‘She’s not my Allie,’ Mathew snapped.
‘She’s your leading lady,’ Margot said serenely. ‘Mathew, I’m happy to live for another two weeks, just to enjoy the circus.’
‘This is business, Margot.’
‘It’s probably not fair,’ Allie ventured. To say she was feeling gobsmacked would be an understatement. She’d come to plead for a two-week extension, not to negotiate a life. ‘Margot, you don’t have to do this.’
‘Don’t you want me to live?’ Margot demanded, and Allie felt flummoxed and looked at Mathew and he was looking flummoxed, too.
‘I came down to spend time with you,’ he managed.
‘And now you can,’ Margot retorted. ‘Only instead of immersing yourself in your financial dealings while I die, you can be a ringmaster while I watch. You’ve been a banker since the day you were born. Why not try something else?’
What had she done? Allie thought faintly. She hadn’t just backed this man against the wall; she’d nailed him there. He was looking as if he had no choice at all.
Which was a good thing, surely? It was the fate of the whole circus team she was fighting for here. She had no space to feel sorry for him.
Besides, he was a big boy.
And he was an awesome ringmaster.
‘I brought the scripts for the clown jokes for the week,’ she ventured, sort of cautiously. The room still felt as if it could explode any minute. ‘We swap them around because lots of families come more than once. If you could read them … even memorise them like you did today …’
‘He memorised his lines?’ Margot demanded.
‘He helped with the water cannon joke,’ Allie told her. ‘He timed it to perfection.’
‘My Mathew … a ringmaster …’
‘Worth living for?’ Allie asked and chuckled and glanced at Mathew and thought chuckling was about as far from this guy’s mindset as it was possible to get.
‘Yes,’ Margot said. ‘Yes, it is. Mathew, do you agree?’
It felt as if the world held its breath. Allie had almost forgotten how to breathe. Breathing was unnecessary, she thought—unless the decision came down on her side.
‘Yes,’ Mathew said at last, seemingly goaded past endurance, and she couldn’t believe she’d heard right.
‘Yes?’
‘Give me the scripts.’
‘You mean it?’
‘I don’t,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘say anything I don’t mean. Ever.’
‘Oh, my …’ Her breath came out in a huge rush. ‘Oh, Mathew …’
‘You have what you want,’ he said. ‘Now leave.’
‘But I’d like crumpets,’ Margot interjected, suddenly thoughtful. ‘With butter and honey. Mathew, could you pop across to the store to get me some?’
‘Of course.’ Mathew sounded totally confused. ‘But …’
‘And leave Allie with me while you go,’ she said. ‘If I’m not dying I need company.’
‘I’ll get them for you,’ Allie offered but Margot suddenly reached out and took her hand. Firmly.
‘I’d like to talk to you. Without Mathew.’
‘Margot …’ Mathew said.
‘Women’s business,’ Margot said blandly. ‘Fifteen minutes, Mathew, then I’ll eat my crumpets and have a nap and you can go back to your work. But I need fifteen minutes’ private time with Allie.’
‘There’s nothing you need to discuss with Allie. Two weeks. That’s it, Margot. No more.’
‘That’s fine,’ Margot said serenely. ‘But I will talk to Allie first. Go.’
He went. There didn’t seem a choice. He needed to buy what Margot required, leaving the women to … women’s business?
He had no idea what Margot wanted to talk to Allie about, but he suspected trouble. Margot was a schemer to rival Machiavelli. For the last few months she’d slumped. He’d seen how much weight she’d lost, he’d watched her sink into apathy and he really believed she was dying.
Did he need to fund a circus in perpetuity to keep her alive?
It wouldn’t work, though, he thought, even if it made financial sense—which it didn’t. For the next two weeks, Sparkles would play in Fort Neptune, Margot would see him as the ringmaster and maybe she’d improve. But even if the circus was fully funded, it’d move on and she’d slump again.
Meanwhile, two weeks with Allie …
Allie.
He gave himself a harsh mental shake, disturbed about where his thoughts were taking him. The last couple of days while he’d been here, watching Margot fade, he’d become … almost emotional.
What was it about a girl in a pink leotard with sparkling stripes that made him more so?
A man needed a beer, he thought, and glanced at his watch. Two minutes down, thirteen minutes to go. Women’s business. What were they talking about?
A man might even need two beers.
‘You need to excuse my nephew.’ With the door safely closed behind Mathew, Margot lost no time getting to the point. ‘He doesn’t cope with emotion.’
‘Um …’ Allie was disconcerted. ‘I don’t think I need to excuse Mathew for anything. He’s just saved our circus.’
‘For two weeks and he foreclosed in the first place.’
‘Grandpa borrowed the money,’ she admitted, trying to be fair. ‘With seemingly no hope of repaying the capital. Bond’s is a bank, not a charity. It’s business.’
‘And that’s all Mathew does,’ Margot said vehemently. ‘Business. His parents and sister died in a car crash when he was six. His grandfather raised him—sort of—but he raised him on his terms, as a banker. That boy’s been a banker since he was six and he knows nothing else. I brought him down here for two weeks every summer and I tried my best to make him a normal little boy, but for the rest of his life … His grandfather worked sixteen-hour days—he did from the moment his son died—and he took care of Mathew by taking him with him to the bank. He taught Mathew to read the stock market almost as soon as he could read anything. Before he was ten he could balance ledgers. His grandfather—my brother—closed up emotionally. The only way Mathew could get any affection was by pleasing him, and the only way to please him was to be clever with figures. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.’
‘Oh, Margot …’ What business was this of hers, Allie thought, but she couldn’t stop her.
‘You’re the same, I suspect,’ Margot said. ‘The circus is in your blood; you’ve been raised to it. I’ve watched you as a little girl, without a mother, but I always thought having the run of the circus would be much more fun than having the run of the bank.’
‘I’ve never … not been loved,’ Allie said.
‘You think I can’t see that? And I bet you’re capable of loving back. But Mathew … He’s brought three women to visit me over the years, three women he thought he was serious about, and every one of them was as cool and calculating as he is. Romance? He wouldn’t know