Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles)

by Synthia St. Claire

  Perhaps he was being truthful. Perhaps he was making light of it. But she was sure he’d made no hint of his intentions before and she was equally sure she hadn’t led him on in any way. She had no make-up on, for a start! So why would he think she was… well, up for it?

  See, mother, it’s not about that, she thought as she slid at a breakneck pace down the moorland. “I’m sorry,” she said, shouting over her shoulder. “I just need to be home… I’ve remembered…” Oh damn, why did she feel she ought to apologise? It wasn’t her fault. She knew that.

  She knew that objectively. Her body told her differently.

  “Helena!” he bellowed, and his voice was further away, as if he was no longer pursuing her. “Not that way! You’re heading into a bog.”

  It’s a trick, she thought, even as her boot disappeared into a dark puddle. Oh wait, no it’s not. Damn it. She leapt from tussock to tussock, trusting the bunches of spiky grass to offer slightly firmer ground as she continued on her way down the slope and off the hill. Soon her ankles were cold and wet, and the moisture was wicking up her trousers. She slowed down and risked a look behind.

  The moorland was empty. She stopped, and scanned all around. Was he hiding? Did he know a way to get ahead of her, cut her off? Out here, alone in the wilds, she could imagine the very worst.

  The thrill of her pounding heart was exciting and she began to realise she’d let herself get hopelessly carried away. She forced a few slow, deep breaths. He was not chasing after her and she knew, very well, in the deepest part of her, that he was not lurking behind a stone wall, lying in wait for her.

  He’d misjudged, up on the hill, perhaps. And so had she. It happened.

  Feeling slightly foolish, she resumed her soggy descent of the hill, heading for a half-familiar path that seemed to lead back to Arkthwaite. It was him, she told herself. It was always easier to blame him.

  * * *

  Richard held his breath as he watched her go, her arms flailing wildly in the air as she plummeted down the steepest slope she could have chosen. She ignored his shouts and he gave up. He knew as soon as he’d even mentioned her eyes that it had been the worst thing to say and he knew, with tired inevitability, that it was all going to go wrong.

  So he stopped, as he had no intention of making her feel chased. She was like a frightened deer and he was not, and never had been, her hunter.

  She splatted into the lurking bog and he winced as he saw her feet disappear into the dark smelly peat-water. He waited, watching in case she twisted her ankle or worse, broke a bone on the shifting, unpredictable ground. But she fought back against the marsh and the moor with valiant energy, and she did not look back.

  At least she was heading in the right direction. He started to move carefully down the hill once she was nearly out of sight. He took the path, and it took him skirting round in a large semi-circle. She disappeared from view at last, but he was sure she was going to get home. She was heading towards the path to the top of the village, and she hadn’t had any accidents.

  There was a heavy weariness in his limbs as he trudged down to his house. I am such a fool. It’s not like I even had any intentions of making a move on her, yet she reacted like I’d just groped her bum in a night club. The thing is, she really does have amazing eyes.

  Am I merely justifying terrible behaviour to myself? Am I turning into one of those dreadful men that leer at women and expect them to be damn grateful for the attention?

  I really don’t think so. Yet I’ve clearly crossed a line. A line I didn’t even know was there.

  God damn it, life these days is too complicated. Maybe I’ve been keeping myself to myself far too much.

  He clattered into the porch area at the back of the manor and sat heavily on a wooden settle, lifting his feet up onto a box so he could untie his boots more easily. He pushed newspaper into them and left them on the windowsill to catch what sun they could.

  In the kitchen, his ginger tabby, Caecilius, was sitting reproachfully by his empty bowl, tucked up in a self-contained and haughty erectness. He mewed but did not move except for the very end of his tail twitching slightly.

  “Oh hell, sorry cat,” Richard muttered. “I was coming back but then… she turned up. And I got distracted.”

  Caecilius stared his apology and explanation away, as a thing of no consequence to him, and simply awaited his food. Richard popped the metal lid from a can and tried not to inhale the meaty smell as he forked it into Caecilius’ bowl. “There you go. Yummy food.”

  Caecilius ignored his words, and got on with the more important business of eating every scrap he could find. Richard sighed and filled the kettle, and stood by the wide window, looking out at the courtyard as he waited for the water to boil.

  The landline phone started ringing, but he ignored it. He decided that he was officially having a break, and they could speak to the answerphone. If it were a marketing call, he didn’t care, and if it were a tenant, he’d get back to them. If it were an emergency, they’d be hammering on the door, anyway. He made up his coffee in a large mug with a comedy slogan about bachelors on it.

  That’s about right, he thought, looking at the cartoon picture of the unshaven man slumped on a sofa surrounded by take-away cartons and half-eaten pizzas. And why the hell not? He’d vowed to stay single, after all. If Helena knew that, she wouldn’t have been so worried about his compliment on her eyes.

  But it was hardly something he could tell her. Not even Caecilius knew for sure, not that he’d care.

  Richard padded back to the porch and shoved a pair of old wellingtons on his feet, and prowled out into the courtyard to drink his coffee. He peeked in through the window of the newly-designated office. He was pleased that the glass was clean.

  But that was about all.

  Maybe Tom had been right, bitter old moody-man that he was. Richard looked at the empty office and sighed. Good intentions were all very well, but it was hard to stick to them. Hell, he knew that better than anyone. He’d only intended to show Helena the Fairy Glen, after all.

  Damn! He took a big gulp of coffee and burned his mouth, and he didn’t care. The stab of pain brought him back to reality. He had to stop thinking about her. God knew, he was going to have to encounter her again. She’d be up here with that mad Vicky from the school. They’d want keys to the office - he had to go into Ingholme and get some cut. It was a pain to make the journey, but then at least she would have no reason to come bothering him again.

  Local Exchange Trading System. It had its merits, and in his student days he’d have been all over it. Smash the capitalist system! Ironic, considering who he was. But was there really enough talent in this small village to make it sustainable?

  And as for broadband - excellent idea, but even with his own land being given for free, did they really know how expensive the whole thing was going to be? No one had spare money in Arkthwaite. They paid more for fuel out here, and mostly they lived in old houses with poor insulation so everyone’s heating bills were higher. If they had a job they had to travel further for it - with the higher cost of fuel added on to that - and they had fewer services. They paid the same taxes but it was the ones in the cities benefiting from libraries and drop-in centres and pretty floral town centre displays and travelling theatre groups and medical walk-in centres and a range of shops and… and… and everything, really.

  Richard could feel his thoughts descending towards a parody of “What have the Romans ever done for us,” and he stopped. He drank the dregs of his coffee and returned to the kitchen. He had work to do, and moping around getting wound up about how things were, how things always were, and how things always would be, was not going to help. He rinsed out his mug and left it on the drainer. He had the answerphone message to check, and then a backlog of work to get through. While he had been swanning about on the moors with a daft woman who believed in spirits, his fences were going un-fixed, his stables un-cleaned, his walls un-repaired and one of his tenants’ farms was still bein
g treated for severe mould. He had to check on the workmen down there, then check on the tenants who had been moved temporarily to a local hotel, and a million other mundane things that crowded his oh-so-idyllic country manor life.

  He ran through the list of urgent and not-so-urgent jobs in his mind, and then sighed. Usually, he could just throw himself into what needed to be done. After all, it was more than his job - it was his duty and his obligation. What he had been born to. Now he felt unsettled and it wasn’t really Helena’s green eyes or Helena herself that was at fault. It was always like this when he allowed something to interfere with his usual daily routine. That’s why he didn’t bother with social engagements, and why he rarely returned the calls of old school friends who wanted to get back in touch. It’s why he was quiet on social media, to the point of being some kind of stalker. When outsiders - outsiders meaning everyone else in the world except him - came into his life, even onto the edges, it made him feel out of kilter.

  The phone rang again. Time for work. He shrugged his shoulders at Caecilius who pointedly turned around, showed Richard his bottom, and stalked out of the kitchen.

  Well, screw you. Richard went to answer the insistent phone; it was just a tenant whose water was coming out a funny colour, apparently. Just another tiny crisis in the day of a lord.

  Chapter Four

  “More wine?”

  “Do you even need to ask?” Helena was sitting on the floor of Vicky’s living room, and she stretched up her arm so that Vicky could lean forward from the sofa and top up her glass with more cheap red plonk.

  It was dark outside and they were nearly at the bottom of the bottle. The detritus of books, misshapen candles, and nail varnish bottles that littered the coffee table had been swept to one side, to make way for notebooks and papers and pens. Vicky’s main living room was as chaotic as the rest of her house, and Helena felt her head filling with pressure if she tried to take it all in. After a few hours, though, the jumble of colour and texture and random scary figurines became less oppressive. That, or the wine was helping her to relax.

  Vicky had lit a fire, and it was popping and spitting, sending out black and glowing specks of wood to smoulder on the multi-coloured rug. Helena moved her foot slightly to avoid another spark. “I love your fire. It’s so cosy.”

  “I know, it’s great, isn’t it. Do you fancy a pizza?”

  “How? By the time it gets out here from Ingholme, it’ll be stone cold.” They’d already eaten their way through three bags of crisps, a cheesecake and some peanuts.

  “Dur. I’ve got one in the freezer. That’s country living, that is. Having a well-stocked freezer.”

  “Flavour?”

  “I dunno, I pull them out of their boxes to save space in the freezer, and once they’re frozen it’s impossible to tell one from another. So it’s, um, miscellaneous.”

  “Miscellaneous pizza sounds fine.”

  “Great.” Vicky stood up with some difficulty and took a moment to get her balance before swaying her way out to the kitchen. Helena settled back against the sofa, pulling another cushion down to sit on.

  It was three days since she’d run off down the moors, escaping from Richard, and she’d put it out of her mind. She’d woken the next day to find an envelope pushed through her letterbox containing two sets of keys to the stables - he’d made it very clear, then, that she was not to bother him again, and that was fine by her. She’d given one set to Vicky and they’d spent two evenings setting it up as “Gold Command”.

  This evening, Vicky had invited her over for brainstorming and planning. She’d had a hectic day and a long after-school meeting, and when Helena had turned up just after tea, Vicky was already halfway down her first glass of wine.

  Helena was doing her best to catch up, though.

  “God, aren’t we a cliché?” Vicky said as she came back into the dimly-lit room. “Pizza’s on. I think it’s ham. Or lumps of cheese. Might be cheese.”

  “Whatever, it’s fine. A cliché, how?”

  “Two single women getting pissed on a Friday night, sad and alone.”

  “We’re not alone. I’m not pissed yet. And I’m not sad… are you?” Helena cocked her head back to look at the large, solid figure of Vicky where she leaned against the kitchen door frame.

  Vicky grinned widely. “Hell no. I’ve had to unfriend at least three people in the last month for their constant online marriage proposals. God, beating them off with a stick.” She sniggered at her unintentional phrase. “Beating them off. Heh.”

  “I’m shocked. And you a teacher?”

  “Only between eight in the morning and seven at night. I’m off-duty now. I can say anything I like.” She paused, then shouted, “COCK!”

  Helena snorted. “If there was any comic timing in the universe, the door would swing open and the chair of governors would be standing there with a vicar.”

  They both paused, but the universe did not oblige. Vicky came and perched on the arm of the sofa, keeping an eye on the clock. “And yourself? You’ve never mentioned a relationship. And I’m tipsy enough to pry without caring about politeness, now. So go on. Spill.”

  Helena looked into the fire, and watched the flames dance for a while. It still hurt, but she could talk about it more these days. It was probably best to just blurt it right out. “I got jilted.”

  “At the altar?” Vicky leaned forward and looked amazed. “Sorry to sound so… ghoulish. But… wow.”

  “Yes, at the altar, and yes, it was ‘wow’ for everyone. Myself especially.”

  Vicky blew out a long, low whistle. “I mean, honestly, everyone in the church, all dressed up and he…she? Didn’t come.”

  “He, and no, he didn’t come.” Helena swallowed. “All dressed up. Dressed up more than I ever am. More than I have ever been. I finally let my mother have free rein. At times it felt like it was her day, not mine. But I suppose that’s how it is. I was caked in a year’s worth of make-up, with high heels I couldn’t walk in, and hair that piled up so high I was afraid to move my head.” She pulled at her short hair ruefully. She’d had it cut a day after the not-wedding. “So, I was finally up to her standards. I was finally beautiful. And no, he didn’t turn up.”

  Vicky was nearly gaping. “Oh. My. God. First, don’t be saying shit like ‘finally beautiful’ like you’re some kind of pig-dog. And secondly, wow! Just… well, did he explain? Did you ever see him again? Do you know why? Did you hunt him down and chop his balls off and pickle them in a jar?”

  Helena let the pig-dog comment slide. It was well-meaning but Vicky had never met Helena’s mother and wouldn’t understand how it was between them. She laughed at the thought of Kevin’s bollocks in a jar, though, like some particularly rancid onions. “It was only in hindsight that I saw all the warning signs. I was gutted, obviously, at the time. He sent me a long and quite sweet letter, afterwards. I understand, now. I don’t forgive him - he should not have let it get to that stage. But then, neither should I. Both of us got swept along with events. It’s just kinda sad, looking back. And I feel a bit stupid about the whole affair.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t beat yourself up about it.” The alcohol in Vicky set her off again. “Beat. Hur hur hur.”

  “Vicky!”

  “I’ll go and check the pizza…”

  Helena smiled to herself as Vicky began stumbling around in the kitchen, slamming doors and dropping plates. Eventually she returned with a pizza on a bread-board, one edge of it black and crispy.

  “I put it too far back. Sorry.”

  Helena knelt forward, chucked another lump of wood on the fire, and took a not-so-toasted wedge of pizza. “Ahh. Ham.”

  “I told you so.”

  Once the pizza was gone, they started to plan the community regeneration project again. “It’s so good of Richard to give us that office,” Vicky said.

  “Mmm.”

  “What do you think to him?”

  “Mad.”

  “Nah, don’t believe the v
illage rumours. He’s not mad. Just, sad and alone, really. I keep thinking I ought to take him on as a project, you know, bring him out of himself. But maybe the regeneration stuff will do that. I think it’s the sort of thing he needs.”

  “Best of luck with that,” Helena said. “Do you know what happened to his mum?”

  Vicky paused from her task of sorting out the piles of notes and ideas. “Yeah, she’s got dementia and she’s in a home.”

  “Oh.” Helena felt let down. “Is that it?”

  “What do you mean, is that it? It’s pretty devastating, don’t you think?”

  “Oh shit, yeah, sorry.” Helena realised she’d been thinking about gothic horror explanations so much that her response was entirely inappropriate. “Yeah, it is. He’s quite touchy about it.”

  “Again, that’s pretty understandable, surely?”

  “Yeah.” Helena felt like a heel. “I suppose it’s because I don’t have such a great relationship with my mum. It colours my judgement.”

  “He had a terrible relationship with his parents as far as I can tell - but when he was needed, he came back.”

  And he clearly still resents it, Helena thought. What an idiot. Who’d resent being able to live in a fabulous manor house? “I don’t know if I’d do that for my mum,” she said, half to herself.

  Vicky shook her head at her, her expression dark. “You don’t know what you’re saying and Gods forbid that you ever find out.”

  The fire hissed and Helena felt the shadows in the corners of the room were gathering and growing. “Yeah,” she said, hoping she sounded more convincing that she felt. “You’re right.” She thought about Richard’s action on the moorland. “Hey, I want to run something past you. About Richard.”

  “Go on.”

  “He made a move on me.”

  Vicky burst out into peals of laughter, and knocked over her wine glass in her hysteria. “Whew - glad that was empty!” she cackled as she picked it up. “Let me open another bottle. I need to hear this! Wait…” she lurched to her feet and dashed into the kitchen, returning with a fresh bottle of red. She topped up both their glasses and got comfortable again before waving her hand like the Queen and proclaiming, “Continue.”