‘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. And he wasn’t in the market for a relationship anyway.
But her face had haunted his dreams for the last week, and his heart rate speeded up a notch at the thought of finally meeting her.
‘She’s supposed to be here, but she’s obviously forgotten the time,’ Bill said.
How on earth could she forget a meeting that might make the difference between the museum being a going concern or heading straight for bankruptcy? This really didn’t gel with the picture of the devastated woman in the paper. Or had it been a set-up? Drag in a pretty woman with tears in her eyes to give a human dimension to the piece and the saps would be flocking here in droves, wanting to protect her and invest in the fairground…
No, he was being cynical, letting his past get in the way. William Bell seemed genuine enough. And Daisy had been dressed in trousers and a plain shirt, not a floaty dress and impractical heels. She wasn’t the frivolous, frothy type that Tabitha had been. Just because Daisy was petite and brunette, like his ex-fiancée, it didn’t mean that she shared the same personality traits: shallower than a puddle and a liar to boot.
But, now he’d started on that train of thought, he found it hard to stop. Why wasn’t she at this meeting? Maybe the fairground wasn’t really that important to her. Or maybe she didn’t pull her weight, and her uncle put family loyalty before sound business practice and let her get away with it because she batted her eyelashes at him and told him he was her favourite uncle. Well, Felix was good at pruning dead wood and giving more able people a chance to prove themselves. If he was going to invest in the museum and turn the business around, and Daisy turned out to be a liability, he’d give her her marching orders. Very, very quickly. Pretty or not.
‘It’s going to be quicker to fish her out of the workshop,’ Bill said. ‘And I can show you round a bit at the same time.’
Felix’s expectations hit a new low as they reached a single-storey building with breezeblock walls and a corrugated-iron roof. What was Daisy doing in the workshop—chatting up the mechanic when she was supposed to be working?
But as Bill opened the door Felix could hear someone singing—a female voice, giving a surprisingly good rendition of ‘I Can See Clearly Now’.
‘I thought as much,’ Bill said with a wry chuckle. ‘Her work’s going well and she’s lost track of time. You can always tell, because she sings. It’s when things go badly that she’s silent.’
‘What’s going well?’ Felix asked, mystified.
‘Work on the engine.’ Bill looked puzzled. ‘Didn’t I tell you she’s my chief mechanic as well as my number two?’
‘No.’ Felix blinked. It hadn’t been on the website, either, or in the article. ‘Mechanic?’
‘A word to the wise: she’s a bit touchy about sexism,’ Bill said. ‘And she gives as good as she gets—it comes from having three older brothers.’
‘Right.’ Felix mentally readjusted his picture of Daisy. A mechanic and a bit touchy: to him, that suggested a woman with muscles, cropped hair, probably a nose ring or a tattoo, and an attitude to go with it. But the woman in the photograph hadn’t looked like that. She hadn’t been wearing a skirt, admittedly, and her hair had been pulled back from her face, but she hadn’t looked butch.
He was definitely missing something here. But what?
When they entered the building he could see feet sticking out from under an engine, wearing Doc Martens—bright purple ones. Each one had a stylised white daisy painted on it.
His mental picture took another shift. He could hear his mother sighing and saying, ‘Most unsuitable.’
Oh, for pity’s sake. He was too old to rebel against his parents. He was thirty-four, not fourteen.
But he had a feeling that, with footwear that unusual, Daisy Bell herself would turn out to be equally unusual. And she was the first woman who’d intrigued him this much in a long, long time.
A large ginger cat was curled on top of the engine. ‘Tell her she’s got visitors, lad,’ Bill said.
To Felix’s surprise, the cat leapt down from its perch. A couple of seconds later, he heard a bang, followed by ‘Ow!’ and the singing stopped.
‘Daisy. It’s half-past ten,’ Bill called.
‘Oh, blimey. Tell me he’s not here yet and I’ve still got time to tidy up?’
There was a grating sound—something rolling over concrete, Felix guessed—and then a woman emerged from under the engine.
The woman from the photograph.
She was wearing an oversized engine-driver’s cap that covered her hair completely, an extremely shapeless and unflattering—not to mention dirty—boiler suit, and her face and hands were covered in oil. Face to face, she looked younger than he’d expected, though the newspaper report hadn’t mentioned her age. She was in her very early twenties, he’d guess: too young and inexperienced for her position as Bill’s second in command.
She couldn’t be more than five feet four.
Not blonde, and not long-legged. Completely not his type. But the second that Felix met her sea-green eyes he felt as if there was some kind of connection between them. He couldn’t define it, but it was there, zinging through him.
‘Actually, love, he was early,’ Bill said. ‘Felix, this is my niece, chief mechanic and number two here, Daisy Bell. Daisy, this is Felix Gisbourne.’
Oh, no. Why hadn’t she guessed that Bill would bring the man to meet her if she wasn’t in the office on time? And why on earth hadn’t she thought to ask someone to come and fetch her at least half an hour before Felix Gisbourne was due, so she could at least have greeted him with a handshake? Daisy wiped her hands on a rag, inspected them briefly and knew they didn’t pass muster.
‘Sorry.’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t want to cover you in oil. Better take the handshake as read.’
‘Of course.’ Felix gave her a polite nod.
He was nothing like Daisy had imagined. She’d expected someone nearing his fifties, not someone who looked as if he was around her own age, almost thirty.
And he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Tall, with dark hair, fair skin, dark grey eyes and a mouth that promised sensuality—the kind of looks that made women take a second glance at an ad in a glossy magazine, even a third. He could’ve made a fortune as a model.
Maybe he had been a model at one point. He certainly knew how to dress. His suit looked as if it was made to measure; it was teamed with a white shirt, sober tie and shoes which Daisy guessed were handmade and Italian. His outfit looked as if it cost more than the salary she drew each month.
He was absolutely immaculate—flawlessly groomed, clean shaven, and those shoes were polished to a dazzle. This was a man for whom appearances really mattered. The kind of man, she thought with an inward grimace, who’d expect the women he associated with to wear designer dresses and spend hours at the hairdresser’s