and becoming a full-time grandmother,’ he continued, his expression still in neutral. ‘I could get one of those sexy girls with long legs and a degree in Business Studies to replace you.’
‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘Oh? And why not?’
‘Precisely because I’m not sexy. I’m safely middle-aged, plump and motherly,’ she said, heading back to her own office. ‘You know I’m not going to fall in love with you and make life difficult in the office. I’m also the best secretary in the world. Probably.’ When she reached the door, however, she paused and looked back at him. ‘Twenty-one days,’ she said. ‘If she gets you on Day 21, I win the sweep.’
‘Try and get your money back,’ he suggested. ‘Sell your ticket to someone really gullible.’
‘Goodnight, JD. Don’t work too late. All work and no play…’ She left the proverb hanging, closing the door gently behind her as she left for the night, and he finally smiled. She might be talking rubbish about India Claibourne, but she was right about one thing. She was the best secretary he’d ever known and he wouldn’t be trading her in for a younger model any time soon. Then, as he turned back to his PC and the e-mail from India Claibourne, his smile faded. It wasn’t long. Just one line. It said:
Two down, one to go. Are you ready to quit, Mr Farraday?
Clearly she’d been afraid that with his advance guard neutralised by her lovely sisters he might change his mind about shadowing her during June. This was a ‘dare-you’ challenge to his masculine pride.
Christine was wrong, he decided as he switched off the screen. He wasn’t the one playing with fire. It was India Claibourne who was about to get her fingers…and anything else she cared to risk…burned.
India Claibourne paused in front of the department store that had borne her family name for nearly two centuries and looked up.
Claibourne & Farraday.
A byword for class and style. The name said it all.
In fact it said rather too much.
The Farraday grated. A lot. Their silent partners hadn’t done much—other than accumulate capital and take their share of the profits—in living memory. Her living memory, anyway.
She didn’t have a problem with that. They were equal partners and were entitled to their share of the profits—welcome to them—as long as they kept out of her way. But they weren’t keeping out of her way. Since her father’s sudden retirement, following his heart attack, they had become disturbingly vocal.
‘Good morning, Miss India.’ The commissionaire tipped his top hat to her.
‘Good morning, Mr Edwards.’ She paused, stepping to one side, out of the way of early arrivals at the store. ‘The customers seem eager this morning.’
‘Summer is always busy, miss. London is full of visitors and they all come to Claibourne’s.’
She smiled at the way he automatically shortened the name.
Claibourne’s.
It had a ring to it. It was easy to say. And once she’d seen off Jordan Farraday that was what the store would become. Claibourne’s.
No more Farradays. Ever.
‘My wife showed me the wedding picture of Miss Flora in Celebrity magazine last night,’ he continued, as she lingered at the entrance, her fertile imagination supplying a pleasing picture of the frontage with just one name above the door. ‘She looked quite radiant. It’s wonderful for the store…both Miss Romana and Miss Flora marrying Farradays.’
Which brought her swiftly back to reality. Jordan Farraday’s advance guard, his cousins and partners in his bid to take over control of the store, were now her brothers-in-law.
Her delaying tactics—having the Farradays shadow them to see what running a department store actually entailed—had backfired. Badly.
But she smiled nonetheless. ‘It’s very exciting for them. For all of us. I wish I could have been with them.’ Her sisters, however, having fallen under the Farraday spell, had chosen to get married first and only tell their families afterwards. Or, in Flora’s case, leave them to find out like everyone else when they read it in the newspaper.
She couldn’t fault their reasoning. In their shoes, she’d have done the same.
Meanwhile they were all wisely keeping their heads down in their honeymoon hideaways, leaving the field clear for the main battle.
It was between her and Jordan Farraday now. But then, it always was going to be between the two of them. She was in control of the store, sitting in the seat he believed to be rightfully his.
Her sisters, his cousins, were interested parties. But she and Jordan were the ones with the most to gain—or lose.
She had one month left—this month—to show him that if the Farradays thought they could run Claibourne & Farraday in their spare time they were wrong. This was no longer an emporium for gentlemen, a place where the customers were all known personally.
Her father had continued to think of it that way long after reality had suggested otherwise. But she had hauled it into the modern era and, now he’d retired, the sky was the limit. But first she had to see off the Farradays. More specifically, she had to see off Jordan David Farraday.
It shouldn’t be difficult. The man was a venture capitalist, not a retailer. He really couldn’t want to take on something so time-consuming. It was control he wanted. The last word. At least she hoped that was all he wanted. A prime site, the name alone, would be a big prize for one of the retail chains. But he wouldn’t…couldn’t…
A shiver, as if someone had walked over her grave, goosed her flesh.
Jordan Farraday showed his pass at the rear entrance of the building, parked his sports car in the space that had been allocated to him, then asked the security guard at the staff entrance to ring through to India Claibourne’s office to let her know he’d arrived.
She wasn’t there.
‘Will you pass on my best wishes when you speak to her?’ India, dragging her mind back from a nightmare vision of the plans Jordan Farraday might have for the store, glanced at the commissionaire. ‘Miss Flora,’ he prompted as he opened the door for her. ‘I hope she’ll be very happy.’
‘Thank you, Mr Edwards. I’ll tell her.’
Most days she used the staff entrance at the rear of the store, but occasionally, having parked her car, she took the time to walk around to the main entrance, look at the window displays and enter the store as if she were a customer. Remind herself of that first time when, four years old, she’d been brought to the store by her grandmother to visit Santa’s grotto and had believed she’d walked into the Aladdin’s cave in her storybook.
As she walked into the marble and mahogany entrance hall, spangled with coloured light from the Tiffany stained glass window that rose up three floors through the stairwell, the rush of excitement, the sense of wonder was as powerful as ever.
She
