Melting The Icy Tycoon. Jan Colley

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СКАЧАТЬ to make you an offer on the house.”

      The need to sneeze redoubled. She was so intent on keeping it in, she didn’t answer.

      “This house,” he continued.

      “This house?” Eve spread the fingers of both hands wide. He hadn’t even told her his name and he wanted to buy her house?

      “I will pay you,” he said distinctly, “ten thousand dollars over what you paid for it.”

      Yeah, she was dreaming. Phew! So this gorgeous, expensively dressed man mountain is a figment of overactive imagination and a million milligrams of antihistamine taken a couple of hours ago—or was it yesterday?

      She shook her head; it hurt.

      “Ten thousand dollars is a tidy sum for no effort on your part.”

      “I just bought this house.” The sneeze faded away and indignation pushed her voice up high, setting off another round of coughing.

      He grimaced and leaned well back. “Twenty, then.”

      “If you wanted this place so badly, why didn’t you make the old owner an offer?” She closed her eyes and silently begged him to go away and leave her alone.

      Now he was almost glowering. “Let’s just say Baxter and I did not see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

      “He turned you down?”

      “He’s a fool. I offered him twice the market value.”

      Eve shrugged. “Sorry.”

      The man made a sound of impatience. “Well then, I’m offering you twenty thousand over that to sell to me. Cash offer. No agent fees.”

      “Why would I buy a house one week and sell it the next?”

      “Because you’re smart. It’s twenty grand for doing nothing.”

      She massaged her throbbing temples. The stranger handed her a business card, but the words on it phased in and out along with the thumping in her head. She swayed and bumped the door frame again.

      “You need a doctor. Are you here on your own?”

      “I just need sleep,” she insisted, wishing he would take the hint and leave.

      He stared at her for a few moments and then nodded. “Perhaps when you’re feeling better.” He took a step back.

      Relief sparked a small spurt of defiance. “It won’t be for sale then, either,” she declared. Holding on to the door, she straightened her spine, proud of herself. Eve Summers—er, Drumm—was no pushover, sick or well.

      And then the sneeze erupted in a shrill ah-choo! She covered her face with the damp tissue.

      The man’s eyebrows rose and she was mortified to see his mouth quirk in one corner. He then turned and strode off down the path.

      “My path,” Eve sniffed with satisfaction. She sank against the closed door and slid to the floor. The tissue in her hand was useless, but she could not gather the energy required to cross the room and replace it.

      She looked down at the business card he’d pressed into her hand. Connor Bannerman. CEO of Bannerman, Inc. The name was vaguely familiar, but she was in no condition to trawl through the inflamed mush of her mind.

      Sleep. Right here if necessary. She lifted her arm, and the crumpled card joined the general bedlam cluttering the floor of her new—old—house.

      

      “Keep me informed.” Conn stepped down from the container that doubled as a construction-site office cum tea room and raised a hand in farewell to his foreman. His face grim, he picked his way across the mud and gravel to the wire enclosure and the sleek corporate BMW waiting.

      Damn and blast the council! They were well behind schedule. He was tempted to pay a visit to the council offices himself and knock some heads together.

      Conn Bannerman had been in the construction business for nearly a decade. In fact, he was the construction business in New Zealand, two states in Australia and now branching into the South Pacific. What he did not know about building requirements would fit on a postage stamp.

      The council was messing him around. It was no secret that the incumbent mayor was opposed to the new stadium. He believed the city’s money would be better spent elsewhere. And there was nothing Conn could do about it until the local body elections, just over a month away.

      He opened the back door of the BMW and slid inside.

      “The terminal, Mr. Bannerman?”

      Conn nodded to his driver and slid his mobile phone from his overcoat pocket. He checked his messages and called the office.

      “Pete Scanlon called about the fund-raiser on the twenty-fifth.”

      “Apologies,” Conn told his secretary flatly.

      “I sent them last week. He wants to make you some sort of presentation for sponsoring his campaign.”

      Conn grimaced.

      “But I thanked him and said you had a prior engagement.”

      “Thank you, Phyll. I’ll see you Monday.”

      “Don’t forget…”

      “The conference call with Melbourne tomorrow.”

      “At ten,” the redoubtable Phyllis ended.

      Conn wondered how he had ever managed without his awesome secretary. But for her, he would be in the office seven days a week instead of having the freedom to work from home when he chose.

      He scowled and slid his phone back into his pocket. He would gladly work seven days a week for the biggest project of his life, but it wasn’t going to plan. Pete Scanlon was his only hope, which was why Bannerman, Inc. was backing his campaign.

      “Monday at nine, Mikey.” Conn buttoned up his overcoat and stepped out onto the accessway of the ferry terminal. Extracting a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, he joined the queue at the newsagent’s. While he waited, his free hand rested on a stack of magazines and he looked idly down.

      She stared up from the glossy cover of a women’s magazine. His fingers seemed to stroke her chin. He wondered why every time he saw that face, he could not stop looking.

      She was not a stunning beauty, more your girl-next-door type—and wasn’t that a joke? And, as he’d discovered, not nearly as attractive in person or as warm and gracious as she appeared on TV.

      That was unfair, given her health at the time.

      Her face was more round than heart-shaped and the hint of a double chin somehow added to the charm she projected on screen. The magazine’s photographer had captured her eyes perfectly; the color of the harbor at dusk.

      Why I Quit was the headline.

      Conn’s СКАЧАТЬ