His Shy Cinderella

‘A lifetime ago,’ Brandon said softly. ‘I’m on the other side of the business now.’

Ravi looked awkward. ‘Sorry. I didn’t...’

‘It’s fine.’ Brandon clearly knew what the other man wasn’t saying. He hadn’t meant to trample over a sore spot and bring up Sam’s death. He patted Ravi’s shoulder briefly. ‘I really like the lines of this car. Is it OK for me to have a look at the engine?’

‘Sure.’ Ravi popped the catch on the bonnet.

Ernie gestured to Angel to step to the side while Ravi was showing Brandon the engine. ‘What are you doing, Angel?’ he asked in an angry whisper. ‘I thought you said you weren’t selling?’

‘I’m not. He turned up today. I’m showing him round the factory so he can see our processes for himself,’ Angel said, ‘and to prove we’re not compatible with Stone’s.’

* * *

‘You’re a good boss, lass, but you’re no match for a company that ruthless.’ He shook his head. ‘You be careful.’

‘I will.’ Even though Ernie should’ve retired a couple of years back, Angel appreciated the fact he’d decided to stay on, training their younger staff and making sure the quality control lived up to their brand’s promise. And she knew he had the company’s interests at heart; he’d accepted her as his boss because he knew she paid the same attention to detail that he did, and she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and work on the factory floor if she was needed.

As they walked through the different stations, she could see Brandon looking intrigued. ‘This is very different from the way we do things at Stone’s,’ he said.

‘Exactly. I’m glad you see your business is completely incompatible with mine.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I’m saying it for you.’

He just looked at her as if to say he knew something she didn’t. She brushed off her worries by switching the conversation back to technical issues. ‘I guess you need more tech in a race car than in a roadster. Doesn’t its steering wheel alone cost as much as we charge for a basic Luna?’

‘There are a lot more electronics in one of our steering wheels than in a Luna’s,’ he said, and she noticed that he avoided the question. ‘Maybe you should come and take a look at our place in Oxford and see how we do things.’

See where he planned to change her beloved hand-built into mass-produced monsters? She fell back on a noncommittal, ‘Mmm.’

‘Thanks for showing me round,’ he said as she walked him back to the reception area. ‘But, before I go, I thought you might like to see my favourite car ever.’ He took his phone from his pocket and showed her a photograph of a gorgeous iridescent turquoise car with outrageous tail fins.

She recognised it instantly as her own favourite car. Did he know that from his dossier? Was he playing her? ‘That’s a McKenzie Mermaid. My grandfather designed it in the early sixties.’

‘I know.’

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I would’ve expected you to prefer one of your own family’s cars, or one of the classic 1960s sports cars.’

‘I like the classics,’ he said, ‘but I fell in love with the Mermaid when I saw a picture of it as a kid.’

It had been the same for her. If only there had been more than a hundred of them ever produced. The only one she’d ever seen had been in a museum, years ago, and even the fact that she was a McKenzie hadn’t been enough for the curators to allow her to touch it, let alone sit in it. And because Mermaids were so rare they almost never came up for sale.

His next comment floored her completely. ‘Which is why I bought one, six years ago. After I won the championship race.’

She stared at him, not quite believing what she was hearing. ‘That picture... Are you telling me that’s actually yours?’

‘Uh-huh. It was a bit of a mess when I first saw it. It’d been left in a barn for years. There was more rust than anything else, and mice had eaten their way through the leather.’

‘So you picked it up for a song.’ That figured.

‘Actually, I paid a fair price,’ he said.

Why did she suddenly feel so guilty? She pushed the thought away. All her life, she’d been told that Stones were ruthless asset-strippers, and what she’d read in the business press had only confirmed that. Hadn’t Barnaby walked away from the original company with way more than his fair share?