“Absolutely. Hazelnuts and all.” Jack said. “Leave it to me.”
Tom looked stupidly delighted.
Jack shook his head, chuckling as he walked to his office. It was insane but a hell of a relief. So now he had to figure out how to square it with the luscious tornado that had torn through the apartment this morning. She wasn’t going to be thrilled to see him again. She hadn’t appreciated his approach in taking her all the way to her door. But he had a younger sister, he didn’t just drop a girl and leave her to fend for herself—especially a wounded one.
He snorted. Who was he kidding…he’d had no brotherly thoughts towards Libby. He’d wanted to see where she lived—exactly where she lived. He’d wanted a lot more than that too, except filial loyalty had restrained him. But he knew that in pulling back he’d stung her pride. He’d have to make it up to her.
He went into his office, the maple scent following him. She hadn’t just invaded his home, but his workspace too. Had she made it in here when she’d been snooping? If she had, what had she thought of it?
While he had business headquarters now with staff and the obligatory assistants and offshore offices, he still preferred to work from home much of the time. In the early days he’d had to, and running your own company wasn’t a 9-5 kind of job. It made sense to have everything he needed set up right at hand. He touched the trackpad and his computer screen flared to life. It took less than ten seconds to find her company online. The website was slick with crisp colors and a simple but effective logo. Impressively amusing job title too—mueslician. But the single line on the homepage saying that production had temporarily been suspended got his attention in a more serious way.
Why?
Was it the cost? While property was his primary focus, Jack now had a number of business interests and knew how to find information. He plugged in a search and it was less than five minutes later when he had his answer.
Fire.
No wonder she hadn’t liked the smell of burning food and had lectured him on the smoke alarms. The commercial kitchen she used had been gutted only a few weeks ago. So was she hunting for alternative premises now?
There were several methods of encouraging someone to do something you wanted them to. Jack Barnes was more of a carrot than a stick man. And he’d just thought of the best carrot for one Libby Harris.
Five
Someone was pounding on her door and Libby—currently lying face down on her bed—wasn’t in the mood.
“Libby? It’s Jack Barnes.”
The mattress squeaked as she sprang to all fours. She jumped right off the bed and glanced at her watch. Three hours since she’d shut the door in his face and she’d forgotten him, right?
Never.
She opened the door and her heart flipped. She’d thought her imagination had embroidered his fit-factor, but he was even more handsome than her memory reckoned. She drew in a sharp breath, aiming to restore order to her arresting vital organ, but it didn’t work. Time for evasive action.
She stepped outside to the landing and closed her door behind her. He wasn’t getting an invitation in.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, determined to be perfectly polite and never again let him know how much he got to her.
He smiled, looking so friendly and charming compared to when he’d first seen her this morning. “Tom’s missing the hazelnuts.” His shoulders lifted in a helpless gesture. “Do you think you can help out?”
He had to be kidding. “You’d like me to come and make more?”
“Yes, please.” His smile widened…so gorgeous that Libby was rendered incapable of speech.
“Are you going to make me grovel?” he asked with a soft tease after a long minute.
“It’s an appealing idea.” Libby admitted frankly.
“Ok I’ll grovel,” he stepped closer to her. “My brother is young and obsessive and right now the two things he’s obsessed about are rowing and your muesli. He doesn’t think he can do the former without the latter.”
Libby blinked and took a step back. She’d known Tom was a fan given he’d hunted her down, but that he was obsessed by her muesli? “He thinks it helps his form?”
Jack nodded. “It’s the thing that’s going to get him on top of the podium.”
Good grief. “So I need to do this for Queen and country, is that right?”
“Absolutely.”
Libby stared in silence, half spellbound by Jack’s vivid blue eyes. She didn’t believe him, but he was looking incredibly intense. And gorgeous.
“I’ve got a deal for you,” he tempted quietly.
“What?” She tried to keep her cool on, but couldn’t help her curiosity.
“And a reward.”
“What kind of reward?”
“Come down to the car and find out.”
She lifted her brows. “You’re not going to kidnap me. I’m good at ju-jitsu.”
“I’m guessing you learned that at the circus too.”
“That’s right,” she answered loftily, following him down the concrete stairwell.
The far-too-flashy convertible was parked right out front again—like he owned the place. He popped the trunk and stood beside it.
She stared at the open-topped box he’d placed in the middle of it. “How many bottles did you buy?”
“I wasn’t sure which sort you liked so I got all of them. Three of all of them actually. All organic of course.”
She stared at the bottles of bronze—delicious—syrup. There was a lot of money in the trunk and there was madness in his action.
“You’ve lost your production premises.” He didn’t ask, he stated.
She nodded.
“Fire?”
Had he spent the last three hours snooping on her? “You’ve been doing some homework.”
“Yeah,” he unashamedly admitted. “Have you found somewhere new yet?” he picked up one of the bottles and held it out to her.
“No,” she said firmly, carefully ensuring their fingers didn’t brush as she took the bottle from him.
“Were you just going to give up?”
“I’m still waiting on the insurance payment,” she said slowly, holding the bottle to the light. “They wouldn’t pay out until the cause of the fire had been confirmed and even though it has been they’re still dragging.”
“And they’ve investigated it?”
“They investigated me,” she answered harshly, glancing at him. Didn’t he know this already? Hadn’t he done his research properly?
His eyes narrowed. “It was an electrical fault.”
So he did know. “Yes, my dodgy landlord hadn’t done the repairs properly.” But before that had been discovered, she’d been grilled for days—by arson investigators, police and her landlord. It had been hideous.
“So your payment should come through any day.”
“Even so, I’m struggling to find another commercial kitchen I can use at the right times to fit in with my day job.”
“Is that because of the fire again?”
“Possibly.” She flipped the bottle in her hands, focusing on the label.
“I have a place you can use.”
Oh she wasn’t going into his house ever again. “As jaw-dropping as your kitchen is, it’s not a commercial one.”
“I know. I have access to another—you may have noticed the bakery a couple of doors along from my building? You can use it to make your muesli at night. So long as you leave it pristine and ready for them when they arrive super early in the morning.”
She almost dropped the bottle she was so surprised. “Of course I would.” Too excited at the thought of having a space to hide her enthusiasm behind a faux “cool”.
“It has certification of course.”
“So do I.”
He took the bottle from her hands and replaced it with one of the other brands. “So you can get into production again.”
She didn’t look at the new bottle, only at him. “Why are you do
ing this?”
“Because Tom believes your muesli has superpowers and he wants more. With hazelnuts. And he’s almost eaten the lot you left him this morning.”
“You’re kidding.”
Jack shook his head.
“He can’t possibly have eaten it all.” She’d used a mountain of apricots, and a continent of oats.
“Almost.”
“So you’re doing this for Tom?”
“Mostly. I’m doing it for you too. You can get it back into stores again. Get your company back up and running.”
“Why do you want to do that for me?” Her heart skittered dangerously.
“Because I want you to help Tom,” he laughed. “But there’s one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want you to see Tom.”
“You’re kidding.” She gaped.
He shook his head. “Stay away from Tom and you can use the kitchen.”
“What do you think I am? Some kind of cradle-snatcher?”