The Fiance Fix

Joey thought back to the fun-loving, irresponsible man she had known seven years ago. Yes, she could see Daniel enjoying the power of going along on the water at high speed, could almost hear that huskily triumphant laugh of his as he challenged the sea gods.

And lost…

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured dazedly.

‘Are you?’ his brother questioned sceptically. ‘I think the two of us need to talk, don’t you?’ he added hardly.

Joey stiffened defensively. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. This man had already told her all that she needed to know—hadn’t he…?

‘As you can see, I’m rather busy at the moment.’ She nodded vaguely in the direction of the house, the sound of the video playing inside audible in the quiet of early evening.

‘As I can see,’ David Banning echoed softly, moving around the car to stand only feet away from her, his light suit obviously expensively tailored, as was the white silk shirt and grey tie he wore beneath it. ‘She’s very like Daniel,’ he murmured huskily.

Joey recoiled at the claim. ‘She is called Lily,’ she snapped coldly. ‘And she is absolutely nothing like Daniel. Thank God!’

‘Just so,’ David Banning acknowledged with a mocking inclination of his head. ‘But I still say we need to talk—Josey, isn’t it?’ he drawled knowingly.

‘Joey,’ she corrected abruptly, desperately trying to take all of this in.

Just how much did this man know of what had happened seven years ago? And exactly what did he want to do about it?

‘Joey,’ he repeated with a hard smile. ‘I realise all this has probably been—a shock for you,’ he drawled. ‘I also accept that you’re tied up with…Lily at the moment, and that our conversation would be better taking place where she can’t be a witness to it.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you could meet me later this evening and we could go somewhere quiet and have dinner together—’

‘No!’ she cut in harshly. ‘No,’ she repeated more calmly as he looked at her with raised brows. ‘It isn’t possible to organise a babysitter at such short notice. Besides—’

‘Besides, you don’t want to have dinner with me later,’ David Banning finished. ‘I’ve come over from the States for the sole purpose of talking to you, Joey—’

‘My name is Delaney,’ she cut in forcefully. ‘Miss Delaney,’ she added pointedly. ‘I don’t know you well enough for you to call me Joey.’

She hadn’t known the man at the salon earlier well enough, either, came the unbidden thought, and yet she had invited him to use the familiarity! In retrospect, the fact that he owed her eight pounds fifty for a haircut was nothing when put into perspective with the damage this other man could wreak in her life!

‘Miss Delaney,’ David Banning mused mockingly. ‘It’s Irish, isn’t it?’

‘So what if it is?’ she challenged defensively.

‘No reason.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s make it tomorrow evening, then,’ he continued hardly, his tone brooking no argument to what wasn’t even meant to sound like a suggestion.

Joey was aware that she had been outside talking to him on the pavement for over ten minutes already, and Lily wouldn’t remain enthralled in her video for long if Joey failed to appear. But she didn’t want to meet this man tomorrow evening!

‘I’m staying at the Grosvenor Hotel.’ He named the best hotel in town—although it was obvious from his tone that it didn’t come up to his usual standards.

Joey knew from Daniel that the Bannings were a very prominent banking family in New York, and that they lived up to that lifestyle one hundred per cent; obviously the little town in which Joey had chosen to make her home, with its three-star hotel, didn’t quite meet those standards!

‘That’s nice for you,’ she returned sarcastically.

David Banning’s mouth tightened at her obvious scorn. ‘I was suggesting that we meet there tomorrow evening for dinner,’ he rasped.

He hadn’t been ‘suggesting’ anything—it had been in the nature of an order! But the Grosvenor wasn’t a place Joey knew well, and the chances were that no one there would know her, either…Besides, she doubted this man would go away until he had spoken to her.

‘Very well,’ she accepted abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock tomorrow evening.’ She was sure the neighbour’s teenage daughter, who usually babysat for her on the rare occasions she went out, would be only too pleased to earn some extra money. ‘Now, if that’s all…?’ she added pointedly.

‘For the moment.’ He gave an abrupt inclination of his head.

‘Who was that man, Mummy?’ Lily turned to ask curiously when Joey entered the sitting-room a few minutes later.

‘Just a salesman trying to sell me something,’ Joey dismissed tersely; Lily had never known her father—she certainly didn’t need to know that the man outside was his brother! ‘Tea will be ready in fifteen minutes,’ she added lightly, before escaping to the kitchen.

Once there she took some time to gather her scattered thoughts together. The D. Banning who had written to her had been Daniel’s brother David, not Daniel himself. And now he had travelled all the way from America for the sole purpose of talking to her. There could be only one subject he wanted to discuss with her—Lily!

Well. Joey straightened decisively. He could say whatever it was he wanted to say, and then leave. Neither she nor Lily needed anything from him.

‘There’s a man in the salon asking to see you, Joey,’ Hilary told her lightly as she came out back into the tiny room Joey occasionally used as an office.

Joey instantly paled. David Banning! He hadn’t waited for dinner this evening, after all. Why hadn’t he? What had happened that he needed to see her so early this morning? It would be too much to hope that he had come to inform her he had to return urgently to the States!

‘Thanks, Hilary.’ She gave her assistant and friend a shaky smile as she reluctantly stood up.

The two women had met a year ago, when Hilary came to the salon for a job, and within weeks of working together the two women had worked out their system—Hilary finished work at the salon at three-fifteen every weekday, so that she could go to the school to collect Lily and Daisy, and cared for Lily at her home until Joey finished at the salon for the day. It was a system that worked well for both women.

‘He’s rather gorgeous,’ Hilary murmured admiringly.

Joey had barely noticed David Banning’s good looks the evening before, but, yes, she supposed he was rather handsome. If you liked cold self-confidence that bordered on arrogance, that was. Joey didn’t—had been completely cured of that romantic image seven years ago when Daniel, also arrogantly confident, had walked out on them!

‘Perhaps,’ she answered noncommittally, moving around her desk to follow Hilary out into the salon, bracing herself for this second meeting with Daniel’s brother.

Her eyes widened with surprise as she saw the man waiting there. Not David Banning, after all, but the man from the previous evening who hadn’t been able to pay for his haircut!

He looked slightly less disreputable today, the shirt and denims looking relatively clean, at least.

‘You weren’t expecting me,’ he said slowly as he took in Joey’s surprised expression.

No, she hadn’t been, had been sure she’d been taken for a ride the evening before. But she was relieved to see that it was him rather than the man she had been expecting!

‘I told you I would be in this morning to pay for my haircut,’ he reminded her mockingly, handing her a ten-pound note.

Joey gave a shaky smile. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ She nodded, taking the money and putting it in the till.

The unexpected honesty had also gone some way to restoring her faith in human nature. Now, if she could just make David Banning go back to America without making any waves in her own or Lily’s lives…!

‘Keep the change,’ the man told her dismissively as she would have given him one pound fifty back. ‘We’ll call it interest paid, if you like,’ he added wryly.

‘The last I heard interest wasn’t as high as almost twenty per cent.’ Joey smiled wanly.

The man returned the smile. ‘Bad debts come slightly higher than normal—Hey, are you OK?’ He looked at her closely. ‘You look ill,’ he added, his brown eyes narrowing consideringly on the paleness of her face.

Joey was instantly on the defensive. She had spent a terrible evening after putting Lily to bed, worrying about David Banning’s visit here, and an even worse night as sleep evaded her, going over and over in her mind what Daniel’s brother could possibly want from her. Ultimately she had arrived at answers that were completely unacceptable to her.

She knew she looked awful, despite the make-up she had applied earlier in an effort to hide her sleepless night. But she couldn’t exactly say she appreciated this man commenting on the fact!

‘Of course I’m OK,’ she snapped irritably.

‘You don’t look it,’ the man persisted, making no effort to leave, despite the fact that he had now paid his ‘bad debt’.

Joey was aware of the fact that they were receiving curious looks. With the salon very busy at this time of the morning, staff and clients alike seemed more than a little interested in the conversation taking place between Joey and this ruggedly handsome man. And Hilary kept shooting them interested looks, even as she permed an elderly lady’s hair.

‘I really am fine, Mr—er—I’m fine,’ she repeated firmly as she realised she didn’t even know the man’s name.

‘Nick,’ he told her tersely. ‘And you aren’t fine,’ he refuted gently, taking a hold of her arm and turning her back in the direction of the tiny office she had just come from.

‘Really, Mr—Nick,’ she began indignantly. ‘You can’t just come in here and—’

‘And what?’ he prompted, releasing her once they were in the privacy of her office, the door firmly closed behind them. ‘Show a little concern for someone who, obviously tired from a day’s work last night, looks as if she had been run over by a steamroller?’

‘Thanks!’ Joey muttered drily, moving to sit behind the desk. She would feel better with a little distance between the two of them; her arm still tingled from where his fingers had held her!

‘Run over by a steamroller’. Was that really how she looked? Probably, she conceded—it was how she felt too!

‘Well?’ Nick faced her across the desk, arms folded stubbornly across the width of his chest.

Joey gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t even know you—’

‘What do you want to know?’ he rasped, dark eyes narrowed speculatively. ‘I’m thirty-five. Single. Financially independent—believe it or not,’ he added smiling wryly. ‘And I’m not leaving here until I find out what happened to the spiky, self-confident woman I met here last night!’

Joey stared up at him frustratedly, his sheer size making her very aware of just how small this office really was. ‘Nothing happened to me,’ she dismissed impatiently.

‘Liar,’ he murmured reprovingly.

She frowned. ‘I do not appreciate being called a liar,’ she snapped.

He shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Then stop being one,’ he advised lightly.

Joey drew in a sharp breath. ‘Don’t you have work to go to?’ she told him pointedly; after all, it was almost ten o’clock.

‘Eventually.’ He nodded. ‘I’m still waiting, Joey,’ he reminded her softly several minutes later, the silence between them stretched weightily.

She swallowed hard, totally overwhelmed by this man’s persistence. Ordinarily she would have just insisted he leave, but her sleepless night, her worry over David Banning’s presence in England, meant that her defences weren’t as firmly in place as they usually were. In fact, she felt quite tearful.

She didn’t just feel tearful, Joey realised as the tears began to fall hotly down her cheeks!

‘I thought so.’ Nick nodded, moving quickly round the desk to pull her up into his arms. ‘Poor baby,’ he murmured softly against her hair as he cradled her against the hard warmth of his chest.

‘I’m hardly that,’ she choked tearfully, devastated by her emotional breakdown. Maybe if Nick hadn’t been so kind to her… ‘This is ridiculous,’ she decided self-disgustedly, pushing away from him. ‘I’m ridiculous,’ she muttered, smoothing back the silkiness of her hair; it was preferable to meeting the concern in those dark brown eyes.

‘It’s nothing to feel ashamed of,’ Nick rebuked gently. ‘We all cry sometimes.’

Most people cried sometimes, Joey inwardly conceded. Although somehow she doubted that David Banning ever did; there was a hard steeliness about him that made him a more formidable force than his brother had ever been. Daniel had just ignored or laughed off anything he found unacceptable in his silver-spoon life. Things like having a daughter…

‘I’m not ashamed,’ she returned, back under control now. ‘But, as you can see, the salon is rather busy this morning—’

‘Have lunch with me?’ Nick cut in determinedly.

Joey almost laughed at the incongruity of the suggestion; lunch with a building labourer, and dinner with a powerful American banker. Could the two men be any more different? Although she knew which one she preferred!

‘Haven’t you missed enough work already for one day?’ she reasoned. ‘Even though you don’t work for Dominic Mason, I’m sure your boss can’t be this understanding!’

Nick shrugged unconcernedly. ‘I do more than my fair share of work,’ he dismissed. ‘Lunch, Joey,’ he said again. ‘You look as if you need a break from here. And something to eat might do you some good too,’ he added grimly.

It probably would; she had been too upset to do more than drink a cup of coffee before leaving the house this morning. But did she want to have lunch with this man? A man whose touch she could still feel, minutes later, tingling up the length of her arm…?

One look at his determinedly set face told her that she really didn’t have a lot of choice about it, that Nick wouldn’t leave here until he had her agreement to meet him for lunch.

She sighed heavily. ‘There’s a sandwich bar just down the road. I’ll meet you in there at one o’clock.’

‘A sandwich bar,’ he repeated drily. ‘Can’t we do better than that?’

They probably could. But, like her, he probably had a pretty tight budget—especially after his ‘heavy date’ the evening before! Besides, the way she felt at the moment, she wouldn’t do justice to more than a sandwich.

‘I only have an hour for lunch; a sandwich will be fine,’ she insisted.

‘Non-negotiable, hmm,’ he realised knowingly.

‘Non-negotiable.’ Joey agreed with a brief smile.

‘Then it will have to do.’ Nick nodded. ‘One o’clock. Don’t be late, or I’ll come looking for you,’ he warned in parting.

Joey stared after him, wondering how on earth she had got herself into this situation. One minute the man had been a written-off bad debt, and the next she found herself with a date to meet him for lunch!

She had thought yesterday was a bad day, but this one didn’t look as if it was going to be any better!

CHAPTER THREE

‘COME on, Joey, choose a sandwich,’ Nick encouraged smilingly as she continued to study the menu, despite the hovering waitress. ‘The government doesn’t take this long to make a decision!’

The problem was, she didn’t feel like eating anything. As the morning had progressed the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach had deepened—and it had nothing to do with hunger. Being forced into meeting this man for lunch was guaranteed not to improve that hollowness.

After Nick had gone this morning she had spent at least ten minutes remonstrating with herself for being badgered into having lunch with him at all—although she didn’t doubt for a moment that he would carry out his threat to ‘come looking for her’ if she didn’t turn up. His presence at the salon this morning had already created enough speculation, without adding to it.

She closed the menu. ‘Just cheese on brown bread. Oh, and a cappuccino,’ she told the waitress with a smile.

‘It took you ten minutes to decide that?’ Nick teased once they were alone again.

Joey didn’t know how he had spent the intervening three hours, but he looked just as clean and tidy now as he had at ten o’clock this morning. Not that it mattered to her what he had been doing, she hastily told herself. Except she was starting to become intrigued in spite of herself, was totally aware of everything about Nick…

Which, in the circumstances, was ridiculous. She already had enough to contend with without having to deal with Nick as well. It was amazing, really; there hadn’t been a man even on the most distant horizon for over two years, and just when she least needed the complication Nick decided to force his way into her life. Next time a man asked to have his hair cut after hours she would just say the salon was closed and have done with it!

‘Is it because you’re having to close the salon?’ Nick prompted gently.

Joey stopped pleating the tablecloth between agitated fingers, looking up at him. ‘Sorry?’

‘You’re frowning again,’ he explained lightly. ‘I wondered if your obvious lack of sleep last night was due to worry over relocating your salon?’

She grimaced. ‘Amongst other things.’

Although, in all honesty, she hadn’t given the problem of the salon another thought after David Banning’s visit the evening before. Closing down and relocating the salon paled into insignificance when compared with trying to guess the reason David Banning had come all the way from America to see her. Or, rather, not her; he had obviously come to see Lily. Which was even more worrying.

‘Other things?’ Nick prompted softly.

Joey gave the slightest beginnings of a smile. ‘You’re very astute.’

‘For a rough and ready building worker,’ he added drily.

She gasped. ‘I didn’t say that—’

‘You didn’t have to.’ He grinned. ‘It was there in the surprised tone of your voice.’

‘Sorry.’ She gave an awkward shrug, totally disarmed by the effect his grin was having on her. In any other circumstances—But, no, she must concentrate on the problem at hand, not create more for herself.

‘So tell me what “other things”,’ Nick encouraged huskily. ‘I can keep a secret. Honest,’ he added persuasively.

‘Most men can,’ Joey acknowledged drily. ‘It’s the one thing they’re really good at!’

‘Ouch!’ Nick winced at her scathing tone. ‘I gather from that remark that you’ve met more than your fair share of male chauvinist pigs? Or is that term out of fashion now?’ he added derisively.

She smiled. ‘I believe we just refer to them all as selfish bastards nowadays.’

He raised dark brows. ‘Not very flattering to their mothers.’

Joey instantly sobered. ‘No,’ she acknowledged hardly, inwardly wondering whether, when the baby was born, if it had been a boy instead of a girl Daniel would have taken more interest than he had. After all, a boy would have been the Banning heir…

But it was no good wallowing in such conjecture; the baby had been her beautiful, totally adorable Lily, and now Daniel himself was dead, anyway. Without ever having seen his daughter…

She drew in a ragged breath, deliberately meeting the warmth of the enquiring brown gaze across the table from her own. ‘I’m a single mother,’ she stated flatly.

‘Ah,’ Nick murmured with a slow nod of his head.

As if he finally had the answer to all his questions, Joey thought bad-temperedly. Which was ridiculous. Dozens of women brought children up on their own these days. For many reasons.

‘Ah, nothing,’ Joey snapped, leaning back slightly so that the waitress could place their sandwiches and drinks down in front of them. ‘Being a single mother has its problems,’ she conceded. ‘But it also has its benefits,’ she added determinedly.

‘Such as?’ Nick prompted interestedly, before taking a hungry bite of the club sandwich he had ordered for himself.

‘Such as no negative input from an uninterested father!’ she bit out with feeling.

Daniel had dealt with the responsibility of having Lily as his daughter with as little trouble to himself as possible: namely he’d paid a set amount of money into a bank account each month.

An amount that had continued to be paid in the four months since he had died, Joey realised slowly. On David Banning’s instructions…? If so, why? Daniel’s death four months ago had surely completely nullified any responsibility the Banning family might, or might not, feel towards Lily?

‘You’re frowning again, Joey,’ Nick probed softly.

She drew in a ragged breath, at the same time shaking her head in self-derision. It was simply no good tormenting herself with all these thoughts and questions; no doubt she would have the answer to all of them this evening. When she had dinner with David Banning. It was the waiting that was killing her.

‘Just ignore me,’ she told Nick ruefully, before biting into her own sandwich.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,’ Nick told her huskily, his gaze suddenly very intense. ‘You intrigue me, Joey,’ he added softly.

She stiffened, looking across at him with clear green eyes. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time, if I were you; I’ve just told you all that there is to know about me,’ she bit out dismissively.

‘It’s my time to waste.’ He shrugged. ‘And so far it hasn’t been wasted,’ he assured her.

Joey found herself mesmerised by the warmth in those deep brown eyes, by the sensual nature implied by that fuller lower lip; she didn’t doubt for a moment that Nick would be a caring as well as passionate lover—

Lover? Now she really had gone too far!

She put her half-eaten sandwich back down on the plate. ‘I have to go—’

‘No, you don’t,’ Nick cut in assuredly. ‘I checked in the appointment book earlier while I was waiting in the salon to talk to you; your next appointment—for a perm, I believe,’ he added drily, ‘isn’t until two-thirty.’

He had checked earlier?

Did that mean he had intended inviting her out to lunch all the time? Why else would he have checked the appointment book…?

‘Look, Nick, I think you might have misunderstood the situation,’ she began hardly.

‘Let me see,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘You agreed to cut my hair last night because you had a little time to kill before going home. You didn’t believe for one moment that I would return this morning with the money to pay for it, and were obviously surprised when I did,’ he continued determinedly as Joey would have spoken. ‘You’re a single mother. You don’t have a lot of time for—or faith in—men. Understandably,’ he accepted. ‘Have I “misunderstood” anything so far?’ He raised mocking brows.

Joey closed her mouth, looking at him with narrowed eyes. No, he seemed to have got the gist of circumstances so far. ‘You missed out the fact that I’m not interested in a relationship at the moment,’ she finally told him firmly.

‘Or at any time in the near future, if I’ve read the signs correctly,’ Nick acknowledged good-humouredly.

Joey glared at him frustratedly. If he had read those signs, what was he doing here?

More to the point, what was she doing here…?

She knew the answer to that only too well; Nick had read the signs, he had just chosen to ignore them. And he had decided to make her ignore them too.

But not any more. ‘Exactly,’ she told him determinedly, bending to pick her bag up from the floor. ‘Now, if you will excuse me—’ She broke off as Nick reached out and took a firm grasp of her arm, looking first at his hand against the paleness of her skin, and then across at the man himself. ‘Would you please let me go?’ she demanded evenly.

‘In a minute.’ He nodded abruptly, making no attempt to set her free. ‘Joey, don’t let one bad experience sour the rest of your life,’ he told her huskily.

‘One bad experience?’ she returned mockingly.

‘However many there have been,’ he dismissed impatiently.

Joey wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that! ‘Actually, personally, there’s only been the one,’ she conceded grudgingly. ‘But I’ve seen dozens of other terrible relationships to know it’s a lottery out there, and that the man usually has the advantage.’ She shook her head. ‘I used to say that if I ever “came back” I wanted to be a man. But then I gave it a little more thought—and realised that by the time that happened the women would probably be in charge!’ She grinned at the thought.