Trouble on Her Doorstep

by Nina Harrington

  She felt as though she had been caught in some kind of tornado that had been spinning her round and round from the moment she’d met Sean. Spinning so fast that she had never truly had the chance to get her feet back on the ground.

  She had always known that his work in London was temporary, but Paris was only a few hours away by train. They might have had a chance to stay in touch and to stay close. If they worked at it.

  If they both wanted it enough.

  If he wanted it as much as she did.

  He was leaving.

  Just as her parents had decided to leave behind the cold, grey British winters and go back to the sunshine and the life that they loved. Just as her friends from catering college had left for jobs all over the world. Just as Josh had gone back to his real girlfriend and left his stand-in, second-best girl standing on the pavement outside his apartment reeling from what the hell had just happened.

  She had coped with saying goodbye and managing the shock. And she still had Lottie and Gloria and the girls in the baking club. She could cope with saying goodbye to Sean. She was going to have to; he wasn’t giving her any other choice.

  It wasn’t meant to be this hard.

  She just wanted him to stay with her so badly.

  Sean snuggled up next to her in the silence, the whole left side of his body pressed against her right side. Thigh to thigh, hip to hip and arm to arm.

  She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, and her whole body yearned to lean sideways against him for support, but she fought off the temptation.

  She had to.

  It was almost too much to bear when his fingers meshed with hers, locking them together in the dark.

  Slowly, slowly, she found the strength to look up into the most amazing blue-grey eyes. In the bar they had been like clear, blue, fresh tropical seas, alluring, tempting and begging her to dive in. But now they were dark and stormy. Dangerous.

  The warmth had been replaced with an intensity and concern that she had never seen before.

  It was all there in the hard lines of his handsome face. The face that she had come to love so much over the past week or so, though she did not dare admit that to herself.

  The planes of his face were brought into sharp contrast by the light from the room.

  She had been so wrong to imagine that the son of Tom Beresford would have an easy office job handed down by his father.

  Sean worked so very hard. And she admired him for that. But why now? Why did he have to go tonight?

  ‘What kind of emergency is it?’ she asked in a voice which was quaking a lot more than she wanted. ‘Not another flood, I hope.’

  His lips parted and he took in a long, shuddering breath before replying in a low, hoarse voice which to her ears seemed heavy with regret and concern.

  ‘No; worse. Food poisoning. Rob thinks that it’s a norovirus, and he is already on site working with the authorities, but the hotel is closed and guests are on lockdown. And I really do not want to talk about kitchen detox at this precise moment.’

  His fingers clenched around hers and Dee tried focusing on the flickering lights on the riverbank but she could sense every tiny movement of his body which made vision a little difficult.

  Her eyes fluttered closed as he took a tighter hold of her fingers and stepped away and she instantly yearned to have his body next to her again. Instead he gently lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of her knuckles, forcing her to look up into his face.

  ‘I wanted to be there tomorrow. To share your triumph. Because that is what it is going to be—a triumph.’

  His head tilted slightly and one side of his mouth lifted up into a half-smile. ‘You are going to be amazing. I know it. And Prakash has promised me a full report with video and photos.’

  ‘Video?’ She spluttered. ‘That wasn’t on the list.’

  His gaze was focused on her hair and he casually lifted a stray strand of her lop-sided fringe and popped it behind her ear in a gesture so tender and caring that she almost cried at the pleasure of it.

  ‘I ticked all of the optional extras on the checklist for you. Courtesy of the hotel management.’

  ‘Wow,’ she whispered and was rewarded with a quick nod of reply and a flash of a smile.

  ‘Sean?’ she asked in a quiet voice, and she closed the tiny gap between them. ‘How long are you going to be away in Chicago? A week? Two? Then you are going to be in Paris, right?’

  ‘I don’t know. Weeks, most likely. As for Paris? There is no way I can handle that now. My dad is going to take over the project and find another manager.’

  Dee exhaled a long sigh of relief. ‘That’s great. So when are you coming back to London? I will have so much to tell you.’

  His head dropped down so that his forehead was almost touching hers and she could feel the heat of his breath on her face.

  So that there was nowhere for her to escape to when he formed the words that she had been dreading.

  ‘You don’t understand, Dee. Paris is cancelled. My next assignment is in Brazil for a couple of months and then back to Australia in the autumn. I’m not coming back to London.’

  TWELVE

  Tea, glorious tea. A celebration of teas from around the world.

  A simple infusion of chamomile flowers can help to relax the nerves and aid in sleep by creating a general feeling of relaxation.

  From Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea

  ‘Not coming back? Then I only want to know the answer to one question—and I don’t want to hear it over the phone or in an email. Don’t treat me like one of your managers. Talk to me. I want to hear your answer here and now. In person. To my face.’

  She pressed both hands flat against his shirt so that the racing beat of his heart flittered up through her fingertips.

  He was hurting just as much as she was.

  ‘Do you want to see me again, Sean? Because if you don’t it would be better if you told me now and be done with it, so that...’ She lifted her chin. ‘So that we can both get on with our lives.’

  ‘Do I want to be with you? Oh, Dee.’

  His right hand came up and flicked his suit jacket onto a patio table, exposing her skin to the cold night air, and instantly she could feel her nipples pebble with alertness. His long fingers slid down the whole length of her body from her neck, down the treacherous front of her jacket to her hips and back again.

  Without asking for permission or forgiveness he slipped his warm hand up inside her jacket and cupped her breast. His thumb moved over her nipple with the perfect amount of pressure to fire up every nerve in her body.

  But Sean had found the perfect distraction, kissing her forehead, temple and throat with such exquisitely gentle kisses that any idea of a question was driven out her mind as her desire for him built with each touch of his lips on hers.

  And, just when she thought that her legs were going to buckle, his fingers slid away until her entire breast was being cupped by his hand and her bra was redundant and getting in the way of the exquisite pleasure.

  Then slowly, slowly, his hand slid lower onto the bare skin at her waist and rested there for a second before moving away.

  Arms wrapped around his head, Dee hung onto Sean as he wrapped both arms around her and held her to him.

  She could feel the supressed power of his answer pressing against her hip and his short, fast breaths on her neck, fighting, fighting for control.

  ‘Oh, Sean,’ she whispered through a closed throat, and she dropped her head down to the safety and warmth of his broad chest.

  They must have stayed there for several minutes, but time seemed to stand still, and it was Sean who broke the silence.

  ‘I have been down this road before, Dee. My last girlfriend was so patient and we tried so hard to make it wo
rk. But in the end we were both worn down with the constant struggle to make time for one another between going back and forwards to the airport. It was exhausting. And it killed a great friendship. I don’t want that to happen to us, Dee. Not to us.’

  He was stroking her hair now, running his fingers back from her forehead. ‘It could be six months before I get back here, and even then it would only be for a flying visit. There will always be some crisis somewhere, like tonight, which needs me to fly out at a moment’s notice. I can’t plan holidays or down time. You deserve better than that. A lot better.’

  Dee looked up into his face and blinked, her mouth part open. ‘No. I deserve you. All of you.’

  Her words stung like ice on hot skin, burning into his brain and leaving a scar.

  ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Dee. That’s why it’s better that we part now and remember the good times.’

  She laid her cheek on his shirt and dared to finally find the words. ‘Does it have to be that way, Sean? Is there truly nobody else in the company that can cover your job? What happens when you are ill or burnt out? You can’t keep going like this for ever. You have to take a break some time.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Dee,’ he replied, his hand cupping the back of her head. ‘My family are very close, we always have been, and I owe my father everything. This hotel chain is my life and I want to make it special.’

  ‘It seems to me that you have paid your family dues, Sean. Paid in full.’

  ‘What do you mean?

  Dee forced herself to raise her head and slip backwards so that she could look up into his face. ‘This is your decision to leave tonight. Not your father’s. Or your brother’s. Yours. You have recruited an amazing team of talented professionals who would be only too happy to take on some of those troubleshooting challenges if you gave them the chance. You have made these hotels your life—and I understand that. Look at me—the tea grower’s daughter who wants to set up her own tea company. We are both following in the family trade. But maybe it’s time to think hard about what you want to do with your life. And who you want to spend it with.’

  Then she stood back and slowly slid her fingers from his, one finger at a time, breaking their connection with each movement as she spoke.

  She stood on tiptoe, pressed her lips against his in one last, lingering kiss, then ran her finger along his jaw and smiled.

  ‘Good luck, Sean. Goodbye and thank you for everything.’

  Then she turned and walked away, back into the conference room and out of his life. Without looking back.

  And this time he didn’t follow her.

  THIRTEEN

  Tea, glorious tea. A celebration of teas from around the world.

  The traditional treatment for shock in Britain is a steaming beaker of piping hot Indian tea with milk and plenty of sugar. This remedy should be repeated until the symptoms subside.

  From Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea

  Saturday

  Her best friend slid a plate in front of her in the early-morning light streaming in through her bedroom window.

  Dee squinted over the top of her extra-strong English Breakfast at the slice of a tall extravaganza of green-and vanilla-coloured sponge layers.

  It was very green. And smelt of a florist shop. And no amount of strong tea was going to be able to wash down that amount of sugar and fat.

  ‘I am calling this my tea festival special. It’s a Lady Grey flavoured opera cake with a rosewater cream filling. What do you think?’

  ‘Think? I am too tired to think, and my taste buds are fried. Thanks, Lottie. I am sure it will be a brilliant hit. It looks wonderful, but I just can’t face it at the moment. Way too nervous.’

  Lottie rubbed the back of Dee’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘I had a feeling that it might be a bit over the top for six a.m. Did you get any sleep at all?’

  Dee shook her head. ‘Maybe a couple of hours at most. Kept waking up and couldn’t get back to sleep again.’

  ‘Never fear. I have donuts, and cheese and ham croissants. The breakfast of champions. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘You’re my hero,’ Dee replied and smiled after Lottie as she took the stairs down to the bakery from her apartment.

  Her hero.

  Dee stretched out her arms on the small table, dropped her head onto her hands and closed her eyes.

  She was exhausted and her day had not started yet.

  This was the most important event of her career. Months of planning. Weeks of phone calls, emails, checklists and constant to-ing and fro-ing from the hotel. And it all came down to this.

  One girl sitting alone in her bedroom, drinking tea in her dressing gown. Feeling as though she had just gone through twelve rounds of a professional boxing match and lost.

  Every part of her body ached, her head was thumping and she could easily fall asleep sitting upright in this hard chair.

  Little wonder.

  Lottie thought that she had stayed awake because of nerves about what today would bring. And that was true. But it was not the real reason she had tossed and turned until her duvet was on the floor and her sheet a tangled mess, wrapped around her like a restricting cocoon.

  Sean. All she could think about, every time she closed her eyes, was Sean.

  How he looked, tasted, smelt and felt. Sean.

  And the worst thing?

  The more she thought about what he had said to her, and repeated their conversation over and over in her head, the more she knew in her heart that he had been right to walk away and end what they had.

  Sean had let her go rather than prolong the agony of always expecting her to take a place in the long line of other priorities that came with his position in the company.

  He had done a noble thing.

  He had given her up so that she could find someone who was able to put her first.

  She did deserve better than to feel that she was always going to take second place in his list of priorities.

  She was worthy of having someone to be there when she needed them. Like today.

  Her parents had always put work first before her. Not because they intended to hurt her; far from it. They loved what they did and had explained many times that they wanted to be happy so that she could share that happiness.

  Shame that it had never made it any easier to accept.

  Shame that she would have loved to have Sean with her today of all days. To share her excitement and sense of achievement. To share her joy with the man she had come to love. The man she still wanted to be with.

  The first man that she wanted to be with.

  This was all so new and bewildering. Oh, there had been plenty of teenage crushes before. And broken hearts galore. But the way she felt this morning was something very different.

  It was if she had tasted something so wonderful that it was terrifying to think that she might never taste it again.

  Dee raised her body back to a sitting position and peered glassy-eyed at the photograph of her smiling parents, and Lottie’s bizarre but no doubt totally delicious cake, and a small chuckle made her shoulders rise and fall.

  Even in the daily mayhem that constituted her mad world, falling for one of heirs to the Beresford hotel dynasty was surely the craziest.

  She picked up the fork, speared a small chunk of cake and closed her lips around it, savouring the different flavours. Letting her tongue and the sensitive taste buds that made her job possible do the work before chewing for a moment and swallowing it down.

  ‘Oh, you tried the cake. Brave woman. Go on. Hit me with it.’

  Lottie marched into her bedroom with a tray, sat down on the bed and bared her teeth in fear of the honest review.

  Dee raised her eyebrows an
d licked her lips. ‘You put ground black pepper in the cream to offset the rosewater. And I am tasting orange zest and a hint of cloves and cardamom in the tea-scented sponge.’

  ‘Absolutely. I knew that you would get it. So? Lady Grey or a green tea?’

  Dee took the tray out of Lottie’s hands. ‘Green. But a special one. This is good. This is very good. Congratulations, Miss Rosemount. You have just succeeded in creating one of the toughest tea-matching challenges I have ever come across. Please accept this hand-crafted medal.’

  ‘This is not a medal. It’s an exhibitors badge for the tea festival.’

  ‘Well, you don’t think I would face the ravenous cake-eating hordes without you there to serve it and bask in the glory, did you? And, after all, we can’t have tea without the cake to go with it! Foolish girl.’

  Then Dee’s smile faded and she reached out and took Lottie’s hand. ‘Can you come with me? Just for a couple of hours. Please? Gloria and the gang will look after the tea rooms. I just... I just need a pal by my side today. It turns out that being a tea magnate is not half as much fun when you don’t have someone to share the excitement with. And I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect that at all.’

  * * *

  Sean dug into his pocket, pulled out his mobile phone and dialled the number with shaking fingers.

  He had been up most of the night, talking to Rob, who was fighting health inspectors in Chicago, and his father, who was fighting to stay awake after two hours of pacing back and forth going over the business plans for the hotel chain and where Sean was going in his career. And his life.

  Please still be there.

  Please answer.

  Please don’t throw the phone out of the window when you see who is calling you. Please take this call.

  The only voice in the world he wanted to hear whispered, ‘Hello?’