HELEN BROOKS - A Very Private Revenge

‘Tamar, are you trying to sell me this house or do a hatchet job?’ Jed drawled drily. ‘If you insist, I’ll sacrifice some more of my valuable time to traipse around a few properties, but the end result would be the same. I like this house. I want it at the right price of course—and I shan’t change my mind about that I’ve always prided myself on being a man who knows what he wants when he sees it, and then acquiring it. I’ve seen it.’

‘You have?’ She suddenly realised how hopelessly unprofessional she must sound, and forced a bright, positive note into her voice as she added, ‘Of course you have. This is a wonderful house. The oak beams—’

‘Were pointed out masterfully, along with the stained glass windows, the new fitted kitchen, and, of course, the south-facing garden.’

He was laughing at her, she knew it, but she was too surprised at the easy sale—and what a sale—to be angry. The commission she would make on this one deal was more than she normally earned in months.

‘Now, shall we sit in the comfort of the car while we discuss a few terms and conditions? It must be all of eighty in the shade out here,’ he pointed out matter-of factly.

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She found herself almost gambolling along at his side before she checked herself sharply. This was Jed Cannon. Jed Cannon. The sale was great, of course it was—‘tasty’ wasn’t the word—but there was more at stake here than filthy lucre. And in one way this had all been too easy. There would be no reason, once the sale was going through, for her ever to darken Jed Cannon’s door again, and that wasn’t at all what she had planned.

Once in the car, he turned to her, after tapping the glass for the chauffeur to drive off, and smiled. She wished he hadn’t It had been bad enough earlier in the office, but here, in this confined space, with the faint smell of expensive aftershave teasing her nostrils and the dark, latent power of the man seeming to strain against a precarious leash, it was positively devastating.

‘Now...’ He leant back casually in the seat, one arm stretched along the back of the leather upholstery and the silver eyes narrowed against the white sunlight. ‘That brickwork...’

He detailed several matters needing expert attention—most of which had been pointed out by the good Gerald Biggsley-Brown, bless him, Tamar thought balefully—before finishing with, ‘They can either be rectified by the present owner before I take possession, or by me, with estimates reducing the asking price by an agreed amount. I’m not fussy. And of course all this is subject to survey and the normal formalities,’ he said crisply.

‘Of course,’ Tamar agreed carefully.

‘And I want this completed fast—no hiccups, no delays. If Gerald can’t get the work done in the next two weeks, I can.’

She didn’t doubt that Jed Cannon could do anything he set his mind to, but two weeks? ‘But the survey and everything?’ Tamar stared at him in disbelief. ‘These things take time, Mr Cannon. Once you’ve reached an agreement with the owner—’

He interrupted her faintly dazed voice coolly. ‘The guy already has the little seaside place he’s moving to—’ Tamar wouldn’t have described Mr Biggsley-Brown’s seven hundred thousand pounds’ worth of beautiful holiday home in that way, but no matter ‘—so he could move out tomorrow if he wants. He said so. There are no mortgage complications on his side or mine, and I can get my people in to do the survey tomorrow morning if necessary.’

How the other half live. How the other half live, Tamar thought bemusedly.

‘I want to get a place near London quickly—there are ... family complications that make it important—okay? So, let’s all pull our fingers out and get cracking.’

‘Yes, right.’ She was still shell-shocked—that was the only excuse she could think of afterwards for her next words, which were a big, big gaffe. ‘But I thought you had an apartment in Kensington anyway?’ she said do-pily.

‘Did you...?’

The metallic gaze had turned to bright steel and was at variance with the almost lazy tone of voice, but Tamar was looking straight into his eyes, and they woke her up like nothing else could have done.

‘Have you been doing some homework on me, Miss Tamar McKinley?’ he asked thoughtfully.

‘No, no, not really.’ She had always been hopeless at lying, her tendency to metamorphose into a beetroot was a dead give-away, and now, as she felt herself burn with colour, she knew she had to retrieve the situation fast. ‘Well...’ She allowed the merest embarrassed pause before she lowered her eyes and said hesitantly, ‘The sort of property you’re interested in does cost a great deal of money, Mr Cannon. The firm prefers a little... investigation in those circumstances, to make sure the client is not disappointed at the last moment by. a buyer who simply can’t meet the required asking price.’

‘How thorough.’ It was cool and even, and as Tamar raised her eyes she couldn’t gauge a thing from the expressionless face in front of her. ‘And this is normal practice?’ he asked softly.

‘In deals of this calibre, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘We like to feel that if at any time in the future you decided to move again, the sort of service we provide would prompt you to contact us before any other firm.’

‘And what else is included in the ... service you provide?’

It could have meant exactly what it said at face value, but there was the merest inflexion in the tone that told Tamar he was flirting with her. Carefully, obliquely, even, but there was something there, and she had to be very very circumspect now. She couldn’t afford to make another mistake like the one she had just made.

She smiled gently, listing all the pros of dealing with Taylor and Taylor one by one, at the same time allowing her eyes to give him just the faintest of come-ons.

The Mercedes pulled up outside Taylor and Taylor—where Jed had offered to take her—at just gone four, and she prayed he wouldn’t suggest coming in and meeting Richard and Fiona. The shop premises didn’t look too bad on the outside, but if he came in and saw just how small the set-up was, he might suspect they didn’t normally deal in seven-figure negotiations. But he didn’t.

Why would he? she asked herself once she was out of the car and raising her hand to him as the dark gold Mercedes glided away into mainstream traffic. Men of his wealth and importance weren’t exactly desperate to meet the minions below them.

‘Oh, wow!’ Fiona met her at the door and it was obvious she had been watching out of the window. ‘That was him, I take it? Jed Cannon? And look at that car! I bet you didn’t even know you were on the road.’

‘It’s a bit different to my little jalopy,’ Tamar agreed, with a rueful grin at Fiona’s avaricious face. She loved Fiona and Richard—she had been at university with them both, and they had helped her through a rough patch in her life then and continued to be steadfast friends—but sometimes the fierce ambition and ruthless intent to succeed that the couple shared left her cold.

They would make a name for themselves in the field they had chosen; she didn’t doubt that for a minute, in spite of estate agents being ten a penny in the London area. And that was good, just fine, Tamar told herself as she entered the office and turned to answer the hundred and one questions Fiona was throwing at her. But there was more to life than work. Richard and Fiona genuinely enjoyed working from dawn to dusk, six, sometimes seven days a week, and, as neither of them wanted children, they had decided to sink all their time and money, along with their hearts and souls, into their joint career.

But she wasn’t like that. She wanted a home of her own one day when the time was right, with a partner who loved her, and a family, dogs, cats...maybe a chicken or two pecking in the backyard and a pony in a field close by for the kids to ride on? It was a pipe dream, or most of it was, at any rate, but if you didn’t dream, what was there? Of course, to form a relationship with a man you had to be prepared to date now and again, and she wasn’t there yet, but she was getting better...