Brody Kane nursed a pint in the quaint English country pub and watched the entrance like a hawk, looking for the girls he’d spoken to yesterday evening, after overhearing them chatting about Westwick Hall… And Ellie Sullivan.
She’d been called Ellie Smith at Summerville. A wide-eyed, scared little girl who had snuck under all his defences and made him trust her… Until she’d ratted on him.
The coincidence that a blast from his past was now working as the acting estate manager for the stately home he was looking to buy had been a stroke of luck he intended to exploit.
He’d heard that a Saudi conglomerate had already put in a bid for the six-hundred-room mansion—and had it rejected. But Brody wanted a better look at the place without alerting the owner, Lorenti, to his interest. He knew the Italian tycoon well enough to know the man had no love for his ancestral home—but he was also a shrewd bastard when it came to business—and Brody didn’t want to overbid.
So, when he’d spotted the picture on the estate manager’s internet bio, and those wide chestnut eyes had triggered something, he’d had his team dig deeper. And found out little Ellie Smith was now calling herself Sullivan and had erased her past in care.
He couldn’t blame her. He’d changed his name too, after getting out of juvenile detention with no money, no prospects and no one who gave a damn about him.
The good news was, he didn’t need anyone to give a damn about him anymore, because he was loaded, after his parole officer had convinced him his love of numbers and his addiction to risk didn’t have to lead to a life of crime…
He’d made his first million within a year of becoming a city trader and hit his first billion fourteen months ago. Ellie was doing well enough to keep her past a secret, too—which meant he had leverage. Even better.
While he’d never really blamed her for betraying him, because he had been seriously screwed-up back then, what she’d done also meant he didn’t feel guilty now about using her. Maybe they’d been friends once, but they weren’t friends anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even the same person.
The pub door swung open and in walked the Hall’s chatty cleaners. Right on time. His smug smile dropped, though, when he spotted the girl with them.
What the...?
Ellie had been maybe thirteen the last time he’d seen her. The night his life had gone to hell.
His gaze roamed over the short black dress, coupled with leather boots and a bomber jacket. The tug of arousal was unexpected, because she didn’t have the supermodel stature of the women he usually dated—the minidress’s fabric hugging every extra inch like a lover. Her once long hair haloed around her head now in a messy bob which suited her heart-shaped face perfectly.
One of the other girls waved, and Ellie’s gaze connected with his.
His lungs seized as her cheeks flushed a deep red.
She’s not a kid anymore, that’s for sure.
The waving girl—whose name he’d forgotten—reached him first. She said something, but he couldn’t hear her, because all his blood was charging past his eardrums, heading south.
He got off the stool, but before he could introduce himself, Ellie whispered: ‘Baz. It’s so good to see you again.’
As the heat pooled in his groin, he had the disturbing thought she might mean it.
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