‘Short of winning the lottery, or discovering that fairy godmothers are real, I doubt it, love. We’ll have to take on a partner.’
‘Or a sponsor, perhaps.’ Daisy sighed. ‘I’ll stick the kettle on. And then we’ll work out what we can offer a sponsor, make a list of all the local businessmen and divvy up the calls between us.’ She hugged him. ‘We’ll find our silver lining.’
Felix picked the phone up without taking his eyes off the spreadsheet. ‘Gisbourne.’
‘Oh good. I’m so glad you’re there, Felix.’
Felix sighed inwardly; it served him right for not checking the caller display first. Now his sister was going to nag him instead of leaving a message on his answering machine. Which meant he couldn’t fast-forward it, or delete the message unheard and tell a white lie about his answering machine going wrong. ‘Good morning, Antonia.’
‘Mummy says you’re weaselling out of the house party this weekend.’
Typical Antonia: she always came straight to the point. ‘Sorry, sweets. Can’t make it. I’m busy at work.’
‘Come off it,’ Antonia scoffed. ‘You’re perfectly capable of going to the house party and sorting out your business stuff first thing in the morning, before anyone else in the house even thinks of getting up.’
True. But it didn’t mean that he wanted to do it.
‘Mummy really wants you there.’
‘Only because she’s lined up yet another suitable woman for me.’ Felix sighed. ‘Look, Toni, I’m not interested in getting married. I’m never getting married.’
‘Don’t try and con me that you’re not interested in women. I saw that picture of you in the gossip rags the other week, with a certain actress draped all over you. Or are you going to tell me you’re just good friends?’
‘No. It was a…’ He compressed his mouth and shook his head in irritation. ‘Toni, for pity’s sake, you’re my little sister. I am not discussing my love life with you.’
‘The lack of it, more like. Your women never last more than three dates.’ She sighed. ‘You know that Mummy just wants you to be happy. We all do.’
‘I am happy.’
‘Settled, then.’
‘I have a nice flat in Docklands and a successful business. That counts as settled in most people’s eyes.’
‘You know what I mean. Settled with someone.’
‘I’m allergic to women with wedding bells in their eyes.’ He paused. ‘I just wish our mother would get off my case.’
‘If you hadn’t got cold feet over poor Tabitha, you’d be safely married off by now and Mummy would be happy,’ Antonia pointed out.
Maybe, but Felix certainly wouldn’t have been. His marriage would have been an utter nightmare. For a moment, he wondered if he should’ve told his family the truth about Tabitha. But then they would’ve been even worse, treating him like a victim, crowding him and pitying him, and he would’ve hated that even more than he hated their constant attempts to fix him up with someone. On balance, it was better that they thought him a heart-breaker who just needed the right woman to tame him.
Except he didn’t need anyone. He was perfectly happy with his life as it was: with a job that fulfilled him, and dating women who understood right from the start that he wasn’t looking for long-term, just for fun. Because he was never, ever going to put himself in another situation like he had with his ex-fiancée. He would never let his heart be that vulnerable again. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘Come on, Felix. It won’t be so bad.’
Oh yes, it would be. His mother must have introduced him to every single blonde with long legs in the whole of Gloucestershire, because she thought he liked leggy blondes.
Well, he did.
He just didn’t want to get married to one. Didn’t want to get married to anyone.
‘Toni, I really am busy, so I’ll call you later, OK?’
She sighed. ‘OK. But you’d better, or I’ll ring you.’
‘Message received and understood. Bye, sweetie.’
He put the phone down and leaned back in his chair, frowning. Time to find a cast-iron excuse to avoid his parents. The sad thing was, he would’ve enjoyed a weekend in the country, had it been just the family there. He liked his parents and his sisters, and even his brothers-in-law were good company. But Sophie Gisbourne had decided that her only son needed to be married, so she always insisted that weekends at their Cotswolds estate would involve a house party. And every time she invited a ‘suitable’ woman to be his partner at dinner—with the subtext being that she would be a suitable partner for life as well.
Sometimes Felix thought that his mother had been born two hundred years too late. She would’ve made the perfect Regency mama, brokering marriage and offering advice to friends. But in this day and age it was just infuriating. He went into the small kitchen and made two mugs of coffee, adding sugar to his PA’s mug before returning to the office. ‘Here you go, Mina.’ He noticed that his PA looked uncharacteristically upset. ‘Are you OK? What’s wrong?’
Mina flapped a hand at him. ‘Don’t mind me, it’s silly.’ There were tears in her eyes. He perched on the edge of her desk. ‘Talk to me. Someone’s ill? You need time off?’
‘No, nothing like that. Mum sent me this.’ She handed him a sheet of newspaper that had clearly been folded neatly and sent through the post:
VANDALS PUT FAIRGROUND MUSEUM IN A SPIN
‘She used to take me there when I was little. It’s a really magical place.’ Mina’s mouth compressed. ‘I can’t believe vandals would wreck it like that.’
Felix skimmed down to the picture of a woman sitting on an old-fashioned fairground ride, looking heartbroken. There was something about her, something that made him want to see what she looked like when she smiled.
Which was crazy. You couldn’t make decisions on the basis of a photograph of someone you’d never met. He wasn’t that reckless.
Besides, she wasn’t his type. For the last three years he’d dated mainly tall blondes with long legs, plus the occasional redhead. But petite and brunette was definitely out: it would remind him too much of Tabitha.
But it seemed that the fairground needed rescuing. That was his speciality: rescuing businesses before they went to the wall. And this was a business with a difference, something that might give him the challenge he felt that his life had lacked lately. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look.
When he’d finished reading the article, he looked at Mina. ‘Do you know the Bells?’
She shook her head.
‘Can you get me the manager’s number?’ He smiled at her. ‘This looks as if it could be an interesting opportunity.’ And if he checked the place out for himself at the weekend, that gave him a valid excuse to avoid his mother’s latest ‘suitable women’ onslaught without hurting her feelings.
Just perfect.
Chapter Two
‘SO THAT’S us,’ Bill said with a smile. ‘Well, me, anyway. You really need to meet my number two.’
Daisy Bell: the woman from the photograph, according to the article. Deputy manager of the fairground.
Felix was annoyed with himself for being so keen to meet her. For all he knew, she could be married or involved elsewhere.