Falling For The Secret Millionaire

As if the questions were written all over her daughter’s face, Susan said gently, ‘He had to leave it to someone. You were the obvious choice.’

Nicole shook her head. ‘How? Mum, I pass the Electric Palace every day on my way to work. I had no idea it was anything to do with us.’

‘It isn’t,’ Susan said. ‘It was Brian’s. But I’m glad he’s finally done the right thing and left it to you.’

‘But you’re his daughter, Mum. He should’ve left it to you, not to me.’

‘I don’t want it.’ Susan lifted her chin. ‘Brian made his choice years ago—he decided nearly thirty years ago that I wasn’t his daughter and he is most definitely not my father. I don’t need anything from him. What I own, I have nobody to thank for but myself. I worked for it. And that’s the way I like it.’

Nicole reached over and squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘And you wonder where I get my stubborn streak?’

Susan gave her a wry smile. ‘I guess.’

‘I can’t accept the bequest,’ Nicole said again. ‘I’m going to tell the solicitor to make the deeds over to you.’

‘Darling, no. Brian left it to you, not to me.’

‘But you’re his daughter,’ Nicole said again.

‘And you’re his granddaughter,’ Susan countered.

Nicole shrugged. ‘OK. Maybe I’ll sell to the developer who wants it.’

‘And you’ll use the money to do something that makes you happy?’

It was the perfect answer. ‘Yes,’ Nicole said. ‘Giving the money to you will make me very happy. You can pay off your mortgage and get a new car and go on holiday. It’d be enough for you to go and see the Northern Lights this winter, and I know that’s top of your bucket list.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Susan folded her arms. ‘You using that money to get out of that hell-hole you work in would make me much happier than if I spent a single penny on myself, believe me.’

Nicole sighed. ‘It feels like blood money, Mum. How can I accept something from someone who behaved so badly to you?’

‘Someone who knew he was in the wrong but was too stubborn to apologise. That’s where we both get our stubborn streak,’ Susan said. ‘I think leaving the cinema to you is his way of saying sorry without actually having to use the five-letter word.’

‘That’s what Cl—’ Realising what she was about to give away, Nicole stopped short.

‘Cl—?’ Susan tipped her head to one side. ‘And who might this “Cl—” be?’

‘A friend,’ Nicole said grudgingly.

‘A male friend?’

‘Yes.’ Given that they’d never met in real life, there was always the possibility that her internet friend was actually a woman trying on a male persona for size, but Nicole was pretty sure that Clarence was a man.

‘That’s good.’ Susan looked approving. ‘What’s his name? Cliff? Clive?’

Uh-oh. Nicole could actually see the matchmaking gleam in her mother’s eye. ‘Mum, we’re just friends.’ She didn’t want to admit that they’d never actually met and Clarence wasn’t even his real name; she knew what conclusion her mother would draw. That Nicole was an utter coward. And there was a lot of truth in that: Nicole was definitely a coward when it came to relationships. She’d been burned badly enough last time to make her very wary indeed.

‘You are allowed to date again, you know,’ Susan said gently. ‘Yes, you picked the wrong one last time—but don’t let that put you off. Not all men are as spineless and as selfish as Jeff.’

It was easier to smile and say, ‘Sure.’ Though Nicole had no intention of dating Clarence. Even if he was available, she didn’t want to risk losing his friendship. Wanting to switch the subject away from the abject failure that was her love life, Nicole asked, ‘So did you grow up in Surrey Quays, Mum?’

‘Back when it was all warehouses and terraced houses, before they were turned into posh flats.’ Susan nodded. ‘We lived on Mortimer Gardens, a few doors down from the cinema. Those houses were knocked down years ago and the land was redeveloped.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything when I moved here?’

Susan shrugged. ‘You were having a hard enough time. You seemed happy here and you didn’t need my baggage weighing you down.’

‘So all this time I was living just round the corner from my grandparents? I could’ve passed them every day in the street without knowing who they were.’ The whole thing made her feel uncomfortable.

‘Your grandmother died ten years ago,’ Susan said. ‘When they moved from Mortimer Gardens, they lived at the other end of Surrey Quays from you, so you probably wouldn’t have seen Brian, either.’

Which made Nicole feel very slightly better. ‘Did you ever work at the cinema?’

‘When I was a teenager,’ Susan said. ‘I was an usherette at first, and then I worked in the ticket office and the café. I filled in and helped with whatever needed doing, really.’

‘So you would probably have ended up running the place if you hadn’t had me?’ Guilt flooded through Nicole. How much her mother had lost in keeping her.

‘Having you,’ Susan said firmly, ‘is the best thing that ever happened to me. The moment I first held you in my arms, I felt this massive rush of love for you and that’s never changed. You’ve brought me more joy over the years than anyone or anything else. And I don’t have a single regret about it. I never have and I never will.’

Nicole blinked back the sudden tears. ‘I love you, Mum. And I don’t mean to bring back bad memories.’

‘I love you, too, and you’re not bringing back bad memories,’ Susan said. ‘Now, let’s order dinner. And then we’ll talk strategy and how you’re going to deal with this.’

A plate of pasta and a glass of red wine definitely made Nicole feel more human.

‘There’s a lot about the cinema on the Surrey Quays website. There’s a whole thread with loads of pictures.’ Nicole flicked into her phone and showed a few of them to her mother.

‘Obviously I was born in the mid-sixties so I don’t remember it ever being called The Kursaal,’ Susan said, ‘but I do remember the place from the seventies on. There was this terrible orange and purple wallpaper in the foyer. You can see it there—just be thankful the photo’s black and white.’ She smiled. ‘I remember queuing with my mum and my friends to see Disney films, and everyone being excited about Grease—we were all in love with John Travolta and wanted to look like Sandy and be one of the Pink Ladies. And I remember trying to sneak my friends into Saturday Night Fever when we were all too young to get in, and Brian spotting us and marching us into his office, where he yelled at us and said we could lose him his cinema licence.’

‘So there were some good times?’ Nicole asked.

‘There are always good times, if you look for them,’ Susan said.

‘I remember you taking me to the cinema when I was little,’ Nicole said. ‘Never to the Electric Palace, though.’

‘No, never to the Electric Palace,’ Susan said quietly. ‘I nearly did—but if Brian and Patsy weren’t going to be swayed by the photographs I sent of you on every birthday and Christmas, they probably weren’t going to be nice to you if they met you, and I wasn’t going to risk them making you cry.’

‘Mum, that’s so sad.’

‘Hey. You have the best godparents ever. And we’ve got each other. We didn’t need them. We’re doing just fine, kiddo. And life is too short not to be happy.’ Susan put her arm around her.

‘I’m fine with my life as it is,’ Nicole said.

Susan’s expression said very firmly, Like hell you are. But she said, ‘You know, it doesn’t have to be a cinema.’

‘What doesn’t?’

‘The Electric Palace. It says here on that website that it was a ballroom and an ice rink when it was first built—and you could redevelop it for the twenty-first century.’