Blame It on the Champagne

Her head slowly turned towards him and Rick was punched straight in the jaw by a pair of the most stunning pale blue eyes that he had ever seen. The colour of the sky over Mont Blanc at dawn. Wild cornflowers in an alpine meadow.

Dark eyelashes clashed against the creamy clear complexion and high elegant cheekbones. Full-blown lips were outlined in a delicious shade of blush lipstick, and as she gawped at him a faint white smile caught him by surprise.

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ She blinked. ‘But, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to find some way of moving these plants—’ she flung the flat edge of her hand towards the nearest plant and almost knocked it flying ‘—from the pavement into my porch and some time in the next ten minutes would be good.’

‘The delivery driver?’ he asked casually.

She sniffed and closed her eyes, teeth gritted tight together, then lifted her chin and smiled. ‘Bad back. Not part of his job description. Just delivery to the kerbside.’ Her voice lifted into a slightly hysterical giggle. ‘Apparently he was expecting a team of porters to be all ready and waiting. Porters! As if I could afford porters. Unbelievable.’

‘Ah. I understand completely,’ Rick replied, nodding slowly and scratching his chin, which seemed rather stubblier than he had expected. ‘May I make a suggestion?’

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes as she pulled out a cellphone, and sighed out loud. ‘Thank you again, but I can manage very well on my own and I am sure that you have some urgent business to attend to. Somewhere else. In the meantime, I need to call a burly bloke moving company. So good morning and have a nice day.’

Rick chuckled under his breath. It was not often that pretty girls gave him the brush-off and maybe a city girl had reasons to be cautious.

‘Did your mother tell you not to talk to strangers? Relax. I can spare five minutes to help a lady in distress.’

Her fingers paused and she glared up at him, her eyebrows lifted in disbelief. ‘Distress?’ There was just enough amusement in her voice to make him take one step forward, but she instantly held up a hand. ‘You are mistaken. I am not in distress. I don’t do distress. I have never done distress, and I have no intention of starting now. Look.’ She popped her phone in her jacket pocket and gingerly wrapped her fingertips around the edge of a pot. And tried to lift it an inch closer.

The pot did not move and she threw a single glance up at him, daring him to say something, but he simply smiled, which seemed to infuriate her even more.

This time she squared her shoulders, gritted her teeth and bent slightly at the knees to go at it again. The pot wobbled slightly then shuddered back to the ground as she hissed in disbelief and stood back with a look on her face as though she wanted to kick the pot hard.

Rick had seen enough. He stepped forward and gently took her arm. ‘No need for that. You have all the lifting power you need right here. It’s a simple matter of leverage.’

‘Leverage!’ She laughed and nodded. ‘In these shoes? I don’t think so.’

‘I could move those pots for you. No problem.’

Biting down on her lower lip, the suit looked up at him and he could feel her gaze take in his new Italian boots, denims and leather biker jacket, slowly inching its way up his body until their eyes locked.

And stayed locked.

He watched her expression change as she mentally jostled between necessity and asking for help, which was clearly something she didn’t like to do.

Necessity won.

Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips before she lifted her chin and asked, ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ba929ef4-c40e-5b23-a10f-4f5b16b7069a)

Must-Do list

• Make sure that the new spiral box trees are arranged very elegantly either side of the main entrance. This is bound to impress the clients and set the right tone.

• Try and forget how much these two trees cost and watch out for dogs!

• Come up with a brilliant plan to shamelessly but unobtrusively use these wine folks to bring in more business.

IT WAS THE long green twirly plants on sticks that were the problem.

Rick had worked out a way of lifting up the edge of the heavy planter using a wooden door wedge then tipping it forward just enough to use the pot as a lever, but the moment he started to roll the bottom rim of the china pot along on one edge, the plant started waving out of control in all directions across the pavement like some demented flagpole, causing mayhem with the pedestrians.

It was amazing how the street seemed to fill up with girls pushing baby buggies, dog walkers and children in the space of ten minutes, but after two narrow escapes where his secretary had to dodge out of the way or risk getting a tree branch in her eye, Rick had managed to roll one planter all the way from the pavement to the patio without causing serious injury to people or the china base.

‘Brilliant,’ she gushed, trying to catch her breath after waving away a dog with a full bladder. ‘One small step and we’re there!’

Rick scratched his chin. ‘Tip and shuffle. I tip the pot back and then roll it slightly forward until the edge is on the step. But someone has to hold the greenery out of the way when it swings onto the step. Two man job. Are you up for it?’

He looked up into her face and his breath caught. Close up, he could see that her flawless creamy skin was not a product of pristine grooming and clever make-up but natural beauty which went beyond pretty without being in-your-face gorgeous. The splash of cream at her neck was a perfect contrast to her brown hair and eyebrows and seemed to make her pale blue eyes even more startling.

He had never seen eyes that colour on a girl before but everything about her screamed out that he was talking to a real English rose.

‘Absolutely,’ she replied with a quick nod and reached for the bottom of the tree. ‘Let’s do it. Ready? Yes? Go! Oh, ouch. It got me. Almost there. Done!’

Rick stood back, peered at the pot from several angles then leant forward and shifted it to the left slightly.

‘That’s better.’

‘Better! It’s fantastic. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along. Thank you so much… Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me. I don’t even know your name…’

‘Just call me Rick,’ he replied with a wave of one hand. ‘And it was my pleasure, Miss…’

‘Rick! You found it.’

He half turned as Angie bounded up the pavement towards them, her huge shoulder bag bouncing over one shoulder and a bulging document folder stuffed under her arm and stretched out her hand towards his secretary.

‘Miss Elwood, lovely to meet you. Angie Roberts—we talked on the phone earlier. Thanks again for fitting us in at such short notice. What a fabulous house. And I can see that you have already met my boss.’

‘Thank you, Angie, and welcome to Elwood House. If you would like to come inside and…’ She paused, opened her mouth, closed it again, inhaled slowly and turned back to face him. ‘Your boss?’

Rick pushed his shoulders back and glanced sideways at the high gloss painted door of the house whose porch he was standing in. The words ‘Elwood House’ were engraved in a curvy elegant font on a small brass plaque attached to the stone portico.

It would appear that he had arrived at his destination.

And his English rose was one of the Elwood dynasty.

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. So this was the hardened old wine merchant he was going to be making his sales pitch to! Well, that showed him. How wrong could he be?

‘Rick Burgess.’ He grinned into his secretary’s stunned face. ‘Apparently you are expecting us.’

Rick braced his shoulder on the ornate white marble fireplace in what had been the elegant, huge formal dining room of Elwood House and held the colour brochure for Rick Burgess Wines in one hand as he watched Saskia Elwood glide effortlessly around the sunlit room.

The back split in her slender, elegant pencil skirt fanned open just enough to give him a tantalising glimpse of a pair of very long slender legs above shapely ankles. Not immodest. Oh no. Demure and classy, but tantalising all the same. Just enough to fire up his imagination.

She was impressive.

Every one of his sales team she spoke to looked away from the press release and winemaker portfolios that Angie had passed around to smile up at Saskia and spend a few minutes chatting before going back to their work with that smile still on their lips.