of it.
‘Any chance we could actually get this car into fifth gear?’ he asked Harry, who caught his eye in the rear-view mirror and raised his eyebrows.
‘Aren’t you appreciating the wonderful scenery, sir?’
‘You’ve been with me for eight years, Harry. Have I ever given any indication that I like the countryside?’ Harry, strangely, was the only one in whom Leo had confided. They shared an uncommonly strong bond. Leo would have trusted his driver with his life. He certainly trusted him with thoughts he never would have shared with another living soul.
‘There’s always a first, sir,’ Harry suggested calmly. ‘And, no, there is no way I can drive any faster. Not on these roads. And have you noticed the sky?’
‘In passing.’
‘Snow’s on the way, sir.’
‘And I’m hoping that it will delay its arrival until I’m through...doing what I have to do.’ From where he was sitting, it was hard to see where the sky met the open land. It was all just a black, formless density around them. Aside from the sound of the powerful engine of the car, the silence was so complete that, with eyes closed, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that they were suffering sensory deprivation.
‘The weather is seldom obedient, sir. Even for a man like yourself who is accustomed to having his orders obeyed.’
Leo grinned. ‘You talk too much, Harry.’
‘So my better half often tells me, sir. Are you certain you don’t require my services when we reach Ballybay?’
‘Quite certain. You can get a cab driver to deliver the car back to London and the company plane will return you to your better half. I’ve alerted my secretary to have it on standby; she’ll text you where. Make sure you tell my people to have it ready and waiting for when I need to return to London. I have no intention of repeating this journey by car any time soon.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Leo flipped back open the laptop and consigned all wayward thoughts of what he would find when he finally arrived to the furthermost outer reaches of his mind. Losing yourself in pointless speculation was a waste of time.
It was two hours by the time he was informed that they were in Ballybay. Either he had missed the main part of the town or else there was nothing much to it. He could just about make out the vast stillness of a lake and then a scattering of houses and shops nestling amidst the hills and dales.
‘Is this it?’ he asked Harry, who tut-tutted in response.
‘Were you expecting Oxford Street, sir?’
‘I was expecting a little more by way of life. Is there even a hotel?’ He frowned and thought that allowing a week off work might have been over-estimating the time he would need. A couple of days at most should see him conclude his business.
‘There’s a pub, sir.’
Leo followed his driver’s pointing finger and made out an ancient pub that optimistically boasted ‘vacancies’. He wondered what the passing tourist trade could possibly be in a town that time appeared to have forgotten.
‘Drop me off here, Harry, and you can head off.’ He was travelling light: one holdall, suitably battered, into which he now stuffed his slim laptop.
Already, he was making comparisons between what appeared to be this tiny town of splendid isolation and the completely different backdrop to life with his adoptive parents. The busy Surrey village in which he had been brought up buzzed with a veritable treasure trove of trendy gastropubs and designer shops. The landscape was confined and neatly manicured. The commuter links to London were excellent and that was reflected in the high-end property market. Gated mansions were hidden from prying eyes by long drives. On Saturdays, the high street was bursting with expensive people who lived in the expensive houses and drove the expensive cars.
He stepped out of the Range Rover to a gusty wind and freezing cold.
The ancient pub looked decidedly more inviting given the temperatures outside and he strode towards it without hesitation.
* * *
Inside the pub, Brianna Sullivan was nursing an incipient headache. Even in the depths of winter, Friday nights brought in the crowds and, whilst she was grateful for their patronage, she yearned for peace and quiet. Both seemed about as elusive as finding gold dust in the kitchen sink. She had inherited this pub from her father nearly six years ago and there were no allowances made for time out. There was just her, and it was her livelihood. Choice didn’t feature heavily on the menu.
‘Tell Pat he can come and get his own drinks at the bar,’ she hissed to Shannon. ‘We’re busy enough here without you carrying trays of drinks over to him because he broke his leg six months ago. He’s perfectly capable of getting them himself, or else he can send that brother of his over to get them.’ At one end of the bar, Aidan and two of his friends were beginning to sing a rousing love song to grab her attention.
‘I’ll have to chuck you out for unruly behaviour,’ she snapped at Aidan as she slid refills for them along the counter.
‘You know you love me, darling.’
Brianna shot him an exasperated look and told him that he either settled his tab in full, right here and right now, or else that was the last pint he was going to get.
She needed more people behind the bar but what on earth would she do with them on the week days, when the place was less rowdy and busy? How could she justify the expenditure? And yet, she barely had enough time to function properly. Between the bookkeeping, the stock taking, the ordering and the actual standing behind the bar every night, time—the one thing she didn’t have—was galloping past. She was twenty-seven years old and in the blink of an eye she would be thirty, then forty, then fifty, and still doing the things she was doing now, still struggling to kick back. She was young but, hell, she felt old a lot of the time.
Aidan continued to try his banter on her but she blocked him out. Now that she had begun feeling sorry for herself, she was barely aware of what was going on around her.
Surely her years at university had not equipped her to spend the rest of her life running this pub? She loved her friends and the tight-knit community but surely she was entitled to just have some fun? Six months of fun was all she had had when she had finished university, then it had been back here to help look after her father who had managed to drink himself into a premature grave.
Not a day went by when she didn’t miss him. For twelve years after her mother had died it had been just the two of them, and she missed his easy laughter, his support, his corny jokes. She wondered how he would feel if he knew that she was still here, at the pub. He had always wanted her to fly away and develop a career in art, but then little had he known that he would not be around to make that possible.
She only became aware that something was different when, still absorbed in her own thoughts, it dawned on her that the bar had grown silent.
In the act of pulling a pint, she raised her eyes and there, framed in the doorway, was one of the most startlingly beautiful men she had ever seen in her life. Tall, windswept dark hair raked back from a face that was shamefully good-looking. He didn’t seem in the slightest taken aback by the fact that all eyes were on him as he looked around, his midnight-black
