He smiled for the first time. ‘I hope you and the family…and Milo…have a great Christmas,’ he said.
She turned to go. ‘Thanks,’ she said quickly, as she brushed past him. Well, he might be the man with everything, she thought, trying not to feel cross all over again, but the only thing of his she wanted was one of those wretched dolls!
That was the last thing she’d have expected to happen to her on Christmas Eve, she thought, as the lift sped down through the floors. Telling the owner of Latimer’s what she thought of his store! To be honest, she had laid it on a bit thick, she acknowledged, because she really did enjoy shopping there, despite all her remarks. But saying all she had had sort of helped ease her annoyance. She glanced down at the bag holding the boots and the ball…She hoped they’d be sufficient compensation—though she doubted it!
Jeremy Hunter watched her go as she swiftly walked away from him, a strange expression on his handsome face. He’d met many women—too many women—in his life—but no one quite like that! A feisty female, yet a vulnerable woman. As she’d warmed to what she was saying she’d positively glowed, a rosy blush colouring her cheeks, lighting up her face. He shrugged inwardly, then turned to go. He’d stayed around longer than he’d intended, and he still had these blasted toys to deliver!
Jeremy—or Jed, as he was known to everyone except his parents—steered his silver Porsche effortlessly through the traffic, wishing that he was going back to his flat in London rather than to the family pile in the country. But it was unthinkable that he wouldn’t spend Christmas with his parents, Henry and Alice, who doted on their son. Their only son. Whose one great failing in their eyes was his choice in women!
‘When are you going to find yourself a proper woman?’ his father would regularly complain. ‘A woman with something between her ears for a change. Never mind where her other attributes might lie!’ Henry Hunter was an outspoken man.
Jed admitted to himself that he had been susceptible where the opposite sex was concerned. It was hard not to be when women fell at his feet, offering themselves to him with seldom any shame or reticence—and he’d loved it! He owned up to that. But it was different now. He’d made one really big, bad mistake, and he’d learned from it. Well, at thirty-six years old it was about time he grew up!
The traffic was thinning now, and he was able to increase his speed towards the parental home and the festive meal that Megan, the housekeeper, would have ready for them. The family would sit down together, the three of them at the huge oval table, and talk. Discuss business, balance sheets, the state of the economy…
He’d wished many times in his life that he had siblings to share the pressure of being the sole beneficiary of all his parents’ love and affection. Could too much be worse than too little? he asked himself—then felt bad about thinking it. He realised that he’d had more than his fair share of all the good things in life…a privileged education, and travel to all corners of the world, with never a thought that the money could, or would, ever dry up. And until the last couple of years he hadn’t even been expected to have any hands-on input in the family businesses—the two other Latimer’s stores in the Midlands, and two country house hotels in Wales. Settling down to the dreary business of a structured and demanding lifestyle had been proving difficult for Jed, but he had eventually—and willingly—taken up the reins. His parents were no longer in their prime, and Henry had been having a few health problems.
As he waited at traffic lights, his thoughts kept returning to that woman—strange little thing, he mused, not at all conscious of herself as female in the usual sense. No lowering her eyes or fluttering her lashes, no fiddling with her hair. The sort of reaction he usually got. Her eyes—quite pretty, actually—had seldom looked away from his when she was speaking. He wondered briefly what sort of a man she slept with—who Milo’s father was, what he was like. He hoped he could stand up for himself! He imagined her now, going home with all that shopping, going home to her husband and child, to catch up on all the household chores…She’d said she worked full time, so it would be all there waiting for her, even on Christmas Eve.
She was certainly no seductress—he was expert at recognising that brand of female! Though she probably had her own powers of persuasion hidden somewhere, he thought wryly, a brief smile touching his lips as he remembered her sparky comments about the shop. He shifted in his seat, irritated by his own thoughts, irritated that a casual encounter with a completely insignificant woman was exercising his concentration. Then he frowned. He’d remember what she’d said about the shop, though—if anything could improve the running of the place then it was up to him to see that it was done.