‘Got it. I should be there in about ten minutes. And thanks for sorting out things at the London end, Angie.’
‘No problem. We have an hour before the presentation. Catch up with you soon.’
Rick closed down the phone and stared at it for a few seconds before popping back into his pocket with a snort.
So that was how the game was played.
The top wine experts he needed were only prepared to turn up and listen to what he had to say if he had the credibility of a famous name in the wine trade like Elwood Brothers behind him.
Yet another example of exactly the kind of old world narrow-minded network he detested. Instead of asking what he could bring to the business, all they were looking for was the validation of the old and worthy established family of wine merchants.
Rick exhaled slowly.
Was this how it was going to be from now on?
This was not his life! His life was base jumping and pushing his body to the limit under blue skies and cold air. Not walking into a conference room and selling the idea for Rick Burgess Wines to closed minded traditional hotel owners who had already made up their minds before they heard that he said.
He was about to take the biggest leap in his life and launch a flagship wine store in the centre of London. His name above the door. His future on the line.
Only this time it was not about him or his reputation as a daredevil sportsman. This time it was about passion. A passion for life, a passion for wine, and a new passion for championing small businesses.
Rick Burgess the mountaineer. Rick Burgess the champion paraglider. And now Rick Burgess the wine merchant. Same passion. Same determination to prove that he was up to the challenge he had set himself, even if it had been foisted onto him.
Frustration burned through his veins.
He inhaled slowly, pushed off from the railing and strode away over the bridge.
He needed this to work for the employees and winemakers who relied on him and for his parents who were still locked inside their grief.
He had the presentation in his head. He had time to spare to calm down and clear his head before facing one of the greatest challenges in his life. Bring it on.
Ten minutes later Rick turned the corner towards the address that Angie had given him, his hands in the trouser pockets of his designer denims and the breeze at his back.
A flock of pigeons swooped down in front of him into the tall oak and London plane trees which filled the small residential square. Families and dog walkers flittered between ornamental flower beds and wooden benches in the broken sunshine. On the face of it, just another quiet city square.
But one thing was certain, in the crazy world that was his life—you never knew what to expect.
Like now, for example.
It wasn’t every day that you saw an executive secretary having a row with a delivery driver in the middle of a prestigious London street, but it certainly made a change from dodging tiny dogs on glittery leads. Even if the pretty girls on the other end of those leads had been trying to catch his eye.
Rick slowed his steps.
He needed to take some time out before facing an incredulous wine buyer around a conference table in some soulless, stuffy meeting room. Or the first person to mention the words ‘dead man’s shoes’ would end up being decked, which would be a seriously bad move in more ways than one.
This was a far more entertaining option.
His girl was standing with her pretty hands splayed out on both hips and she was definitely a secretary but an executive one.
She was wearing a slim-fitting skirt suit in that strange shade of grey which his mother liked, but had never clinched a tiny waist with a cream coloured sash. He could just make out the tiny band of cream fabric at the cuffs of the jacket. Her long, sleek sandy coloured hair was gathered into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck.
Her very lovely long, smooth neck.
Now that was a neck he could look at all day.
As he watched, the shorter older man in the overalls who she was talking to in a low, patient, but very assertive voice, which reminded him of his junior school headmistress, suddenly shrugged, gave her a ‘nothing to do with me’ flick of both hands, jumped into a white delivery van and drove off, leaving the city girl standing on the pavement, watching the tail lights of the van disappear around the corner.
She stood frozen to the spot for a few seconds, her mouth slightly open, and then turned to glare at a pair of large shiny navy blue ceramic pots which were standing next to her on the pavement.
A five feet tall cone of what looked to Rick like a green cypress tree spilled out over the top of each planter then whirled upwards in some deformed mutant spiral shape which had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with so-called style.
Rick looked at the two plants and then back to the girl, who had started to pace up and down the pavement in platform high heeled slingback shoes, which most of the girls at his mother’s office back in California seemed to wear.
Not exactly the best footwear for moving heavy pots.
But they certainly did the trick when it came the highlighting a pair of gorgeous legs with shapely ankles.
So what if he was a leg man and proud? And she had brightened up his morning.
He could make time for some excellent distraction activity.
‘Good morning,’ he said in a bright casual voice. ‘Do you need some help with those?’
Her feet kept walking up and down. ‘Do you have a trolley handy?’
He patted his pockets. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Then thank you but no.’ She nodded, then stopped and stared at the huge plants, with the fingers of one hand pressed against her forehead as though she was trying to come up with a solution.
‘Good thing it’s not raining.’ He smiled. ‘In fact it is turning out to be a lovely September morning.’
Her head slowly turned towards him and Rick was punched straight in the jaw by a pair of the most stunning pale blue eyes that he had ever seen. The colour of the sky over Mont Blanc at dawn. Wild cornflowers in an alpine meadow.
Dark eyelashes clashed against the creamy clear complexion and high elegant cheekbones. Full-blown lips were outlined in a delicious shade of blush lipstick, and as she gawped at him a faint white smile caught him by surprise.
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ She blinked. ‘But, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to find some way of moving these plants—’ she flung the flat edge of her hand towards the nearest plant and almost knocked it flying ‘—from the pavement into my porch and some time in the next ten minutes would be good.’
‘The delivery driver?’ he asked casually.
She
