Virgin's Sweet Rebellion. Кейт Хьюит

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ old Ben would have tripped over himself to accept the blame, to apologise, to make it right. To do whatever it took to make Spencer happy, his whole family dancing a damned jig. This Ben, the man who had had fourteen years of work-focused isolation and suppressed bitterness and rage, just shrugged.

      ‘Please,’ Spencer said. He tilted his head to one side, gave Ben the whimsical, lopsided smile he remembered so well from their childhood, a smile that felt as if it catapulted him back in time, back to the boy he’d once been. ‘I need you, Ben.’

      Still Ben shook his head, resisted that tug towards the past. ‘I just opened a restaurant in Rome that I was planning on visiting...’

      ‘Two weeks, Ben, that’s all. We need to be a family again in this, stand united behind The Chatsfield. I want that more than anything.’

      A united family. That was all he’d wanted when he’d been a kid. He’d suffered his parents’ arguments, his father’s rage, and had tried over and over again to make it all better. He’d sacrificed himself on the altar of his family once already, and here he was coming back for more. Because he knew then that he was going to agree. He’d regretted leaving all those years ago, even though it had felt like the only choice he could make. Regretted being the one to tear their family apart, and now he wondered if he could actually make amends. Make things better.

      Ever the peacemaker.

      ‘Two weeks,’ he said neutrally, and relief broke over his brother’s face like sunlight.

      ‘Yes...’

      ‘I’m a chef, not a front-of-house man. I leave all that to other people.’

      ‘You’ll be fine,’ Spencer assured him. ‘It’s just a lot of smiling and handholding, honestly.’

      Right. Ben shook his head, still wanting to refuse, knowing he wouldn’t. Knowing he hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had. He was just angry about it now.

      ‘I haven’t had anything to do with The Chatsfield for fourteen years,’ he reminded Spencer. Reminded himself. ‘Nearly half of my life.’

      ‘All the more reason to come back to it now,’ Spencer told him, and Ben heard the throb of sincerity in his brother’s voice. ‘I’ve missed you, Ben. I’m sorry you ran away all those years ago. I know you were trying to protect me...’

      ‘Forget it.’ Ben felt his throat close up, although whether from anger or grief or just pure, nameless emotion he couldn’t say. He didn’t want to talk about the past. He didn’t even want to think about it.

      ‘I appreciate what you were trying to do,’ Spencer insisted, and Ben cut him off with a quick shake of his head. He really didn’t want to talk about this.

      When he finally trusted himself to speak, he said, ‘Fine. I’ll deal with the Berlin hotel for you. But I want something in return.’ His brother wouldn’t get his unquestioned loyalty any more. Things had changed too much for that. He’d changed.

      Spencer raised his eyebrows, waiting. ‘Okay. What do you want?’

      ‘I want you to open a branch of my bistro in The Chatsfield, London.’

      Spencer blinked, started shaking his head. ‘London already has a Michelin-starred restaurant...’

      ‘And the chef is about to retire. He’s been losing his touch for years anyway.’ Ben raised his eyebrows in cool challenge. ‘So?’

      Spencer stared at him for a long moment, and Ben stared back. Tension simmered in the air between them, tension and resentment that was decades old that neither of them had ever acknowledged.

      Finally Spencer nodded. ‘Fine. Oversee the film festival and I’ll look into opening your restaurant in London.’

      ‘More than just look into it,’ Ben replied evenly. ‘I want a signed contract.’

      Spencer arched an eyebrow, gave a small smile. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

      ‘This is business.’

      ‘Fine.’ Spencer nodded his assent. ‘Send something to my office and I’ll sign it. Now are we good?’

      Ben nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, we’re good.’

      Spencer let out a laugh as he shook his head. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Ben. You’ve toughened up since I last saw you.’

      When he’d been eighteen and utterly naive? Yeah, he’d changed just a little. But for the first time it really hit Ben that Spencer was here, that his family had, at least in part, been restored to him, and through the anger he felt something else, something clean and cool and welcome. Happiness.

CHAPTER ONE

      OLIVIA HARRINGTON STARED at the standard room she’d booked at The Chatsfield and suppressed a groan. She’d seen broom cupboards that were bigger. By a lot.

      Letting out a weary sigh, she kicked off the heels she’d worn for her red-eye flight from LA, and let go of her suitcase before sinking onto the edge of the narrow bed. Reaching one foot out, she swung the door shut and stared again at the prison cell she was supposed to call her home for the next week or so.

      All right, she hadn’t been expecting the Presidential Suite. She wasn’t an A-lister by any means, but she was here for the film festival and a standard room at the best hotel in town surely meant more than this tiny closet? She didn’t even have an en-suite bathroom, and the window was facing a concrete wall that she could reach out and touch if she were so inclined. She was not.

      Plus it didn’t look as if the room had been cleaned properly since the last guest—or should she say inmate?—had stayed here. There were crumbs on the carpet and the bed covers were decidedly rumpled and, peering closer, she saw, stained.

      Ugh.

      With a gusty sigh she leaned forward and opened the door of the tiny fridge wedged under the tinier TV. This called for a drink.

      Except the minibar had been raided by some former disgruntled or desperate guest; the only thing left in it was a bottle of water and an already opened bar of chocolate with two bites missing. Olivia stared at the chilled expanse of emptiness in disbelief. Could today get any worse?

      She’d had two flights cancelled from LA, had been wedged into an economy seat with a mother with a screaming baby on one side and an officious businessman who hogged the armrest on the other. She’d been dressed to impress, knowing the paparazzi loved taking photos of stars without make-up as they stumbled off a plane, and her feet had been killing her now for a good thirteen hours. Sleep was a distant memory.

      And this pathetic excuse for a hotel room was the last straw. Fired by indignation, Olivia rose from the bed, jammed her aching feet back into her heels and refreshed her lipstick, squinting into the tiny square of mirror above the bureau. She was not a diva, but this was ridiculous. She could barely breathe in a room this size, much less get ready for film premieres and networking parties. And she knew exactly why she had been given a broom cupboard.

      Because she was a Harrington. Because her sister Isabelle had refused СКАЧАТЬ