Finn made himself at home at the pointy end of the elegant, oval, oak conference table at Hamilton Holdings – laptop open, smart phone warm to the touch as he poured over the country’s news services in search of investment opportunities.
The cleaning crew worked around him, wincing in apology anytime they made too much noise. Then a slew of assistants busied themselves setting out agendas and notepaper for a meeting to be held in the room later that afternoon.
Usually the distractions wouldn’t have bothered him. But his mind couldn’t settle. There was a restlessness about him. A feeling of knots fraying. Plans unhinged.
It was one of those rare times he wished he had an office of his own.
Rare because he worked better on the move. Always had. Frank had seen it too. Letting him evolve in the company from investigator to negotiator to provocateur. Allowing Finn to expand his skill set, both learned and inborn, and giving him impunity to acquire a corner of a desk here, the end of a conference table there, a free couch when required.
A muscle twitched in Finn’s jaw as he heard the door swing open yet again.
He ran his hands down his face to find Hazel coming at him like a juggernaut, her heels clacking against the polished wood floor.
He pressed himself to standing. “Hazel, always lovely to see you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Hazel took the kiss on the cheek—as was her due—before waving him back into his chair. “When Marcy checked in with April on the phone this morning she mentioned you ‘bumped into’ one another last night.”
Finn leaned back. “Of all the bars in all the world...”
“Balderdash. Explain.”
Explain he would. Carefully. For all April’s love affair with confessions, he couldn’t be sure she’d extended them to anyone but him. “We happened to go to the same bar last night. Our parties joined. We chatted. Some people from her work happened by. She seemed distressed. I gave her the opportunity to work out her stress as the parameters of our original agreement.”
Hazel took a moment to let it all compute before her eyes narrowed. “You were helping her.”
“I do what I can.”
“Hmmm. April said much the same thing. Only she told Marcy on her daily catch-up call that she had also admitted to you her association with me.”
Finn stilled. Considered his words. Chose, “That is also true.”
Hazel pulled out a chair and sat, crossing her legs, the sparkle from her shoe catching the light and blinding him for a second. “From what I gather, you did not reveal your part in the caper.”
“I didn’t see how that would help.”
Hazel shook her head. “No. That would have set our undertaking back quite a ways. I’ve spent the morning trying to figure out your angle in all this but, since the client appears to be happy with how things have played out thus far, I can’t work up the energy to chastise you.” A sigh, then, “Girls today. They simply can’t catch onto the nuances of how it ought to be done. The cool refinement, the delicate cat and mouse. No stomach for play.”
A beat pulsed by as Finn waited for more.
But apparently that was it. No mention of the kiss. Kisses. Finn felt an odd kind of relief that those moments had been kept offstage. As if it gave him leave to relive them in private, for a little while longer at least.
Gritting his teeth, Finn shook off that unprofitable thought and leaned forward in his chair. “You asked me to meet the girl, Hazel. So I met her. You asked me to ensure her confidence was boosted. I ensured. Consider the subsequent meeting a bonus. A freebie from me to you.”
“To what end?”
“None in particular.”
“Why see her again? I didn’t ask you to. You have no reason to be in my good books. Or do you?”
Finn allowed himself a smile. “Wasn’t it you who left me that note about being such a gentleman?”
“Mmm. You really are a cool customer, aren’t you, young man?”
“You’ve known me a while now, Hazel. You can’t be all that shocked.”
“You merely surprised me with last night’s move, darling. It was April who continues to shock. There I was, thinking I had a meek little kitten on my hands. When I may well have landed myself a tigress.”
Finn thought of the wild in April’s eyes – the fierceness that had come over her when she’d felt cornered. He knew that feeling. Had been in that position himself more often than he liked to remember.
“Either way,” he said, his voice gathering gravel now, “I believe we can agree the favour has well and truly been dispatched.”
“Mmm.” Hazel uncrossed her legs, stood, and moved towards the conference room door. At the last, she turned, long fingernails curled around the doorway. “She likes you, you know.”
Before he could stop it, he pictured her wide open face as she’d said, I have a crush on you.
Somehow he remained the picture of calm. “You could tell all that from a second-hand phone call? Wow, you are good.”
Hazel smiled. “I was at the bar, remember. The two of you lit up that place like a spotlight shone down upon your heads.”
Finn didn’t move a muscle. He kept eye contact. And said, “Be careful there, Hazel. She’s a sweet kid.”
“Isn’t she, just? You take care too now, darling,” she said, then waltzed out the conference room door.
“Always,” Finn said to the empty room.
“What do you reckon?” April asked.
No response.
“Prince, come on, buddy, I need some feedback here.”
A head covered in tight black curls lifted away from a pair of equally curl-covered paws. His one good eye blinked.
“Nice?” April agreed, pointing to the small framed vintage sketch of Wonder Woman she’d spied in the charity shop window while out on a slow walk with Prince. “You’re right. It looks silly there.”
She nabbed the sketch; moved it behind the arrangement of mismatched coffee cups propped on the highest shelf in the tiny kitchen of her converted-attic apartment.
The array of white fairy lights tacked to her cornices to cover the patchy paint sparked off the old glass. The picture also hid the weird stain on the wall – one she’d never thought it wise to ask her landlady about.
“Much better.”
The place was really coming together. Piece by eclectic piece. She had faith that soon she’d find that one thing to tie it all together and it wouldn’t simply feel safe, comfortable, secure. It would feel like hers.
“Now,” she said, clapping her hands, “cupcake time.”
Prince dropped his chin back to his crossed front paws and wuffled. Fair enough. He was lactose intolerant so, for him, cupcakes were all look no touch. Sad as that was for her little friend, it wasn’t sad enough to stop her.
For no matter how gaga her day, how frustrating her work, how mind-bending her family, the simple pleasure of making something so endearing as a cupcake always took off the edge. Okay, usually. For the feel of the ancient mixer spitting and whirring in her grip and the sugar dust filling the air just weren’t cutting it.
Because, as of this moment, April had a “boyfriend”. No, some gorgeous hapless guy hadn’t run his bike into the side of her car on the way to work. Or spilled coffee over himself right in front of her. A real, live boyfriend would be too simple.
As far as every single employee of Halcyon Whole Foods Wholesale was concerned, April was in the midst of a raging, hot love affair with Finn.
For Jase wasn’t the only one who’d seen her lock lips with a big, hot Viking in a suit. The entire management team had been witness—and were apparently a load of old gossips. Spending their days talking up the benefits of organic psyllium husk, the Halcyon staff could sniff out sweet, juicy distractions like nobody else. And Finn’s stage show the night before was juicy as all get out.
People she’d never met had come up to her asking if it was true that Finn was a mobster/baseball star/foreign diplomat. If he’d really taken her home in a Google car/limo/helicopter. If they’d met when he rescued her from food poisoning/a magpie attack/ninjas.
Things really got out of control when Stan heard some version of the “news”. Which version, she’d hate to guess. She’d seen him coming, staff bowing in his wake as he took a turn about the floor. Then he’d spotted her, stopped, and made a beeline her way.
“I hear you have a new man in your life, lass,” he’d said in his deep booming voice.
“She does!” That was Smith. If he hadn’t started the rumour mill, he certainly had shares in the thing. “He’s gorgeous, Mr. McTavish. Charming. Worldly. Fills out a pair of suit pants like nobody’s business.”
Stan’s deeply-orange moustache had twitched. “Sounds quite the fellow. I only hope he’s good enough for our girl.”
Then Stan had smiled, all rosy cheeks and warm intelligent eyes. He’d always made April feel like the big, bad world couldn’t hurt her while she as under his gruff protection. Something her father had never done.
She’d opened her mouth to explain his mistake when he’d said, “It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper chat, you and I. Make time to see my assistant. Have her pick out a free lunch in the next few days.”
With that, he’d rapped his knuckles on her desk and headed off.
To think Hazel’s odd advice had actually been right on the money. Being wanted had made her, well, wanted. It felt awfully un-PC, and yet... Things were kind of on a roll now. Stopping them would make her seem flighty, changeable, and a big fat liar. Ironic.
So April now had a big, gorgeous, cool, impossible, fake boyfriend who’d kissed her only to prove that he could.
April near jumped out of her skin when Erica opened the fridge door behind her.
It had been over two weeks since Erica had moved in, meaning neither could pretend it was temporary anymore. She’d probably have to let Mrs. Parsons downstairs know that she had a new tenant – she was still officially the landlady after all.
After staring into the fluorescent depths of the fridge for a full minute and finding nothing, Erica heaved herself onto the kitchen bench, where she yawned, stretching her thin arms over her head before scratching her sleek, wine red hair till it fell about her shoulders in beachy waves.
If April tried such a move, she’d have an instant afro. She ignored her sister instead. Until Erica started going through her mail. Where the Cinderella Project contract lay innocently at the bottom of the pile.
April launched herself bodily at her sister only she forgot to let go of the mixer. Her shoulder near yanked out of its socket as the cord remained stubbornly plugged in at the wall.
She squealed in surprise. Prince thought it was a game. Tail wagging, nose twitching, he scrambled out of his depths of his cushion and spotted a globule of semi-mixed batter on the floor between them the same moment April did.
Swearing ten ways from Sunday, April dropped to the floor so hard her knees screamed in protest but at least she got to the batter before Lactose-Intolerance Boy. While out of the corner of her eye saw Erica casually flipping through the junk at the top of the pile.
Dammmit. “That’s private.”
Erica looked at April like she was nuts. “We both came out of the same womb, April. Having shared that no doubt terrifying landscape, we have no secrets.”
Easily bored, Erica threw the mail back onto the bench and grabbed a wooden spoon and the cupcake bowl and began shovelling batter into her mouth.
Crisis averted, April dragged herself to her feet and spat a hunk of wavy hair from the edge of her mouth.
“What’s this I hear about you having a new boyfriend?”
Crapola! Of course Erica had heard. April had not only given her big sister a room, but had lined her up with a job in the cafe at Halcyon when her travel agent “career” hadn’t “worked out”. Booking her best friend on a second honeymoon cruise for the over seventies crowd instead of a singles sextravaganza hadn’t been a good career move.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why? Is he...” Erica crooked a pinkie finger.
April smacked it away. “No! I mean I don’t know for sure, but I can say with near certainty he doesn’t have that problem.” After wriggling around on his thigh the other night she was sure of it.
“Right. So he’s not man enough to get you in the sack quick smart. Talk is he’s super fit, though. Big too. Like the werewolf on True Blood.”
“The Viking vampire.” She shot back before she could stop herself. “Only darker. And hotter.”
That bit was absolutely true.
Erica nodded, mouth turned down – pretending grudging respect. For Erica clearly didn’t believe a word of it.
April wished she had a photo. It would be kind of nice to shove that in Erica’s disbelieving face. But she’d Googled Finn. Of course. And the guy was a ghost. No Facebook. No Instagram. Not even a small profile on that bastion of the business professional, LinkedIn. April wasn’t all that social media savvy herself, but even she had photos of her “out there”—mostly thanks to her loving sister—that she’d pay good money to get back. If April hadn’t have met Sally and Bob, she’d have been convinced that Finn had given her a fake name. What was that all about?
Through a mouthful of cupcake batter, Erica asked, “So what does he see in you?”
Brought back to earth with a thud, April muttered, “No doubt my sparkling personality.”
Erica’s discriminating gaze trailed over April’s wild hair, and batter-splattered ‘You Can’t Take the Sky Away From Me’ t-shirt. “He must have an excellent flashlight and a really detailed map.”
“Ha. Ha.” April had spent most of her life at the sharp end of Erica’s tongue.
It was okay. Really. While April had been shocked when their dad left, Erica had been devastated.
As Mum’s favourite—or least troublesome at least—lucky April had become an even sharper focus of her mother’s life. And her books.
Books.
April casually cleaned up her mail, pretending to sort it into piles. Then she carefully took the Cinderella Project contract and slid it between the pages of a cookbook – Erica would never look there – and casually filed it in the bookshelves under the canted eave by her bedroom door.
Which was when her front door burst open.
“Ms. Swanson.” Heaving breath. Wheeze. “I heard a scream. A bang. Strange voices. Is everything alright?”
Wincing, April turned to find her landlady’s son, Clive, at her door; hand on his knee as he caught his breath, one eye closed in pain, the other trained on Erica as if she was a stain on the landscape.
“Hey, Clive. I’m fine, thanks for asking. How are you?”
Erica’s wide eyes moved slowly from the vision that was Clive to April. A single eyebrow rose in question.
“Clive, this is my sister, Erica. Erica, meet Clive.”
Clive kept up the stink eye as he heaved himself upright. There he sucked in his impressive gut, shoved his hands on his hips; classic Wonder Woman pose. Prepared to take down anyone if April asked it of him.
“Erica’s staying with me for a bit. Isn’t that nice? I was going to see your mum and let her know in the morning.”
After a few fraught moments, during which Clive clearly felt hard done by that he wasn’t the lucky recipient of April’s couch, Clive nodded. Gave April a look that could only be construed as hopeless adoration. Then quietly closed the door.
April put a hand on the wall and dropped her head. Surely life needn’t be this complicated.
“Wow, I never thought you had it in you?” Erica said. “Two men on the go at once. You dawg. Though that dude was less Viking than victim. Supplying different needs, I assume.”
April’s response was silence.
“Must be serious if he has a key.”
April’s shoulders slumped. And, okay, she might have whimpered. “Clive’s mother has a key. She’s the landlady. He looks out for me. Even though I’ve asked him nicely, on multiple occasions, to... not.”
Erica didn’t even bother to hide her laughter.
Another reason to pick up the pace on her down payments and get the apartment paid off as soon as humanly possible. First thing she’d do was change her lock. Maybe that would be the final touch to make her sweet little garret feel like home.
She looked to the door, finding Clive had actually left it slightly ajar.
Mmm. She and Mrs. Parsons had a fantastic relationship and April had never been worried about the handshake deal. But, what with the way her year had begun, perhaps she ought to talk to a professional about making the arrangement a tad more formal. Her bank? As a single woman with a modest income living in Sydney, a loan would be out of the question. Maybe an investment advisor was the way to go.
Only one person she knew who worked in that field.
Finn.
A thrill shot through her – quick and hot. Followed by the sludgy, cooling ooze of trepidation.
No. She’d find another way. For one thing, she’d have to tell him about the “fake boyfriend” situation. The several long moments in which she argued with herself as to whether not telling him was really lying so much as saving him from the angst of knowing were not her finest. The effort of keeping up such a ruse had to cause some kind of internal damage. Her dad suffered from stomach ulcers. Just saying.
For another, after her Google fiasco, she had no clue how to track him down.
“Now,” Erica said, sliding from the kitchen bench and cutting into April’s thoughts, “do you have plans with any of your multitude of lovers on Saturday?”
“Nothing planned as yet.” It was disconcerting how easily she was getting the hang of the “skirting the edge of truth” thing.
“Excellent. Then you can do me a favour.”
Erica smiled, though there was no humour in her eyes. April wished she knew how to put some there. Erica might be the toughest woman April knew, Erica might tease April mercilessly and take advantage of her good graces whenever possible, but it was only because Erica had been so hurt. Right down to the core.
So April gave the response she always did the rare times her only sister reached out.
“What do you need?”
Late the next morning Finn’s cell phone rang. He motioned the café waiter for the bill for his office for the morning – a table with a stunning Harbour view. Then he answered, “Ward.”
“Need to patch a call through.”
It was one of the wall of women who manned Hamilton’s reception and kept the business humming. Joan? Jenny? The one who quibbled about having to field his calls since he refused to have an assistant.
“Can it wait?”
“She was insistent.” Joan/Jenny allowed. “Promised to only take up a second of your time. Told me her life story first, mind you. Says she needs investment advice. Claims you’re friends.” A pause, then, “That you met when she tried to pick you up in a bar.”
Joan/Jenny was clearly enjoying herself.
While Finn’s breath lodged in his throat.
It couldn’t be. Putting aside the fact that anytime he’d caught sight of someone with a hint of auburn in their hair his pulse had raced like a wild brumby, he would have sworn black and blue he’d not given April his number. Not when he’d put in such effort to make a clean break. “April Swanson?”
“That’s the one.” Joan/Jenny’s curiosity was palpable. “Shall I patch her through?”
Only then did it hit him. April hadn’t called him, she’d called Hamilton Holdings. If April had put two and two together and come up with Hazel, she wasn’t going to take it lightly. If nothing else, she deserved an explanation.
“Put her through.”
“Yes, sir.”
Finn pictured the salute that no doubt went with it. “Thanks, Jackie.” Jackie, that was it.
A sigh. “You’re welcome, Finn.”
He breathed into the silence, waited for the click. “April.”
“Finn. Hi.”
The sweet, husky spark of her voice did things to him. Warm, enlivening things. Right down deep inside. He dug his nails into the soft bit of his palm.
“Um, you’re probably wondering how I got your number.”
He was at that.
“Turns out your friend Sally gave it to Smith the other night. Seemed they were in cahoots.”
Finn ran a hand over his mouth. Of course they were.
“Best we trust neither of them with the launch codes.” A breath was taken. “And I’m babbling. The reason I called – it’s not about the other night... I have some questions about an investment and having racked my brains to find another avenue, you’re the only person I could think to ask. I’m calling that you might be open to giving me some advice. I’ll pay, of course. All business. No pleasure.”
In the beat that slunk by, Finn imagined the colour pouring into her cheeks as the word pleasure hung between them like forbidden fruit.
He cleared his throat and said, “Happy to help.”
Was he? Truth was, hearing her voice took the edge off. Settled him somehow. Made the sense that he was working to tie up loose ends rather than working to work feel less brutal.
“Really?” She sounded as surprised as he felt. “That’s... Thank you! I’d wondered if maybe... Anyway. Awesome. Great. Half an hour is all I need. I can meet you at your office. Or after work. Whatever suits you.”
The waiter returned with the bill, Finn withheld his card and motioned for the guy to stick about for a moment.
The second he’d heard April’s voice the Hazel connection had flown out of his head. But unless she planned to vilify him in person, it seemed she hadn’t made the leap from Hazel to Hamilton Holdings – and thus to him – after all. No point rocking that boat. He was undertaking the task of untying knots, not creating new ones.
“Do you know The View on Circular Quay?”
“I can find it.”
“I’m there right now.”
He heard papers swishing. What sounded like a chair wheel squeaking. “Awesome! I’ll be there ASAP.”
“See you soon.”
Finn slid his thumb over the red button to hang up the call and to the waiter, said, “Change of plan. Sticking around for second lunch.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, sliding the bill into his palm. “Another drink?”
“Double espresso,” Finn said, knowing he’d need the fortification.
A half hour—and two espressos—later April bustled into the cafe carrying a box under her arm.
She stood out from the hip, beige crowd in her red flannel shirt and tight, black jeans like a sole poppy in a barren field. She ran a hand over the hair escaping from some kind of twisty up thing, and pressed her lips together as her bright eyes scanned the room.
When she found him her fidgets stopped. She propped up onto her toes and waved. A smile burst onto her face before she shut it down. Remembering belatedly this time their meeting was “all business”. Not pleasure.
That kiss was epic. You weren’t pretending anymore than I was.
Finn shook his head to clear the image of her wide, pink mouth saying those words. What did it matter that the kiss had been epic, he was pretending about the rest. He was seeing her here, now, so as not to blow Hazel’s cover. That simple. Hadn’t stopped her narrating his dreams.
Finn stood as April wriggled through the tightly-packed tables until she reached his. Always smaller than he remembered – the top of her head hit the top of his shoulder – her energy still saturated the air around her.
Finn had his hands in his pockets. Took them out. Moved as if to shake her hand. Which felt foolish, to be frank. So he did what felt right.
He leaned in and took her by the arm. Her eyes widened a fraction as he closed in before fluttering closed, her lashes sweeping south before he bussed her soft cheek with a kiss. She shifted the box out of the way, curling in toward him. The scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin, infused him like a potion, hitting highs the caffeine hadn’t come close to reaching.
When they pulled apart her cheeks were the prettiest pink.
All business. His subconscious ribbed him even while his heart thumped in his chest.
Needing space, he moved away, held out her chair. She took it, folding into the metal contraption as though her legs were relieved not to have to hold her up a second longer.
He pressed a menu her way.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I’m too wired.” Her eyes skittered about the cafe, not landing on anything in particular. “But you get something!”
“I’ve eaten.”
“Oh.”
“So,” he said, scraping back his own chair to give himself some breathing space. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Not pleasure. Business.
“Right, to the point. Good idea. I have to be back at work ASAP anyway. Traffic was crazy. And...” Her face fell before it sank into her palms.
Finn sat forward, his chair scraping against the concrete floor. “April?”
Through her fingers her voice was muffled. But he caught, “If I don’t get something off my chest I’m going to burst.”
Finn curled his reaching fingers back into his palm. “Yet another confession?”
At the wry tone of his voice, she looked at him through splayed fingers. “You’re mocking me.”
“Not at all. My breath is bated. I am all ears.”
She let her fingers drop and looked at him, dead on.
Challenge glinted in the grey depths of her eyes. “Okay. Here goes. Everyone at work thinks you’re my boyfriend.”
Finn let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding.
“Word got out about our...” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Stayed a beat before she dragged it back to his eyes. “About the other night. And now the entire place is abuzz with news of the big, hot urban-Viking in my life.” She took a breath. Then smiled. “I actually wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to even tell you, but it feels so much better to get that out.”
“Better for who?”
She held up two hands in surrender. “Interest will die down in a day or two – the moment someone in the office announces they’re pregnant or ate sugar. Unless, of course, you’d prefer for me to gather everyone today and tell them in no uncertain terms that it was all a big misunderstanding. Because if that’s what you want, I will do it.”
Finn had thought his life dramatic enough before meeting April, but he’d had no idea. He pictured April – hands wringing, pulse beating erratically in her throat as she stood in front of her peers and tried to undo the mess he’d made – and shook his head.
She breathed out hard. Then looked at him with one eye scrunched shut. “Are you mad?”
“At what?”
“Me.”
Discombobulated, discomposed and – he feared – completely snowed. But mad? Not a bit.
“You’re sure it’ll work itself out,” he said, feigning lament, knowing she wouldn’t let it drop otherwise.
“Cross my heart.”
Clearly feeling better about things now her latest confession was off her shoulders, she tapped her fingers on the table – rat-a-tat-tat. “Now, back to why I’m really here. I told you about the promotion, didn’t I?”
“You did.” Right before you kissed me. Finn shifted in his seat.
“There’s also an investment involved that rides on my getting the promotion. Or making more money somehow, at least. And I can’t dance to save my life so stripping’s out of the question.”
Sweat prickled the back of Finn’s neck. “The exotic dancing industry must be sighing with relief.”
April’s eyes sparkled like silver dollars as she leaned forward conspiratorially. “You have no idea. Erica – my sister – conned me into taking a pole dancing class with her once. The instructor said she had real talent. As for me, he didn’t know human limbs could actually work so independently of one another.”
Finn squeezed the soft part of his hand in an effort to distract the images playing through his head.
“Anyway.” April flapped her hands in front of her face, then thankfully moved onto the far more dry subject of the history of her apartment. She was so animated in the telling it was practically an interpretive dance of its own – arms flailing, shoulder wriggling, constantly tucking wayward locks of hair behind her ear.
He told himself it was the elephant in the room making him feel tight in the body, loose in the head. The knowledge that while she sat there chatting like they were allies to her cause, she had no clue that their meeting had been a deliberate ploy by an invested third party.
But when her hand landed on the table between them, settling mere millimetres from his own, it took physical effort not to contain her energy by wrapping it in his own. He pictured turning her hand palm up and feeling the warmth of her soft skin. Because touching her felt... Well, it felt better than not touching her.
He pulled his hand away, shoved it beneath the table. His life was not conducive to entertaining such flights of fancy. It never had been.
This thing with April was all business, and had been from the start.
“April,” he said, cutting her off mid-story about her landlady’s son – one of a long line of poor saps who were smitten with her. “What legal arrangements do you have in place?”
“Right. Time’s a ticking. A bit over four years ago, Mrs. Parsons and I agreed I could buy the attic outright and I’ve been paying amounts above and beyond rental ever since. The plan was for me to give her a balloon payment this year. Her seventieth birthday is coming up and she wants to visit her sister in Germany. But without the promotion and the pay raise that goes with it I’m screwed. And so is she. I’d rather not let things come to that.”
April leaned down and then heaved her box onto the table. She dug through it till she found a spiral notebook which she passed to Finn. It had puppies on the cover. Inside was a list of dates, monetary amounts and dual signatures going back a few years.
This he could deal with. Black and white, cold, hard fact. The ground beneath his feet shifted back to rights.
“What else is in the box?”
Turned out it was filled with bank statements going back to her teens, a decade’s worth of pay slips, even a letter of recommendation from her high school principal. And the contract for the Cinderella Project sat like a cherry on top.
Forcing himself not to look at the thing, lest it somehow tar him with the same brush, he said, “And the contract of sale?”
When April shook her head – slowly – he knew what was coming.
“There is no actual contract. The deal was verbal. A handshake. We figured it out together using an online calculator.”
She was serious.
“Your lawyer—”
“We never used lawyers. I just... This year things have turned weird for me.” She gave him a sly eye, as if he might be bundled up in all that too. “It’s felt like the life I knew has been slipping through my fingers faster than I can catch it.”
Finn swallowed. He knew that feeling all too well.
“Maybe I’ve let the heebie-jeebies get the better of me but I no longer feel like it’s a risk I can take. Is this something you could help me with? Putting together a simple contract that won’t upset a little, old lady who’s always been kind to me?”
“I’m not an accountant, April. Or a lawyer. Or a financial advisor for that matter.”
“So?”
“They have codes of practice they follow or else they lose their licenses. I work in investments but more in the... brawn side of things.”
Her mouth quirked. She liked that. She shouldn’t.
“My methods are cutthroat, April. Without mercy. Little old ladies”—and sweet, bright, nice girls—“need not apply.”
“What you are is smart. Savvy. Discreet. Considerate.”
“April—”
“And I trust you.”
Well, if that wasn’t the be all and end all. She trusted him. Him. A man known best for his cajoling, coercion, conquest, and that was by those who thought they knew him at all. A man who was lying to her simply by being there. Finn found himself torn between wanting to shake some sense into her and kissing her till she saw stars.
In the end he did neither. Even though he usually worked with millions and April had been pouring a few hundred dollars a month into a spiral notebook, he couldn’t leave this job to anyone else.
Because it was important to her. And she trusted him.
Finn slid the lid back onto the box, and as it snicked into place he felt something inevitable settle over him.
His voice was gruff as he said, “Leave this with me.”
A smile broke out across her face, smoothing the lines that had popped out above her nose. “Really? Oh thank you, Finn. I cannot tell you what a relief that is. And I meant it when I said I’d pay for your services. Hoping you’ll take pity on me and work fast.”
“Do you want fast, or do you want thorough?”
The double entendre reverberated between them like a little earthquake.
Her eyes widened. Her tongue darted out to wet her top lip. “Dare I hope for both?”
Finn’s grip on the box tightened.
“Anyway,” she said, her voice a little rough, “I’d better get back to work. And that box of goodies isn’t going to sort itself out.”
But she didn’t move.
Neither, though, did he.
And, in the silence, their strange, quixotic connection seemed to twist and tighten, looping lazily around them like an invisible lasso.
“Are you around this weekend?” Finn Ward, last of the great conversationalists. “In case I have questions.”
She nodded. Slowly. Then she glanced away, feigning nonchalance and failing miserably. “I’m helping my sister with a thing at the North Sydney pool on Saturday morning. Catching up with Hazel, from my Cinderella Project thing, in the afternoon. Apart from that...” Shrug. Her eyes swung back to his. “You?”
He lifted his hand, placed it on her “box of goodies”.
She nodded. Her mouth quirking. Then she pulled herself to standing. “You have my number now. For the questions you may have.”
“And you have mine.”
Her sparkling silver eyes held his. Gave away far more of what she was thinking, feeling, more than was in any way sensible. “That I do. See you ’round, Finn.”
“See you, April.”