Cars, buses, taxi cabs and motorcyclists. And people. So many people all crushed together. Jostling and pushing and manoeuvring around one another.
What were they all doing here at this time on a Sunday morning? Strange. He had forgotten what the barrage of noise and bustle of city life was like. Right now, his life in Alaska seemed like a distant dream. A fantasy of calm and quiet and beauty and...
He jumped out of the way as a cycle courier flashed across the path in front of him at high speed with only inches to spare. The light sleet mixed with loose snow that had been falling most of the night had made the pavements treacherous for cyclists.
Control. In Alaska he was in control of where and what and how he lived his life. The climate and the harsh conditions were all part of the job. He respected that. But here? Here, he had to battle very different challenges.
And every one of them was just as tough as climbing a mountain range or crossing sea ice.
But that was what he was here for.
He had promised his father and sister that he would give the family business six months of his life and stay in London until early September.
Six long and arduous months which right at that moment felt like an eternity of living in the city.
It was Freya who’d filled Scott in on the details when they had taken off to the hospital café to leave their father to rest.
The plan was to sell the building to property developers, who would give them a serious amount of money to build apartments in such a prestigious address. Any remaining charts and maps would be snapped up by collectors and specialist museums. With the money from the sales there would enough to pay off the debts and have some left over for their father’s retirement.
Because otherwise? Otherwise, things were going down so fast that it would mean bankruptcy and their father couldn’t tolerate the idea of not paying his bills to the suppliers who had been so loyal for the past few years.
Last resort? They had an amazing offer from a marketing company who wanted to create tacky mapping merchandise using the Elstrom company name.
Freya had been quite shocked at his expletive-laden reply to that suggestion and had to ask him to lower his voice.
No way. He was not going to see two hundred years of his family heritage handed over as a prestige symbol on cheap magnifying glasses and plastic rulers.
Little wonder that Freya had telephoned him to ask him to come home. His baby sister certainly knew what buttons to press to bring on even more guilt.
Lars Elstrom had just handed him the keys to the shop. He would be damned if he was going to be the one turning the lights out on the day they closed for good.
But it was more than that and he knew it.
It had been his decision to walk away and leave the company two years ago when things went off the rails in his life. He could have fought his father’s decision to appoint Travis to run the company through hard evidence and facts.
Instead, he had forced his father to choose between his apparently charming and talented and inspirational new stepson, Travis, and the angry man who Scott had become.
And that one decision had cost the company.
And now the stepson was long gone, the money had run out and suddenly his father needed him to step in and help the company with as much peace and dignity as he could.
How ironic was that?
But one thing was not so clear. Had he come back in time to save Elstrom Mapping? Because that was precisely what he intended to do. Or go down trying.
It was going to take all of his strength and ingenuity to survive the next six months.
Just as he had survived when his world was destroyed two years ago. Taking things one day at a time.
Starting right now.
Head back, chin up, Scott stopped outside the antique facade of Elstrom Mapping and glanced up at the old three-storey building which had been his playground and school as a boy, his centre in the middle of his parents’ divorce and then his chance to get close to his father again when he came to work here.
It had been two years since he had stood outside this door and waved goodbye to Freya as casually as if he were heading to the pub instead of a series of long arduous flights to a remote environmental survey base in Alaska.
It felt a lot longer.
Freya had organised a very casual meal out for the family before he took off and he had been a bear the whole evening. Bad-tempered and sullen and quiet. He couldn’t even recall why. Probably some snide remark his father had made about how much the business needed him to bring some new orders—with Travis managing the company they could use someone experienced to work with clients on operational mapping projects in the field.
Scott could see that now in hindsight but he had been blind to just how overwhelmed his father had been at the time by everything that had happened.
Two stubborn men. As different as possible from one another. It was hard to believe that they were even related.
They were from different planets which only collided in astrological time zones.
Neither of them ready to admit that the other person might need help.
Neither of them willing to talk about the real problem that was never going away.
No way was his father going to lower himself to plead with Scott to give up a paying job and a contract he had signed to come back to London and dig Elstrom out of a large hole which had nothing to do with him and everything to do with his own bad judgement.
Scott clenched his fingers tight around the elaborate key set that Freya had passed him and braced his jaw as he turned the three keys, one after the other.
His feet hesitated for just a fraction of a second before he brushed the fear away.
Time to find out just how bad things had become. Because, for better or worse, he was in charge of Elstrom Mapping now and things were going to have to change. And fast.
* * *
Two hours later, Toni stepped down from the red London bus and darted under the shelter of the nearest shop doorway. The February rain had swept in and was pounding on the fabric awning above her head and bouncing off the pavement of the narrow street in this smart part of the city.
Her gaze skipped between the pedestrians scurrying for cover until it settled on the elegant three-storey stone building across the street.
What was she doing here? She was a commercial photographer and wannabe studio business owner.
Toni closed her eyes and wallowed in ten seconds of self-pity and shame before shaking herself out of it. This had been her decision. Nobody had forced her to take Freya Elstrom’s offer when she’d called. But Freya had kept going on about how important it was to her father that a Baldoni had to paint the last of the Elstroms. It meant a lot to him and he was willing to pay her a special bonus if she could drop everything and work on the portrait in the next few months.
Now
