The Fiance Fix

‘Non-negotiable.’ Joey agreed with a brief smile.

‘Then it will have to do.’ Nick nodded. ‘One o’clock. Don’t be late, or I’ll come looking for you,’ he warned in parting.

Joey stared after him, wondering how on earth she had got herself into this situation. One minute the man had been a written-off bad debt, and the next she found herself with a date to meet him for lunch!

She had thought yesterday was a bad day, but this one didn’t look as if it was going to be any better!

CHAPTER THREE

‘COME on, Joey, choose a sandwich,’ Nick encouraged smilingly as she continued to study the menu, despite the hovering waitress. ‘The government doesn’t take this long to make a decision!’

The problem was, she didn’t feel like eating anything. As the morning had progressed the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach had deepened—and it had nothing to do with hunger. Being forced into meeting this man for lunch was guaranteed not to improve that hollowness.

After Nick had gone this morning she had spent at least ten minutes remonstrating with herself for being badgered into having lunch with him at all—although she didn’t doubt for a moment that he would carry out his threat to ‘come looking for her’ if she didn’t turn up. His presence at the salon this morning had already created enough speculation, without adding to it.

She closed the menu. ‘Just cheese on brown bread. Oh, and a cappuccino,’ she told the waitress with a smile.

‘It took you ten minutes to decide that?’ Nick teased once they were alone again.

Joey didn’t know how he had spent the intervening three hours, but he looked just as clean and tidy now as he had at ten o’clock this morning. Not that it mattered to her what he had been doing, she hastily told herself. Except she was starting to become intrigued in spite of herself, was totally aware of everything about Nick…

Which, in the circumstances, was ridiculous. She already had enough to contend with without having to deal with Nick as well. It was amazing, really; there hadn’t been a man even on the most distant horizon for over two years, and just when she least needed the complication Nick decided to force his way into her life. Next time a man asked to have his hair cut after hours she would just say the salon was closed and have done with it!

‘Is it because you’re having to close the salon?’ Nick prompted gently.

Joey stopped pleating the tablecloth between agitated fingers, looking up at him. ‘Sorry?’

‘You’re frowning again,’ he explained lightly. ‘I wondered if your obvious lack of sleep last night was due to worry over relocating your salon?’

She grimaced. ‘Amongst other things.’

Although, in all honesty, she hadn’t given the problem of the salon another thought after David Banning’s visit the evening before. Closing down and relocating the salon paled into insignificance when compared with trying to guess the reason David Banning had come all the way from America to see her. Or, rather, not her; he had obviously come to see Lily. Which was even more worrying.

‘Other things?’ Nick prompted softly.

Joey gave the slightest beginnings of a smile. ‘You’re very astute.’

‘For a rough and ready building worker,’ he added drily.

She gasped. ‘I didn’t say that—’

‘You didn’t have to.’ He grinned. ‘It was there in the surprised tone of your voice.’

‘Sorry.’ She gave an awkward shrug, totally disarmed by the effect his grin was having on her. In any other circumstances—But, no, she must concentrate on the problem at hand, not create more for herself.

‘So tell me what “other things”,’ Nick encouraged huskily. ‘I can keep a secret. Honest,’ he added persuasively.

‘Most men can,’ Joey acknowledged drily. ‘It’s the one thing they’re really good at!’

‘Ouch!’ Nick winced at her scathing tone. ‘I gather from that remark that you’ve met more than your fair share of male chauvinist pigs? Or is that term out of fashion now?’ he added derisively.

She smiled. ‘I believe we just refer to them all as selfish bastards nowadays.’

He raised dark brows. ‘Not very flattering to their mothers.’

Joey instantly sobered. ‘No,’ she acknowledged hardly, inwardly wondering whether, when the baby was born, if it had been a boy instead of a girl Daniel would have taken more interest than he had. After all, a boy would have been the Banning heir…

But it was no good wallowing in such conjecture; the baby had been her beautiful, totally adorable Lily, and now Daniel himself was dead, anyway. Without ever having seen his daughter…

She drew in a ragged breath, deliberately meeting the warmth of the enquiring brown gaze across the table from her own. ‘I’m a single mother,’ she stated flatly.

‘Ah,’ Nick murmured with a slow nod of his head.

As if he finally had the answer to all his questions, Joey thought bad-temperedly. Which was ridiculous. Dozens of women brought children up on their own these days. For many reasons.

‘Ah, nothing,’ Joey snapped, leaning back slightly so that the waitress could place their sandwiches and drinks down in front of them. ‘Being a single mother has its problems,’ she conceded. ‘But it also has its benefits,’ she added determinedly.

‘Such as?’ Nick prompted interestedly, before taking a hungry bite of the club sandwich he had ordered for himself.

‘Such as no negative input from an uninterested father!’ she bit out with feeling.

Daniel had dealt with the responsibility of having Lily as his daughter with as little trouble to himself as possible: namely he’d paid a set amount of money into a bank account each month.

An amount that had continued to be paid in the four months since he had died, Joey realised slowly. On David Banning’s instructions…? If so, why? Daniel’s death four months ago had surely completely nullified any responsibility the Banning family might, or might not, feel towards Lily?

‘You’re frowning again, Joey,’ Nick probed softly.

She drew in a ragged breath, at the same time shaking her head in self-derision. It was simply no good tormenting herself with all these thoughts and questions; no doubt she would have the answer to all of them this evening. When she had dinner with David Banning. It was the waiting that was killing her.

‘Just ignore me,’ she told Nick ruefully, before biting into her own sandwich.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,’ Nick told her huskily, his gaze suddenly very intense. ‘You intrigue me, Joey,’ he added softly.

She stiffened, looking across at him with clear green eyes. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time, if I were you; I’ve just told you all that there is to know about me,’ she bit out dismissively.

‘It’s my time to waste.’ He shrugged. ‘And so far it hasn’t been wasted,’ he assured her.

Joey found herself mesmerised by the warmth in those deep brown eyes, by the sensual nature implied by that fuller lower lip; she didn’t doubt for a moment that Nick would be a caring as well as passionate lover—

Lover? Now she really had gone too far!

She put her half-eaten sandwich back down on the plate. ‘I have to go—’

‘No, you don’t,’ Nick cut in assuredly. ‘I checked in the appointment book earlier while I was waiting in the salon to talk to you; your next appointment—for a perm, I believe,’ he added drily, ‘isn’t until two-thirty.’

He had checked earlier?

Did that mean he had intended inviting her out to lunch all the time? Why else would he have checked the appointment book…?