Dream a Little Dream (26 page)

When his phone rang, he almost let it go to voicemail. But then he spotted the caller’s name on the screen and wiped his hands before picking up his phone. ‘It’s Nicolas! Maybe we’re going to get some progress. Hello, Nicolas. This is Dominic.’

Nicolas’s voice was loud in his ear. ‘I’m upping my price.’

Dominic froze. ‘You’re
what
?’

‘Upping the premium on the lease. Someone new has come into the picture and he’s already offered more than the figure I gave you. As your aim is to negotiate me down, rather than accept that figure, I’m keen to pursue the new guy. But I’m giving you the opportunity to counter offer, of course.’ Triumph was thick in his voice.

Dominic maintained his calm, although his heart was banging in his ears. ‘Have you talked to Isabel at the hotel? She’s not likely to give up renting the big slope out, too—’

‘Isabel has already met and approved the prospective tenant,’ Nicolas put in, smugly. ‘He wants the big slope, and he can ensure the treatment centre continues. And he’s offered the hotel a higher rent, too.’

‘But it’s not worth more. So the offer may well fall through.’ Logic was always his strongest weapon.

‘We’ll just see, shall we? I can give you forty-eight hours to consider a counter offer.’

‘Right.’ Ending the call, Dominic managed to string about seven swearwords together without repetition. ‘Fucking Nicolas has pulled a flanker,’ he added. ‘He’s got someone interested in the lease on even better terms than he offered me.’

Liza said, faintly, ‘Wow.’

He nodded slowly, staring at the strips of chicken glistening on the chopping board, revolting him now. ‘Alarms are ringing in my brain. I would have suspected him of trying to get the price up with a fictitious bid if he hadn’t sounded so sure of himself. He even had the answers ready about the other party being able to keep the treatment centre on.’

He looked up. Her face had paled, her blue eyes were enormous. Compunction hit him like a truck. ‘Crap. I didn’t exactly break that gently, did I? I hadn’t even got as far as thinking how this affects you.’ Remorsefully, he scrambled for positives. ‘The new person might still want you to manage it. Or might have loads of ways of bringing in clients, all the things that Nicolas set his greasy face against.’

‘Or might be bringing in a complete staff,’ she completed, quietly. ‘I might still find myself looking for new premises. If only you’d been able to get things moving before this new person—’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh no,’ she breathed. ‘Have they been able to nip in with their offer because of me dragging my feet?’

‘No point worrying about that,’ he protested, automatically. But he knew she’d probably read the thought in his eyes.

PWNsleep message board:

GuiltyGeorge: I got into a conflict and my body passed out whilst my mind stayed with the action. Wtf?

Brainwave: Probably cataplexy. I get hit at all levels from a wishy washy wave to crashing to the deck.

Tenzeds: Me, too. Like everything with N, the intensity is random. Bet you don’t have a diet tip for cataplexy, Girlwithdreams! :-)

Girlwithdreams: You’re right. Meditation might help on a general level, I suppose. Or not.

Monday morning. Her first client was at eleven, so she had plenty of time to change into her tunic, the hated green. If she’d taken over the treatment centre, she’d been going to order something funky: black or darkest purple.

Someone had bundled towels she’d left in the drier onto her couch. She began folding them slowly, lethargically, almost queasy with the certainty that she’d let this thing happen, a new purchaser for the lease popping onto the scene, no matter how much Dominic insisted it wasn’t her fault; that Nicolas being elusive suggested he’d probably been in talks with the other party all along. It didn’t alter facts: Liza’s plans were up in the air. And Dominic’s dreams were in the toilet.

After Nicolas’s phone call, they’d picked at their food gloomily, searching for ways forward. Dominic had tried to telephone Isabel Jones and had been told to call back on Monday, which had filled his grey eyes with a storm of frustration.

He’d insisted on riding shotgun when she drove home under a dark starry sky and she hadn’t demurred, even though it meant Dominic had to traipse back home to Bankside, but there had been no sign of Adam loitering and she hadn’t known whether to be glad because she didn’t want any more aggro, or sorry there was no one for them to take out their lousy moods on. But, then, glad again, because who could predict the waywardness of Adam’s reaction if two clouds of disappointment rained down on him?

This morning Nicolas had people in his office, voices rising and falling on the other side of the door, measured, amicable. A woman’s voice, difficult to catch, and a man’s. Laughter. Liza frowned. Her hands stilled. She glided nearer to the corridor. The man’s voice became more assured, rising to a fast trot of enthusiasm. Louder.

‘… ideas,’ he said. ‘I’ve done loads of research and I know exactly where I’m going to take The Stables. But what you need to know is that we’ve got the finance and I want to move quickly. Isabel’s already instructed her guy to get the lease for the big slope drawn up. Once your paperwork’s in order, too, we’ll sign on the dotted line. The sooner the better.’

Then Nicolas’s voice, approaching his office door: ‘The forty-eight hours will be up this evening, so if the original party hasn’t come back to me, I’ll get onto it tomorrow.’

Liza hopped smartly to one side, out of sight, as the office door opened for Nicolas to shout, ‘Pippa, three white coffees, please!’ Then she leapt back into the doorway to crane over his shoulder, making him pull back like a startled tortoise. She smiled blandly. ‘Morning, Nicolas.’ Then backed casually away, shutting her treatment room door.

But her heart was thundering. Scrabbling for her bag, she whipped out her phone. She might be able to put things right.

Please be there, please be there
 
…
‘Dominic,’ she hissed, when he answered on the sixth ring, ‘I think it’s Kenny.’

He sounded puzzled. ‘You think what’s Kenny?’

‘I think it’s Kenny who’s outbid you. He’s here, in Nicolas’s office, talking about the lease, about moving quickly and signing on the dotted line. And he’s with that woman, the tall, upmarket one. It’s definitely them.’

A long silence. Then, warily, ‘I’m awake, right?’

‘Yes, you bloody are!’ She recapped in a kind of whispered shout. ‘Kenny is in Nicolas’s office, with Nicolas, with that woman who was here asking for Kenny, and I think they’re on the verge of agreeing terms for Kenny to take over The Stables!’

Then she was listening to silence. Her phone screen said
call ended
.

Dominic arrived in ten minutes.

Liza was hovering in reception, hoping that her eleven o’clock client wouldn’t be too prompt, and with some vague idea of finding a way to detain Kenny and his lady friend if they tried to leave before Dominic got there. But then the gleaming black Jaguar stormed into the stable yard, Dominic bursting out of the driver’s seat, hair streaming like liquid gold in the wintry sunshine.

Throwing open the door, she hustled him up the corridor and into her treatment room. ‘You’re not supposed to be driving!’

‘Don’t give a fuck.’ Dominic wore all the signs of a man in a towering rage, eyes blazing, mouth like granite. ‘Are they still in the office?’

‘Yes—’

He spun on his heel. Then he whirled back and dragged her up against him on her toes, hard, kissing her mouth, hard. ‘Thanks for ringing me.’ He put her back on her feet and launched like a missile at Nicolas’s office door, banging it open. ‘So, Kenny—!’

His sentence strangled in his throat.

Liza followed, worried that cataplexy had slapped him, in the emotion of the moment. But he had turned to rock while Kenny, suddenly on his feet, glared. And the willowy woman with chestnut hair gazed at Dominic.

Dominic sagged against the door jamb and said in a quite different voice, ‘Natalie?’

Natalie? Liza’s heart gave a great thump. Dominic’s ex. Here. With Kenny. And Dominic’s gaze was fixed to hers like a tractor beam.

The woman smiled, tremulously. ‘I’m back in England.’ Then, as Dominic remained silent, ‘It’s so good to see you.’ Her voice wavered uncertainly as she pressed on. ‘Kenny told me what was happening, and how difficult things are for you, so that’s why we’ve put together this rescue package. I’m glad we could come up with something that worked.’ She glanced at Liza, uncertainly, then back at Dominic, a tiny crease on her brow. ‘Are you all right?’

Liza was clamping her lips together in an effort not to ask the same thing, torn between leaving to give Dominic privacy, and staying in case he needed backup.

A long moment. Two. Three. Then Dominic pulled himself upright, switching his gaze to Kenny. ‘You’re the guy who’s outbid me.’

And Liza decided she had to stay. Whatever was happening, if it concerned The Stables then it concerned her. It was her damned livelihood – for the moment – too.

Nicolas, however, took the opposite view, scrambling out from behind his desk. ‘Um, you obviously don’t need me here. I’ll, um …’ He dithered like an anxious mouse until Liza moved aside. Profound relief slackening his face, he scurried out.

Kenny’s voice was hard. ‘Sorry, Doc. I just got so pissed off with you never taking my advice, I began to wonder why you should be the head man. I know that’s how you like to see yourself, the clever one, the one in charge.’ His lips twisted. ‘But why should I work for you? Why shouldn’t I work for myself?’

‘
What
?’ demanded Natalie, swinging on him, eyes huge.

Dominic ignored her, his gaze boring into Kenny. ‘So that’s why the endless questions? While I thought you were throwing yourself into the adventure centre, you were actually letting me coach you into ripping off all my ideas? Except with added fan descender, because you think you’re right about that and I’m wrong?’

‘You’re not always right.’ Kenny looked mutinous.

Several heartbeats, then Dominic returned his gaze to Natalie. ‘Tell me what you’re doing here.’ His voice was calm, low, the sound of one who knew the other intimately, could exclude everyone else in the room with a change of tone.

Kenny put a hand on Natalie’s shoulder, but she brushed him aside and rose. Even white to her lips, she was stunning. Liza had time to envy her height and her poise, the river of hair running over her shoulders. She looked bewildered, frightened. ‘But you and Kenny have negotiated this between you, haven’t you?’

‘He must have forgotten to include me in the negotiation. Why don’t you explain?’ he said, silkily.

A tear formed on Natalie’s lashes, and trembled. ‘Kenny told me how ill you are. How you got yourself into a jam, starting up a business you couldn’t possibly carry through. That you’d obviously bitten off more than you could chew, but with his contract ending he could take over your project, get you out of the jam, but he needed more money.’ She glanced at Kenny, who had stuck out his jaw and shoved his hands into his pockets, like a naughty child he knew he was about to be found out.

‘And you’re involved because …?’

Natalie licked her lips. ‘I’m putting the rest of the money in,’ she said, with only the hint of a quaver.

‘And the money’s coming from ..?’

Natalie’s eyes were pleading. ‘The house, Dom. My half.’

Silence. ‘And you didn’t think to ask me whether I wanted this arrangement? You didn’t think I’d want to be involved at all? Not even as a
sleeping
partner?’ he added ironically. ‘For fuck’s sake, when have you ever known me to go into something half-arsed, without logic or research or system? Get myself in a jam?’

‘Kenny was so worried about you! He said that you simply couldn’t be relied upon to run a business or look after clients, that you were either asleep or half-asleep most of the time.’

Dominic’s breath hissed between his teeth. ‘
Couldn’t be relied upon?
’ He took a moment to gather control.
‘
Even if you couldn’t see that he might be playing on my disability and your doubts about my competence, why didn’t you just pick up the phone and ask me?’

‘I thought—’ Her gaze flickered uncertainly. ‘Kenny said it was better if I stayed in the background while he sorted things out with you; that it was a male pride thing. Everything in your life was a climb down, now, and you were having trouble adjusting. When I analysed my behaviour over your narcolepsy, I saw I hadn’t been supportive of your illness.’

‘I’m not ill. I’m narcoleptic. I manage it.’

‘I wanted to help. I never wanted us to split up, Dominic.’ Miserably, she whispered, ‘I thought we might get close again, if I helped.’

Slowly, Dominic shook his head. ‘We didn’t split up because you thought my narcolepsy was more about you than about me. We split up because you aborted my baby.’

Instantly, Kenny bristled past Natalie like a belligerent dog. ‘It was my baby.’

Dominic recoiled, as if a giant hand had slapped his face. In the silence, Natalie began to cry.

Impulsively, Liza slid her hand into Dominic’s, squeezing it, feeling his fingers shut around hers, even as he transferred his attention from Natalie to Kenny and found his voice. ‘Yours?’

Kenny’s eyes glittered triumphantly. ‘The good guy doesn’t always get the gal, Doc. Your sleep thing wasn’t just about you. Nattie was struggling and you weren’t noticing. She turned to me. And I was there for her.’ His mouth turned down. ‘I wanted us to be together, but when she’d done the deed she went all horrified, all, “Ooh, what have I done? Dominic mustn’t know.” And she got rid of my baby.
My
baby. Because of you.’

But Natalie’s hands were over her mouth, tears easing from horrified eyes that were fixed on Dominic. ‘No, no, it wasn’t like that! I was feeling sorry for myself and I got drunk, Dominic, I swear. I wouldn’t have cheated on you if I hadn’t been drunk. I love you!’

Dominic seemed turned to stone. ‘How do you know it was his?’

Natalie dropped her wavering gaze. Finally, she admitted, ‘I fudged the dates, Dom. You know there were those few weeks—’

He sighed. ‘When you moved into the spare room?’

Miserably, she nodded. ‘It happened then,’ she whispered. ‘I was drunk and didn’t think about condoms.’

Dominic sent a look of disgust Kenny’s way, before turning back to Natalie. ‘So when you wanted to make up it was just so that all you had to do was lie about the dates?’

‘Not just!’ she cried. She swung on Kenny, fury lighting her eyes. ‘Why did you have to tell him? He never needed to know! Why hurt him? And all that bullshit about him wanting to pull out of the adventure centre, that he was too ill.’ And to Dominic, tears rolling down her high cheekbones, ‘None of it’s true, is it? I’m so sorry, Dom.’ She started towards Dominic, her hands outstretched.

But Kenny yanked her back. ‘You went to bed with me and he was too sleepy to notice! Don’t apologise to him.’

And then Dominic was lunging for Kenny, roaring ‘Bastard!’, trying simultaneously to put Natalie behind himself and swing a savage punch at Kenny.

‘Stop!’ burst out Liza. ‘Stop it, now. Or I’ll phone the police.’

Three bodies stilled. Three heads turned towards her.

She took a deep breath over the thundering of her heart. ‘You can’t use someone’s office, our place of business,’ she emphasised, ‘for a brawl. You need to take this somewhere else. Our clients expect to have their treatments in peace and quiet.’ She made her voice severe and sensible and hoped nobody could see how much she was shaking.

And she tried not to wonder if she was breaking things up because Dominic going for Kenny’s throat the instant he’d laid a hand on Natalie had made her feel deeply sick. Though her heart ached for him.

The three subsided. Exchanged glances. Natalie picked up a black leather handbag and Kenny unhitched his jacket from the back of his chair. Dominic sent Liza an unreadable look.

‘It was meant to be a rescue package,’ Natalie insisted, piteously.

Liza couldn’t help herself. ‘But Dominic doesn’t like being rescued!’ Then she glanced at Dominic’s face. ‘Oh. Sorry. Now I’m butting in.’

From the corridor, Pippa said, in a small voice, ‘Um, Liza, your eleven o’clock’s waiting.’

‘Sorry, Pips. I’m coming now.’ But Liza didn’t go into her treatment room until she’d watched Dominic, Kenny and Natalie follow one another down the corridor, across reception, and out. That was fair enough, she told herself, blinking. It was about them.

Not her.