felt the air displace softly as she lifted her arm to brush a piece of lint off his shoulder.
‘You’ll do.’
He breathed out. ‘So glad you approve,’ he said, his voice deeper with her so close. ‘I guarantee you Eleanor Moorfield will.’ He liked that that brought her head up. Liked the spark that flared briefly in her eyes before she got herself under control. ‘You want to show me this presentation, Princess?’
She really looked as if she didn’t. Great, in the short space of time that he’d been changing had she lost confidence in him? He should have told her about his other job. ‘I guess now is a good time to tell you that when I’m not volunteering for the charity I run a chain of deluxe leisure facilities.’ He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, unused to having to sell himself quite so much. ‘I’m not a virgin at talking to potential clients.’
Nora regarded him silently for a few moments and mumbled an, ‘Okay,’ as she rounded her desk to switch on her laptop and bring up her presentation, then gestured for him to sit down and read through it.
A whole sixty seconds passed before she suddenly said, ‘Wait. You’re part of Love Leisure?’
‘I guess you could say that I am Love Leisure. Problem?’
‘No. No, of course not.’
Despite not liking that she looked more impressed by what he’d just revealed than she had sounded when he’d told her about being a disaster-response team member, he still found himself wanting to alleviate any doubt. Love Leisure’s success was paramount in providing enough income so that he could volunteer as a rapid-response team member on pretty much a full-time basis and as it was his name above each of the branch doors, he intended to keep it successful. ‘I have good people in place so that the business runs like clockwork while I’m away, but I do keep my hand in when I’m back. You don’t need to worry. I can do this.’ He returned his attention to reading through the entire pitch, nearly getting to the end before the nervous foot-tapping beside him became too pronounced.
‘This is fine. I can work with this.’
‘Hang on. If it’s only fine—’
‘Relax,’ he reassured when the foot-tapping started going into triple-time. ‘You give good presentation.’ He loved the way she blushed. He exited the PowerPoint presentation and logged into a business-networking site so that he could search the designer’s profile. ‘So where are you meeting this Eleanor Moorfield?’ he asked.
‘The Savoy. She has a suite.’ Nora glanced at her watch. ‘We can talk some more about KPC on the way.’
‘You’re not walking in those?’ Ethan said, pointing incredulously to her feet.
Nora glanced down at her shoes. ‘What’s wrong with these?’
‘They’re not a little difficult to walk in?’
‘I am a woman, Ethan. I can walk in any shoe you put in front of me.’
‘Okay, let me put it another way: have you actually seen what the weather is like outside? You’ll ruin them before you get halfway there. We’ll take my rental. What are you doing?’ he asked as Nora reached across the desk for her phone.
‘Calling Eleanor’s assistant to tell her it won’t be me doing the presentation.’
‘Don’t do that. Don’t give her any opportunity to cancel. She won’t mind if I show up in your place. Trust me.’
Nora looked at him as if he’d used the dirtiest two words in the English language. He caught the glimmer of something at the back of her eyes and wondered whether she was actually going to let him do this for her. ‘Come on,’ he said picking up the laptop before she had time to think. ‘We can go over everything in the car.’ As she followed mutely alongside him, he wondered if it was him she didn’t trust, or herself. Except, she was CEO of a company that had been going for decades. You didn’t rise to that position without being good at what you did. Well, you could rise to that position, he thought, glancing once again at the portrait of her father as they headed out, but you couldn’t keep that position. Not if you weren’t good.
By the time they pulled up outside the Savoy, Nora was looking pale and pensive. Ethan went through the presentation highlights again. It didn’t seem to help. If anything, she looked as if she was about to pass out.
‘You don’t look nervous,’ she accused. ‘Why don’t you look nervous?’
‘What is there to be nervous about? This will be a cinch.’ He shot her his most disarming smile.
‘And there was me thinking that nerves helped a person perform better.’
‘Interesting, but I’ve never had any complaints about my performance.’ He tried not to laugh as her eyes transformed into huge saucers. ‘Look, I’m good at thinking on my feet. I promise not to give the company secrets away and I won’t sign anything put before me. I’m going to go in now.’
Nora glanced at the valet patiently waiting to take the car. ‘Where shall I wait for you?’
‘How about the Starbucks across the street? When you see the car being brought around, you’ll know I’ve finished.’
‘Okay. Good. That’s good.’
Ethan released his seatbelt and was about to open the car door when he felt Nora’s hand, or rather, her shoe, on his forearm. ‘Ethan, thanks. I realise it may not look like it, but I really do take KPC incredibly seriously.’
‘No problem.’ He opened the car door and scooped up the laptop. He nodded towards a hotel doorman to open the passenger door for Nora and walked confidently towards the hotel’s entrance.
Forty minutes later he was getting into the car, impressed with the speed with which Nora had managed to sprint across the road in the shoes she was wearing, to be at his side.
‘Well?’ she queried.
‘How about we get in first,’ he said.
‘So get in already,’ Nora answered, jogging around to her side of the car to pull open the car door and slide in gracefully, which amazed him all over again, considering she still had a large bag covering her arm.
She waited a nanosecond for him to pull out into the traffic. ‘Well?’
‘It was interesting. I think it went well.’
‘You only think? Damn it. I knew it. Cancelling would have been better. What was I thinking, letting some complete stranger take over? I mean just because I’ve heard of Love Leisure, it’s not remotely the same industry as property services.’
‘Little joke.’ He smiled as he heard her inhale. Turning his head to briefly look at her, he said, ‘Relax, it went well.’
‘Oh.’ The confidence in his voice seemed to appease her a little. ‘What’s in the goodie-bag?’ she asked, craning her head to the back seat, where he had placed the large glossy, burgundy, signature Moorfield bag.
‘Something that tells me I know the meeting went well.’
She
