Dream a Little Dream (18 page)

As he digested her words, Isabel expanded. ‘Port Manor Hotel has its brochure content decided one to two seasons in advance. The same content goes on our website, and on the websites and apps of tourism organisations and strategic partners. If the treatment centre were to cease to be, it would be a planned change, the result of conclusions drawn from analysis and assessment. Forward preparation would be lengthy. A major redesign of all promotional and publicity material would be incurred, at significant expense.

‘Going forward, we’re not undertaking that analysis, we’re not planning that move, because we view The Stables as a benefit to our guests with few, if any, direct costs to us.’ She smiled, faintly. ‘The treatment centre stays.’

Mentally, Dominic cursed himself with foul obscenities. How had he overlooked something so obvious as the hotel wanting to keep the fucking treatment centre? He’d been told that they’d invited tenders for it – hadn’t that been a big enough clue?

He drew a deep breath, fighting to keep shock from registering on his face. Bad. This was bad, but he had been trained to think fast and react decisively in a developing situation. ‘OK,’ he said, as if Isabel Jones didn’t hold all the power and that the world of free enterprise wasn’t new to him. ‘Convince me that the treatment centre is profitable.’

Isabel looked amused. ‘I don’t need to.’

‘You’ll need to convince
someone
that it’s profitable, if you want them to buy the lease and trade from the premises. It’s not just a case of Nicolas Notten not wanting to run the treatment centre any more, and you saying, “OK, Nicolas, just find someone else who will.” Nicolas Notten
can’t
run the treatment centre any more, because he’s losing money. Any interested party will see, as I have done, that the treatment centre isn’t making a profit. And they’ll pootle off and find something better to sink their money into.’

Just for an instant, Isabel’s gaze wavered. But she said, ‘There’s another interested party already, I believe.’

Rolling his inner dice, Dominic closed the case of his iPad. ‘Liza Reece? Yes, she’s got great ideas for the centre.’ He shifted forward on his chair, as if preparing to rise. His heart was thumping and he felt awake and alert and alive, as he had in his previous life in Stansted Air Traffic Control Tower. Ms Jones was underestimating him. Always a mistake. He smiled. ‘All she needs, I suppose, is the appropriate finance.’ He shrugged. ‘But now it’s apparent that the only business acceptable to the landlord is exactly the business that’s failing … Finance is going to be a challenge, isn’t it?’

Isabel Jones sat very still.

Dominic rose, reached out as if to shake her hand. And then hesitated. Frowned. ‘Of course, we might be able to come up with something that works for all of us.’ And, coincidentally, provide him with a beautifully neat way through the Liza Reece minefield. His heart congratulated him with a happy little skip.

Her brows quirked. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘OK.’ He resumed his seat. ‘But if the treatment centre aspect is non-negotiable then I’m going to need a concession on the rent.’

She laughed, incredulously. ‘OK, let’s not hear it. If the beautiful vista of the big slope is to be besmirched by ugly equipment, there needs to be something in it for us.’

Dominic recognised a blag when he heard one. ‘There’s loads in it for you – a new stream of income from the big slope, potentially bringing in guests, someone who could yet keep the treatment centre viable and in your brochures, with the necessary finance already in place. The adventure and challenge centre will be an attraction, not an ugly wart. We can go reciprocal on promo so far as websites are concerned and by the time you’re planning your next brochure, I’ll be up and running and we can talk about including it there, too.

‘It all looks better, to me, than a tenant who’s going to go belly up at any moment, leaving empty the treatment centre you’re so keen on keeping open. Or did I miss something?’

When Liza drove into The Cross she saw two things. Or, rather two people: Dominic lounging on her garden wall under the street light, his feet propped on his skateboard, and Mrs Snelling talking at him, arms like mug handles as she planted her hands on her hips.

Slowly, Liza pulled her car up at the kerb. Driving home, numb with misery, she’d faced what the bank’s response to her precious plan meant. She was going to have to leave The Stables.

And there was Dominic giving her his killer smile over Mrs Snelling’s shoulder as if all was well with his world. It would have been pretty bad mannered of him not to smile, after last night, but it was as welcome as a wasp in her bra, as he personified what had gone wrong with her delicious plan.

Mrs Snelling swung on her as Liza pushed open the car door. ‘I was just telling this man not to sit on the wall.’

‘It’s my wall,’ Liza pointed out.

‘That’s what I said.’ Dominic smiled again. Right into her eyes, as if Mrs Snelling wasn’t there.

Mrs Snelling’s mouth flattened into a disagreeable line. ‘But I can see him from my sitting room.’

‘Shut your curtains! It’s dark, anyway.’ Brushing Mrs Snelling’s pudgy shoulder aside, Liza grabbed Dominic’s jacket. ‘Come inside. You’re obviously making the place look untidy and I’ve got something to tell you.’

Dominic scooped up his board as he let himself be pulled to his feet. ‘Funny. I’ve got something to tell you, too.’

Realising that she’d towed him right up to her front door, Liza hastily released his sleeve. ‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t mind hot women being unable to keep their hands off me.’

Behind them, Mrs Snelling gave an audible snort as Liza turned the key and pushed open the door. ‘You’ve just given my infuriatingly nosy and judgemental neighbour a new bad thing to think of me.’ On her way to the kitchen she dumped her coat over the back of the sitting-room sofa, as if to disguise what had happened there. Now wasn’t the time to face it. There were issues in more urgent need of resolution. Like how she was going to earn her living. ‘Sit down. I’m making coffee.’ She took the block of freeze-dried coffee out of her bag and clunked it onto the worktop, dragging out a chrome cafetière from the back of a cupboard.

He stowed his skateboard in a corner of the kitchen floor, folded himself into a chair and leaned back, legs crossed comfortably at the ankle, showing no sign of feeling awkward. ‘Caffeine, eh?’

She filled the kettle with a rush of water. ‘I’ve had a bad day.’

His thoughtful gaze followed her as she filled the cafetière with scoops of coffee and steaming water and set it on the table with mugs and milk, then delved into her bag again for a bar of Bourneville chocolate.

‘Wow. Sugar, too.
That
bad a day?’

‘Worse.’ She took a seat at the other side of the table, so that he’d get the message that this was a business meeting. Not that he’d tried to kiss her hello or anything, so maybe he was perfectly happy that last night remain a when-it’s-over-it’s-over hook up.

Such a lack of expectation would uncomplicate things beautifully.

And now definitely wasn’t the moment to examine how she’d feel if delicious sweaty sex and passing out in a heap of entwined limbs turned out not to mean a damned thing. And it was stupid to be aggravated by his not showing any reaction to her obvious grumpiness.

Ripping the chocolate wrapper, she broke off four squares for herself, then spun the pack across the table in his direction. ‘The bank says I haven’t a hope of getting the finance for the lease at the stupid numbers that Nicolas is talking. So, lucky you.’

His dark eyebrows lifted fractionally. ‘Oh. Crap for you, though.’

‘Crap with disaster icing on.’ She slid two squares of chocolate into her mouth, adding, thickly, ‘I hope you have better luck,’ in the tone that meant she didn’t.

‘I think I already have.’ He did, at least, sound apologetic. ‘I met Ms Jones, the finance bod from Port Manor Hotel, today, and, after a bit of a scare when I thought I’d screwed up, it went well.’

She took a long pull from her coffee, letting it melt the chocolate in her mouth. No way should she feel aggrieved that he’d had his business meeting, just like she’d had hers. Just because they’d made love. Just because she’d opened up to him in the most intimate way. Just because they’d talked and laughed and he hadn’t sulked when she’d turfed him out without morning sex. She dragged her mind away from the sex. His nakedness against hers. Hard. Hot. And it wasn’t his fault that his meeting had gone well and hers had gone badly. ‘Congratulations.’

‘It’s a bit early for that.’ He broke some squares from the chocolate and returned the rest. The table was small, so it didn’t create much distance. He was close enough that she had to avoid his legs under the table, could smell the frosty tang of outdoors on his clothes and see every glint of gold in his hair. ‘Thing is, the hotel wants the treatment centre at The Stables. It’s in their brochures. I’ve tried everything I can to avoid taking it on but Isabel Jones says that if I want the big slope area, I have to take on the treatment centre.’

Liza grabbed another four squares of chocolate and gave a disparaging snort. ‘What do you know about running a treatment centre?’

‘Nothing,’ he admitted, cheerfully, his gaze on her mouth. ‘So how about we work something out where you run the treatment centre for me? You put into action your ideas for making the centre profitable, on whatever business model you think will work best with the other therapists, and we work out a fair rent for you to pay to me – obviously, I’m not looking to make a loss. But I don’t have to take a salary out of the treatment centre, like Nicolas did. My profits are going to come from working in the adventure and challenge side. I’ve negotiated with the hotel so that I can rent the big slope and the part of The Stables that’s currently empty, plus take over Nicolas’s lease for your bit. We have to do the sums, but I’m guessing we’ll find your rent to me to be only a little more than the total of what you three therapists have been paying to Nicolas.’

Her heart somersaulted. But she frowned and continued to let the dark delicious bitterness of Bourneville seep over her tongue, because if she let her smile muscles take charge, then her face would become one jolly grin of joy that he was unexpectedly offering her a route forward in a way that she could afford. Galloping to her rescue; making her forget that his scenario wasn’t what she wanted to achieve. Distracting her from how dashed her hopes were.

She needed to explore his proposition up, down and inside out, inspect the ointment for flies before she didn’t look the gift horse in its mouth. If something looked too good to be true, it usually was. ‘If that’s the case, and if Imogen and Fenella were to pay me the rent they pay Nicolas, plus I let out his office as another treatment room and maybe utilise part of reception, too, there’s a way for me to keep Pippa on and still make quite a bit.’ She allowed disbelief to fill her voice, as if giving him the chance to realise that he must have got something wrong.

But he didn’t backtrack. ‘Go for it. You make it as big a success as you can and leave me free to concentrate on my own stuff. Isabel showed me a plan of the other leg of The Stables and it has everything I need except the toilets and kitchen, so both business would have to share the ones the treatment centre currently uses.’ He smiled, slowly, conspiratorially, joyfully. As if the deal was done. ‘Other than that, well, you know I’m not interested in the holistic stuff.’

‘You should be,’ she retorted, picking up her coffee cup and staring over the rim. ‘Stags and hens.’

‘What?’

‘You know that one of my ideas for The Stables is to have pamper sessions for hen nights? We could cross promote. The basic idea would be for the hens to come for treatments and the stags to crash around on adventures, but there are bound to be hen parties just as keen to be adventurous and stags who’d go for the treatments. Stag and hen parties are huge business. People are always looking for new and different.’

Fresh excitement blazed in his eyes. ‘Wow, your ideas are great. And we should be able to get stags and hens concessionary rates at the hotel. Isabel’s keen on reciprocality.’

‘She’d be stupid not to be. Think about the bar bills stags and hens would run up. But I don’t see how you can afford not to put my rent up, now you know how much that greedy bastard Nicolas wants as a premium on his precious lease.’

Dominic’s eyes half-closed in satisfaction – reminding her suddenly of last night. ‘But I’m not going to have to pay his greedy bastard premium, am I? Not now. When you tell him you’re out of the running, I’ll, um, renegotiate.’

‘And if I don’t drop out you can afford his greedy bastard premium anyway, so you’ll just outbid me.’ She refilled both coffee cups from the cafetière and divided the last of the chocolate equally. ‘You just get luckier and luckier,’ she said, slowly. But, still, a little bird of excitement fluttered behind her breastbone. Could his proposal work out? She could stay at The Stables, make more money, get rid of Nicolas, implement all the ideas her head had been bursting with. And Dominic would stay—

And Dominic would stay … The bird fluttered harder, flapping, as it sensed a trap. ‘We’d be in this together,’ she realised.

He planted his elbows on the table; leaned closer. A stillness stole over his face. ‘And?’

‘
And
 
…
’ He was so close that she could see flecks of blue and silver in his eyes, and every one of his thick dark lashes. ‘Isn’t what you’re suggesting a lot like a relationship?’ There. Right there. Ointment. Big fat fly.

A black frown snapped down above his eyes. ‘A business relationship. You’d be managing the treatment centre for
me.’

‘So now you’re saying I’d be your
employee
? After having my own biz?’

The gift horse set its mouth in a grim line. His eyes narrowed. ‘“For me” was probably the wrong phrase. You’d simply be running the treatment centre so that we can both get what we want. You’d still be self-employed, you’d have a “biz”, but with a wider scope and more income, and would be paying rent to me, not Nicolas.’