The opportunity it provided to secure his mother’s publishing legacy was the culmination of all he had worked for. Discreet. Sober. Vigilant.
The only downside was the irony that this attention from the duke ensured an increase in the very thing he loathed on a personal level. Ramped up media coverage.
A quick early morning search revealed there were already additional shots of the times he and Kitty had been ambushed at his townhouse. No fresh news. Just repetitive innuendo. And the now entrenched title for Kitty—his mystery woman.
She’d saved him twice from the Titania fallout. Once with the media and then again with his family. He owed her, and that debt burned deep. It was the kind of complication he’d always avoided. He’d been right about that for all these years, because now that he’d given in to the temptation of Kitty, his attraction to her was yet another problem he didn’t need.
And now, thanks to the duke and his wife, he was trapped for a bit longer in this soap opera.
He needed to keep Kitty close to help seal his contract as his mystery woman. And that gumption and talent was worth keeping on his team. He didn’t want her poached by any other publishing firm, especially now that she knew so much about his family.
He also wanted to protect her. There was bound to be more paparazzi coverage, rehashed photos, and insinuations.
He also needed to be sure of her continued discretion. He wanted to know as much about her as she did about him, and that had sparked an idea for an offer he hoped she couldn’t refuse.
An offer to write the history of Brick Square would give him more time with her. Business was on his mind, but his body just wanted to dance with her again. It was the type of attraction to an employee that he had forbidden himself to ever allow, but he could control it.
Kitty’s situation as his mystery woman was unique. He’d had no idea when he’d answered his front door to her boots and Christmas-colored woolens that he would be in her debt. Now her decoy role was a fixture in his life he needed to manage for a little longer.
Her Brick Square heritage was the perfect project to keep her close for purely business reasons.
He drove across the city, aiming for a late breakfast at Fuchsia and Lime.
Parking some distance away, he raised his jacket collar against a cool breeze and approached Brick Square from the Thames river path. The view across a large flag-stoned quadrangle gave him an uninterrupted appreciation of the south wing of the complex.
Its website had provided him with all the facts and figures. The complex covered one small city block. The south wing had been fully restored and offered two large business premises on the ground floor—the Fuchsia and Lime series of eateries and the Brick Square Child Care Center.
But the impact of the actual building was impressive, rustic and pretty with arches and turrets.
Walking toward it slowly, he appreciated the scale, understood the passion he’d seen in Kitty’s eyes for this urban village emerging out of the industrial fringe of London.
Red brick, polished wood, and mullioned windows beckoned shoppers and diners with stylish nostalgia.
He entered the lobby and veered left to Fuchsia and Lime through heavy wooden doors, looking forward to a seat with a river view. The café walls were all exposed brick, the bar burnished steel and warm polished wood. The bar stools were covered in bright leather, alternating fuchsia and lime, in a long stylish line.
The waitstaff directed him to a corner booth beside a deep stone windowsill. The table was decorated with two cheerful gerberas, one fuchsia and one lime. He traced one long curvy stem with his finger and smiled.
…
Kitty hurried through the lobby, on a mission to make five takeaway coffees and get back up to the Sisterhood meeting room ASAP.
She skirted the public queue and dived under the staff swing-doors into the café kitchen. A huge humming, organized space, fragrant with roasting coffee beans and sizzling bacon. It was a workplace she knew well. They all helped out wherever and whenever extra hands were needed.
The kitchen-based coffee machine was all ready for rush-hour use, and Kitty set to work. The coffees were another part of their Sunday ritual. They all ordered the kind of thick, syrupy, creamy drinks that screamed indulgence and special occasion.
She wedged them securely into a takeaway tray, waved good-bye to the kitchen staff, and took her turn in the service queue to leave the kitchen. As she stepped aside for a speedy young waitress expertly carrying four large plates of crispy bacon and creamy eggs, she let her eyes wander over the busy café.
One of the young waitstaff, smart and casual in her logo T-shirt and black pants, walked away from the far corner booth, her order book in hand.
Her customer was Rosco Redmond.
The Rosco Redmond Kitty imagined was quietly breakfasting with his aunts in Wheatbridge Village.
Her body fizzed hot then cold at the sight of him. She steadied the coffee tray with both hands as all concentration deserted her.
Her instinct was to flee back to her meeting unseen. Not the most mature or businesslike response.
Instead she took a sensible breath, clutched the coffees as her getaway strategy, and walked briskly across the café.
“Rosco,” she said, working hard to ignore the tummy-fluttering effect of his liquid-blue eyes. Their make-believe, stud-enhancing day was over, and real life didn’t include more kissing and dancing with Rosco. “I haven’t had time to work on the wedding album or my Bedouin project. I didn’t expect to hear from you until next week.”
“I couldn’t resist seeing Brick Square for myself.” He looked around. “It’s impressive. I also wanted to thank you for all your hard work and support at the wedding. You don’t look as if you’ve just gone ten rounds with my aunts and the media.”
Kitty laughed, feeling her cheeks warm, as she remembered how much she had enjoyed the process of beating the aunts.
“It was nothing,” she said. “Under-the-table business best forgotten.” She winked to soften the dismissal.
He looked so in control, so confident in a coal-black leather jacket. So sexy and casual compared to his usual suited elegance, and her fingers itched to caress the expensive butter-soft leather. Yet he was so not for her. All that family solidarity and relationship expectations.
“I have a business proposition for the Sisterhood,” he said.
Heavens, she’d told him too much under that table. With Brick Square’s public profile growing, she knew better than to speak too personally. “That’s an insider term,” she said sharply.
He nodded and plowed on, single-focused. “I want to publish a book about Brick Square, its history and development. It would be good publicity. Controlled marketing.”
“That’s an interesting offer, thank you. I’ll mention it to the others.” No promises. He gave her a dark look, clearly expecting a more positive response. He was used to having his way in business. She raised her coffee tray. “Everyone’s waiting for these. Enjoy your brunch.” She smiled a polite good-bye.
He ignored the hint, eyeballing her with the searing intensity she’d witnessed when he’d talked about the way his father treated his mother. “I’ll be here for an hour. Come back with your answer.”
She absorbed the intensity, merely nodded, and walked away without looking back, aware that he would be watching her. It shouldn’t matter, but she wished she’d made more of an effort than jeans and ballet flats.
What should matter more was the dictatorial way he assumed her compliance.
She forced her business sense to brush off her annoyance. Even here on her own ground, he held the commercial power. She was still his employee, she still needed him to look at her Bedouin proposal.
And his latest idea was a marketing gift. Her mind raced as she whizzed up the private elevator to their third floor meeting room and apartments.
The turret room, with its panoramic view of the Thames and the city beyond, was alive with laughter when she opened th
e door, and her sisters clamored for the coffee as she placed the tray on the table.
Kitty joined them and sipped her latte. She loved this huge corner room with its deep-set windows, rich velvet drapes, and comfortable oversized furniture. The color scheme was ruby rich with her oldest sister, Rosa’s, favorite colors—every shade between crimson and peony pink—warm, cozy, and stylish.
The enormous antique dining table doubled as their boardroom, and Rosa stretched across it, flicking each sister a copy of their meeting agenda. She settled in a chair at the head of the table and removed the plastic lid from her spicy chai. “Heavenly,” she said, inhaling the vanilla and cinnamon blend. “Let’s start with you, Kitty.” Rosa grinned knowingly at her. “We’re relieved to see you survived your wedding boot camp.”
Kitty grinned back at them all as their laughter teased her. They knew only too well how she felt about happily-ever-after statistics.
“Any other business news from you?”
“Rosco Redmond is downstairs eating breakfast. He wants to offer us a publishing contract to record Brick Square’s history and restoration.”
“Nice one,” said Danni, their irrepressible youngest sister. “You must have taken some prizewinning wedding photos.” She licked the whipped cream on her mocha while teasing Kitty with a wickedly raised eyebrow.
Kitty knew better than to rise to the bait of that eyebrow. “Rosco wasn’t impressed with me at first, probably still thinks I need editorial supervision.”
She kept it cool because she didn’t want her sisters to sense how being in Rosco’s arms had crumbled away a little of her usual boundaries.
Her body had its own ideas about boundaries when Rosco pulled it close.
She shivered and sipped her coffee. Her sisters also didn’t need to know how the photos on the media sites worried her.
It was okay for the image of her as an anonymous guest in Rosco’s house to be out there, but there was a risk of her past making a belated splash on social media. Those sites hadn’t been around to stalk people with such malicious focus when Kitty was sixteen and her mother had died so controversially. She’d worked too hard for her self-respect to have her adulthood tainted by the salacious details of her mother’s life.
“Does this project include you as photographer?” asked Tessa, pulling her back to the present.
“He didn’t offer any details.”
“Would he actually give us control over the publicity?” asked Meg.
“I’ll need to find out. He wouldn’t suggest it if he didn’t consider it a good business proposition for his publishing house.”
“We need an official proposal to tie all the details down,” Rosa said, and opened a file on her laptop. “Are we all agreed we should follow this up?” she asked. Everyone nodded their assent.
“Proceed with caution,” added Meg.
Kitty barely listened to the rest of the meeting, her mind a kaleidoscope of Rosco images.
Her gut-clenching reaction to the childhood memories his townhouse evoked.
His dismissal of her ability.
His driven protection of his family’s well-being, rigid beyond her understanding.
The light in his eyes when he spoke to his little niece.
The way a smile and a kiss on his lips transformed the hard planes of his face.
All the unanswered questions about his leg injury, and Ethel’s sadness and concern for him.
The way they all loved each other, caught—Kitty thought with a shudder—in a complicated web of emotion and obligation.
…
Rosco watched Kitty glide across the café toward him and slip into his booth. His gut tightened as she pulled herself along the seat opposite him. It was the same sensation as the moment she’d put her arms around his neck on the dance floor, hauling him closer.
It didn’t feel fake. His body’s response was real, then and now. The kind of attraction he needed to control—it was the path of risk his father would have taken without a second thought. Mixing business and sexual attraction.
“I don’t have any time to spare,” Kitty said, the laughter and flirt missing from her eyes. “There are two points I want to cover.”
“Shoot,” he said, his gut still clenched in response to this Sunday-morning-casual Kitty filling his senses in the confines of the booth, just as she had under that damn table.
“The Brick Square contract is a possibility.”
“Good.” He nodded. “I’ll send you a written proposal. And your second point?”
“The paparazzi,” she said, her eyes looking directly at him.
“You’ve seen our repeat appearance online.” He searched her face to gauge her thoughts. “No fresh photos or news.”
“No. But I’m stuck with being your mystery woman.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing to worry about. The Sandford’s approve of my media presence with you—whoever you are.” He pulled a face, acknowledging her gathering annoyance. “It means they appreciate I have a private life that doesn’t include the pop star world.”
“How lovely for you.”
He ignored her edge of sarcasm. “I need you to continue to be on call as my discreet mystery woman until the palace deal is completed.”
“What do you mean?” She glared at him. Not a trace of humor. “I’m not available for public consumption.”
He hadn’t expected such a vehement response and decided to keep the possibility of a private meeting with the duke to himself.
“Purely theoretical. If the Titania insinuations blow up again I might need another anonymous sighting of us.”
“We agreed my decoy days ended with the wedding,” she said, unknowingly needling his guilt about protecting her.
The lively passion he was becoming addicted to flared briefly in her eyes but was all too quickly replaced by anger. “You’ve set me up.”
The hair on the back of his neck bristled as she pushed herself out of the booth, then leaned in to maintain privacy. “I’ll put up with our photos being rehashed. But I’ll have nothing to do with the duke and Trinity St. George. I don’t want to be the target of new publicity.”
The look in her eye was combative but again held a hint of fear as she pulled away. “Must go. Got a wedding to wrap up. And then…” She pinned him in her sights. “I will be presenting my Bedouin proposal directly to you. You owe me now.”
“One step at a time,” he said, ignoring an answering stab of guilt.
“I won’t dance to your tune like Cara poised on your shoes. If I’m still your decoy, I will say when and where we go and whom I meet.”
She sped across the restaurant, anger in her stride. More than ever, he needed to check her out. His morning coffee turned bitter on his tongue as he drained his cup and plotted his next step.
Chapter Ten
Kitty ignored the lift and sprinted up the three flights of stairs to her studio apartment. She needed to burn off her anger and fear. She wouldn’t let Rosco’s alpha male games or the hideous threat of Trinity St. George taint her editing.
Locking herself away, she unwound as her work focus took over. She spent the rest of Sunday and half the night proofing and refining Amanda and Andrew’s wedding album.
The work continued all through Monday as meals were sent up from Fuchsia and Lime, and regular sugar hits were delivered from Meg’s bakery. By Monday evening Kitty had digital galleries ready and presentation albums completed. She stretched her tired muscles and ran one last click-through journey of her favorite galleries.
Not bad work for a wedding-phobic. She high-fived her computer screen and emailed everything to Rosco and the bride and groom.
Time to party, she texted her sisters. First and last ever wedding a done deal. She added a manic-looking smiley face and tapped send.
Immediately Danni’s text replied, Sorry. No can do. Painting class working overtime for exhibition.
Rosa’s text replied for herself and
Meg. Congrats. Meg and I can’t leave client function. Have a red for us.
Tessa was at the gym, training for her next marathon. No red wine for her, either, thought Kitty, pulling an eeew face, imagining the raw eggs and green juices Tess called “muscle fuel.”
Heels and wine, Kitty decided. She’d hit the shower, dress up for fun, and party on her own.
She pampered herself head to toe, wriggled into a short red dress Danni had found for her on some designer sale rack, stepped into matching red stilettos, and checked her emails one last time.
Rosco Redmond. Did the man never switch off?
Then a little smile lifted her lips and chased a memory of kisses and dancing down her spine. Yes, he was very capable of switching off. Briefly. When given the right sort of supervision.
He acknowledged receipt of her album. And now he wanted a meeting to develop the Brick Square proposal.
Not everyone was a workaholic, didn’t he know? She sighed and sent back a response. I’ll be in the bar at Brick Square, she typed and then took the elevator down to the lobby. She doubted he’d be willing to leave his office building on a Monday night, but if the proposal was important enough to him, he could meet her here.
This was her private world. Safe from media intrusion.
Monday night at the bistro bar was busy but not chaotic. She chose a bar stool and waved hello to the bar staff.
She had sipped her way through her first glass of red wine and felt the tensions of the week roll off her when a deep voice with a familiar honeyed lilt came from behind her. “Another glass of Kitty’s favorite red, please. And a Coke.”
“Rosco?” Kitty swiveled on her bar stool. His strong face had been on her screen all day. So serious in most of the wedding shots, guarded, nothing like the tenderness she had glimpsed in their under-the-tablecloth world.
He’d brought the guarded look with him tonight, along with a sharp city suit and a briefcase.
“This isn’t the usual sort of place for business meetings,” he said. “Rather public, isn’t it?”
Was he worried about the paparazzi catching them together at a bar that wasn’t so posh? She tried to brush off her annoyance. She hadn’t asked to meet him tonight. “Were you close by?” She was surprised to see him so soon, or to see him at all really.
Tangling with the London Tycoon Page 10
