it?’
‘It’s the eighteenth floor, which means a quick trip inside a lift,’ he whispered, and grinned at her shocked reaction. ‘But it does have a balcony.’
And what a balcony!
Dee stepped out onto a long, tiled terrace, and what she saw in front of her took her breath away.
The rain had cleared to leave a star-kissed, cool evening. And stretched out, in every direction, was London. Her city. Dressed and lit, bright, shiny and sparking with street lamps, advertisements and the lights from homes and offices.
It was like something from a movie or a wonderful painting. A moment so special that Dee knew instinctively that she would never forget it.
She grasped hold of the railing and looked out over London, her heart soaring, all doubt forgotten in the exuberant joy of the view.
It was almost a shock to feel a warm arm wrap a coat around her shoulders and she turned sideways to face Sean with a grin, clutching onto his sleeve.
‘Have you seen this? It’s astonishing. I love it.’ Dee breathed.
‘I know. I can see it on your face.’
Then he moved closer to her on the balcony, his left hand just touching the outstretched fingers of her right hand.
But Sean was looking up at the stars.
‘Last February it was snowy and cloudy for the whole of the three weeks that I was back in London. But tonight? Tonight is perfect.’
‘This is amazing. I had no idea that you could see skies like this in London. I thought the light pollution would block out the stars.’
And she followed his gaze just in time to see a shooting star streak across the sky directly above their heads, and then another, smaller this time, then another.
‘A meteor shower. Sean! Look!’
‘What is it, Dee?’ he asked, his mouth somewhere in the vicinity of her hair. ‘Have you made a wish on a shooting star? What does your heart yearn to do that you haven’t done yet?’
‘Me? Oh, I had such great plans when I was a teenager and the whole world seemed to be an open door to whatever I wanted. My parents loved their work, and I was so happy for them when they decided to retire and run their own tea gardens. Warmth. Sunshine. They could not have been happier.’
She wrapped her arms tight around her body. ‘But then the hard reality of running a business in a recession where tea prices are falling hit. And they lost it. They lost everything they had dreamt of. And it was so hard to see them in pain, Sean. So very hard.’
‘But they stayed. Didn’t they?’
She nodded. ‘They won’t come back unless they have to and if they did... It would break them. And that is what scares me.’
She lifted her head and rested it on Sean’s chest. ‘I know that I am in a different place in my life, and there are lots more opportunities out there for me, but do you know what? I am not so very different from my folks. I want my own business so badly and I don’t know how I could cope if my dream fell apart. Six months ago I was working for a big tea importer and going to night school to study business most evenings and weekends. But Lottie changed that when she asked me to join her in the tea rooms. The time seemed so right. I have volunteered to run the festival and I felt ready to do anything.’
‘You are ready. I know it.’
She looked up into his smiling face but stayed inside the warm circle of his arms.
‘How do you know what your limits are?’
‘You don’t. The only way to find out is by testing yourself. You would be astounded at what you are capable of. And if you don’t succeed you learn from your mistakes and do what you have to do to get back up and try again until you can prove to yourself that you can do it. And then you keep on doing that over and over again.’
‘No matter how many times you fall down and hurt yourself?’
‘That’s right. You’ve got it.’
Dee turned slightly away from Sean and looked out towards the horizon, suddenly needing to get some distance, some air between them. What he was describing was so hard, so difficult and so familiar. He could never know how many times she had forced herself to smile after someone had let her down, or when she had been ridiculed or humiliated.
Dee blinked back tears and pulled the collar of his jacket up around her ears while she fought to gain control of her voice. ‘Some of us lesser mortals have been knocked down so many times that it is hard to bounce back up again, Sean. Very hard. Can you understand that?’
Sean replied by wrapping his long arms around her body in a warm embrace so tender that Dee surrendered to a moment of joy and pressed her head against his chest, inhaling his delicious scent as her body shared his warmth.
His hands made lazy circles on her back in silence for a few minutes until he spoke, the words reverberating inside his chest into her head. ‘Better than you think. Working in the family business is not all fun. I have been in these hotels all my life one way or another. And I still have a lot to learn.’
Dee shuffled back from him, laughed in a choked voice and then pressed both hands against his chest as she replied with a broken smile.
‘So that makes two of us who are stuck in the family trade. Am I right?’
‘Absolutely. How about a suggestion instead? I know a couple of venture-capital guys who have money to invest in new business ideas. All I have to do is make a few phone calls and... What? What now?’
‘I don’t want to carry any debt. No maxed-out credit cards; no business loans; no venture capital investment. That’s how my dad got into so much trouble and there is no way that I am going there. So thank you, but no. I might be hard up, but I have made some rules for myself. I have already maxed out my credit on my share of the tea shop. I can’t handle any more debt.’
Sean inhaled very slowly and watched Dee struggle with her thoughts, her dilemma played out in the tension on her face.
She was as proud as anyone he had ever met. Including himself. Which was quite something.
And just like that the connection he had sensed between them from the moment he had laid eyes on her in the tea rooms kicked up a couple of notches.
And every warning bell in his body started screaming ‘danger!’ so loudly that in the end he could not ignore it any longer. And he pulled away from her.
She shivered in the cool air, fracturing the moment, and he grabbed her hand and jogged back across the balcony. Sean slid open the patio doors and wrapped his arm around her waist, hugging her to him, the luxurious warmth from the penthouse warming their backs.
‘Oh, that’s better. Won’t you get into trouble with the boss for wasting heat? Oh—you are the boss! Well, in that case, carry on.’
‘We should be getting back to the others,’ Sean whispered, only his voice sounded low and way too unconvincing.
