure...’

  ‘You loved them,’ Margot snapped. ‘That’s why your grandfather asked for my help in the first place. I know he told you he’d sold them to a zoo in Western Australia. I always thought it was stupid, lying to you, but now you know they’re local, you could go see them. Mathew could take you.’

  And the mischief was back, just like that.

  ‘Where are they?’ Allie said cautiously.

  ‘It’s an open range sanctuary, part of a farm, only it’s not open to the public. You’ll need to get more details from Henry but, as far as I can remember, it’s on the other side of Wagga.’

  ‘Wagga,’ Allie said faintly. ‘That’s almost three hundred miles.’

  ‘Matt has a nice car.’ Margot sounded oblivious to a minor hiccup like three hundred miles. ‘The circus doesn’t do a matinee on Wednesday. You could be there and back by the evening show.’

  ‘Not even for my elephants,’ Allie said, and Matt realised there’d been a faint sheen of hope in her eyes, a lifting of the bleak acceptance he’d seen too much of, but she extinguished the hope fast now and moved on. ‘Three hundred miles and back in a day with a show afterwards? That’s impossible. When...when we’re wound up, there’ll be all the time in the world to go look at elephants.’

  ‘But you’d like to,’ Matt said slowly, watching her face.

  ‘You have a gorgeous car,’ she told him. ‘But not that gorgeous. A six hundred mile round trip? Get real. Did you like the show, Margot?’

  ‘I loved it,’ Margot said soundly.

  ‘Well, that’s all that matters,’ Allie decreed. ‘Keeping the punters happy. For the next two weeks this circus is going to run like clockwork, and then I’ll worry about my elephants. I’ll have time then.’

  ‘In between finding houses, settling geriatric circus staff, finding a job...’ Matt growled, but she shook her head. She looked fabulous, he thought, in her gorgeous pink and silver body-suit. She looked trim, taut and so sexy she took a man’s breath away. She also looked desolate. But, desolate or not, she also looked strong. She was cutting him out of this equation.

  ‘That’s not your problem,’ she told him. ‘Margot, your nephew very kindly gave me time out today—he fed me fish and chips and he gave me time for a snooze. So he’s being our ringmaster and he’s being kind, but apart from that...I need to cope with this on my own.’

  She’d been kneeling beside Margot. Now she rose. Matt held out his hand to help her but she ignored it.

  ‘I do need to do this on my own,’ she said, gently but implacably. ‘And I will. Thank you for your help, Mathew, and thank you for your friendship, Margot, but I need to go help pack up now. Mathew, you need to take your aunt home.’

  Mathew.

  My name is Matt, Matt thought, but he didn’t say it. Allie was resetting boundaries, and what right did he have to step over them?

  * * *

  ‘She really wants to see those elephants.’

  Settled into his car, Margot was quietly thoughtful. They were halfway home before she finally came out with what was bothering her.

  ‘I know she does,’ Matt said. ‘But a six hundred mile round trip in a day is ridiculous.’

  ‘Since when did a little matter of six hundred miles ever get in the way of a Bond?’ Margot snapped, and he glanced at her and thought she looked exhausted.

  How much had tonight taken out of her?

  She’d turned away and was looking out of the window, over the bay to the twinkling lights of the boats at swing moorings.

  ‘You know, it doesn’t happen all that often,’ she said softly into the night, and he had a feeling she was half talking to herself.

  ‘What doesn’t happen?’

  She was silent for a moment. A long moment. Then...

  ‘I fell in love,’ she said at last, into the silence. ‘You’ve seen his photograph on my mantel. Raymond. He was a lovely, laughing fisherman. He was...wonderful. But my parents disapproved—oh, how they disapproved. A Bond, marrying a fisherman. We’d come down here for a family holiday and the thought that I could meet and fall in love with someone who was so out of our world... It was insupportable—and I was insistent but not insistent enough.’

  ‘You told him you’d marry him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly bleak. She stared down at her gnarled old hand, to the modest diamond ring that had been there for as long as Matt could remember. ‘We met just as the war started. I met him on the esplanade. The heel had come off my shoe and he helped me home. We went to two dances and two showings of the same picture. Then Father got wind of it and I was whisked back to Sydney. Soon afterwards, Raymond was called up and sent abroad. We wrote, though. I still have his letters. Lovely, lovely letters. Then, two years later, he came home—for a whole three weeks. He’d been wounded—he was home on leave before being sent abroad again. He came to Sydney to find me and he gave me this ring.’

  She stared down at the ring and it was as if she was looking into the very centre of the diamond. Seeing what was inside. Seeing what was in her heart all those years ago.

  ‘He wanted to marry me before he went back,’ she whispered. ‘And I wanted to. But my father...your great-grandfather...’ She shook her head. ‘He was so angry. He asked how I could know after such a short time? He said if we really loved each other it’d stand separation. He said...I forbid it. And I was stupid enough, dumb enough, weak enough to agree. So I kissed my Raymond goodbye and he died six months later.’

  She stared down at the tiny diamond and she shook her head, her grief still raw and obvious after how many years? And then she glared straight at Matt.

  ‘And here you are, looking at someone who’s right in front of you,’ she snapped. ‘Allie’s perfect. You know she is. I can see that you’re feeling exactly what I was feeling all those awful, wasted years ago and you won’t even put the lady in your car and go visit some elephants!’

  At the end she was practically booming—and then she burst into tears.

  In all the time he’d known her he’d never seen Margot cry.

  Bonds didn’t do emotion.

  He’d seen the engagement ring on her finger. He’d never been brave enough to ask her about it. Once he’d asked his grandfather.

  ‘A war thing,’ his grandfather had snapped. ‘Stupid, emotional whim. Lots of women lost their partners during the war—Margot was one of the lucky ones. At least she didn’t get married and have children.’

  One of the lucky ones...

  He hugged Margot now and found her a handkerchief and watched as she sniffed and sniffed again, and then she harrumphed and pulled herself together and told him to drive on—and he thought of those words.

  One of the lucky ones...

  A six hundred mile round trip.

  Allie.

  ‘You can do it if you want to,’ Margot muttered as he helped her out of the car, and h
e helped her inside, he made her cocoa, helped her to bed—and then he went for a very long walk on the beach.

  A six hundred mile round trip.

  Allie.

  Elephants.

  One of the lucky ones...

  * * *

  Wednesday morning.

  Allie had plans for this morning, but none of them were good. She had a list from the realtors of all the farmlets that were available for rent in the district in her price range. She’d added combined pensions plus what she could feasibly earn as a bookkeeper minus what it’d cost to keep the animals and it wasn’t looking pretty. The places looked almost derelict.

  She thought of the lovely beachside cottage Henry and Bella had told her they were paying off, and she felt ill.

  They’d done this for her.

  Henry was being released from hospital tomorrow. They’d kept him in until he was over his virus, but she suspected the kindly staff of the small district hospital were also giving them a break. Tomorrow they’d be back in their caravan and they’d have to face their future.

  Maybe one of these properties was better than it looked in the brochure, she thought grimly. Ha.

  Deeply unsettled, she fed the animals early, then took the dogs for a long walk on the deserted beach. As she walked back to the circus a helicopter was coming into land on the foreshore.

  ‘Bond’s Bank’ was emblazoned on the side.

  Why?

  Maybe this was Matt’s...Mathew’s staff, she corrected herself. He’d said the circus could operate for two weeks but she was under no illusion. The circus belonged to him, lock, stock and barrel, and if he’d brought in a team to pull it apart...

  She felt sick.

  She stood back and watched as the chopper came to rest, as the rotor blades stopped spinning.

  It was a very small chopper for a team of financiers.

  Who was she kidding? she thought ruefully. Sparkles was a very small circus. Why would they need a team?

  But this small? Only one guy climbed from the chopper and that was the pilot.

  This had nothing to do with her, she told herself grimly.