by Tessa Radley
Thankfully the lump sum Ironstone Insurance had paid out after her father’s death had been invested wisely, the interest paying for Adrian’s and Miranda’s education as well as a modest retainer to support her mother, though it left Flo only a shadow of the lifestyle she’d once taken for granted.
Yet as Miranda’s gaze remained locked with Callum’s, a deep sense of foreboding closed around her heart.
“So where did the funds for Greenacres come from?” he asked, naming the exclusive culinary school she’d attended. He held up two fingers. “Two years. And your brother’s schooling at St. Martin’s…”
No, please God.
It had been a shock to discover her parents’ precarious financial position after her father’s death. But at least her father had kept his life insurance up-to-date.
Voice trembling, she said, “My father’s life insurance policy paid f—”
“Your father’s suicide voided the policy.”
“No!” She realized she was shaking her head wildly. “That can’t be true.”
Yet even as she denied it, her brain worked furiously. What he said sounded perfectly logical. From the stories her father had told about repudiated claims she knew about fine print. So why had the company paid out the policy after his death when they’d fired her father…had publicly branded him a criminal? And why had she never questioned the settlement?
Because she’d trusted her father not to do anything that would leave her…them…so horribly exposed. Surely he would never have killed himself, cutting them off from the last lifeline available to them?
But he had.
Why had he killed himself, and abandoned them when there’d been so much to live for? It wasn’t as if he’d been guilty. Yet Thomas Owen had left his family vulnerable. And this man, a man she detested, had bailed them out.
Why?
She must have said it out loud. Because Callum shifted from one foot to the other and discomfort flashed in his eyes. Her gaze sharpened. He thought she’d been asking why he’d supported them…and that made him uncomfortable. The next why? popped into her head: what did Callum have to feel guilty about?
The answer hit her like a bolt of lightning, filling her with icy shock. Had it been a payoff? So they wouldn’t sue Ironstone Insurance? No. Her mother would never have accepted that.
Or would she have? Miranda wavered. Things had been pretty dire after her father’s death. Had her mother been tempted?
“You can’t have paid for everything.” Please, please, let it not be so.
Something like pity softened his gaze. “Do you want to see the invoices?”
Trepidation made her mouth go dry. “And the allowance my mother receives every month?” She paused. But she had to ask…had to know. “Are you paying that, too?”
His eyes told her yes.
It was too much. Miranda’s stomach started to churn again. The sick feeling that had unsettled her earlier swept over her like a tidal wave.
She turned her head away and stared out the sheet-glass window over the cloud-shrouded city where the light was rapidly waning. Miranda shivered. How much had Callum paid? How much did her family owe the man responsible for her father’s death? And how was she ever going to pay it back?
Just trying to figure how much money was involved made her feel all weak inside. Jerkily, she staggered to her feet and yanked her coat on, hugging its warmth around her. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she faced him, her head held high. “I don’t want this job—I don’t want anything from you. And you can stop the allowance to my mother from today—she doesn’t want your money, either.”
She stumbled across his office. The expanse of carpet stretched forever and the door seemed a long way away.
As she grasped the doorknob, he spoke from behind her. “If I were you, I’d check that your mother feels the same way you do—you may be in for a surprise.”
Two
O utside the towering glass world of Ironstone Insurance darkness had fallen. Huddled in her coat, Miranda hurried toward the bus stop. Not even the festivity of the Christmas lights twinkling through the winter gloom could lift her spirits.
A chill wind swirled around her legs as Callum’s words reverberated though her head. If I were you, I’d check that your mother feels the same way you do—you may be in for a surprise.
Her mother couldn’t have possibly known…wouldn’t have hidden this from her.
Homeward-bound traffic rushed past, and Miranda fumbled in her bag for her cell phone before punching the call button with an icy, shaking finger. “Mum?”
“Hello, darling.” Flo sounded cheerfully vague. “I’m home from my tea with Sorrel. What are we having for dinner?”
The mundane thought disoriented Miranda for an instant. Dinner? Who cared? She gathered her scattered thoughts together.
“I just saw Callum Ironstone. He says Dad’s insurance never paid out and that Callum paid for my studies and Adrian’s schooling himself.” Reaching the deserted bus stop, Miranda halted and held her breath as she waited for her mother’s denial.
Instead, an ominous silence. Her mother had known.
“Mum?”
Nothing.
“Flo—” Miranda resorted to her mother’s name as she’d been doing more and more recently “—please tell me it’s a lie.” Unable to stand still, she took a few unsettled steps out of the shelter and paced restlessly along the sidewalk. Miranda closed her eyes, willing her mother to deny it.
“Darling…”
As her mother’s breathy voice trailed away, Miranda knew Callum had told her the truth. There had never been a life insurance payout. Her gloved hands tightened round the phone and despair set in. The same evil little wind whirled around her ears, and she shivered. Opening her eyes, she glimpsed her bus trundling past the stop.
“Wait,” she called, running after it.
“What did you say, darling?” Flo sounded alarmed over the open line.
“I just missed my bus.” Miranda slowed to a standstill. Her next bus wasn’t due for half an hour and she would be freezing by the time she got home. She wanted to howl to the dark sky. Or burst into tears. But what would that help? The phone pressed against her ear, Miranda backed up and sagged tiredly against the bus shelter, staring bleakly into the shadows.
“Darling, the Ironstones owed it to us.”
“I don’t want money from them.” Especially not from him. “I want them to take responsibility for what they did to Dad.” To us.
“This is their way of taking responsibility, by paying us money.”
But it was Callum who had paid.
The chilling thought that had occurred to her in Callum’s office resurfaced. Sucking the cold, damp air into her lungs, she plunged on. “Mum, was it supposed to be a payoff from the company so that we—and Dad’s estate—wouldn’t sue?”
“Darling, no!”
The tension that had tightened her stomach into knots eased a little. “So you didn’t sign any settlement agreement?”
“There was a document,” her mother admitted, “but it wasn’t anything important.”
“Are you sure?” Miranda prompted urgently.
“Only that I’d use the money for your and Adrian’s education…and for housekeeping.”
“That’s all?”
“And there was a little something for me each month, too,” Flo added reluctantly.
“Perhaps I should look at that agreement,” said Miranda darkly.
“Oh, darling, I don’t even know where it is anymore. It’s nothing important. Let it go. The Ironstones took responsibility for what happened.”
“Not the Ironstones. Callum Ironstone.”
It had become important to make that distinction. And Miranda wished she had seen that missing agreement. She strongly suspected that Callum had rushed to the grieving widow with a contract that precluded legal action—against him, his family and their company.
And no doubt the cash had been the price of his
guilty conscience. Money had freed him from what he’d done.
It made her see red.
But how could she make Flo understand she wanted Callum Ironstone to sweat blood? And his brothers, too. And his father, who’d been chairman at the time Miranda’s father had been framed.
But more than anything it was Callum she wanted to see suffer—because he’d been her father’s boss. It had been Callum who’d made the decision that had ruined her father’s life. He had summarily dismissed Thomas Owen, an employee with twenty years’ service to Ironstone Insurance, had him arrested, charged with a crime he hadn’t committed, and then had publicly humiliated a humble, gentle man.
“Darling, Adrian says he needs a word with you.”
Her mother’s voice brought her back to the dark London street. Miranda shivered again. A second later her brother’s voice came over the line.
“Mir?”
He sounded so young. He was the reason she’d set foot in Callum Ironstone’s moneyed world today. It seemed an age since her only worry had been about what Adrian might have done. In less than an hour, Callum had turned her world upside down.
How was she ever going to find the money to pay back Callum?
“What is it?” she asked dully. The long day on her feet in The Golden Goose topped by the meeting with Callum had sapped her strength. All she craved was a warm home and a hot meal that she hadn’t had to cook. And someone to hold her, to tell her that everything would be okay.
None of that would happen. She’d been cutting the heating to a minimum to save money, so the terrace house would be barely warm, and there would be no hot meal unless she cooked it herself.
Adrian interrupted her musing. “Listen, sis, I need you to lend me some money. Can you draw it out on your way home?”
“More money?” Only last night she’d given him fifty pounds for a night out with his friends. At least he was due to be paid on Friday. It galled her that she was actually grateful for the job he had with Ironstone Insurance, but she needed that money back. Desperately. “How much do you need this time?”
“Uh…”
A sharp edge of unease knifed her at his hesitation. Her voice rising, she asked, “How much?”
The amount made her breath catch. “Good grief, Adrian, I don’t have that kind of money.” Even the monthly housekeeping fund was almost empty. “What have you done?”
“Nothing, I promise you. Nothing major. I’m just helping—”
“You haven’t been gambling again?”
A couple of months back Adrian had developed an addiction to blackjack, and had started frequenting casinos. His talk of developing a system that couldn’t lose had struck terror into Miranda. Now images of bull-necked debt collectors threatening to break her baby brother’s fingers crowded her mind. “You promised not to go back there.” A promise he’d resented, but she’d insisted on it before she’d agreed to pay off his debts. “Are you in danger?”
“No!” He gave a half laugh. “I haven’t been gambling. Honestly, you should hear yourself, sis—you’re worse than Mum.”
Flo was too soft on him. That was part of the reason he’d gotten so close to trouble. Miranda knew it was time he grew up.
“I can’t just keep giving you handouts, Adrian. You still owe me the money I lent you last ni—”
“I know, I know. You’re the best sister in the world.”
Miranda hesitated. “So what’s this money for?”
“Oh, don’t nag, sis. It’s to help someone in trouble,” he said cagily.
What had happened to being the best sister in the world? “Hardly nagging, given the amount you want. Can’t this person find someone else to help them?”
“I’ve promised.” Adrian sounded impatient. “It’s going to be hard to back out now.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you pledged my money.”
Then wished she’d bitten her tongue when he said, “Just forget it, okay. I’ll find someone else to help me—maybe I can get an advance against my pay.”
And place her further in Callum’s debt? Over her dead body! Miranda contemplated the amount in her savings account. Every cent she’d squirreled away for the past fourteen months. The extra jobs. The overtime. All painfully accumulated to allow her a few months of breathing space when she finally handed in her notice at The Golden Goose and started her own catering business.
It was a pittance compared to the overwhelming amount she needed to repay Callum. Her dream was already history.
She suppressed a sigh.
But at least Adrian wasn’t gambling. He wasn’t in trouble. Despite her fears, she hadn’t been called in to Ironstone’s because he’d done anything stupid. And now he’d promised to help a friend. Weren’t those precisely the kind of values she’d tried to instill in him?
The time had come to start trusting his judgment; otherwise he’d never grow up.
But, oh, boy, it was hard.
“Let me see what I can do.”
A pause. Then, “Thanks, sis.”
“But it will be a loan, Adrian,” she cautioned. This wasn’t going the way of all the other sums she’d “lent” her brother. “Your friend needs to understand that. When will I get it back?”
“Soon,” he replied, with a worrying vagueness that reminded her uncomfortably of Flo. “He’ll get paid—probably at the end of the next fortnight.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Hitting the end-call button with unaccustomed ferocity, Miranda noticed that it had started to drizzle. She shivered in the gloom. Her dream had just received a death knell, so why bother about a bit of rain?
Headlights cut through the drizzle, tires hissing as a sleek car veered toward the curb. Miranda turned away, not in the mood for unwelcome harassment.
A window lowered. “Jump in.”
Callum!
Miranda hunched her shoulders and ignored him.
A door slammed, and a moment later an arm landed across her shoulders, surrounding her with warmth and comfort. Miranda was tempted to lean into his broad chest and draw the strength she could. She squared her shoulders. This was Callum Ironstone. Her enemy.
“I’m parked illegally. Let’s go before I get ticketed.”
She shrugged him off. “I’ll wait for my bus, thanks.”
He glanced up at the electronic information board above the bus shelter. “Looks like a long wait. Or would you rather freeze on principle?”
She hated that he managed to make her sound like a petulant child. Reluctantly Miranda allowed him to take her elbow—ignoring the sudden prickles of sensation—and steer her to his car, a ghost-gray Daimler. Opening the door for her, he stood back while she clambered in.
A delicious frisson rippled down her spine as the warm interior embraced her. Turning her head away as if in rejection of the seductive comfort Callum’s wealth offered, Miranda stared blindly out the side window as he settled in the driver’s seat beside her.
“Where to?”
The weight of Callum’s gaze settled on Miranda.
“Home.”
“Not The Golden Goose?”
“I’ve finished for the day.” No point revealing what a tussle she’d had getting time off.
Instead of starting the car, he said, “I’d have thought you’d have used your qualifications to land something better than a job at a place like that.”
She shrugged and stared through the windshield at traffic that had slowed to a crawl as the drizzle turned to rain. No point defending The Golden Goose. Not when what he said was true and she couldn’t wait to escape.
Although any chance of that had gone up in smoke the moment he’d told her about her father’s life insurance being nonexistent.
“It was the closest job I could find to home.” That meant less spent on transport, less time commuting, which gave more hours to work overtime. “It’s only a short bus ride away,” she said tiredly. “It pays the bills.”
And that was what mattered. Making sure Adr
ian’s future education was taken care of, repaying Callum and saving enough money to look after Flo. Until she’d repaid Callum she couldn’t even think of opening her own catering business.
He must have heard her sigh because he said gently, “I know your family is short of cash. You should’ve accepted my proposition—who knows, you might have impressed people and gotten a few more catering jobs to ease the hardship.”
Did he have any idea what kind of temptation he’d dangled in front of her? How hard it had been to refuse?
She eyed him warily as he accelerated into the stream of traffic. Yes, he probably did. “Now I believe everything I’ve heard about you.”
“Everything? You shouldn’t believe everything.” She caught a lightning flash of wicked blue eyes before he turned his attention back to the road. “Some rumors are nothing more than wild speculation.”
Ignoring the innuendo underlying the humor, Miranda said hastily, “That you have the ability to home in on what people want and then use it against them?” And now he was doing that to her.
Studying his profile, she took in the straight nose jutting out with masculine arrogance, quickly bypassing his generous mouth. Miranda had no idea how he’d gotten a glimpse into her soul, her deepest desire, but somehow the sneaky bastard had.
If the offer had come from anyone else…
“I’m only asking you to cater a dinner party for me. How can I use that against you?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” she said darkly, thinking of how he’d pressured her poor mother into signing an agreement that Flo wouldn’t have had a hope of understanding. No doubt it cleared the Ironstone family of all liability. Helplessness filled Miranda. How could she fight such a man?
“So why don’t you prove to me that I didn’t waste money putting you through cooking school?”
“Culinary school,” she corrected.
“If you say so.” He slowed as a light turned red. He swiveled his head, and his gaze met hers. “If it makes it easier, think of it this way. You owe it to me.”
“I owe it to you?” The gall of the man. “I owe you nothing.” He owed her. For taking her father away, for ruining her family.
