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‘I’m not expecting mates’ rates.’
‘That’s good, because we’re not mates. I don’t even know you.’ Her dark eyes shone. ‘But you know me, it seems. What really brought you here?’
Aiden used silence to best advantage in boardrooms. The speed with which an opponent rushed in to fill a thick silence said a lot about them. But the one he unleashed now ticked on for tens of seconds and the diminutive woman before him simply blinked slowly and waited him out, serenity a shimmering halo around her.
Well, damn...
He broke his own rule. ‘You were watching us at the café.’
Those eyes widened just a hint. She took a careful breath, shrugged. ‘Two good-looking men...I’m sure I wasn’t the only one looking.’
The blank way she said it made it feel like the opposite of a compliment. ‘You met my father last week.’
She took a careful breath. ‘Across the street from your offices. Hardly clandestine. Does your father know he’s being monitored?’
‘I was passing by.’ Liar!
‘Does he know I’m being monitored, then?’
Aiden blinked. The woman was wasted in an art studio. Why wasn’t she working her way rapidly up one of MooreCo’s subsidiaries? For the first time he got a nervous inkling that his father’s interest in the pretty blonde might not just be connected to those full lips and innocent eyes. Natasha Sinclair had a brain and wasn’t afraid to use it.
‘Have dinner with me.’
Her instant laugh was insulting. ‘No.’
‘Then teach me to blow glass.’
The shocked look on her face told him he’d just asked her for something intensely personal. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Make some custom pieces for MooreCo.’ That was work; she was a professional artist. She couldn’t refuse.
He hoped.
Those dark eyes calculated. ‘Would I be required to go to your offices?’
It was a risk, putting her so close to his father, but he’d be there to run interference. Moreover, it would allow him to keep her close; where all enemies belonged. Win her over. And gather more information on what this thing between her and his father was all about. ‘For consultation, design and installation.’
She wavered. His own brilliance amazed him, sometimes.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Will you be there?’
Oh, that was just plain unkind. ‘Naturally. I’m the commissioning partner.’
If a humph could be feminine, hers was. ‘When do you want me there?’
He mentally scanned through the appointments he knew his father had, and picked the most non-negotiable one. One taking his father halfway across the city. He named the date and time.
Nothing wrong with stacking the deck in his favour. It was what he did for a living. Find opportunities—make them—and turn them into advantage.
She reached up for her goggles. ‘Okay. I’ll see you then.’ Without waiting for his answer, she re-screened her soul from his view, pressed her steel-caps onto a pedal on the floor and turned towards a brace-mounted blowtorch that burst into blue-flamed life.
Aiden let his surprise show since she was no longer looking. He’d never been so effectively dismissed from his own conversation. Firm yet not definably rude. Had he even had control of their discussion for a moment or was that just a desperate illusion?
Still, at least he’d walked away with what he’d set out for, albeit via a circuitous route. Whatever Natasha Sinclair and his father had going on was thoroughly outed. And he was now firmly wedged in between any opportunity for her to engage with his father.
Couldn’t have worked out better, really.
* * *
If not for his already monumental ego, Tash would have kissed Aiden Moore.
He’d handed her the perfect excuse, the other day, to get closer to her mother’s lost love with his transparent commission. She’d been hit on enough times to know the signs. And the likely outcome. Every guy she’d ever dated had started out by buying something of hers. Or expressing interest in it. She’d lost interest in those kinds of sales—those kinds of men—no matter how lucrative.
She knew from firsthand experience that men with Aiden Moore’s charisma and social standing didn’t plan lifetimes with women like her. Women like her made terrific mistresses or fascinating show-and-tell at boring dinners or boosted your standing in local government in an arts district.
She’d met—and dated—them all.
Not that she cared. Aiden was a Moore and she was a Porter-by-proxy and if he hadn’t already joined the dots he soon would and that would be that. Their families’ feud would only add to the antagonism he so clearly felt towards her.
Because that had to be what was zinging around the room when he was in it.
Nathaniel had told her to put their family differences out of her mind. But it was easy to be dismissive of a family feud when you were the cause of it. She had simply inherited it. So had Aiden.
She jogged up the railway-station steps into daylight and wandered towards the Terrace, her trusty sketchpad under her arm. The excitement of a new commission bubbled away just beneath the surface, hand in hand with some anxiety about seeing Nathaniel again. So publicly. He’d changed an important meeting when he’d heard she was coming in, embracing the opportunity to get to meet her in a work capacity. To legitimise all the sneaking around they’d been doing.
She was sure they both considered it worth it. They spent hours chatting about her mother, about their families, their lives. Nathaniel Moore wasn’t a man to regret his choices but he was human enough to need to set some ghosts to rest. And she was motherless enough to want to hang onto Adele Porter-Sinclair no matter how vicariously.
‘Natasha. Welcome.’
The silken tones drifted towards her from the kerbside taxi in front of the MooreCo building just as she approached it. Aiden leaned in to pay the driver, then turned and escorted her into his building with a gentle hand at her back. She ignored it steadfastly.
The first time she’d been here, she’d been too nervous to appreciate her surroundings. Now the enormity of this opportunity struck her. MooreCo’s lobby was high, modern and downright celestial with the amount of West Australian light streaming in the glass frontages. Tiny dust particles danced like sea-monkeys in the light-beams. The best possible setting for glasswork.
‘You’ll just need to sign in.’ Aiden directed her to the security desk.
Once she was done, the security guard slipped her an ID tag and smiled. ‘Thank you, Ms Sinclair. I’ll let Mr Moore know you’re on your way up.’
The deep voice beside her chuckled. ‘He knows.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Moore, I meant the senior Mr Moore. He’s waiting for Ms Sinclair’s arrival.’
The masculine body to her left stiffened noticeably. Couldn’t be helped. Nathaniel was an adult and could socialise with whomever he chose. Whether his son liked it or not.
Aiden’s jaw clamped tight. ‘Up we go, then.’
The elevator ride was blessedly short and horribly tense. Aiden’s dark brows remained low even as he stole sideways glimpses of her in the mirrored wall panels. Tash did her best to remain bright and carefree even though she was sure it was infuriating him further. The elevator climbed and climbed in silence and, just as Aiden opened his mouth to speak, it lurched to a stop and a happy ding ricocheted around the small space.
Saved by the bell. Literally.
The elegant doors parted and Tash all but fell out, eager to be moving again. A familiar face waited at the landing. She stepped forward and extended her cheek for Nathaniel’s waiting lips.
‘Natasha. Such a delight to have you here. An unexpected delight.’ He directed a look to his stony-faced son. ‘I was not aware that the two of you knew each other.’
‘I might say the same, Father.’
He ignored that. ‘I believe you are to create some wonders for our entry lobby, Natasha? I look forward to seeing the designs.’
‘I look forward to working with you—’ common courtesy demanded she say it ‘—both. Shall we get started?’
They turned down a long hall. ‘Your meeting with Larhills?’ Aiden murmured towards his father.
‘Conveniently delayed.’
‘Ah.’
Tash saw the older man slip his hand onto his son’s shoulder. ‘A change of fortune. I wouldn’t have appreciated missing Natasha’s visit.’
Aiden held the boardroom door respectfully. ‘How do you know each other?’
‘I knew her mother.’
I loved her mother. Tash heard the meaning behind the words ringing as clear as the elevator bell. Even Aiden narrowed his gaze as he followed them into the generously appointed boardroom overlooking the wide blue river to the leafy riverside suburb beyond it.
‘But I didn’t know of her stunning artistic talents until very recently,’ Nathaniel went on. ‘Let’s see what she can do for our shabby foyer, eh?’
She could practically smell Aiden’s frustration and confusion, and a small part of her pitied him. If not for the predatory way he’d tracked her down and tried to ask her out. If not for the likelihood that he’d toss her out on the street when he found out she was a Porter in disguise. Commission or no commission.
But the anxious furrow that he hid from his father wheedled its way into her subconscious and brought an echoing one to her brow, and she felt, for the first time, guilt for barging into their perfectly harmonious lives with her bag of secrets.
She placed her hands serenely on the polished jarrah table. Timber was too clunky and dense to have ever interested her much but she recognised the craftsman and knew his price tag. Just a pity she wasn’t planning to charge Nathaniel for this commission. No, this would be a gift from her mother to the man she’d loved.
‘Your foyer light is perfect for glasswork,’ she opened, speaking to Nathaniel. ‘Well oriented for winter light and high enough for something cascading. Something substantial.’
Aiden’s left brow peaked. ‘We’ve gone from a pair of vases to “something substantial” very quickly.’
She turned her eyes to him. ‘The space determines the piece.’
‘I would have thought I’d determine the piece,’ he pointed out, ‘being the commissioner.’
She flicked her chin up. ‘Commissioners always think that.’
Nathaniel laughed. ‘It may be your commission, Aiden, and your creative offspring, Natasha, but it’s my building. So it seems we’re equal stakeholders.’
She turned her head back to him, quite liking the idea of being partners in something with Nathaniel Moore. Even if it also meant tolerating his son. ‘You own the whole building?’
She hadn’t realised quite how wealthy the Moores were. Entire buildings in the heart of the central business district didn’t come cheap.
‘Did your price just go up?’ Aiden asked.
‘Aiden—’ Disapproving brown eyes snapped his way.
‘I’m interested because that means you don’t need to get the buy-in of the other tenants. That will save a lot of time and hassle.’
Nathaniel nodded. Satisfied and even pleased with her answer. ‘So, shall we talk design?’
* * *
In Tash’s experience, the number of times a man glanced at his watch during a business meeting was directly proportional to how important he believed he was. A man like Aiden should have been flicking his eyes down to his wrist on the minute.
But he never did. Or if he did, she never caught him at it. He gave her one hundred and ten per cent of his attention.
Nathaniel was similarly absorbed and entirely uncaring about the passing of time, it seemed. But at the back of her mind, she knew what ninety minutes of a company’s two top personnel must be worth.
‘I think I have enough to get started with,’ she said. ‘I can email you some early designs next week.’
‘Bring them in,’ Nathaniel volunteered and Aiden’s eyes narrowed. ‘We can have lunch next time. It’s a bit late to have it now.’
Not if you asked her gurgling stomach. She’d been too nervous to eat beforehand. Still, there were more than a dozen cafés between here and the railway station. Hopefully, their kitchens would still be open. ‘Okay. That sounds lovely.’
Aiden frowned again. If he kept that up, he was going to mar that spectacular forehead perpetually.
Their goodbyes were brief; she could hardly give Nathaniel the open-armed hug she wanted to in an office full of eyes—even if his all-seeing son weren’t standing right there—and so she left him standing as she’d found him, on the landing to MooreCo’s floor. Aiden summoned the elevator for her and then held the door as it opened. As if to make sure she actually got in it. When she did, he stepped in as well.
‘You must have somewhere better to be,’ she hinted. Somewhere other than stalking her.
‘I’ll call you a cab,’ he murmured.
‘I’m taking the train.’
He stayed on her heels as she stepped out into the foyer. ‘I’ll walk you to the station.’
‘I’m stopping for something to eat.’
‘Great. I’m starving.’
She slid her glance sideways at him. Subtle. Most men at least feigned some reason to hang around her long enough to hit her up. Aiden Moore didn’t even bother with excuses. She slammed the brakes on his galloping moves.
‘I’m not going to go out with you, Aiden.’
He turned. ‘I don’t recall offering.’
‘No. You just assumed. Our relationship is professional.’
Speaking of excuses...
His pale eyes narrowed. ‘It’s just lunch, Natasha. I’m hardly going to proposition you over a toasted sandwich.’
She straightened her shoulders. ‘In my experience that’s exactly how it goes.’
The assumption. The entitlement.
His head tipped. Something flickered across his expression. ‘Then you’ve had the wrong experiences.’
She laughed. ‘Hard to disagree.’
She spent the last four years of high school disappointing the raging hormones of boys who thought her hippy clothing reflected her values. Being disappointed by them in turn. Waiting for the one that was different. The one who liked her for who she was, not for what they thought she might do for them. To them.
And then, after graduation, the men who wanted an unconventional arty sort on their trophy wall. And then Kyle...
‘Lunch. That’s it.’ He peered down on her, a twist to his lips. ‘Until you tell me otherwise.’
Ugh. Such a delicate line between confidence and conceit. One she couldn’t help being drawn to, the other sent her running. She’d had her fill of supercilious men. She fired him her most withering stare and turned for the exit. In the polished glass of the building’s front, she saw the reflection of his smile. Easy. Genuine.
And her gut twisted just a hint.
Nice smile for a schmuck.
They stopped outside a café called Reveille two blocks down, probably better for breakfast but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Aiden chose a table at the back.
‘So how do my father and your mother know each other?’
The question took her aback. She’d not expected him to ask outright.
‘Did.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She died last year.’
He frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’
‘No reason you should.’
‘How did they originally know each other?’
‘They went to the same university.’
True. And yet not complete. The whole truth wasn’t something she could share if he hadn’t already done the maths. It wasn’t her place.
‘That means your mother and mine may have known each other, too. That’s where my parents met. Although she dropped out before graduating so perhaps not.’
Tash held her breath and grabbed the subject change. ‘She didn’t finish?’
He smiled at the waiter who brought their coffees. ‘My fault, I’m afraid. Universities weren’t quite so family friendly back then. My grandparents pulled her out of school when she got pregnant.’
‘She never went back? Finished?’
‘I think child-rearing and being the wife of an up-and-coming executive rather took over her life.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘She sacrificed a lot for me.’
‘You’re her son.’
‘I’m still grateful.’
She didn’t want to give him points for being a decent human being. Or respond to his openness. She wanted to keep on loathing him as a handsome narcissist. ‘Do you tell her that?’
He glanced up at her and she found herself drawn to the innate curiosity in his bottomless eyes. Opening up in a way she normally wouldn’t have risked. ‘The first thing I regretted when I lost Mum was not telling her all the obvious things. Not thanking her.’
For life. For opportunity. For all the love. Every day.
His eyes softened. ‘She knows.’
Was he talking about his mother or hers? Either way, it was hard not to believe all that solid confidence. He didn’t understand. How could he? Plus, Aiden Moore’s business was none of hers, and vice versa.
She handed him a menu. ‘So were you serious about a toasted—?’
‘Are you a natural blonde?’ he asked at the same time. The menu froze in her fingers. But he hurried on, as if realising how badly she was about to take that question. ‘It’s your eyes...I thought blonde hair and brown eyes was genetically impossible. Like all ginger cats being male.’
Her frost eased just a little and she finished delivering the menu to his side of the table.
His eyes grazed over the part of her visible above the table before settling back on hers. ‘Unless they’re contacts?’
‘I’ve had both since birth. And I’ve met a female ginger cat, too. It happens.’
Kyle’s old ginge was a female. One of the things that let her get so close to him was how loving he was of that cat. Turned out how people treated animals wasn’t automatically a sign of how they’d treat people. Just another relationship myth.
Like the one about love being unconditional.
Or equal.
She opened the menu and studied the columns.
* * *
Aiden took his cue from Natasha, but he knew what was on the menu and he didn’t really care what he had. The meeting before theirs had been a luncheon so he wasn’t hungry. At least not for food.
Information he was greedy for.
Her mother was dead. That explained why the woman wasn’t hovering on the scene discouraging her daughter from dating a man twice her age. Maybe it explained the vulnerability in her gaze, too. But one personal fact wasn’t nearly enough.
He’d work his way slowly to what he really wanted to know.
‘Have you been a glass-blower all your life?’
She didn’t look old enough to have had time to become a master at her craft. With her sunglasses holding her shaggy hair back from her lightly made-up face, she looked early twenties. Fresh. Almost innocent.
But looks could be deceiving. She was old enough to have a reputation for excellence in art circles and old enough to have worked out that there were faster ways to make money than selling vases when you looked as good as she did.
‘Twelve years. We went to a glassworks when I was in school and I grew fascinated. I started as a hobby then took it up professionally when I left school.’
‘No tertiary study?’
Her chin came up. ‘Nothing formal. I was too busy getting my studio up and running.’
‘It’s a good space,’ he hinted. ‘Arts grants must be pretty decent these days.’
Her lips thinned. ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had one for years.’
He studied her closely. ‘You’re fully self-sustainable just on your sales?’
‘I traded pieces for studio space until I was established enough to sell commercially.’
‘So somewhere there’s a crazy Tash Sinclair collector with a house full of glass seahorses?’
She shrugged. ‘He had empty commercial space and I had investment potential. Our boats rose together.’
‘Ah, a patron.’ Of course.
Her eyes darkened for a heartbeat, then flicked away. ‘At the time. Now he’s the mayor.’
Kyle Jardine. He knew the man. Big fish, small pond. Always a little bit too pleased with himself given what little he’d actually achieved in life—mid-level public office. Exactly the sort of man to be suckered by a hot, intriguing gold-digger.
‘A notable patron.’
Her lips twisted. ‘Notable enough to drop his support the moment he had candidacy.’
Ironic that an opportunist should find herself so treated. And now she was working up his father to fill the vacancy for sucker?
She flicked back her hair. ‘Except him cutting me free made me discover that I could stand on my own. So, yes, I’ve been self-sufficient for two years now. I own my studio thanks to him, I own my house, thanks to Mum, and I make my rates and put something better than fast-boil noodles on the table at night thanks to my seven-day-a-week glass habit.’
‘And thanks to your reputation. Your pieces don’t come cheap.’
She shifted in her seat but held his eyes. ‘As you’re about to find out.’
He chuckled and then asked something off-script. Something just because he was curious. ‘It doesn’t bother you that Jardine got rich on your talent? Then cut you loose?’
She looked as if she wanted to say a whole lot more on the subject but thought better of it. ‘He can only sell them once. I can make a new one every week. Besides—’ she smiled at the woman who came to take her order ‘—when you’re an artist, every single piece you sell is going to make someone else more money than it made you. Nature of the beast. It doesn’t pay to get attached.’
Did that go for people as well? Was that a survival tactic in her world?
She turned to order. All-day breakfast. Totally unapologetic that it was nearly four o’clock. He ordered something small and a second coffee. This was going to be an interesting meal.
‘So why the fascination with nature?’ All those sea creatures and birds and stormy colours.
She considered him and then shrugged. ‘I make what the glass tells me to. Usually it’s something natural.’
‘“The glass made me do it.” Really? That’s not a bit...hippy?’
She smiled. ‘I am a hippy. Unashamedly so.’
If she was, she’d reined it in today. Dark crop top with an ornate bodice over the top, and a full skirt. Feminine and flowing. He couldn’t see her feet but he itched to know whether she’d have sandals or painted nails or—something deep inside him twisted sharply—a toe ring. Maybe tiny little bells on her ankle. Some ink?
Get a grip, Moore. Fantasising about a woman’s foot decoration. Pervert.
‘What?’ she asked, a breadstick halfway to her mouth.
He composed his expression. What had he betrayed? He scrabbled his way to something credible. ‘I have a memory,’ he said. ‘Of my parents. When I was young. My mother was dressed a bit like you. I think they might have been a bit...organic...in their day.’
She smiled. ‘What was that, mid-eighties? The New Age movement would have been burgeoning about then. It’s very possible. Or did you think your father was born in a business suit?’
The memory that his subconscious spat up when he needed the lie became manifest. He did remember his mother dressed loose, earthy and free. Down by a river somewhere. Laughing with his father, her arms wrapped around Aiden as a toddler. The memory even had that Technicolor tinge, the way old photos from the eighties did.
But, it was his mother’s happiness that struck him as incongruous. It had been a long time since he’d had any memories at all where she’d looked at his father like that. Adoring. Engaged.
Maybe it was more figment of imagination than of memory.
Because he kind of had thought his father was born in a suit. And some days it felt as if he had been, too. Mergers and acquisitions did that to you after a decade or two. He couldn’t imagine father or son on their back in the grass by a river. Picking shapes out of the clouds. Breathing in synch with the tumbling water.
The water feature out front of MooreCo was about as close as they got. And the last time he was on his back in the grass...?
Not a thought for a public place.
‘So you don’t know a lot about your parents’ past, then?’ she asked, her face carefully neutral. As if he wouldn’t notice her poor attempts to elicit information about his father. Maybe information she could use in her seduction.