One Night With The Billionaire: Sparks Fly with the Billionaire / The Nanny Plan / Second Chance with the Billionaire

He’d lain beside her, feeling vaguely self conscious but knowing he needed to do this to make her relax. There was a good foot between them. The dogs were on the end of the rug. This could be totally impersonal.

It wasn’t. It was as if there was a cocoon around them, enclosing them in a bubble of space where there could be no secrets.

It was an illusion, Matt thought, but even so, a question which would normally make him freeze was suddenly able to be answered.

‘My grandfather was Mathew,’ he said. ‘My father was Mathew. My great-grandfather was Mathew. I expect if ever I have a son he’ll be Mathew.’

‘That doesn’t leave much room for the imagination,’ she said sleepily. ‘But … Matt?’

‘My father and my grandfather were … to put it bluntly … strong personalities, and my mother was just as rigid,’ he said. ‘You’ve met my great-aunt. Picture her multiplied by a hundred. Even Margot would never consider calling me Matt.’

‘But someone did.’

‘My sister Lizzy,’ he said. ‘Elizabeth. As the biography you read told you, she died when I was six, in a car crash with my parents. Matt died with her.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Matt …’

‘It’s a long time ago,’ he said, more roughly than he intended. ‘After the crash my grandfather was even more formal. There was no nonsense about him, no emotion, no stupid diminutives. I didn’t want a diminutive anyway.’

‘But you think of yourself as Matt.’

He started to say no. He started—and then he stopped.

He did, he conceded. On the surface and all through the exterior layers he was Mathew, but underneath was where the pain lay. To let anyone call him Matt …

‘Does me calling you Matt hurt?’

Yes, he thought. It was like biting on a tooth he knew was broken. But he glanced at her, lying sideways on her cushion, drifting towards sleep, and he knew that somehow she was worth the pain.

Something in this girl was inching through the layers of armour he’d built. He knew pain would come, but for now all he felt was a gentle, insidious warmth.

He hadn’t felt cold, he thought. He hadn’t thought he wanted …

He didn’t want. This woman was a bereft client of the bank, and he needed to remember it. He needed to put things back on a business footing, fast.

So talk about her business affairs now?

No. He might be a businessman but he wasn’t cruel. He’d brought her here—wise or not—to give her time out and he’d follow through. He’d let her sleep.

But first … She’d exposed part of him he didn’t want exposed. Fair was fair.

‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Who called you Allie?’

‘My mother, of course,’ she said, but she didn’t stir. There didn’t seem any pain there.

‘But I gather you’ve been cared for by your grandparents since you were tiny.’

‘You have been doing your research.’ She snuggled further into the pillows. Tinkerbelle, or maybe it was Fairy, one of the identical dogs with identical tails that whirred like helicopters when they were happy, which would be now, had snuggled onto the pillow beside her and she held her close. ‘Gran and Grandpa have been great. I had the best childhood.’

‘Without a mum?’

‘I know, sometimes I feel guilty for thinking it,’ she said. ‘Mum took off with the circus fire-eater when I was two. She and Scorcher left for a bigger, better circus where they could make more money, but it didn’t last. Scorcher went on to make his fortune in America and we haven’t heard from him since. Mum moved on to a series of men, places, adventures. She’s currently working as a psychic, reading Tarot cards up on the Gold Coast. She sends me Christmas and birthday cards. Every now and then she whirls in, usually needing money, spins our life into confusion and spins out again. I’ve figured she does love me, as much as she’s able to love anyone, but I’m eternally grateful she and Scorcher left me behind. My family is this circus. Gran and Grandpa, Fizz and Fluffy, the crew, the animals; they’ve been here all my life. Sparkles is my family.’ She sighed then and buried her face in her pillow, so her next words were muffled. ‘For two more weeks.’

Matt thought back to the instructions he’d left at head office. Feelers had been put out already. There were circuses—one in particular—hovering, wanting to cherry pick the best of this little outfit. Their bookings. The best of their performers.

The circus was in receivership, like it or not, and instructions were to sell.

‘If you wanted you could stay on in the circus,’ he said tentatively. ‘There are bigger commercially viable outfits that would be very willing to take you on. Your acts are wonderful.’

‘But just me,’ she said softly and hugged her dog closer. ‘By myself. How lonely would that be? As I said, we’re family. We’ll stay together. I’m not sure about the elephants, though.’

‘Let me help,’ he said, and he hadn’t known he was going to say it until he did. ‘Maybe I can take on the retired elephant fund.’

She rolled over then and looked at him—really looked at him. It seemed weirdly intimate. Girl lying on pillows, the sinking sun on her face, her dog snuggled against her. Her banker sitting above her, offering … finance?

‘Why would you do that?’

‘I like elephants?’

She smiled then, almost a chuckle, but her smile faded.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Um … not. Years ago my grandfather asked a favour of Bond’s Bank and it put us into all sorts of bother. I think it’s time for the … bonds … to be cut.’

‘And the elephants?’

‘I’ve already started contacting welfare groups. I’ll find somewhere.’

‘Not as good as where they are now.’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘But that goes for all of us.’ She sighed, snuggled even further into the pillows and closed her eyes. ‘Nowhere’s as good as where I am right this minute,’ she said softly. ‘Nowhere at all, so if you don’t mind, I might just go to sleep and enjoy it.’

She slept.

He watched over her.

It was a curious sensation, sitting on the grassy verge above a deserted beach, watching the sandpipers scuttle to collect the detritus of an outgoing tide—and watching a lady sleep.

He felt absurdly protective. More, he felt … emotional. As if he’d do anything to protect her.

In days of old, when knights were bold …

There was a romantic notion, he told himself, and the thought of himself as knight on white charger almost made him smile.

But not quite, for the notion wouldn’t go away. Something in this woman stirred him as he’d never been stirred.

It was because she was needy, he told himself. She needed protection.

But was she needy? She was a feisty, courageous, multi-talented circus performer and accountant, and she’d just knocked back his offer to help.

He was her banker.

He didn’t want to be her banker.

Where were his thoughts taking him? Were they turning him into Matt?

Exposing him?

What if …? he thought. What if …?

She looked so vulnerable. She was so vulnerable. He could pick her up, he thought, and take her back to Sydney and keep her safe.

Yeah, that was white charger territory again, he thought ruefully. Romantic stuff. He had a very large apartment looking over the harbour. Even so, it’d hardly house Gran and Grandpa and Fizz and Fluffy and Tinkerbelle and Fairy and three ruddy great camels …

He did grin then, thinking of the concierge of his apartment block. Thinking of camels.

Then he glanced down at Allie again and he stopped thinking of concierge or camels.

What he wanted, he decided, more than anything else in the world, was to sink onto the pillows, gather her into his arms and hold her.

But even in sleep he could see her fierce independence. It was engendered by her background, he thought. He knew enough of the back story of this circus now to have a good idea of its dynamics.

Yes, the circus had raised her, but it hadn’t been long before Allie had more or less taken over. Everyone his people had talked to when researching the circus had referred to Allie. ‘Allie only hires the best. Allie keeps the best animal quarters. Allie’s safety standards are second to none.’

This circus … Allie’s family … Allie’s life.

It wasn’t possible to keep it going. He’d looked long and hard at the figures. Even without that appalling pension fund for retired animals, the performers were ageing, the superstructure needed major refurbishment and the whole organisation was winding down.

But she’d fight for what she had left, he thought. He could see her on this farmlet she dreamed of but it wasn’t a dream he was seeing. It was a nightmare. One girl working her heart out to provide for the remnants of a finished circus.

That was why he was feeling protective?

That was why he was feeling cracks in his armour?

He needed to get a grip. He was her banker, nothing else.

Except for the next two weeks he was her ringmaster.

‘Yes, but that’s all,’ he said aloud and Allie stirred in her sleep and he felt … he felt …

As if he needed to head along the beach and walk, or maybe run. He needed to get rid of this energy, get rid of this weird jumble of heart versus head.

The dogs looked up at him, questioning.

‘You guys stay here,’ he told them. ‘I’m not going far. You’re in protection mode.’

They snuggled down again as if they agreed.

He walked but not out of sight. His jumble of thoughts refused to untangle.

He was in protection mode as well, whether Allie wanted it or not.

Whether he wanted it or not.

‘Matt,’ he said out loud and the sound of the name he hadn’t used for years startled him. ‘Matt.’

Put the armour back on, he told himself harshly. Turn yourself back into Mathew.

The problem was … what?

He glanced up the beach, to the sleeping woman with her huddle of protective dogs and he thought …

He thought the problem was that he didn’t know how to turn back into what he’d been. Mathew seemed to be crumbling.

He’d get himself back together, he told himself, after two weeks as ringmaster. Two weeks as knight on white charger?

She doesn’t want me to be knight on white charger, he told himself and hurled a few pebbles into the sea and tried to figure what he wanted.

Sydney. The bank. Normality.

Yeah? He glanced back at the sleeping girl and normality seemed a million miles away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TWO HOURS LATER he dropped Allie back at the circus. She’d woken subdued. They’d driven back in near silence. She’d hesitated before she left the car but in the end she’d said a simple thank you. Then she’d paused. A guy in a security uniform was standing by the gate.

‘You are?’ she’d said while Matt waited.

‘From Bond’s Security,’ the man said. ‘We have security covered.’

She looked back at Matt, and then she sighed.

‘You’re taking care of your own?’

‘Yes,’ he said because there was nothing else to say, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod and disappeared back into a life that was almost over.

He had half an hour to evening performance. He needed to go back to Margot’s to put his good trousers and white shirt on so he could don his ringmaster apparel over the top.

He walked in the front door and Margot was bundled up like a snow bunny: two coats, fur boots, mittens, fur hat and rug.

‘It’s um … summer, Margot,’ he said and she snorted.

‘Says you who have body fat.’ Then she paused and looked at him critically. ‘Body mass, I should say. Muscle. You look like you could be Allie’s catcher.’

‘Rather Valentino than me,’ he said, suppressing a shudder. It was the one part of the circus he didn’t enjoy—watching Allie fly through the air, totally dependent on a great bull of a man whose grip was like iron but whose intelligence …

‘He hasn’t dropped her yet,’ Margot said gently, watching his face. ‘So I can’t see why he would tonight. Come on then, get changed. I don’t want to miss anything.’

‘You’re coming?’

‘Yes. Hurry up.’

‘They can hardly start without the ringmaster,’ he said dryly and she cast him a sharp look.

‘Neither they can,’ she said softly. ‘How fortunate.’

Things went well that night. Allie’s dog routine was even more spectacular—their time on the beach seemed to have done them good. No one dropped anything or was dropped. The audience roared when they were supposed to roar and they hushed when they were supposed to hush.

Margot had an awesome seat. Tickets had been sold out for days but Allie saw her arrive and someone ran for a chair and she was placed right up the front, supervising all.

Matt was aware of her as he worked.

She was a force to be reckoned with, his Aunt Margot. He knew she disapproved of the way he’d been raised. She’d never criticised his grandfather to him, but he’d overheard a couple of heated conversations with his grandfather. Very heated.

‘You’re bringing that boy up to be a financial calculator, not a child,’ she’d told her brother. ‘For heaven’s sake, give him some freedom.’

Margot was a Bond—stern, unyielding, undemonstrative—yet she’d never had anything to do with the bank. She’d lived on her own income. She’d refused family help. She was an independent spirit. So maybe a part of her wasn’t a Bond.

A true Bond would choke seeing Mathew Bond in glittery top hat and tails, Matt thought, but Margot cheered and gasped with the rest of them, and at the end of the performance he watched Allie rush around to talk to her and, to his astonishment, he saw his normally undemonstrative aunt give Allie a hug.

As the big top emptied he strolled across to join them. Casually. As if it didn’t do anything to his head to see these two women together. Allie was kneeling beside Margot’s chair, smiling and holding her hand, her affection obvious, and the old woman, who only days ago had decreed she was dying, was holding her hand back and smiling and chuckling at something Allie was saying.

He’d given the circus a two-week reprieve, he thought, but it had also given Margot two weeks.

And after two weeks?

Worry about that then, he told himself. Maybe he could pick Margot up and forcibly take her back to Sydney …

Yeah. She’d be about as at home in his Sydney apartment as Allie’s camels would be.

The women broke apart as he approached, both looking at him critically. Banker in spangles. He could see a twinkle in Margot’s eyes and half of him loved seeing mischief again, and the other half thought—uh oh.

‘You look splendid,’ Margot declared. ‘And you make a wonderful ringmaster. I just wish your grandfather was alive to see it.’

‘He’ll be rolling in his grave right now,’ he said, smiling down at her. He loved this old lady and, no matter what, these two weeks were a gift. ‘The whole Bond dynasty will be. My father, my grandfather and his grandfather before them. What do you reckon, Margot—should I give up banking and run away with the circus?’

‘There’s not a lot of money in circusing,’ Allie said, smiling but rueful. ‘Plus you’ll have to look for another circus.’

‘I don’t know why this one’s closing.’ Margot suddenly sounded fretful. ‘Mathew, you should buy it. You’re rich enough to buy it. He is, you know,’ she said to Allie, as if Matt was suddenly not there. ‘Rich as Croesus. He’s rolling in banking money like his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather before him. Not that it’s made any of them happy. Mathew, buy a circus and have some fun.’

Allie’s smile remained but it started to look fixed.

‘It wouldn’t work,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you for offering,’ she told Margot, with only a sideways glance at Matt. ‘But, even though this has been an appalling shock and we’re not as prepared as I thought we were, this is a circus on its last legs. Look round, Margot. Half our crew is geriatric.’

‘They don’t look geriatric to me,’ Margot snapped.

‘You’re how old?’ Allie said and her smile returned. ‘Get real, Margot. Could you manage a trapeze or two? There’s a time to move on.’

‘Exactly,’ Margot said and glared at her nephew. ‘That’s what I’ve been telling Mathew.’

‘I don’t mean dying,’ Allie said indignantly. ‘Just … not playing with the circus any more. Taking life seriously.’

‘Why don’t you mean dying then?’ Margot said morosely. ‘You can’t get any more serious than that.’

‘Margot …’

‘Don’t you worry about me, girl,’ Margot ordered with a decisive nod. ‘Tell me, are you making plans to see these elephants of yours? Mathew tells me you didn’t even know where they were.’

‘I can’t worry about them now. I’ll figure …’

‘You loved them,’ Margot snapped. ‘That’s why your grandfather asked for my help in the first place. I know he told you he’d sold them to a zoo in Western Australia. I always thought it was stupid, lying to you, but now you know they’re local, you could go see them. Mathew could take you.’

And the mischief was back, just like that.

‘Where are they?’ Allie said cautiously.

‘It’s an open range sanctuary, part of a farm, only it’s not open to the public. You’ll need to get more details from Henry but, as far as I can remember, it’s on the other side of Wagga.’

‘Wagga,’ Allie said faintly. ‘That’s almost three hundred miles.’

‘Matt has a nice car.’ Margot sounded oblivious to a minor hiccup like three hundred miles. ‘The circus doesn’t do a matinee on Wednesday. You could be there and back by the evening show.’

‘Not even for my elephants,’ Allie said, and Matt realised there’d been a faint sheen of hope in her eyes, a lifting of the bleak acceptance he’d seen too much of, but she extinguished the hope fast now and moved on. ‘Three hundred miles and back in a day with a show afterwards? That’s impossible. When … when we’re wound up, there’ll be all the time in the world to go look at elephants.’

‘But you’d like to,’ Matt said slowly, watching her face.

‘You have a gorgeous car,’ she told him. ‘But not that gorgeous. A six hundred mile round trip? Get real. Did you like the show, Margot?’

‘I loved it,’ Margot said soundly.

‘Well, that’s all that matters,’ Allie decreed. ‘Keeping the punters happy. For the next two weeks this circus is going to run like clockwork, and then I’ll worry about my elephants. I’ll have time then.’

‘In between finding houses, settling geriatric circus staff, finding a job …’ Matt growled, but she shook her head. She looked fabulous, he thought, in her gorgeous pink and silver body-suit. She looked trim, taut and so sexy she took a man’s breath away. She also looked desolate. But, desolate or not, she also looked strong. She was cutting him out of this equation.

‘That’s not your problem,’ she told him. ‘Margot, your nephew very kindly gave me time out today—he fed me fish and chips and he gave me time for a snooze. So he’s being our ringmaster and he’s being kind, but apart from that … I need to cope with this on my own.’

She’d been kneeling beside Margot. Now she rose. Matt held out his hand to help her but she ignored it.

‘I do need to do this on my own,’ she said, gently but implacably. ‘And I will. Thank you for your help, Mathew, and thank you for your friendship, Margot, but I need to go help pack up now. Mathew, you need to take your aunt home.’

Mathew.

My name is Matt, Matt thought, but he didn’t say it. Allie was resetting boundaries, and what right did he have to step over them?

‘She really wants to see those elephants.’

Settled into his car, Margot was quietly thoughtful. They were halfway home before she finally came out with what was bothering her.

‘I know she does,’ Matt said. ‘But a six hundred mile round trip in a day is ridiculous.’

‘Since when did a little matter of six hundred miles ever get in the way of a Bond?’ Margot snapped, and he glanced at her and thought she looked exhausted.

How much had tonight taken out of her?

She’d turned away and was looking out of the window, over the bay to the twinkling lights of the boats at swing moorings.

‘You know, it doesn’t happen all that often,’ she said softly into the night, and he had a feeling she was half talking to herself.

‘What doesn’t happen?’

She was silent for a moment. A long moment. Then …

‘I fell in love,’ she said at last, into the silence. ‘You’ve seen his photograph on my mantel. Raymond. He was a lovely, laughing fisherman. He was … wonderful. But my parents disapproved—oh, how they disapproved. A Bond, marrying a fisherman. We’d come down here for a family holiday and the thought that I could meet and fall in love with someone who was so out of our world … It was insupportable—and I was insistent but not insistent enough.’

‘You told him you’d marry him.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly bleak. She stared down at her gnarled old hand, to the modest diamond ring that had been there for as long as Matt could remember. ‘We met just as the war started. I met him on the esplanade. The heel had come off my shoe and he helped me home. We went to two dances and two showings of the same picture. Then Father got wind of it and I was whisked back to Sydney. Soon afterwards, Raymond was called up and sent abroad. We wrote, though. I still have his letters. Lovely, lovely letters. Then, two years later, he came home—for a whole three weeks. He’d been wounded—he was home on leave before being sent abroad again. He came to Sydney to find me and he gave me this ring.’

She stared down at the ring and it was as if she was looking into the very centre of the diamond. Seeing what was inside. Seeing what was in her heart all those years ago.

‘He wanted to marry me before he went back,’ she whispered. ‘And I wanted to. But my father … your great-grandfather …’ She shook her head. ‘He was so angry. He asked how I could know after such a short time? He said if we really loved each other it’d stand separation. He said … I forbid it. And I was stupid enough, dumb enough, weak enough to agree. So I kissed my Raymond goodbye and he died six months later.’

She stared down at the tiny diamond and she shook her head, her grief still raw and obvious after how many years? And then she glared straight at Matt.

‘And here you are, looking at someone who’s right in front of you,’ she snapped. ‘Allie’s perfect. You know she is. I can see that you’re feeling exactly what I was feeling all those awful, wasted years ago and you won’t even put the lady in your car and go visit some elephants!’

At the end she was practically booming—and then she burst into tears.

In all the time he’d known her he’d never seen Margot cry.

Bonds didn’t do emotion.

He’d seen the engagement ring on her finger. He’d never been brave enough to ask her about it. Once he’d asked his grandfather.

‘A war thing,’ his grandfather had snapped. ‘Stupid, emotional whim. Lots of women lost their partners during the war—Margot was one of the lucky ones. At least she didn’t get married and have children.’

One of the lucky ones …

He hugged Margot now and found her a handkerchief and watched as she sniffed and sniffed again, and then she harrumphed and pulled herself together and told him to drive on—and he thought of those words.

One of the lucky ones …

A six hundred mile round trip.

Allie.

‘You can do it if you want to,’ Margot muttered as he helped her out of the car, and he helped her inside, he made her cocoa, helped her to bed—and then he went for a very long walk on the beach.

A six hundred mile round trip.

Allie.

Elephants.

One of the lucky ones …

Wednesday morning.

Allie had plans for this morning, but none of them were good. She had a list from the realtors of all the farmlets that were available for rent in the district in her price range. She’d added combined pensions plus what she could feasibly earn as a bookkeeper minus what it’d cost to keep the animals and it wasn’t looking pretty. The places looked almost derelict.