The Last Woman He'd Ever Date (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Read online

  She shook her head, then looked up. ‘Were you expecting a call?’

  ‘No.’ As far as Claire knew there was no one to take a complaint about uppity staff who took shocking advantage of maidens in distress. On the other hand… ‘I thought you might have heard from the local paper.’

  ‘No “might” about it. The editor rang, hoping for a quote to go with the announcement of the sale they’re running in Monday’s edition. Then there was some girl wanting “the personal angle” on the new owner of Cranbrook Park…’ Her phone began to ring. ‘Don’t worry, Hal. I made it clear that you don’t give interviews.’

  Some girl.

  No prizes for guessing who that was. Claire Thackeray hadn’t been so shocked by her tumble, by her confrontation with him, that she’d neglected to follow up the news that the estate had been sold.

  ‘Hold on, Katie…’ She held the phone to her chest. ‘Is there anything else, only I really do need to get home. There’s an open evening at Katie’s school this evening.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.’ He picked up the bike. ‘Tell Katie that she can come down for the half term if she likes. She’ll enjoy the deer.

  ‘You’re staying down here?’ she asked.

  ‘For a week. Maybe two. The roof needs immediate attention. It’s getting me out of the office,’ he pointed out, when she would have protested. ‘Something you’re always encouraging.’

  ‘Creating barriers for footpaths and dealing with a leaky roof wasn’t quite what I had in mind. And thanks for the invitation but we’re headed to Italy and guaranteed sunshine. Lying by the pool beats picking up rubbish hands down. There’s plenty of space if you fancy a change of scene,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, but they both knew he wouldn’t. Travel was something he did because he had to, for business. Right now all he wanted to do was get on his Harley and ride around the estate the way he used to, although it wouldn’t be as much fun without some furious gardener or gamekeeper chasing him on a quad bike.

  Nothing was as much fun these days.

  He blocked out Robert Cranbrook’s mocking voice, and looked around. He had more than enough to get out of bed for. Everything was shabby, worn out. There were weeds growing out of what had once been perfectly raked gravel, and water stains on the walls where broken guttering hadn’t been repaired.

  When he was a kid this had been gleaming, cared for. A place where only the privileged few—and their staff—were allowed. Forbidden territory for the likes of him. Not that he’d taken any notice of that.

  Ignoring the rules, going where he wasn’t allowed, dodging the staff to explore the seemingly endless empty rooms had been a challenge.

  He’d never taken anything, not even as much as a polished apple from a bowl; he’d simply wanted to tread the centuries-old floors, finger the linen-fold panels, look at the paintings, absorb the history that he’d been denied as he’d wandered through the empty, unused rooms.

  There had been a moment of elation, triumph when he’d picked up the deeds and tossed them casually to his company lawyer that even Robert Cranbrook’s outburst couldn’t sour. But while he was now the proud owner of the Hall with its leaking roof and crumbling fences, ironically, the only place on the estate where the paintwork was glossy and well cared for was the house he’d once lived in.

  And it was Claire Thackeray’s unexpected response to his ill-advised kiss that was burning a hole in his brain; the memory of her slim foot, her ankle resting in his hands, playing havoc with his senses.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CLAIRE stared at the screen.

  Hal North had been turned off the estate by Sir Robert with nothing to his name but a motorbike and a bad attitude on his nineteenth birthday. Now he was back, the chairman of an international company. A millionaire. A millionaire she’d accused of fishing without a licence. A millionaire to whom she’d offered her last ten-pound note.

  He must be laughing fit to bust.

  Well, let him laugh, she thought, as she clicked furiously on the links, determined to find out all she could about where he’d been, what he’d been doing since he left. How he’d made his money.

  She’d teach Hal North to make sarcastic comments about working for a local paper.

  Human interest?

  This was human interest in letters ten feet high. A story that she could write because she’d been there at the beginning. One that she knew hadn’t been told because it would have been a sensation in Cranbrook. A sensation in Maybridge.

  Headline material.

  Prodigal returns, buys up the big house and has hot, sweaty sex with the girl he left behind…

  Whoa, whoa!

  She didn’t write fantasy, she dealt in reality.

  And she didn’t write gossip. She had been told to stay at home for the rest of the week and she’d use the time to get ahead on the G&D blog.

  She was taking photographs of a particularly large slug—planning a piece on organic control—when her phone rang.

  She took it out of her pocket, checked the caller. So much for putting her feet up…

  ‘Hello, Brian,’ she said.

  ‘Claire… How are you feeling now?’ he asked, all sympathy.

  Having insisted that she was ready to come into work, she could hardly say she was hors d’combat. Not that he waited for an answer.

  ‘Any chance you could do a bit of research on the new owner of Cranbrook Park? Nothing you’ll have to leave the house for.’

  Yes, well, she was the one who’d insisted that the Park was her territory.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘General background. Where he comes from, family, that sort of thing. I’ll send you what we’ve got. Unless it’s too much trouble?’ he added, apparently picking up on her lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘No, no, of course not. I was using the down time to catch up on my gardening blog, but it can wait.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘Patronising oaf,’ she muttered, but only when he’d hung up.

  Back in her office, she checked her email and, just in case she was in any doubt, there was the press release, embargoed until Monday, telling the world that Henry North had bought Cranbrook Park.

  The moment it emerged he was local—and there would be plenty of people who remembered him—it would become obvious to Brian that she would have known him. He’d want specifics, details.

  She opened up a new document and began to makes notes. Everything she knew about Hal. His parents, school.

  She fired off an email to the recently retired headmistress of the village school to get a quote, called Maybridge High and spoke to the school secretary who pointed her in the direction of teachers who would remember him. She left messages for them to call her back. That done, she hit the internet in order to find out what he’d been up to since he’d left Cranbrook. How he’d transformed himself from disaffected youth to millionaire. That was the big story.

  She ran into a blank wall.

  When Ms Webb said that Mr North did not speak to the press, she hadn’t been kidding.

  Hal wasn’t one of those CEOs who courted publicity. He didn’t date supermodels, big himself up on television talk shows, or appear in Celebrity magazine attending showbiz parties. Of course he didn’t. If he’d done any of those things she would, undoubtedly, have seen him. And if he was happily married with a parcel of children he’d kept that to himself, as well.

  The kiss that still burned on her lips suggested otherwise. Or, if he was married, the relationship was clearly more of a hobby than a full-time occupation.

  No.

  Despite the endless stream of girls who had made his life sweet when he was a youth living on the estate, she didn’t see him as a man who’d play the field once he’d found his mate.

  ‘Oh, get real,’ she muttered.

  She knew nothing about him. Only that he made the air sizzle. Made her pulse race, her heart pound. Which was as ridiculous now as
it had been when she was a pre-pubescent fantasist who would have fainted if he’d as much as winked at her.

  Okay. She had the boy, the youth and by the time she left to pick up Ally from school, she had school photographs, anecdotes from teachers and enough general background to email Brian and ask him if she could go to London on a quest to fill in the more recent past. The fact that he agreed so readily, suggested he had already drawn a blank himself.

  She’d just opened the back door when she heard the crunch of gravel. Gary with her bike.

  Not Gary.

  Like iron filings, a gazillion cells turned in one direction as if someone had switched on an electro-magnet. That had to explain the sudden dizziness as Hal North rounded the corner of the cottage, stopped as he saw her.

  ‘You’re on your way out?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just going to pick up Ally from school,’ she said, banging the door behind her and heading for the gate.

  ‘How’s your foot?’ he asked, falling in beside her.

  ‘What? Oh, good as new,’ she said. Not. Her heel was throbbing and walking on the gravel was painful. ‘What do you want, Hal?’

  ‘To explain about your bike.’ He looked at her foot, clearly not convinced. ‘Can I give you a lift? We can talk on the way.’

  There was an ancient estate Land Rover parked at the gate and he opened the door. It was high and as she put her weight on her foot to haul herself up, she gave a little gasp and he put his hands on her backside and gave her a boost up.

  ‘Okay?’

  Okay?

  You went eight years without a man’s hand on your backside and then it happened twice in as many days…

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped and reached to the seat belt, any excuse to look away.

  He climbed in beside her, teased the cranky old machine into life, then turned it and headed into the village.

  ‘So? What’s the verdict on my bike?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a mess,’ he said, above the noise of the engine. ‘You’re going to need a new wheel and front mudguard. I’m doing my best to locate one.’

  ‘You could have phoned to tell me that.’ Then, aware that she had sounded less than grateful, ‘I meant you didn’t have to come specially.’

  ‘I was at this end of the estate.’

  ‘Inspecting your domain?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  Damn! There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask and she’d blown her chance with a snarky remark. But while it was easy enough to be focussed, professional when he was just a name, a face on her computer, up close and personal—with the imprint of his hand on her bottom still warm in the memory—it was difficult to be dispassionate. Professional. Cool.

  ‘When were you going to tell me that you’ve bought Cranbrook Park?’ she asked, doing her best to recover the situation.

  ‘Would you have believed me if I’d told you this morning?’

  ‘We’ll never know,’ she said, as he pulled up in front the school. Then, rolling her eyes she said, ‘Probably not.’

  ‘No.’ Her honesty earned her one of those rare smiles. ‘And I knew you’d read about it in the paper on Monday.’

  A group of mothers turned as one to see who had arrived. Gossip city.

  ‘I’d better go. I’m supposed to be supervising some workmen.’

  ‘You’re going to be a hands-on lord of the manor, then?’ It had been a very long time since she’d given anyone anything to talk about so she might as well make the most of it.

  ‘Just taking a few days out to play with my expensive new toy,’ he said, with the merest edge of self-mockery in response to her sarcasm.

  ‘Expensive, I have no doubt, but Cranbrook Park is not a toy.’

  ‘No. Like all my investments, it will have to work for its keep.’

  ‘How? What are you going to do with it?’

  He leaned across her, threatening a sensory overload as his arm came within a whisker of her breast and she had a close-up of his cheekbone, a lungful of the scent of his skin, hair as he opened her door. ‘I’ll have someone bring your bike back when it’s fixed.’

  She slid down onto the pavement, turned to face him.

  ‘Ask Gary,’ she said. ‘He might even be able to straighten out the wheel. He’s like you, good with his hands.’ And she blushed.

  ‘Goodbye, Claire.’

  ‘Goodbye, Hal. Thanks for the lift.’

  She slammed the door shut and watched the old Land Rover move away through the village leaving her engulfed in the scent of hot metal and diesel.

  Work for its keep…

  Was that a warning that her days of paying a low rent in return for keeping the cottage in good repair were running out?

  He’d warned her not to spend money on wallpaper…

  All her hard work would mean nothing to him. Her cottage was pretty, her garden was a showpiece. It would fetch three times the rent she paid on the open market.

  It wasn’t just her job that was under threat, but she was being forced to seriously consider the possibility that she would lose her home.

  ‘Mum!’ Ally flung herself at her.

  ‘Hi, angel. I’m home early so I thought I’d come and meet you. Do you want to ask Savannah if she’d like to come to tea?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I am never talking to her again.’

  Oh, terrific.

  *

  He could have phoned, should have phoned, Hal knew, but like coming back to Cranbrook Park, he was drawn to Claire Thackeray by something he couldn’t explain.

  Robert Cranbrook was right, he had obsessed about owning the Park, it had driven him and he’d commissioned plans for its future long before it had been on the market. He’d known it was only a matter of time.

  It had all seemed so simple; what he’d do, how it would feel but then, this morning, he’d seen that boy—so like himself at that age. No respect. Full of what the world owed him. It had been like a kick in the gut.

  And then he’d been run down by the Claire and Archie double act and the kick had been physical rather than metaphorical.

  Local Boy Saves Cranbrook Park

  Solicitors acting for Sir Robert Cranbrook announced this morning that the Cranbrook Park estate has been sold to millionaire businessman, Henry North.

  For Mr North, founder and CEO of HALGO, the international freight company, this is a very special homecoming. Born in Maybridge, both his parents worked for Sir Robert Cranbrook and he went to both Cranbrook Primary and Maybridge High Schools before leaving the area to set up his own business.

  Mrs Mary Bridges, retired Head Teacher of Cranbrook Primary School remembers Mr North well, describing him as ‘full of life’ and he’s remembered at Maybridge High School as a promising student who, even as a youth, demonstrated a well-honed entrepreneurial spirit.

  Former residents of the estate recall that he was a keen fisherman and he will no doubt take full advantage of the excellent fishing in the famous trout stream for which the Park is named.

  Henry North started his own motorcycle courier service upon leaving school and he swiftly fulfilled his early promise, rapidly expanding his business to compete with major freight companies at home and internationally. When his company was floated on the stock exchange three years ago, his personal fortune was estimated to be in nine figures.

  Rumours have been flying around all week, suggesting that the estate will be transformed into a leisure facility but Mr North, 33, divorced, is keeping his plans for the estate under wraps for the moment. He did however confirm that it would, like all his investments, have to ‘work for its keep,’ which sounds promising for local jobs.

  —Maybridge Observer, Monday April 24

  *

  ‘Excellent job, Claire.’ Brian leaned back in his chair. ‘Obviously we went to the internet, but it was pretty thin considering who he is and we missed the local connection. Of course you live on the estate. Did you know him?’

  �
�He’s a bit older than me,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. You must have been just a kid when he left. You did well to get hold of the school photographs so quickly.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She handed him her expense sheet for Friday. Her fare—cheap day return, receipts for copies of his birth, marriage and divorce certificates, as well her lunch in the café near his office.

  She’d felt like a proper reporter as she’d struck up a conversation with the girl clearing the tables, pretending that she’d been offered a job with the company. As she’d hoped, most of his staff ate there at lunchtime and, no surprise, the women talked about their good-looking, eligible boss.

  ‘I kept my expenses to the bare minimum,’ she said, as his eyebrows rose at the amount. ‘Worth it simply for the information that he’s unattached, I’d say. How many copies is a front-page photograph of a good-looking, eligible millionaire in the neighbourhood going to be worth?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Women buy the local newspaper,’ she pointed out.

  ‘True, but how often can we use him on the front page? Until we know what his plans are he’s not going to be headline news.’

  ‘You don’t need headline news. I’ll give you stories,’ she promised. ‘All you need on the front page is a photograph and a caption leading on to page two. It’s how they use the royal family to sell papers.’

  ‘Shame he doesn’t have a title to go with all that money, but you can’t have everything.’ He grinned, signed the sheet and handed it back to her. ‘With the way circulation is falling, anything is worth a try, but no more trips to London.’

  *

  The phone rang once, twice, three times. He checked his watch. Ten on the dot.

  He picked up the receiver, sat back in the leather chair worn smooth by generations of Cranbrook men. ‘What do you want, Claire?’

  ‘And good morning to you, Hal.’

  ‘Is it good? I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Shame on you. I was earthing-up my potatoes as the sun rose with a robin for company.’