if I stop you working. That would be unfair. Anyway, I don’t believe in penalty clauses, not if you trust your workforce. They shouldn’t be necessary.’
Her jaw sagged again. ‘Can I have that in writing?’
And to her utter amazement, he laughed. It changed his face completely, softening the harsh lines and crinkling the corners of his eyes and making them dance. And his mouth—that slow, lazy kick to one corner—
‘By all means. Perhaps we could start again?’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Nick Barron. It’s good to meet you, Ms Cauldwell.’
‘Please, call me Georgie,’ she said, putting her hand in his and wishing, just wishing she’d remembered to drown it in handcream that morning.
And then she forgot everything except the firm, hard grip of his hand, the warmth of his fingers and the sense of loss as he let it go.
‘Right. I suppose you’re going to want me to put on one of those silly hats and wear a badge that says Visitor or something.’
‘Something like that,’ she said, her heart pitter-pattering at his smile and completely forgetting that only a few minutes ago she’d been ready to kick him off the site! Well, she’d got one more chance with him, one last chance to sort out this sorry mess and emerge from it with her father’s dignity and business intact, and she had no intention of blowing it.
She straightened her shoulders, threw him a dazzling smile and gestured towards the site office. ‘Right, let’s go and get you kitted out and then we can start.’
It was amazing.
Nick stood on what in better days might have been a lawn, looking out over the sea and listening to the waves crashing onto the beach below. They were pounding the rocks of the sea defences, sending up great plumes of spray high over the prom, and the cold salt-laden wind was tugging at his hair and making him feel alive.
He laughed, just with the sheer exhilaration of the moment, and turned to Georgie, to find her watching him with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘What is it?’
‘You love it too—the sea,’ she said slowly, as if it really meant something to her, and he nodded.
‘Especially at this time of year, when it’s wild and windy and untamed.’
She turned and stared out over the pounding waves, and a little shiver ran over her. ‘It scares me, but I can’t live without it. It’s dangerous and deceptive and wonderful and powerful and I wouldn’t live anywhere else if you paid me.’
‘So where do you live?’
She gave a rueful laugh. ‘In my father’s house in Yoxburgh at the moment, but it’s only temporary. I’m going to buy one of these when they’re finished. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to help.’
Turning his back on the sea, he returned his attention to the site, studying it and trying to get a feel for it, and he began to think Tory might be right to be so excited.
A once-lovely Victorian house sat at the top of the slope, majestic in a rather shabby-chic kind of way, with bay windows and French doors facing the sea, and because of the curve of the bay they’d catch the sun all afternoon. He swivelled. The plot ended at a high retaining wall that held the garden back above the under-cliff road. The wall was about waist high on the inside of the garden, but well over head high on the other side, giving privacy without interfering with the view.
And the view from all the rooms must be spectacular, he realised, studying it again, but as if that wasn’t enough, there was a square three-storey tower at the right-hand end, soaring up over the roof level of the main house, and the room at the top had windows on three sides.
It would make a fantastic look-out, a perfect place to sit and watch the ships going in and out of Felixstowe and Harwich further down the coast. There would be yachts, as well, and dinghies. He hadn’t been here for years, but he’d been brought up only thirty or so miles away and he knew from day trips in his youth that it was a popular spot for sailors. He could picture the races that would take place in the summer, hear the children playing on the beach below, dogs chasing sticks into the sea—
And he was a romantic fool.
‘Can we get into the house?’
‘Sure. It’s a mess—we’ve started stripping it out, so you have to look where you’re going—’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t sue you. I’m a firm believer in people making their own mistakes and taking responsibility for their own actions. The litigation culture we’re all getting into makes me livid. Whatever happened to common sense?’
Georgie snorted. ‘Tell it to my father’s insurers. They’d have hysterics if they could hear you talking.’
‘No, they’d probably agree with me—or their underwriters would.’
She laughed. ‘Maybe. Come on, we’ll go in this way.’
They went in through an open door at the bottom of the tower, their footsteps echoing in the empty rooms, loud on the bare boards, and he tried to concentrate on the building, but the pint-sized fireball beside him was demanding his attention in ways he hadn’t expected at all, and he was utterly distracted.
At first glance he’d mistaken her for a girl, but in here, without the sun in his eyes, he could see she was all woman. Not that the women he usually associated with would appreciate her charms. Oh, no. There was no urbane sophistication, no glitter and glamour and not a designer label in sight, but this small, energetic woman was so vitally alive she’d put all of them in the shade.
‘So what are the plans for this building?’ he asked, dragging his mind off the subtle curves he could barely make out under her oh-so-sexy luminous jacket.
‘Two apartments in the original house, and a small town house at this end with the tower, and then the extension is destined to be four more apartments. Come, I’ll show you. The tower’s wonderful.’
It was. It was everything he’d imagined and, as he’d thought, the view from the room at the top was spectacular. It was nearly as spectacular from all the principle rooms at the front of the house, as well, but as his guide took them down a corridor and into the rear extension it took a serious downturn.
This bit of the building was a much later addition, a dull rabbit-warren, the rooms small and uninteresting and not a patch on the front. He was much more interested in studying the way her hips swayed, the way she tossed her hair out of her eyes, and he could tell she wasn’t interested in this part of the building either. This whole later addition to the house needed flattening, frankly, and he couldn’t believe they weren’t going to do that.
‘Who’s the architect?’ he asked, cutting across a stream of facts that left him cold.
‘Oh. Um—a man my father’s never worked with before. He’s a friend of Andrew Broomfield’s, I believe.’
Nick nodded. That made sense. Another bad decision, taking on a friend to save money and ending up with a design without vision, cramming in as much profit-making potential as possible and losing the plot in the process.
‘Can
