you want me to start negotiating with her?’ Lauren queried.
‘No.’ He turned his ordinarily agile mind to come up with a solution, but all it produced was an image of a radiant teenager decked out in figure-hugging jodhpurs and a fitted shirt leaning against a white fencepost, laughing and chatting while the sun turned her wheat-blonde curls to gold. His jaw clenched and his body hardened. Great. A hard-on in gym shorts. ‘You focus on Joe Carmichael and any other offers lurking in the wings,’ he instructed his lawyer. ‘I’ll handle Aspen Carmichael.’
‘Of course,’ Lauren concurred with a brief smile.
‘In the meantime find out who Aspen is borrowing from and what exactly she’s offering as collateral—’ although as to that he had his ideas ‘—and meet me in my Acapulco office in an hour.’
Ricardo waited until Lauren had disappeared before tossing the rubber ball into the air. ‘You didn’t tell me you were buying the Carmichael place.’
‘Why would I? It’s just business.’
Ricardo’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And handling the lovely Aspen Carmichael will be part of that business?’
People said Cruz had a certain look that he got just before a major event which told his opponents they might as well pack up and go home. He gave it to his brother now. ‘This is not your concern.’
His brother, unfortunately, was one of the few people who ignored it.
‘Maybe not, but you once swore you’d never set foot on Ocean Haven again. So, what gives?’
What gave, Cruz thought, was that old Charlie had kicked the bucket and his son, Aspen’s uncle, Joseph Carmichael, couldn’t afford to run the estate and keep his English bride in diamonds and champagne so was moving to England. Cruz had assumed Aspen would be going with them—to sponge off him now that her grandfather was out of the picture.
It seemed he had assumed wrong.
But he had no intention of talking about his plans with his overly sentimental brother, who would no doubt assume there was more to it than a simple opportunity to make a lot of money. ‘I don’t have time to talk about it now,’ he said, making a split-second decision. ‘I need to organise the jet.’
‘You’re flying to East Hampton?’
‘And if I am?’ Cruz growled.
Ricardo held his hands up as if he was placating an angry bear. ‘Miama’s surprise birthday party is tomorrow.’
Cruz strode towards the changing rooms, his mind already in Hampton—or more specifically in Ocean Haven. ‘Don’t count on me being there.’
‘Given your track record, the only person who still has enough hope to do that is Miama herself.’
Cruz stopped. Ricardo’s blunt words stabbed him in the heart. His family still meant everything to him, and he’d help any of them out in a heartbeat, but things just weren’t the same any more. With the exception of Ricardo, none of his family knew how to treat him, and his mother constantly threw him guilty looks that were a persistent reminder of the darker days of his youth after he’d gone to the farm.
Charles Carmichael had been a difficult man with a formidable temper who’d liked to get his own way, and Cruz had never been one to back down from a fight until that night. No, it had not been an easy transition for a proud thirteen-year-old to make, and if there was one thing Cruz hated more than the capricious nature of the human race it was dwelling on the past.
He glanced back at Ricardo. ‘You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?’
Ricardo laughed. ‘You’ve cornered the market in stubborn, mi amigo. I’m just persistent.’
‘Persistently painful. You know, bro, you don’t need a wife. You are a wife.’
* * *
Aspen decided that she had a new-found respect for telemarketers. It wasn’t easy being told no time after time and then picking yourself up and continuing on. But like anyone trying to make a living she had to toughen up and stay positive. Stay on track. Especially when she was so close to achieving her goal. To choke now or, worse, give up, would mean failing in her attempt to keep her beloved home and that was inconceivable.
Smiling up at the beef of a man in front of her as if she didn’t have a head full of doubts and fears, Aspen surreptitiously pulled at the waist of the silk dress she’d worn to impress the polo patrons attending the midweek chukkas they held at Ocean Haven throughout the summer months.
In the searing sunshine the dress had taken on the texture of a wet dishrag and it did little to improve her mood as she listened to Billy Smyth the Third, son of one of her late grandfather’s arch enemies, wax lyrical about the game of polo he had—thankfully—just won.
‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I heard it was the goal of the afternoon.’ Fed to him, she had no doubt, by his well-paid polo star, who knew very well which side his bread was buttered on.
Billy Smyth was a rich waste of space who sponged off his father’s cardboard packaging empire and loved every minute of it—not unlike many others in their circle. Her ex-husband still continued unashamedly to live off his own family’s wealth, but thankfully he’d been out of her life for a long time, and she wasn’t going to ruin an already difficult day by thinking about him as well.
Instead she concentrated on the wealthy man in front of her, with his polished boots and his pot belly propped over the top of his starchy white polo jeans. Years ago she had tried to like Billy, but he was very much a part of the ‘women should keep silent and look beautiful’ brigade, and the fact that she was pandering to his unhealthy ego at all was testament to just how desperate she had become.
When he’d asked her to meet him after the game she had jumped at the chance, knowing she’d dance on the sun in a bear suit if it would mean he’d lend her the last ten million she needed to keep Ocean Haven. Though by the gleam in his eyes he’d probably want her naked—and she wasn’t so desperate that she’d actually hawk herself.
Yet.
Ever, she amended.
So she continued to smile and present her plan to turn ‘The Farm’, as Ocean Haven was lovingly referred to, into a viable commercial entity that any savvy businessman would feel remiss for not investing in. So far two of her grandfather’s old friends had come on board, but she was fast feeling as if she was running out of options to find the rest. Ten million was small change to Billy and, she thought, ignoring the way his eyes made her skin crawl as if she was covered in live ants, he seemed genuinely interested.
‘Your grandpop would be rolling in his grave at the thought of the Smyths investing in The Farm,’ he announced.
True—but only because her grandfather had been an unforgiving, hard-headed traditionalist. ‘He’s not here anymore.’ Aspen reminded him. ‘And without the money Uncle Joe is going to sell to the highest bidder.’
Billy cocked his head and considered his way slowly down to her feet and just as slowly back up. ‘Word is he already has a winner.’
Aspen took a minute to relax her shoulders, telling herself that Billy really didn’t mean to be offensive.
