Natasha Oakley - Wanted - White Wedding

What was going on here? Was this some kind of ‘lost and found’? Or a modern-day ‘rag and bone’ business?

She picked her way across the floor and stopped by the heavy oak desk, one part of her mind speculating how anyone could work in such disorder while the other questioned whether the elusive Daniel Ramsay would even be able to find a note left for him in the mess.

Freya let out her breath on a slow, steady stream and pulled her handbag from her shoulder. She set it on the desk, starting slightly as the telephone on the other side of it started to ring. Conditioned as she was to take all her calls within a few seconds, it set her teeth on edge to hear it echo off into the distance via a crude tannoy system.

She reached across to pull a pen from a colourful mug, starting as the office door banged violently against the wall.

‘Get that, will you?’

‘I’m—’

‘The phone. Take a message,’ a disembodied male voice shouted, followed by a grunt. ‘I’ll be through in a minute.’

‘I—’

‘Phone! Just answer the phone!’

For a brief second she wondered whether she’d inadvertently stepped into a farce, and then Freya shrugged, stepping over a pile of vinyl records and an old gramophone to reach the other side of the desk. What did it matter? And at least it would stop that infernal noise ricocheting about.

‘Ramsay Auctioneers,’ she said into the receiver, her eyes on the closed door.

‘Daniel? Is that you?’

Hardly. She rubbed a hand across her eyes, the humour of the situation finally reaching her. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Ramsay isn’t available at the moment. May I take a message?’

‘Can you tell him Tom Hamber called, love?’

Her right eyebrow flicked up and she reached over the scattered papers for a pad of fluorescent sticky notes. In her real life she’d have paused to tell Tom Hamber she wasn’t his ‘love’. She might even have told him that while she could pass on a message, she was by no means certain she would…

‘Have you got that? You won’t forget?’

‘Tom Hamber called,’ she said dryly, drawing a box around the words she’d written. ‘I think I’ll manage to remember.’

‘Tell him I need to speak to him before midday.’

Freya added the words ‘before midday’ to the note, then turned at the sound of a loud crash. ‘I’ll leave him a note,’ she said into the receiver. Whether he actually found it really wasn’t her problem.

‘That’s it, love.’

She set the receiver back on its cradle, ripping the top note off the pile. One thing she was certain of: there was no way on earth she was going to let her grandmother sell anything valuable through this crazy set-up. She looked at the confusion on the desk and stuck the note firmly on the telephone.

‘Thanks for that.’

Freya turned and found she was looking up into a pair of brown eyes. Very definitely up. At five feet ten—more in heels—it wasn’t often she had to do that.

Why did that feel so good? Some deep Freudian something was probably at the root of it. He had to be at least six foot two. Quite possibly more. And those eyes…Dark, dark brown, and sexy beyond belief.

‘I was holding up one end of a table and couldn’t let go.’

Freya pulled her eyes away from his and wrapped her sheepskin jacket closely around her. ‘Right.’

‘Did you get a message?’

‘Yes. Y-yes, I did. Yes.’ The corner of his mouth quirked and she stumbled on, feeling as foolish as if she’d been caught drooling. ‘It was a Tom Hamber.’

‘Ah.’

‘He wants to speak to Daniel Ramsay before midday.’

‘I can do that.’

The most horrible suspicion darted into her head.

‘I’m Daniel Ramsay.’ He smiled, and Freya felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath her.

This couldn’t be Daniel Ramsay. From her grandmother’s conversation she’d conjured up a very different picture. Someone altogether more parochial. More…

Well…less, if she were honest. Much less. Truthfully, this Daniel Ramsay looked like the kind of man you’d quite like to wake up with on a lazy Sunday morning. A little bit rumpled and a whole lot sexy.

‘You’re a little late.’ Then he smiled again, wiping his hands on the back of dark blue denim jeans, and the effect was intensified. ‘Not to worry. I get here about eight thirty, but I told the agency nine-thirty was fine.’

He held out a hand, and she automatically held out her own. His wedding ring flashed. Of course a man who looked like this one would be taken. They always were—even if they pretended not to be.

A familiar sense of dissatisfaction speared her. It was amazing how many men said they were separated when the only thing keeping them apart from their significant other was temporary geographical distance.

She was so tired of that. Tired of the game-playing.

Daniel bent down and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. ‘I’ve got the key to the inner office here. I’ll show you where everything is, and then I’ve got to drive out to the Penry-James farm.’

‘I’m not—’

He stood straight. ‘Which part didn’t you get?’

‘I understood you perfectly, but I’m not from any agency.’

‘You’re not?’

‘Merely a potential customer.’

His hand raked through his dark hair. ‘Hell, I’m so sorry! I thought—’

‘I was someone else.’ It didn’t take the mental agility of Einstein to figure that one out. It was vaguely reassuring to know he didn’t actively intend to run his business in such a haphazard way.

Sudden laughter lit his eyes, and she fought against the curl of attraction deep in her abdomen.

‘So you’re not the cavalry after all? Perhaps we’d better start over?’

‘Perhaps,’ she murmured, feeling unaccountably strange as his hand wrapped round hers for the second time. He had nice hands, she registered. Strong, with neatly cut nails. And a voice that made her feel as though she’d stepped into a vat of chocolate.

But taken, the logical part of her brain reminded her. And apparently the kind of man who, if he wasn’t actually preying on her grandmother, was certainly making the most of an opportunity.

‘You must have thought I was mad. Did Tom say what he wanted?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘I expect it’s about the quiz night next month.’ His smile widened and her stomach flipped over. Helplessly. ‘So, if you’re not from the agency, what can I do for you?’

‘Not me. My grandmother,’ she said, her voice unnecessarily clipped as she struggled to regain her usual control.

She took a deep breath and exhaled in one slow, steady stream, watching the droplets hang in the frosty air. ‘Is it always this cold in here?’

‘Not in summer.’ He moved away and bent to switch on a fan heater. ‘Then it can get quite unpleasant—’

‘It’s unpleasant now!’

He looked up, his brown eyes glinting with sexy laughter. ‘Because the window in here doesn’t open,’ he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, completely unfazed. ‘It’s been painted over too many times.’

She bit back the observation that getting a window to open was something which could be easily fixed. Something that most certainly would be in any sensibly run business.

‘I suppose I ought to sort that.’

‘I would.’

He gave a bark of laughter. Startled, Freya looked at him. It had been a long, long time since anyone had dared laugh at her. She took in the faint amber flecks in his laughing eyes and swallowed, desperately willing her throat to work normally.

He was so entirely unexpected. She’d got one image of him entrenched so firmly in her imagination that this incarnation was difficult to adjust to. She tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear and felt the back of her hand brush against her crystal earring. It started swinging and jagged against the collar of her jacket.