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‘May I see?’
He handed the order form across to her. As he’d said, the agency’s name appeared in the requisite box, but she didn’t doubt for a single moment that Rico was behind this somehow. Exactly how escaped her, but she was starting to see he was the kind of man who got things done.
‘I’m Unit Three.’ She handed back the order form. ‘Shouldn’t you start at Unit One?’
‘The tenant in Unit One is away, and the real-estate agent isn’t available to open the place up to us until tomorrow. According to my records Unit Two is currently vacant so, again, we have to wait on the agent.’
Audra’s apartment. Or at least it had been.
‘If you have any enquiries I’ve been told to direct you to the real-estate agency. Do you mind if we start work now? It should only take us an hour...two at tops.’
‘Not at all.’ She had no intention of looking such a gift horse in the mouth. She unlocked her front door and gestured inside. ‘Be my guest.’
She sat in the courtyard with a pot of tea while Monty dozed in the patchy spring sunlight. On impulse she pulled out her phone and punched in the number Rico had given her.
‘D’Angelo,’ a voice barked without preamble, and for some reason she found herself having to fight back a smile.
‘Hello, Rico, it’s Neen here.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
It was a long time since anyone had made her feel so cared for.
Her hand tightened about the phone. Wanting to be looked after, taken care of, loved, was what had got her into this trouble in the first place.
‘I...um...I just wanted to thank you. I don’t know how you managed it at such short notice, but the security company is here already.’
He didn’t say anything and her scalp started to prickle with self-consciousness.
‘Rico?’ The self-consciousness turned into something more sinister. If this was one of Chris’s tricks... ‘I...if you didn’t organise for a new screen door and security system for me, you’d better let me know right now.’
She’d have to ring the agency to check this was all aboveboard.
Which was what she should’ve done in the first place! What on earth had prompted her to ring Rico? Because he’d made her feel cared for? Her throat burned. Hadn’t she learned her lesson?
‘The real-estate agent in charge of your block of units owes me a favour. I decided to call it in.’
She sagged.
‘I’m afraid it’ll mean a slight increase in your rent.’
She didn’t mind that in the least. ‘Well...’ She swallowed. ‘It was kind of you. I just...I wanted to thank you.’
‘I’m just protecting my investment. Did you get a chance to read through the contract?’
She sensed his efforts to distance himself and it made her frown. Not that she’d expected yesterday’s confidences to have made them bosom buddies or anything, but she’d developed friendships with all her other employers. She didn’t know why Rico should be any different.
But he was.
She recalled the dark fire in his eyes, the way his hands had clenched yesterday when he’d said he would make a difference. She suppressed a shiver.
‘I did read over the contract. I made an amendment.’
‘Which was?’
‘I’m not signing a two-year contract, Rico. I thought I’d made that clear. I changed it to twelve months.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘An oversight, no doubt.’
She wondered if he sensed her eye roll, because he suddenly chuckled and the sound filled her with warmth. ‘Believe it or not, it was an oversight. Even though I would like you to reconsider.’
And just like that she believed him. After all, she had an entire security company tramping through her house at this very moment to prove the man’s honour.
‘It’s just once I make a decision I like to get the ball rolling as soon as I can. I forgot to have that line changed.’
She reached out to trace the pattern on her teacup. ‘Why does this project mean so much to you?’ Why was this man so driven?
‘As soon as the café is up and running and I have the figures to prove its success, I can start canvassing for funds for additional cafés in other parts of the city.’
‘You want to run a chain of charity cafés?’
He blew out a breath. ‘Why not?’
She couldn’t think of a single reason. Except... ‘Don’t you ever stop for fun?’
He didn’t answer that, and she winced at how it must have sounded—like a come-on. Her nostrils flared. No personal questions! No curiosity! Curiosity was only one step away from interest, and she wasn’t interested. In any man. Full stop.
‘Are you busy today?’ The question shot out of him, as if on impulse, and suddenly she could imagine him without a tie. In fact...
She bared her teeth and cut off that line of thought.
‘I know you don’t officially start work until Monday, but I’d like to show you the premises we’ve organised and get your opinion on them.’
A tiny thread of excitement wormed its way through her—the first twinge of professional interest she’d felt since she’d been served with the papers informing her that Grandad’s will was being contested.
‘I’d really like that, Rico.’ It would be better than sitting around here, stewing about the will. ‘But the security company is here for another hour or so. At the moment I don’t feel comfortable letting someone else lock up for me.’
‘Of course not. And what about your car?’
‘The tyres are being replaced, quote, “sometime this morning”.’
‘But you’re free this afternoon?’
‘Free as a bird.’
‘Excellent. I can show you the café then, and maybe you could meet a couple of the trainees.’
Rico had certainly put together an interesting programme. ‘Where should I meet you?’
‘If you come to my office, say one-thirty, we can travel together.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘And, Neen?’ he said, before she could ring off. ‘How did your dinner go last night? The one you were stressed about?’
Her stomach clenched and roiled, although it touched her that he’d remembered. Last night had been an unmitigated disaster and—
‘Neen?’
She shook herself and did what she could to inject humour into her voice. ‘Given the week I’ve had, it went exactly as expected.’
Utterly, utterly dreadfully.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He was silent for several seconds. ‘Still, the week hasn’t been a complete loss. Don’t forget you did score an interesting job.’
Her lips lifted. ‘There is that,’ she agreed, before they rang off.
An ‘interesting job’, huh?
She sighed and poured herself another cup of tea. Time would tell, and even if it did prove true it didn’t make up for not being able to follow her heart’s desire and open her own café.
You didn’t apply for the job as consolation. You applied to stop yourself from moping and twiddling your fingers.
She pressed her hands together tightly. Hopefully soon enough she could put all her dreams into action. She stared up at the sky. ‘Fingers crossed, Grandad,’ she whispered.
* * *
‘We’ve been given these premises on a two-year lease for practically peanuts,’ Rico said as he unlocked the door to the Battery Point property.
‘How on earth did you manage that here?’ Neen breathed. ‘It’s almost waterfront, and just a couple of streets away from Salamanca Markets.’ She glanced up and down the street. ‘The rents around here are outrageous!’ She knew because she’d checked.
Rico just shrugged.
The man was a miracle worker. ‘You called in a favour, right?’ If he weren’t careful, he’d run out of those.
‘The owner of this property is the manager of a local dairy farm. I’ve promised him a lot of advertising—on the flyers announcing the café’s opening as well as on the menus.’
‘Good PR.’
Rico switched on the lights. ‘That’s what he thought.’
Neen took in the size of the generous front room, with its two lovely bay windows overlooking the street. It was a pity it didn’t have water views, although she supposed if it had he could have kissed his cheap rent goodbye.
‘Obviously I said we’d do whatever maintenance was necessary.’
There was certainly a lot of cleaning up to do.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think we can make this look charming. All it needs is a lick of paint and some elbow grease.’ She stepped back. ‘It looks as if we could seat sixty in here comfortably.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Come and check out the kitchen.’
She trailed a hand across the wooden counter and display case that ran the length of the back wall. She could imagine it polished and gleaming, housing a vast array of cakes and slices to tempt and delight. A smile built inside her. That cabinet was perfect. She couldn’t have chosen better for her dream café, and—
She straightened, shook herself and followed Rico through to the kitchen.
It was smaller than she’d hoped. ‘Have you had an occupational health and safety check completed yet?’
‘Not yet, why?’ he barked, spinning around. ‘Do you see any potential problems?’
She pointed. ‘Exposed wiring there, there and there...and that power point looks like a fire hazard.’
He swore.
‘I’m not feeling particularly confident about the safety of that ceiling fan either.’
He glared at the ceiling.
‘Still, the ovens look as if they’ll be okay once they’re cleaned up.’ She opened a cupboard door and grimaced as a cockroach scuttled away. ‘It’s far too dark in here, and that’s going to be a real issue. We’ll need strip lighting all the way along here. We need to see properly. I can’t risk anyone’s safety around hot stoves and sharp knives. I wouldn’t risk fully-trained, experienced staff, let alone novices.’
‘The boys will learn!’
‘Of course they will.’ She wiped a finger along a bench and inspected her finger with a grimace. ‘But they’ll learn much quicker and more safely with proper lighting.’
He blew out a breath. ‘That’ll cost a fortune.’
She eased back and folded her arms. ‘Did you ask me here for my honest opinion or to pat you on the back and tell you what a fabulous job you’re doing?’
He stuck out his jaw and glared. She could see that behind the glare he was frantically calculating the budget he had to work with. ‘That peanut rent suddenly makes a lot of sense,’ he growled.
‘How much are you paying?’
He told her and she shrugged. ‘We’re smack-bang in the middle of Hobart’s tourist hub. You’re still getting a great deal.’
He didn’t say anything. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.
‘What’s out that way?’
He shook himself. ‘Storeroom, staff bathroom and the back door.’
He led the way, throwing open the storeroom door as he passed. Something furry brushed past her ankles. She let out a little scream.
Rico swung to her. ‘Wha—?’
‘Out the back door. Now!’
She pushed him all the way out into the cement courtyard, then stamped her feet up and down three times and shuddered twice. ‘Yuck!’
Rico stared at her as if she’d lost her senses. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
She stabbed a finger at him. ‘I can deal with mice, and I’m even prepared to take a shoe to a cockroach, but I absolutely and utterly draw the line at rats!’
His face darkened. ‘There aren’t any rats.’
‘Oh, no?’ She pointed behind him. ‘Then what do you call that thing creeping down the back steps?’
CHAPTER THREE
RICO SWORE ONCE, violently. The rodent scuttled down the steps and slunk behind some garbage bins.
A rat. A goddamn rat! The Health Department would have a field day with that. For a moment his vision of a thriving chain of charity cafés blurred and threatened to slip out of reach. Unless...
He glanced at Neen. Unless he could convince her to keep her pretty mouth shut about the incident. Unless he could—
He broke off his thoughts to drag a hand down his face. What on earth was he thinking? He couldn’t put the public’s health at risk like that. Besides, that kind of scandal would scupper all his plans. But...
His head dropped. His shoulders sagged. He was so darn tired of fighting for every allowance, for every penny of government money, for every—
He stiffened. Get over yourself, D’Angelo! You have nothing to complain about.
All-too-familiar bile filled his mouth. He lifted his head and pushed his shoulders back to find Neen surveying him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.
His gut clenched. Then a car backfired and she jumped and whirled around. She turned back, patting her chest. ‘Rodents make me jumpy,’ she said with a weak smile.
His lip curled. Rodents of the ex-boyfriend variety.
‘Are you up to date on your tetanus shots?’
That threw him. ‘Yes.’
She pointed at the door. ‘Then you can go back through there, switch off the lights and lock up. I’ll meet you out the front.’ She headed for the gate. ‘Oh, and grab my handbag, please? It’s on the counter in the kitchen.’
And then she disappeared.
Scowling, he did as she’d asked and met her on the footpath in front of the café. He handed over her handbag and tried to think of something encouraging to say but couldn’t think of a single thing. Her eyes were too bright, too perceptive. She’d witnessed his moment of despair and it didn’t matter how much he wished she hadn’t. It was too late now—he didn’t have the energy to make light of rats or cockroaches or dodgy wiring.
He went to unlock the car, but she shook her head and took his arm. ‘C’mon.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re having an emergency meeting.’
‘A...? Where?’
‘At the pub around the corner.’
‘But...’
She stopped and kinked an eyebrow at him. ‘But what?’
He didn’t know. Just...but.
She let go of his arm and kept walking, but he noticed the way she scanned the surroundings. As if waiting for something unpleasant to jump out at her.
He hesitated for a fraction of a moment before setting off after her. ‘I have work to do.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’
A weight fell onto his shoulders so heavy he thought it might flatten him into the ground.
‘And excuse me if I correct you, Rico, but we have work to do.’
The weight eased a fraction. He moved forward to open the pub door for her. ‘What would you like to drink?’
She lifted her chin, her eyes almost daring him to contradict her. ‘It’s been a hell of a week, and I’m thirsty.’
He couldn’t have explained why, but his lips started to twitch. ‘A schooner of their finest?’
She smiled. ‘You better make it a light. I don’t want to go all giggly and stupid. And a packet of crisps—salt and vinegar. I’ll be over there.’ She pointed to a table in the corner.
When he returned, he found her seated with a pen and pad in front of her. She sipped the beer he handed her. She tore open the packet of crisps and crunched one.
‘Okay, we need to make a list of what needs doing and prioritise it.’
He set his lemon squash on the table with a thump. Rather than despair, he should have started troubleshooting—like Neen. He should have been proactive. He was usually so—
Louis’s birthday. He fell into a chair. Today should have been Louis’s birthday, and the knowledge had taunted him from the moment he’d opened his eyes that morning, surrounding him in darkness and a morass of self-loathing.
He jerked in his seat when he found himself the subject of Neen’s scrutiny again.
‘When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?’ she asked.
Ten years ago.
The unbidden answer made him flinch. He stared back at her and ferociously cut off that line of thought. ‘I could ask the same of you,’ he said, noting the dark circles under her eyes.
A shadow flitted across her face and he immediately wished the words unsaid. Some jerk was harassing her. Of course that would be playing havoc with her peace of mind. Then there was that dinner of hers last night, which obviously hadn’t gone well. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of her troubles.
‘What happened at dinner last night?’
He couldn’t believe he’d asked. He stiffened, seized his squash and took a gulp, almost choking on it. She raised an eyebrow and he couldn’t tell if she was laughing at him or not.
‘Sorry, none of my business.’
‘It ended in accusations and angry words.’ She shrugged. ‘Which is what I expected. But a girl can hope, can’t she?’
His hand tightened about his glass. Very carefully he set it down. ‘You didn’t entertain that ex who’s—?’
‘What kind of idiot do you think I am?’
Blue eyes flashed at him, easing the tightness in his chest. He frowned when he realised the tightness had threatened to relocate lower. He did what he could to ignore the burn and throb. Louis’s birthday. It had thrown him off kilter the entire day.
‘Sorry, I...’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve had too much experience with women getting caught up in the cycle of domestic violence.’
‘Personal experience?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t watched it from the sidelines growing up. He hadn’t suffered from it himself. He had no such excuse. ‘On-the-job experience.’
She stared into her beer. ‘It’d be awful to see one’s mother go through that.’
It was hard enough watching it in the families of the kids he was trying to help.
‘Remember how I said there was an issue of a contested will?’
He nodded.
‘Dinner last night was with the other interested party.’
And it had ended with angry words and accusations? ‘I’m sorry it didn’t go well.’
She shrugged. ‘Thank you, but it has nothing to do with work. What we need to do is come up with a game plan.’
He was so used to people requesting—demanding—assistance from him that Neen’s take-charge attitude threw him.
In a good way.
‘I see the most pressing concerns as, one: getting the place fumigated, and two: getting in an electrician to check the place over. Rats will gnaw through anything.’
‘I know a good electrician who’ll be happy to help in return for a bit of advertising.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Precisely how big are we going to make our menus, Rico?’
That surprised a laugh out of him. ‘I don’t have any contacts in the pest-control industry.’ Though whichever company he selected he could talk to them about taking on an apprentice or two, couldn’t he? There might just be a silver lining in all of this, after all.
‘You’re obviously worried about the budget.’
She lifted her beer to her lips and it suddenly struck him how pretty she was. Not in a loud, showy way—nobody would ever call her beautiful—but with her fall of thick chestnut hair, pert nose and wide mouth she was most definitely pretty.
And the longer he stared at her the more that weight on his shoulders lifted.
She touched her face. ‘What?’
What was he doing? He didn’t have time to consider a woman’s finer attributes. He didn’t have time for romance. Certainly not with an employee. He was tired, that was all. He brushed a hand across his eyes. He hadn’t had a holiday in...
Ten years.
‘Worry about budgets goes with the territory,’ he bit out.
Behind the blue of her eyes her mind clearly raced. She had lovely eyes—not too big and not too small, but perfectly spaced and—
He dragged his gaze away. This woman didn’t miss a trick, and he would not be caught out staring at her again.
‘Look, this is a charity café, right? It’s a programme to help train disadvantaged youth and place them in the workforce, yes? Then there must be huge scope to get the community behind it.’
‘Every single charity and community service initiative can make that exact same claim.’ He sat back. This was one of the major problems he faced—getting good exposure for his programmes, finding backing and sponsorship. ‘The community is feeling a bit...’ he grimaced ‘...a lot “charitied out”. People only have so much to give.’ And they were asked to give to so many different causes.
He understood that. He even empathised. But if he could just get a few more key players interested... The problem was, his kids weren’t cute and cuddly. They were scowling, slouchy, smart-mouthed teenagers. That didn’t do him any favours in the advertising stakes.
Neen tapped the table with her pen. ‘Earlier in the year there was a family whose home was severely damaged by a storm. Unbeknownst to them it wasn’t covered in their insurance.’
He scowled. Rotten insurance companies.
‘One of the local radio stations put a call out to tradesmen for help and they were flooded with offers. Apparently the advertising the tradesmen received was worth the work they did. We could do something similar. We could create a bewitchingly irresistible press release and send it in to the station of our choice.’
That had potential. ‘I have a contact at one of the radio stations.’ His heart started to thump. If they could get a fumigator and an electrician free...
For a moment he was tempted to seize her face in his hands and kiss her. He took a gulp of his drink instead.
She shimmied in her chair, her eyes bright. ‘Do you have a contact at the local television station?’
Why wasn’t he the one bubbling over with ideas? Once upon a time... He shook the thought off. ‘You’re thinking of getting someone to interview me, you, some of the staff?’
‘I’d prefer to remain in the background.’
He remembered her ex-boyfriend and beneath the table his hand clenched. ‘Right.’ He frowned. ‘Look, I’ve spoken to the press a lot, Neen, and I have no problem with that, but some of the boys are barely articulate.’ If they did a television interview they’d need to show the boys to their advantage or they’d be doing more harm than good.
Her lip curled. ‘Aren’t you sick of all those earnest ad campaigns?’
He shrugged. All he knew was if you stuck a puppy, kitten or a baby in front of a camera you received ten times more funding.
‘Why couldn’t we do something fun? Use humour?’
He recognised the fire in her eyes and momentarily envied it. ‘Like...?’
She suddenly laughed, and it hit him that she smelled of the crisp alpine air that could be found in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park. A place he hadn’t visited in over...
Ten years.
He swallowed and kept his eyes on Neen’s laughing face until the darkness started to dissolve and lose its hold.
‘Why couldn’t we show a motley bunch of teenage boys walking the streets and looking threatening and scary, with a voiceover that says, “Do you want these boys prowling your street?” There could be elderly people rushing into their homes and locking their doors in a really over-the-top way. And then we could pan to the café, with all the boys gainfully employed and serving coffee and scrummy cake to all those previously scared residents. The voiceover could then say something along the lines of, “Help us get them off the streets and gainfully employed”.’
Rico had to laugh at the picture she’d created.
‘We wouldn’t show them actually doing anything illegal. There’d just be a whole gang of them, and they’d be pushing and shoving each other and yahooing like teenage boys do. For some reason people seem to find that intimidating.’
But she didn’t?
He remembered the way she’d bellowed at Monty on the beach and shook his head. Of course she didn’t. He frowned, though, when he remembered the way she’d jumped when that car had backfired. Was that just to do with her ex?
‘It’d generate interest.’
‘It’d cost valuable money...and time.’
‘But if it brings attention to your cause...?’
She had a point.
‘Anyway, let’s move on. As far as an advertising campaign goes, that’s your lookout.’
He marvelled at her energy.
‘I think once we have the occupational health and safety approval we should organise a working bee. We could do the whole radio call-out for help, but can you convince your teenagers to work for nothing?’