‘Christmas. Right. So she asked you to paint his portrait after the holidays. No wonder she wanted me there.’
‘Actually, she was more concerned that it was a Baldoni than which member of my family it was. Apparently your father is a stickler for tradition.’
‘You might say that,’ he murmured and ran his hand back through his dirty blond, very scraggy hair. ‘He would want the same artist if he could do it.’
‘Tricky, since my grandfather is long gone. But if Mr Elstrom is ill,’ she murmured to herself, and then realised that Scott was still listening, ‘of course I can reschedule the sitting. That’s not a problem. When your father is better, Freya can let me know. I have some photos that she sent me and I’m sure I can come up with something he will be pleased with... Why are you shaking your head? Is there something else?’
‘My father is retired, Miss Baldoni. As of this afternoon, I am the new head of Elstrom Mapping.’
His eyebrows squeezed closer together but his gaze focused laser-sharp on her face.
‘And the last thing I need is my portrait painted.’
* * *
Scott stood back and watched the fiery brunette with the lovely brown eyes stomp past him up the staircase towards the guest bedroom before picking up his over-heavy duffel.
Toni Baldoni probably had no idea how much he enjoyed following her up the stairs. One slow step at a time.
The last time he had shared this house with girls wearing nothing but lingerie had been on Freya’s university graduation party, when he had dared to turn up an hour early and walked in on way too many over-excited girls high on champagne and life, all fighting for the hair straighteners and his attention. They had even taken over his en suite bathroom to cope with the party preparations.
Strange. He hadn’t thought about that in a long time.
An unexpected quiver of a laugh surprised him as this brunette stomped in her ridiculous shoes down the landing and her light gown wafted up, giving him a delightful flash of creamy thigh.
Eyes flashing, she instantly flung a glance at him over one shoulder and tugged down her gown, shot into the guest room and shut the door very firmly behind her.
Shaking his head and blinking to stay awake, Scott found the key, turned it in the lock and stepped inside the same bedroom that he had claimed the very first day he had arrived with Freya and his mother. This clean and uncluttered modern town house had seemed like another world from the dark, creaky old Victorian stone villa that was the family home they had shared with their father.
Sheer force of habit made him drop his duffel bag next to the bed and unlock and fling open the double windows to let some air into the overheated and stuffy room.
He didn’t need the heat.
He just wanted sleep and quiet to process the events of the day.
Freya had known that he wasn’t planning to come back any time soon and not that much had changed in the two years since he had last slept here.
It looked like the same bed, wardrobe and furnishings that he remembered.
But there was something new. Perched on the window ledge was a silver-framed photograph of a stunningly pretty slim blonde in a flimsy summer dress with legs that went on for ever.
Alexa.
Scott picked up the frame and glanced at it for a second before stashing it in the drawer of the bedside cabinet.
He had taken the photograph that first summer holiday they spent together walking in Switzerland. They were both single, in their twenties and had the whole world ahead of them.
In his eyes Alexa was the perfect woman for him. As a teenager he had watched his very different parents drift apart over the years and lead separate lives until the only thing they had in common was Freya and himself.
He wouldn’t make that mistake.
Alexa was clever, stunningly pretty and, best of all, a total sports fanatic like himself. They used to talk for hours about the things they both loved, laughing over tall tales from all of the exotic places that they had visited. They had been inseparable.
Heady with the mountain air, they had fallen in love. Over the next twelve months, they were so caught up in their engagement and the whirlwind of a top London wedding that he didn’t have time to stop and consider what married life was going to be like.
It was hard to believe that it could have ended so badly.
If Freya thought that being reminded of happier times with Alexa would help him to get over his cheating ex-wife then she didn’t understand.
There were some things a sunny disposition couldn’t fix.
Sometimes betrayal went too deep, like a bullet to the chest which lay too close to vital organs to be removed. Always there. Always catching you out when you least expected it.
A flash of memory surged through his brain, hot and wild. He could almost see Alexa reclining on this same bed, with a look of love in her eyes, beckoning him to join her. Her long straight blonde hair that he used to adore spread out across the pillow, warm, soft and inviting.
The frostbite in his fingers was nothing compared to this type of deep-seated pain.
Scott’s fingers tightened around the edge of the window frame as he looked out into the night sky, which in London was never going to be truly dark or clear.
Closing his eyes for a second, he gave way to the surge of anger and disappointment that he had buried deep inside himself since the moment he had walked into that hospital room in Rome.
It had been one of the most humbling experiences of his life. It was astonishing to see his father looking so low and depressed. Lars Elstrom had given up. Stopped trying. Beaten down by the events of the past few years to the point where he didn’t even see any point in keeping the company as a viable concern.
His speech was slurred slightly and he was going to have problems with the left side of his body for a long while, but his mind was still alive and sharp.
Suddenly the real reason why Freya had pleaded with him to come home for Christmas was only too apparent.
Elstrom Mapping was finished. Over. After two hundred years of creating maps and sea charts, the company was dead in the water.
A dinosaur.
That was the exact word that his father had managed to say to describe the family business that he had devoted his life to. An extinct creature which no longer had a place in the modern world.
His father had given up in every way possible.
How could this have happened so quickly? Two years ago, the business was not only healthy but thriving and he had almost managed to convince his father that modern technology was the best way forward. There had been plans. A budget. They had actually laughed that Elstrom would last another two hundred years.
But, of course, that was before he’d walked out on the company, leaving his stepbrother in charge.
Travis had taken over and destroyed Elstrom Mapping from the inside out. And his father had let it happen without a fight rather than admit that he had made a horrible mistake.
Now he wanted Scott to finish the job that he had started. Would he do it? Would he take over the company and be the final Elstrom at the helm? Even if it was for a short time, it would please him to think that Elstrom Mapping was still in the family.
What choice did he have? Of course he had