Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  Unless you’re really as swamped at work as you intimated, meaning you probs don’t have time for entertainment-type things. Just in case, movies are like newsreels, only made up, books are words on pages all bound together that hit you in the face as you fall asleep reading, and music is the thing your phone’s ringtone is based on.

  You’re welcome.

  N

  PS What on earth is Forensic Accounting, Financial Regulation and Compliance, Insolvency and Restructuring in plain English?

  To: Nora

  From: Bennett

  Nora,

  I would feel better knowing the house is fully secure, lump of wood under the bed aside. Next time Damon brings me a coffee—cream, three sugars—I’ll ask him to get in touch.

  As to my work: I take struggling companies, figure out where they went wrong by following the numbers, help them create new business practices, and restructure them so that they might live to see another day.

  Take care on the stairs. Please.

  Bennett

  To: Nora

  From: Damon

  Nora, hey!

  Mr Hawthorne has asked that I grab the details of the security company in charge of your alarm. If you could send me the deets, that’d be great.

  And I’m also to remind you to please take care on the stairs.

  Damon

  To: Damon

  From: Nora

  Aw... Both of you reminding me to take care on the stairs makes me feel so...so certain you are unsure of your liability if I’m hurt.

  I hereby release the Boss Man of any blame if I’m a goof on the Thornfield Hall stairs. That do? Great.

  As to the other thing... I’m all good.

  Cheers!

  N

  PS Does your boss really take three sugars in his coffee?

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  You help companies so that they “might live to see another day”?

  That’s impressive.

  Might I even suggest...heroic?

  N

  To: Nora

  From: Bennett

  It’s satisfying work, yes. But I can attest to the fact that I have never—not once—walked around at work feeling particularly heroic.

  B

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Have you tried wearing a cape?

  To: Nora

  From: Bennett

  Do you know how hard it is to find a cape to match your tie?

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Ha! Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem. Something you can get Damon onto, perhaps? Give him something to do other than buff his nails and flirt with the other assistants. Just spit-balling here...

  In case you’re wondering, but are just too polite to ask, I also have my own business. The Girl Upstairs. I manage social media pages, build manageable websites, act as virtual assistant to work-from-homers—that kind of thing.

  I might not wear a cape, but I feel I make a difference. That I am of use. Which is a really nice thing.

  Actually...do you ever do what you do for smaller companies? On the quiet, there are a couple of local businesses who I’m sure could do with a sprinkle of your expertise. Ones who need more than a new website and shareable self-promotion to stay afloat.

  Maybe when you come—you know, to grab the keys and take over the house—I can nudge a few of them your way? Yes? Really? Excellent!

  From your partner in spreading goodness all over the world,

  Nora

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Hey, all okay?

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Hope I didn’t offend you with my assumption that you need an assistant to buy your capes, when, in fact, you are world-famous for your cape-buying abilities.

  N

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Hi! Remember me?

  I know you’re busy saving the world, one corporation at a time, but if you could assure me you didn’t manage to find a cape to match your tie only for it to get caught in the engine of your private jet and strangle you, that’d be great!

  Unless...gasp! Are you currently en route? About to arrive at my—aka your—front door with a flourish?

  See, I now can’t imagine you without a cape! Not that I’ve imagined you...

  Yours

  Nora

  To: Nora

  From: Bennett

  Dear Ms Letterman

  Apologies for my lack of response. Things have rather blown up at work.

  I humbly request we put our correspondence on the back burner—at least until I am able to put the current situation to bed.

  I continue to appreciate your taking care of Thornfield Hall.

  In the meantime,

  Sincerely

  Bennett Hawthorne

  Ms Letterman?

  Nora reeled away from the laptop with such speed she nearly hit her head on the headboard.

  Really? They were back there again? After a week of emails back and forth, of her bag remaining unpacked, future plans unplanned? She’d been certain she’d made headway; softening the guy up, getting Damon on side, giving him a dozen reasons to come home.

  Now she had the awful, cheek-warming, neck-tingling, stomach-dropping feeling he’d been stringing her along, knowing he had all the power and could cut her loose without a word.

  Dammit. Damn all six feet five inches of him—if Bennett J Hawthorne was really that tall. Guy was probably shorter than her. And compensating.

  Without taking a single extra moment to think, Nora pressed reply.

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora. Just Nora

  Dear Mr Hawthorne

  I’m afraid “putting our correspondence on the back burner” does not work for me. In the meantime or any time.

  In case I’ve been too subtle, or you are immune to my clever ploys, or you’re a tougher customer than I had thought, here goes: COME HOME AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE.

  Appreciate my presence here all you like, but I am only here for Clancy. I promised her I’d look after the place till the new owner came, and I take promises and responsibilities seriously.

  I’d appreciate it if you’d stop taking advantage of my good nature and come home.

  If, in fact, you know all this, deep down beneath your big and tall suits, perhaps the fact you do not feel heroic isn’t down to your lack of a cape.

  The ball’s in your court.

  Nora

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NORA SAT ON a barstool at Shenanigans, nursing a warming gin and tonic and fiddling half-heartedly with filters for an Instagram post about the bar, while the Friday night crowd laughed and danced and flirted and hustled at her back.

  Her gin was warm, and her mind wouldn’t settle, for it had been three days since she’d last heard from the disappointing Bennett Hawthorne with his “humble requests” and his “appreciation”. Three days since her inglorious “the ball’s in your court” email.

  So much for charming Bennett Hawthorne into coming home.

  She’d started out so well—delightful with a hint of optimistic coercion; it was her MO, after all. But she’d soon found herself swept up in his rhythm: wry, dry and a little sly. Used, as she was, to writing upbeat, engaging, client-centric verbiage, engaging in a little light snark had been a kind of relief.

  High on sass, she’d taken a misstep somewhere. Only when he’d stopped responding did it hit her that she’d pushed too much, or tried too hard. The realisation had tipped her usually well-restrained sensitivity into umbrage and she’d gone off half-cocked, screwing up all the lovely headway she’d been making.

 
For all that she favoured being footloose and fancy-free, she wasn’t just one thing. Her spectrum ranged from Sunshine Mode Nora to Survival Mode Nora. She’d been at the sunshine end for so long, she’d forgotten how intimately entwined both ends actually were.

  Of course, there was the very good chance that while she’d been plying him with her greatest hits, he’d seen her coming from a mile off and played her like a violin.

  “Nora the Explorer,” said Misty as she appeared at Nora’s elbow. “Drinking alone?”

  “Just getting a head start,” Nora said with a smile. “What’ll you have?”

  “The same,” said Misty, waggling a hand at Sam, the young bartender she had her eye on. He smartly kept his distance, nodding his response. “Was half hoping, for your sake, the wind might have finally swept you off to more exciting climes, like a ladybug on the breeze—”

  “A dandelion on the wind.” Nora turned over her wrist to show the scattered dandelion tattoo thereupon. “Let’s just say, my plan isn’t coming together quite as I’d hoped.”

  “How so?”

  “I found out what’s happening with Clancy’s place. She left it to her grandson.”

  “You mean Bennett?” Misty asked, eyes near popping out of her head.

  “That’s the one. What was the story there?”

  “I didn’t live around these parts at the time but apparently Clancy adopted him when he was, like, five. She always called him her grandson rather than her son as she was already in her fifties at the time.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” To five-year-old Nora it would have been the dream. And eight-year-old Nora, and thirteen-year-old Nora... “He’s her only family, right? So why didn’t everyone assume she’d leave the house to him?”

  “The Great Falling Out, of course.”

  A dark little corner of Nora’s usually determinedly chipper psyche unfurled itself. “Falling out, you say?” It would explain the shushing.

  “Clancy never said anything?” Misty intoned.

  Nora shook her head. “Do you know what it was about?” Translation: what on earth did the guy do to upset Clancy so badly? It must have been huge as Clancy was the queen of second chances. And third. She was basically unoffendable.

  “We all knew when it happened. Bennett was the light of her life, then, boom, he stopped visiting and a chill seemed to come over the room anytime anyone brought him up. But she refused to give up why.”

  Nora turned on her seat, warming up to this new development. Anything that might make her feel better about her bad feeling about the guy could only help. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Sure. Plenty.”

  “What’s he like? Cold-blooded? Shark-eyed? Slovenly? A diminutive sociopathic troll?”

  Misty blinked. “You’ve searched him on the internet, right? That’s what you young ones do nowadays.”

  Nora’s mouth twisted. “Half-heartedly, back at the beginning. With no luck. Why?”

  “First tell me why you’re so interested in him.”

  Misty’s gaze turned predatory as she turned to face Nora on her stool. If Nora weren’t so stuck on the subject, she’d have changed it. Fast.

  “Well...we’ve been emailing.” Had been emailing. Past tense.

  “Really? Sexy emails?”

  “What? No! Jeez.”

  But they had been playful. At first. Sarcasm, irony, verbal acerbity—they were her secret catnip. She’d found herself reaching for her phone the moment she woke up in the morning, in case there’d been a new email overnight. It was how he’d lulled her into a false sense of security before ghosting her.

  “They were...frustrating.”

  Misty’s eyebrows waggled. “Sounds sexy to me.”

  “We emailed about his grandmother.” Nora’s voice dropped to a respectful whisper as she lifted her eyebrows and added, “His dead grandmother. I... I kind of promised Clancy that I’d look after the house till the new owner came. And Mr Stuffy McBusiness Suit is taking that to mean he can go on ignoring his responsibilities!”

  “Wow,” said Misty, blinking Nora’s way. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you this worked up. You’re always so chilled I had floated the idea you had some kind of dopamine imbalance.”

  Nora rolled her eyes, then glanced around to make sure no one was listening in. “Look, being ‘chilled’ doesn’t exactly come naturally to me. The bastion of sunshine you see before you has been diligently cultivated. Over many years.”

  After the third foster home that had sent her back for being too loud, too noisy, too demanding, too much, she’d taught herself to pull back, to be helpful, a force for good, while not taking up too much space, and leaving nothing of herself behind.

  “Being ‘chilled’,” she admitted, “is hard work.”

  “Oh, honey,” said Misty, on a rare kick of empathy. Then added, “I like this side of you. Sassy, sharp, a little groundswell of rage.”

  “Thanks?” Nora laughed, then rewarded herself with a goodly sip of warm gin.

  “Now, you know helping people isn’t my thing, but, in the spirit of trying new personalities on for size, I’ll give it a go this once.”

  With that, Misty dragged Nora’s phone towards her, and slowly typed letters into a search engine. Unlike Nora had, however, she typed in Hawthorne Consultancy.

  Clicking the About Us page, they found pictures of accountants, and lawyers, and financial advisors. The images were effortless, elegantly casual: people laughing over coffee, or twirling a stylus, or working hard at a laptop.

  For a company that sounded as dry as burnt toast, the site had a modern, holistic trust us, we’ve got you vibe. Despite herself, Nora loved it.

  “Wait for it,” Misty murmured beside her as she continued to scroll through the images—

  Whoa, Nelly.

  Right at the very bottom of the page, almost an afterthought, was the largest image of all. Beneath the picture it said Bennett J Hawthorne, Founder of Hawthorne Consultancy.

  Peripherally, Nora noted the Millennium Wheel, an out-of-focus smudge over one shoulder, and the sun glinting creamy gold off the Thames. But her eye was stuck on the man.

  Acres of broad-shouldered wonder filled the frame, hard angles wrapped up in a dark suit and a snow-white shirt. His hair was a tumble of thick, chocolatey waves. Strong jaw, freshly shaven, but with a look that said the stubble wouldn’t be kept back for long. Intelligent dark eyes looking just off camera.

  Thank goodness. Because she wasn’t quite sure what she might have done had they been looking at her.

  “Not so much a diminutive shark-eyed troll, then.”

  “Mountainous, in fact. With the eyes of a matinee idol. Pity he’s so frustrating.”

  “Right,” Nora murmured. “Pity.” Then, “Do you think he’s looked me up?”

  “Ooh. Good point. Did he flirt in your not-sexy emails? Even a tiny little bit?”

  Nora thought back to the cape-and-tie comment, the sense that he’d been laughing with her. “There were moments where he wasn’t entirely exasperating.”

  “Then he’s looked you up for sure. Ooh, I love this song!” With that Misty leapt off the barstool and carved a path to a space in front of the jukebox and began to dance while Nora found herself very glad she hadn’t searched deeper before she’d sent her spate of emails. Knowing this was the man she’d been flirting with—not flirting, cajoling—she might well have sent nothing but drool.

  Thumb moving slowly, surreptitiously, she clicked back to her search page and under Images typed Bennett Hawthorne Consultancy London. She found pictures of him at some international symposium, his expression stormy, his shirtsleeves rolled at his elbows, sporting longer hair and a beard—oh, my. There was another with Bennett in a group shot at some charity fundraiser at the Royal Albert Hall, where he stood a half-head taller than everyone else. This
time those eyes of his looked directly down the barrel of the lens; darkly intelligent, and stunning.

  Mouth suddenly dry, yet somehow also watering, her skin clammy, yet overly warm, Nora put her hand over the screen.

  So what if he was gorgeous? It didn’t negate the fact that Clancy had fallen ill, had died, had been buried, and he hadn’t been there. While Nora would literally have given a kidney to have been adopted into a family, any family, much less one of Clancy’s calibre, if she’d been given half a chance.

  And, despite her setback, she still had a promise to fulfil.

  Maybe the problem was the medium. Perhaps her sunshine had got lost in translation over the great distance between them.

  If she were to get through to the man, to encourage him home, and at the same time show him what he’d missed by not being there for Clancy, it would be worth it.

  It would take subtlety. Savvy. Self-will. And, as Misty had pointed out, if she had to tap, ever so slightly, into the parts of herself she’d spent years holding back—the sass, the spirit, the stubborn refusal to believe no was even possible—then so be it.

  * * *

  An hour later she was home, a little tipsy, but determined.

  She opened her laptop, took a deep breath, and typed.

  To: Bennett

  From: Nora

  Ben

  Remember me? Nora the delightful?

  Now, I know I said the ball was in your court—clearly it always was, and I was just being cute suggesting otherwise—but here I am again. With a tap dance and an apology.

  The fact that I haven’t heard back from you makes me think that, despite the fact we do not know one another at all, you noticed that I kind of lost my cool.

  My reasons, though, were entirely altruistic.

  For I believe, deep down inside, that wherever she is Clancy’s heart would be breaking at the thought of seeing this place empty. Abandoned. Left to dust.

  And I promised—literally promised—I wouldn’t let that happen.

  I have wondered, since we began to chat, if she knew you wouldn’t come running. Perhaps that’s even why she put the provision in her will that I stay.

  Maybe she wanted me on your case, hoping I’d be able to out-stubborn you, and convince you to come home.