‘You actually like doing this?’ she asked, chin on hand.
He was creating the final sheet. The first glass of wine had gone down and he was almost used to her being so close he could smell whatever she’d used on her hair. ‘I do.’ His tapping fingers didn’t pause on the keyboard. ‘Though if I’m going to sit at a computer for fun I prefer to play with images.’
She sat up straighter. ‘Like …’ She drummed her fingers in an elaborate pantomime of thinking. ‘Like graphics for ads?’ She looked at him hopefully.
He grinned, saving the spreadsheet template. ‘Like that. Give me a minute to check on the girls.’ He ran upstairs, silently popped his head into the room, counted two kids sleeping peacefully in the street light shining in through the as-yet uncurtained windows and ran down again.
Hannah hadn’t moved from her seat but had taken down her hair. He liked it down. At Rob’s wedding it had brushed his hands as they’d danced.
‘Here’s the logo for Carlysle Courtyard.’ It glowed from the laptop screen, golden-yellow lettering surrounded by green. She twisted her hair back up again, this time with fewer escaping tendrils. ‘I need ads, flyers and posters. Do you want to do the creative stuff and I’ll do the resizing for various social media channels?’
‘Sure.’ He freshened their glasses of wine and they worked together for another hour. Then Hannah closed her laptop. ‘It’s nearly eleven! I’ve kept you too long but it was great of you to give me your time. You can do this stuff twice as quickly as I can.’ Her eyes sparkled, possibly because she’d drunk half a bottle of wine. She stretched, her body moving sinuously beneath her top and a lock of hair floating free again.
He found himself reluctant for the evening to end. ‘I was sorry to hear you’d lost the shop.’
Her sparkle drained away. ‘I thought I could keep it but I was outmanoeuvred.’
‘Really?’ He tried to make the word an invitation to confide. Curiosity was human. He’d left her in Stockholm two weeks ago apparently settled into Swedish life with a Swedish boyfriend and a business in the beating heart of the city.
She sighed. ‘Albin—’ Lines of grief puckered the skin above her eyes.
‘Albin’s your boyfriend?’ She’d never officially told him she had a boyfriend. She’d left that little morsel to her brother.
She sucked in a wavering breath. ‘He—’
Nico’s phone began to ring where it lay on the table. Loren flashed up on the screen.
Hannah must have read it because she sprang to her feet. ‘I’ll leave you to answer,’ she gabbled, scooping her possessions into her backpack.
It wasn’t a call he could ignore anyway. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, watching her hurry into her coat, looping a lilac scarf around her neck. She sent him a small smile and mouthed, ‘Goodnight and thank you,’ as he said, ‘Hello, Loren,’ into the phone.
‘How are the girls?’ Loren asked, sounding ineffably weary.
‘Fine. Sleeping peacefully. We visited what we hope will be Josie’s new school today and she liked it. The social worker, Gloria, is coming on Friday to visit Maria.’
The door clicked shut behind Hannah.
Nico turned his attention to being a dad.
Chapter Sixteen
It was the second day of what Hannah thought of as The Great Courtyard Clean-Up and Christopher Carlysle was striding about, huffing and puffing that he hadn’t bargained for ‘all these costs’. Estate workers backed a truck in to load up builders’ debris and Cassie hovered around uncertainly. Her Hunter boots and waxed jacket looked as if they’d never seen mud.
Hannah, in contrast, wore here-to-work jeans, boots, an old coat and a woolly hat. She tried to soothe Christopher while remaining realistic. ‘I know. The situation’s not of your making. But these people—’ she waved at the traders watching through doorways ‘—they’ve paid deposits and their first month’s rent. They have agreements. They’ve given up other tenancies to come and be part of Carlysle Courtyard. They’ve paid for signage on their shops and they have their livings to earn.’
Christopher turned puce, frying her with a glare. ‘Your fee is way out of order. Three thousand pounds? Pah!’ With one last, scathing look around he stomped to his Land Rover and was soon roaring down the drive.
Hannah had approached the meeting prepared to renegotiate the fee, which was, after all, a figure she’d plucked from the air in a moment of annoyance, but his snotty attitude reminded her of Albin and so she watched him leave, then turned back