Playboy Boss, Pregnancy Of Passion Part 20

'It will be.' He buzzed her in.

She looked slightly wary when she walked in the door. He said nothing, just walked over to meet her, wrapped his arms round her and buried his face in her shoulder.

Just breathing in her scent calmed him; finally, he lifted his head. 'I'm sorry. I'll try harder. I did like your family.'

'You just have...issues.'

'Yeah. Like you said, there are people, and there are not-so-nice people. People I don't want to be part of. It's in the past now. And that's where I want it to stay-where I need it to stay.'

In answer, she stroked his face. Brushed her mouth against his. 'Just don't shut me out again, Luke.'

'I'll try. Believe me, I'll try,' he promised. And he meant it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

FOR the next couple of weeks, all was fine in Sara's world. More nights than not, she stayed overnight at Luke's flat, and he didn't seem to mind when she filled his fridge and pottered around in his kitchen. He even made the effort to go with her to see her family again.

Although neither of them said anything, she knew how she felt about him.

And she thought she knew how he felt about her.

It was more than just s.e.x. Much more.

But then she had a phone call that worried her sick. To the point where she was so quiet at work that at half past nine on the Friday morning Luke turned off her computer screen and sat on the edge of her desk.

'Hey! I was in the middle of a report,' she protested.

'I don't care. Talk to me,' he said.

'What about?'

'Whatever's bothering you. And don't say it's nothing. You haven't been yourself all week.'

She shook her head. 'It's family stuff.'

'You've fallen out with them?'

'No, of course not.'

'Then what?' He reached over to take her hand and squeezed it briefly. 'Sara, things can't be that bad.'

'They are.' She sighed. 'When things go wrong with old houses it takes loads of time and tons of cash.'

'And there's something wrong with your parents' house?' he guessed.

'The roof. That summer storm the other week blew a few tiles off.' She bit her lip. 'Dad thought it was fixable, but when the builder came round to look at it, he found they've got dry rot in the timbers. It's not covered by the insurance and it's going to cost a fortune to fix.'

'Ah.'

'The problem is, all Mum and Dad's money is tied up in the business and, with the cost of everything going up, there just isn't the cashflow to deal with it. Not with something this big.' She bit her lip. 'I've got some savings, but Rupert's halfway through buying a house himself and Lou's expecting again so she and Bryan are too stretched to help. Justin tried to remortgage his flat to release some equity, but all the lenders wanted to know why he wants the extra money. And when they found out, all of them said no.' She dragged in a breath. 'Which means Mum and Dad will have to sell the business-because no way is anyone going to give them a decent price for a house with dry rot. And the orchard's been in our family for years and years. Since my great-great-grandfather's day. It'll kill Dad to lose it. Especially after-' She stopped abruptly. Luke didn't need to know about the business with Hugh.

'After what?'

'Doesn't matter.'

'Hey. You told me not to shut you out. It goes both ways.'

She was silent for a long, long time. Luke sighed, scooped her out of her chair, sat down in her place and settled her on his lap. 'Right. Talk.'

'Hugh,' she said finally.

'The workaholic?'

She nodded. 'I thought he loved me. Thought he liked my family. And Mum and Dad were going to expand, float the business on the stock market.'

He stroked her hair. 'What happened?'

'It turned out that Hugh had been advising a consortium-people who cared about profit, not about what my parents were trying to do. They made a hostile takeover bid. Dad just about managed to stave it off, but he and Mum lost a lot of money through it. So it's my fault they don't have the funds to cover the roof repairs.'

'No, it's not.'

'If it wasn't for me introducing him to them, Hugh wouldn't have known.'

'Actually, if he was in the speculative money markets, it would've been his job to know who was floating. The fact he knew you is completely irrelevant. So it wasn't your fault.' He gritted his teeth. 'Only a first-cla.s.s b.a.s.t.a.r.d would use you like that-and then make you take the blame.' Luke's fists tightened; he had to make a real effort to relax them. 'Violence doesn't solve anything, but right now I'd like to wipe the floor with him.'

'He isn't worth it.'

'No, but you are.' He leaned forward to brush his mouth against hers. 'Right. There's no point sitting here worrying. I need the facts.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's what I do. Turn businesses round. If your parents will trust me to look at their books and talk me through what they do and how, I might be able to come up with a solution.'

'You'd help them? For me?'

'It's business. What I do,' he said coolly.

She damped down the flare of hurt.

'And I'm not Hugh, if that's what you're worrying about.'

'I know you're not.'

'Good. So I suggest you ring your parents and see if we can go down now.'

'Now?' She stared at him in surprise. 'But you've got meetings.'

'Nothing in my diary is set in stone. You can rearrange my schedules while I'm driving. Say something important's cropped up.'

'You'd really do that?' For her? And he'd been the one to make the suggestion, not her. A warm glow of hope filled her.

'I owe you,' he said. 'You've made me rea.s.sess my priorities and learn to fill the well.'

She frowned. 'You don't owe me anything.' Relationships didn't work that way.

'OK. You've also helped me out of a hole and you've let me dragoon you into staying on as my PA.'

'Until you find a temp. And the fact you haven't done so yet, I might add, means you're either too fussy or you're slacking.'

He smiled. 'When you're sa.s.sy with me, I know all's right with the world. Ring your parents.'

So now he knew exactly what had happened to make Sara wary of relationships, Luke thought grimly as he drove down the motorway. Someone who'd taken advantage of her good nature, through her most vulnerable spot: her family.

Though wasn't he just as bad as Hugh, in his own way? He was taking advantage of her, too. True, he was planning to help her family out of a hole rather than put them in one-it was the best way he knew to pay Sara back for what she'd given him. But he also knew what she wanted in life. Someone who'd love her. Who'd love her family. Without reserve.

Could he do that?

He wasn't sure.

So it was unfair to keep her hanging on. He really ought to do the right thing: say goodbye, give her the chance of finding someone who deserved her. Someone who'd be able to give her what she needed. Someone...who wasn't him.

And that was the problem.

He didn't want it to be someone else.

But, at the same time, he couldn't get past his wariness of family. Sara wanted children-she'd told him that. The idea of being a father scared the h.e.l.l out of him. She'd grown up in such different circ.u.mstances from his. How would he ever be able to give her the things she needed, the things she was used to? Things that couldn't be fixed by a business deal?

'So how much has Sara filled you in on the situation?' James asked when Luke was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of Nina's excellent coffee and with Imelda lying on his feet.

'Expensive roof repairs plus the credit crunch,' Luke said, 'and you don't want to sell the business to people who don't have the same ethics that you do and are in it because they're jumping on a bandwagon, not because they care.'

'Got it in one.' James looked grim. 'My family's had this orchard for four generations-five, if you count Rupert coming in on sales and Lou doing the office. And I don't want to lose it.'

And it wasn't just financial, Luke knew. The business was something he cared about. Was part of the family history. Held their roots.

He'd walked away from his family's business. He wasn't going to walk away from Sara's. 'Take me through the business and show me what you do, then we'll look at figures.'

James nodded. 'Look, it's not especially boggy in the orchard, but the gra.s.s is long enough and wet enough to mess up your shoes. I don't suppose you brought wellies with you?'

'I didn't even think about it,' Luke admitted.

'Not a problem. We have spares for visitors to use. Come with me and we'll sort you out. Do you mind some of the dogs coming with us?'

'No, it's fine.' Luke couldn't ever remember having a pet, not even a goldfish. And noisy, muddy dogs who insisted on sitting as close to you as they could, or trotting along beside you and nudging your knees every so often, were way out of his ken. But, to his surprise, he rather liked it.

James pulled on his boots again. 'Then let's be going. See you lot later.' He kissed his wife and ruffled both daughters' hair. When they'd left the kitchen, he said softly to Luke, 'I hope you can do something because it'll break Nina's heart if we have to give this up. I would consider selling the house, but in this economic climate it'd be hard to get a buyer, and selling wouldn't change the fact that the roof has dry rot and it's going to cost a small fortune to sort it.'

'I've worked with businesses on the edge of bankruptcy,' Luke said, 'and we've managed to turn it around.'

'By getting rid of half the staff and making the others take up the slack?'

'No. I admit I've had to trim hours back in some places, but if your team's all on the same side and they know you're going to be honest with them, people will be flexible. And once you're out of the rough patch, you make sure everyone shares in the smooth again.'

James gave him a considering look. 'So you're suggesting maybe employee shares?'

'I'll need to look at figures before I say anything. But talk me through the orchard and the factory, and we'll take it from there,' Luke said.

Apart from a brief lunch of home-made soup, home-made bread rolls, tangy Cheddar and apple chutney, eaten round the table with Sara, Louisa and Nina, Luke spent most of the day with James, looking at figures. And, at the end of the day, Nina insisted that they stay for dinner.

'If I'd known we were staying, I would've brought some wine and chocolates as my contribution,' Luke said.

'Don't be silly.' Nina shook her head. 'You've already done enough-you've given up today to work with us. Now, go and sit in the dining room, you lot.'

The house had filled up since lunchtime, Luke thought. Rupert, the baby of the family, was there with his fiancee, Emmy. Louisa's husband, Bryan, had joined them, along with little Maisie, who insisted on sitting on his lap and kept patting his arm and saying, 'Lulu.'

A big, noisy family who talked a lot and laughed even more. A family who did things together. A family who listened to what he had to say about the business and then leapt straight into a full-blown discussion, with ideas bounced off each other and suggestions and offers of help.

The one thing that came out loud and clear was how much they loved each other. Sara offered to take a sabbatical from her business to help her family set up an online shop and to put her savings into converting some of the disused barns into holiday cottages, Rupert offered to put his house-buying on hold and put his deposit into kitting out the holiday cottages, and Louisa knew several other local businesses that would give them reciprocal links to an online shop, through her contacts at Maisie's nursery. Justin intended to call in favours to get all the legal work done for nothing.

And that was when it really hit Luke.

This was a family who really supported each other. And he was absolutely certain that Sara's parents had shown that same support to their children when it had been needed; neither Sara nor Justin worked in the family business, but he'd guess they'd never been pressured to change their career choices to fit in.

This was something, he was beginning to realise, that was worth more than any of the huge business deals he'd done in the past. A family that cared.

He was very quiet for the rest of the evening, letting them do the talking.

'It's getting late,' Nina said. 'Stay the night. It won't take me a second to make up the guest room.'

'That's really kind of you, Nina, but I'm sorry, I can't. I have some early meetings tomorrow.'

'If you're sure? You're not putting us out.'

'I'm sure. But thank you. The offer's appreciated.'

Sara saw him outside.

'Are you staying?' he asked. 'Because if you want to stay that's fine.'

She looked torn. 'I want to be with you,' she said, 'but right now I think my family needs me most. We have a lot to discuss.'

'Sure, I understand.' And he wasn't going to make her choose between them. But the drive back to London that evening was lonely and the car felt empty, even though he filled it with loud music. When he walked into his flat, its clean uncluttered s.p.a.ciousness somehow felt sterile.