CATHERINE GEORGE - Bargaining With The Boss

Eleri was unsurprised. Although Toby enjoyed himself more with a bunch of men-friends than with women, he liked girls as pretty accessories to take to parties—and to bed. But when Eleri, right from the first, made it plain bed was never an option where she was concerned, Toby, surprisingly, had accepted it without question.

‘Go on,’ she said quietly.

‘Her name’s Arabella Pryce—fabulous skier and great fun. She was actually a chalet girl at the place the gang was staying. Quite a coincidence, really, because I’d met her before when she was a kid—I was in school with her brother Julian. Anyway, Bella and I got on like a house on fire from the start, and—well, you know, one thing led to another—’

‘Spare me the details, Toby,’ said Eleri wearily, looking at her watch. ‘And hurry it up. I’m catching a train soon.’

He stared at her in astonishment. ‘But you’ve only just got here! Dammit, Eleri, surely you’re not dumping me just because I had some fun on holiday?’

‘No,’ she said with perfect truth. ‘But it’s a contributory factor.’

‘It didn’t mean anything,’ he said in consternation. ‘I only brought Bella’s name in to it to explain getting fired—’

‘How did a holiday fling get you fired, for heaven’s sake?’

‘I’ll tell you if you’ll let me finish!’ He shook his hair back. ‘To cut a long story short, I boasted a bit about juggling with millions in my job, and Bella said what a shame I was on holiday, because she had a hot tip to give me. About the Merlin takeover the following Tuesday. Her family own Merlin Ales. Or did.’

‘So you leapt from her bed and caught the next plane home!’

‘I didn’t do anything of the kind! I merely flew back on Monday instead of yesterday,’ he said, injured. ‘It seemed the perfect way to recoup my losses—I wasn’t even out for personal profit.’

‘How very high-minded of you. But aren’t you leaving something out, Toby?’ she asked.

He frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘It was Northwold who took Merlin over, not the other way round,’ she said angrily. ‘And just in case it slipped your mind, I work for Northwold. Or did until today. Your little escapade cost me my job.’

Toby stared at her in horror. ‘What? How the hell could it do that?’

‘They think your inside information came from me.’

He swore colourfully and at some length. ‘What can I say, darling? I never thought about you.’

‘Which is glaringly obvious! You know someone called Sam Cartwright at Renshaw’s, I believe?’ she demanded.

‘Damn right I do. He’s the chief executive—the swine who told me to clear my desk,’ said Toby bitterly.

‘And although you gallantly shielded Miss Pryce by withholding her name, you did say the information came from the brewery. But you forgot to say which one.’ Eleri glared at him in fury. ‘Sam Cartwright happens to be the brother-in-law of James Kincaid—the man who was my boss until this morning. The boss who concluded I was your source!’

‘The man fired you because of me?’ Toby flung himself on his knees in front of her and caught her hands. ‘Eleri, I’m so sorry.’

‘He didn’t fire me. I resigned.’ Eleri freed herself and sat up straight. ‘Cut the drama, Toby. Penitence doesn’t suit you.’

He jumped up and stood over her, the picture of misery. ‘What a mess. I wish I’d never set eyes on Bella.’

‘Toby, don’t try to shift the blame.’ Eleri eyed him with distaste. ‘The lady was indiscreet, maybe, but you were the one who acted on the information.’

‘Don’t rub it in!’

‘What will you do about a job now?’

‘I’ve got contacts—in fact I’m seeing someone on Monday.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Old school chum.’

Eleri shook her head. ‘Someone may strangle you with that old school tie of yours one day.’

‘Is there anything at all I can do to put things right for you?’ he said, sobering.

‘No fear. You’ve done enough already.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Right. Ring for a cab for me, please, Toby. If I leave in a few minutes I’ll make the next train home.’

‘What’s the point of going home?’ he demanded, looking so crestfallen she almost laughed. ‘I thought you were staying with Vicky as usual. We could go out to dinner, then see that new Branagh film if you like, and tomorrow I’ll get tickets for the theatre—’

‘You do that, by all means. But not with me.’ Eleri shrugged into her coat, then handed him his key. ‘Our platonic little arrangement—pleasant and diverting though it was—is terminated as of today.’

‘You don’t mean that!’

‘Oh, but I do.’ She smiled up into his sulky, good-looking face. ‘You’re a clever lad in a lot of ways, Toby—Cambridge first in Maths included. But the key word there is “lad”. You need to grow up a bit.’

He coloured angrily. ‘I’m not that much younger than you!’

‘Not in age, maybe. Otherwise you’re still a baby,’ she assured him acidly. ‘By the way, Toby, isn’t there something you should be asking me?’

He stiffened, eyeing her apprehensively. ‘Er—what, exactly?’

Eleri laughed in his face. ‘What did you think I meant? Wouldn’t it be good manners to enquire about my own plans now I’ve lost my job?’

‘Oh, hell—you make me feel like such a worm,’ he muttered, reddening. ‘But someone with your experience shouldn’t find it hard to get another job.’ His blue eyes widened. ‘This Kincaid chap you work for wouldn’t withhold a reference, would he?’

‘I’m afraid he might,’ she sighed, wanting him to fry a little. Her smile was as wistful as she could make it. ‘But don’t worry about me, Toby. I’ll get by. Somehow.’

CHAPTER TWO

ELERI locked the door to the street, switched on the lights and the coffee-machine, then moved round the pretty, bright café to check the tables, making sure all the menus and condiments were in place. Satisfied all was ready for the next day, she pulled down the blinds and went back behind the counter. Next door in the restaurant she could hear the waiters talking as they performed similar tasks to hers, except for them work was only just beginning, and customers would soon come in to choose from a three-page menu of dishes from various regions of Italy, plus a list of British favourites to suit less adventurous tastes.

Eleri’s domain was the coffee-shop, where customers came in from early morning onwards to drink capuccino and eat teacakes and pastries and the cinnamon toast which was Conti’s speciality. At lunchtime the café served pizzas, or huge flat buns filled to order with salad and seafood or thin Italian ham, and in summer tables were set outside under umbrellas in the cobbled square in front of St Mark’s church—like a small piece of Italy set down in the Englishness of the shire town of Pennington.

It was a mere two weeks since Eleri had resigned her job at Northwold to return to the fold, and already she felt as if she’d been back in the family business forever. Her father had come to Britain from Italy thirty years earlier to work in his uncle’s restaurant, where he met Catrin Hughes, a black-haired Welsh beauty on the same catering course. As soon as they finished their training the pair got married, and with their combined skills formed an unbeatable team. They took over the running of the restaurant, revamped the menu and the decor, and rapidly attracted a much larger clientele. When Mario’s uncle died he left the business to them both, whereupon the ambitious young Contis took over the premises next door to add the kind of coffee-shop the holidaying British public had learned to appreciate on trips to Italy and ‘France.

In the first years of their marriage Mario and Catrin Conti were blessed with two daughters, Eleri and Claudia. Then, after a long interval, Niccolo Conti opened large blue eyes on the world and Mario Conti finally gained a male heir to his small, but profitable empire.

These days Mario left the actual cooking to four skilled chefs and confined himself to the financial side of the business, but he put in an appearance at the restaurant most nights. Until her marriage Claudia had run the coffee-shop, but Eleri, from the first, had never wanted to work in the family restaurant in any capacity. After gaining a degree in English, she followed it with a business course with her friend, Victoria Mantle, who made straight for a career in London afterwards. But Eleri had always worked within travelling distance of Pennington and lived at home, her annual holidays and occasional weekends in London with Vicky her only breaks from her close-knit Italianate family background.

Now Claudia was married, and Eleri’s resignation from her job had been greeted with passionate enthusiasm by her family. She’d decided to make the best of it and began to run the coffee-shop with the efficiency previously brought to her job at Northwold. Within days she’d taken over the ordering for the entire business, which prided itself on using the freshest of produce from local suppliers wherever possible. Each day she ordered meat, fish and vegetables from the local market and bread from a nearby bakery, while the ice-cream for which Conti’s was renowned came from an Italian supplier based in the Welsh valleys.

At six o’clock, as she did every evening, Eleri locked up, popped her head round the door of the restaurant and had a chat with Marco, the head waiter, then took herself off to the family home tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac behind the trattoria.

‘You look tired,’ said her mother, giving her a kiss. ‘Finding it hard, cariad?’

‘My feet find it hard, but the rest of it’s easy enough.’ Eleri sank into a kitchen chair, watching as her mother stirred sauce in a pan. ‘The trouble is Mamma mia, that although I like dealing with the general public, especially the regulars, and I quite enjoy the ordering and haggling with the suppliers and so on—’

‘You miss your work at Northwold.’

‘Exactly.’ Eleri smiled. ‘Clever old thing.’

‘Not so much of the old,’ said her mother, then looked up with a smile as her husband came in. ‘Good timing, Mario, your dinner’s ready. Eat it now so you can digest it before you go over to the restaurant. Eleri, you can have a bath before you eat, if you like.’

‘I do like, Ma. My feet are killing me.’ Eleri yawned widely.

Mario Conti was an elegant, olive-skinned man with a head of thick, greying blond hair and heavy-lidded blue eyes. He kissed his wife lovingly, then turned to his daughter. ‘So, cara. How was your day?’

‘The same as usual. Quite busy, in fact. The takings were well up on yesterday.’

Mario Conti looked at his daughter’s tired face, frowning. ‘I was asking how you were, not the takings.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Eleri, heaving herself out of her chair. ‘And I’ll be even better after dunking my poor aching feet in a hot bath! Nico’s at football practice, I assume?’

‘Where else?’ said Mario dryly.

Eleri laughed, and went upstairs, knowing perfectly well her parents would be deep in discussion over their elder daughter the moment she was through the door. In the bathroom she shared with Nico, Eleri let herself down into hot, scented water with a sigh of relief, grateful that her mother appreciated her need for time to herself. She loved her family, but, unlike Claudia, who’d been perfectly happy to live at home and work in the family business, Eleri had enough of her independent Welsh mother in her to need her own space from time to time. She missed her work at Northwold—and James—so badly that sometimes it was a struggle to disguise the fact from her parents, who knew nothing of her fight to forget James Kincaid. Eleri’s sloe-black eyes kindled at the memory of his suspicions. Forget him she might. In time. But forgiving him was something else entirely.