Downsizing (5 page)

She looked surprised but only hesitated for a
moment before she stood and walked into his arms.

“
You’re as taut as a bow,
sweetheart. Relax! I ain’t gonna eat you.”

“
I’m not very good at this,
either.”

“
Sure you are.” He kissed her
forehead. “Just let yourself go.”

By the time the music ended, Kitty had relaxed
enough to sing along to the old Abba tune they were dancing to.
They returned to the sofa and refreshed their drinks.

“
There, that wasn’t so hard, was
it.” Noah smiled at her. “So remind me again who it is in your
marriage that ain’t any good at it.”

“
Yes, I see what you mean. But,
Noah, what’s Ryan done to make you so set upon revenge?”

“
Is that what you thought this was
about?”

“
What else?” she asked a little
too casually.

“
I get the impression that you’re
not my husband’s greatest fan,” Kitty said. “Why is
that?”

Noah told her about his ambitious plans for
the house on Broad Street.

“
But Ryan wouldn’t lend you the
money?”

Noah grimaced. “Nah, he laughed in my face and
told me to take you out instead.”

“
Are you surprised?”

Noah’s eyes swiveled toward her face. “What do
you mean?”

“
Well, I can see a lot of him in
you. When he was your age he had the same drive and ambition and
was determined that nothing would stand in his way. Not even my
father when he opposed our marriage. Ryan’s very savvy. He will
have recognized those traits in you, and doesn’t want the
competition.”

“
But I only want to buy one stupid
little house. I’m hardly going to be in the same league as him any
time soon.”

“
Ryan thinks long
term.”

“
Obviously.” Noah lapsed into a
brooding silence.

“
You said you live with your
father. Can’t he help you out?”

Noah snorted. “My father doesn’t usually have
enough money to pay the rent, much less buy a house. He’s
hopelessly impractical and just lives for the moment.”

“
But he always kept you with him,”
she said softly. “Not many men in his position would have done
that.”

“
I suppose that’s true. He tells
anyone who’ll listen that I was the accidental result of a casual
fling with a dancer. When she found out she was knocked up she
wanted to get an abortion.” Noah paused, wondering why he felt the
need to open up to a comparative stranger. The only other person
who knew his history was Maxine. “Dad went mad and told her he’d
bring me up, which he did, after a fashion. My ma went all maternal
for a while, apparently, but as soon as I could walk and started
curbing her activities she lost all interest in being a
mother.”

“
What happened to her?”

“
She took off with a bouncer from
the club where she worked, and Dad and I have been alone ever
since.”

“
You’re fond of him, aren’t
you?”

Noah flashed a reluctant smile. “Yeah, course
I am, but he drives me mad, as well. Practicality isn’t in his
nature, and he’s always on the lookout for the big opportunity.”
Noah let out a long breath. “I keep telling him he’s living on
borrowed time, but he doesn’t listen.”

“
And when the money’s
gone?”

“
Ah, then it’s depression time and
he hits rock bottom until a new scheme comes along.”

“
No wonder you want to make
something of yourself. I’ve often noticed that kids adopt a
diametrically opposed attitude in adulthood to the example set by
their parents.” She smiled. “Mine certainly did. My son hasn’t put
in an honest day’s work in his life. Seems to think everything Ryan
has is his by rights, and that he doesn’t need to build a career
for himself.”

“
Yeah, well, my dad ain’t all bad.
He just hasn’t grown up yet.”

“
And so you’ve had to?”

Noah shrugged. “Someone had to be the parent.
Anyway, I know what I want.”

“
It must have been hard not having
a woman about the place when you were little.”

Noah snorted. “You’re kidding me, right? I’ve
had more surrogate mothers than Ryan’s had dodgy building
applications.”

“
Tell me about this house you
wanted to buy,” she said, abruptly changing the subject.

When Noah left Kitty an hour later, he felt a
lot better about life. Okay, so he wouldn’t get the house on Broad
Street, but there’d be others. He’d work harder than ever and raise
the necessary capital without depending on his boss’s non-existent
goodwill. He’d made Kitty happy tonight and got one over on Ryan
Watts in the process, which did a lot to restore his damaged pride.
Not only that, but his investments had increased by over a hundred
quid thanks to the money Ryan had given him. Not bad for one
night’s work.

When he put his hand in his jacket pocket to
search for the keys to Ryan’s car, he discovered that he’d earned
even more than he’d initially thought. A small smile tugged at his
lips as he withdrew four neatly folded fifty pound
notes.

Apparently he really had turned himself into a
gigolo.

Chapter Four

A week later Noah received a call from Kitty
on the cell phone he’d reluctantly forked out for. A necessary
expense if he and Joey wanted to attract customers for their
private work. Kitty needed to talk to him about something important
and asked him to meet her in his lunch break at a café off the
market. Noah was in no mood to socialize, but Kitty was
insistent.

He made his way briskly on foot to the
meeting, consumed by resentment. The auction including the house—
his house —
on Broad Street was scheduled for today. He
wouldn’t be there, and his plans would remain a pipe dream for the
foreseeable future. Damn it, he didn’t have time to wait, watching
others cashing in on a prime property market and making fortunes
for themselves. He was a man in a hurry, and wanted part of the
action now.

Brooding on his grievances he didn’t
immediately recognize the elegant woman standing outside the café,
scanning the street with her eyes and consulting her watch every
few seconds.

“
Hello, Kitty,” he said, raising
an arm in greeting when he realized who she was and recovered from
his surprise. “Am I late?”

“
You’re just in time.”

As she smiled, Noah noticed subtle differences
in her. She’d had her hair cut and styled to make her look younger
and her clothes were different, too. She looked good, and he told
her so.

“
Why, thank you, sir!”

Noah opened the door to the café and stood
back to let Kitty through it first, but she had turned away and was
walking briskly in the other direction.

“
Wait!” he called, catching up
with her. “I thought we were going to—”

“
Oh no, that was just a convenient
meeting place.” She kept walking. “We have to be somewhere, and
there’s no time to spare.”

Intrigued, Noah humored her. Before he knew it
they were at the doors to the auction house where the property on
Broad Street would go under the hammer.

“
What the hell are we doing here?”
he asked, pulling at her arm.

Kitty ignored him, strode into the auction
room and consulted a catalogue he hadn’t noticed her
carrying.

“
Ah, good, we’re just in
time.”

Noah watched in stunned disbelief as
his
house came up for sale and Kitty calmly bid for it. She
exuded confidence as she beat two opponents and won it for almost a
thousand pounds less than Noah had anticipated it would sell
for.

“
Your name please, madam,” the
auctioneer asked.

“
The house has been sold to Mr.
Noah Fenwick,” she said in a clear voice, dragging a bemused Noah
in the direction of the office to complete the
paperwork.

With the formalities out of the way, Kitty led
a still dazed Noah to a nearby pub to celebrate.

“
Now, would you please tell me
what the hell’s going on?” he pleaded when they finally sat down
with their drinks.

“
Gladly.” She clinked glasses with
him. “Congratulations, Noah, you are now a property
owner.”

“
Evidently.” He shook his head.
“But I don’t understand.”

She patted his hand. “We have just gone into
partnership, my dear.”

“
But, I can’t repay you at the
moment, and anyway, won’t Ryan go mad when he finds out what you’ve
done?”

“
My husband doesn’t know about
everything
I do.”

Noah chuckled. “I should hope not.” He grasped
her hand. “But seriously, Kitty-Kat, what made you do
it.”

“
I’m merely repaying you for your
thoughtfulness last week.”

“
I only did—”

“
I know what you
only
did,
Noah, and it was beyond kind. I’m the sort of woman that people
tend to either overlook or dismiss as uninteresting. But you
actually wanted to talk to me and cared about my feelings. I can’t
remember the last time that happened,” she added softly. “And
you’re still so young.”

“
Yes, but I don’t see what age has
to do with anything.”

“
No, I don’t suppose you do. The
young always think they can conquer the world.” She paused, her
eyes dancing with rebellion. “Do you know, the only act of defiance
I’ve ever seen through in my entire life was to marry Ryan against
my father’s wishes.”

“
Kitty, buying me a house just to
get back at your husband seems rather extreme.”

“
Oh, it’s not only that.” She
dismissed the suggestion with an airy wave. “Ryan treated me well
at first. He said I had class, and liked showing me off to his
friends, but he worked so hard that I didn’t see much of him.” She
paused to take a sip of her drink. “He really was a lot like you
then. By the time he’d established himself sufficiently to have the
time to notice me properly again, he obviously didn’t like what he
saw and that’s when he started on his long line of
tarts.”

“
Yes, you certainly didn’t deserve
that, but don’t you think—”

“
What I think is that it’s time to
fight back. Our little chat the other night got me thinking. You’ve
made me realize that I’m a person in my own right, and not just an
extension of Ryan, without entitlement to thoughts and opinions of
my own.” She sighed. “I’ve kept it all buried for too long, and
without you it probably would have stayed that way.”

“
Are you going to leave
him?”

“
Good heavens, no!” She smiled
again, her eyes sparkling with resolve. “In spite of everything I’m
still rather fond of the old devil. I intend to play him at his own
game and get him to notice me again, but this time on my
terms.”

Noah was choked with gratitude. “I can’t find
the words to tell you what this means to me.”

Kitty waved aside his gratitude. “My father
eventually came to respect what Ryan achieved, but he never liked
or trusted him.”

“
Perhaps he was a good judge,”
Noah said, still brooding over Watts’s reluctance to help him out.
“Whoops, sorry, shouldn’t have said that about your
husband.”

Kitty smiled distractedly. “That’s why, when
he died, Ryan wasn’t surprised when I only received a modest
inheritance. What he doesn’t know is that I received a much larger
amount when my father was still alive, to avoid inheritance tax. He
insisted upon investing it off-shore in my name only, swearing me
to secrecy.”

“
Ah, I see.” Noah flashed a brief
smile. “Clever man, your dad.”

“
Yes, I rather think he was.” She
shrugged. “Perhaps he anticipated how Ryan would behave toward me,
and wanted to offer me an escape route. Anyway, that was some years
ago now, and the investment’s doing very nicely, thank you. I used
some of that money today to buy your house. We got it at a good
price, didn’t we?” she added, looking thoroughly pleased with
herself.

“
Kitty, I just don’t know what to
say.”

Her lips twitched. “How about thank
you?”

“
That doesn’t begin to cover it.
But I must stress again that I won’t be able to pay you back until
I’ve done the house up and sold it on.”

“
That’s perfectly all right, Noah.
I expected as much. I suggest that you use your savings as capital
to make the improvements, since we’re now partners, if that would
suit you. I know you’ll make a great job of the conversation and
show me a better return on my money than any off-shore bank ever
could.”

“
I will, or die in the attempt,”
he said savagely.

“
You’ll have to apply for
permission to convert the place into two apartments, of course.
That’s what you plan to do with it, isn’t it?”

“
Yes, and that could hold things
up a bit.”

“
Oh no, Ryan isn’t the only one
with contacts. Who do you think introduced him to some of the
planning committee in the first place? My charitable works come in
handy sometimes.”