She looked...
She cleared her throat, hating the sudden nerves and fear which slammed through her body and made her heart race like a train. She looked like a stranger, that was for sure. The way her mother used to look when she was expecting a visit from her father. As if tight clothes could mask a basic incompatibility—as if adornment were the only thing a woman needed to make a man love her. And it hadn’t worked, had it? She remembered the bitterness which used to distort her mother’s features after she had slammed the door in his wake.
‘You can never make a man love you, Hollie, because men aren’t capable of love!’
It was a lesson she’d never forgotten—her mum had made sure of that—but not one she particularly wanted to remember, especially now. She wished she could strip off these stupid clothes and the too-high heels. Skip the party and go home to her rented cottage. She could study that new cake recipe she was planning to try out on the weekend and dream about the time when she could finally open her own business and be independent at last. One more year of frugality and she should have amassed the funds she needed. Only this time she would be sure to go it alone, in a part of the world which she found manageable. A picturesque little Devon town called Trescombe—not some big, anonymous city like London, where it was all too easy for a person like her to slip off the radar and become invisible.
Was it that erosion of her confidence which had led to her not paying attention to what was going on around her—until one day Hollie had discovered that nearly all the money had gone and her supposedly best friend had ripped her off? It had been a harsh and hurtful lesson, but she had learnt from it. Never again would she put herself in the position of being conned by someone she’d thought of as a friend, and have her trust in human nature eroded yet again.
And wasn’t that another reason for making sure this party was a success? Because Maximo Diaz’s purchase of the old castle on top of the big hill outside town had the potential to herald a new golden age in local tourism and Hollie wanted to be part of it. It hadn’t been a hotel for years but was crying out for some love and attention. And if the enigmatic Spaniard was an unlikely candidate to play the part of neighbourhood saviour—well, that was what life was like. Sometimes it threw up surprises and you discovered that people didn’t always fit into the little boxes you tried to squeeze them into. Just because a man was an impossibly wealthy global superstar, didn’t mean he couldn’t also be a good man, did it?
Remembering Janette’s parting words, Hollie pulled the scrunchy from her hair and shook her head to let her hair tumble down around her shoulders. It was a colour best described as light brown, though some of the bitchier girls at school used to call it ‘mousy’. But it was clean and shiny and it streamed abundantly over her breasts, effectively hiding that rather scary glimpse of cleavage.
The final touch was a red and green hat with a bell on the end and the sound of it jangling like a cash register as she crammed it over her head made Hollie smile. One day soon she would open her very own tea shop and, although she wasn’t planning on wearing quite such a revealing uniform, tonight’s event would be perfect practice for her future career of serving the public. Wobbling a little in her spindly heels, she headed for the door.
Christmas elf?
How hard could it be?
He didn’t want to be here.
Despite the fact that he was poised on the brink of a venture guaranteed to net him even more millions, Maximo Diaz was feeling even more detached than usual.
He looked around at a room which, bizarrely, was decorated with thick streamers of glittering tinsel—even though it was still only October. A giant fir dominated one wall and tiny golden and silver lights twinkled in every available corner of the room. Christmas had, it seemed, come ridiculously early to this one-horse town, with its distant glimpses of the sea and the bleak sweeping moorland which lay to the east.
His mouth hardened.
The truth was, he didn’t want to be anywhere right now. Not at either of his homes in Madrid or New York and certainly not here in Devon. Because everywhere he went he took himself with him and ‘here’ was inside his head, listening to clamouring thoughts which would not be silenced. For the first time in his life, he was finding it difficult to switch off and that disturbed him.
In his past there had been troubles. Of course there had. Everyone had troubles and sometimes he felt as if he’d netted more than his fair share. Bleak, dark events which had come out of nowhere and threatened to blindside him, although in the end they had bounced off him like hailstones on a pavement because he had willed them to. He had schooled himself to cultivate a steely self-control and had always prided himself on his ability to shrug off hardship. To step away from chaos, resilient and untouched, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. But back then youth, hunger and ambition had been on his side, shielding him against hurt and shielding him against pain. He had come to the conclusion that he was one of those lucky few who were immune to hurt. And if that meant people—usually women—were prone to describe him as cold and unfeeling. Well, he could live with that.
Yet who would have thought the death of someone he’d despised could have pierced his heart so ragged? How was that even possible? He hadn’t seen her in years. Hadn’t wanted to—and with good reason. He should have felt anger or injustice or resentment—maybe all three—as he’d said goodbye to the woman who had given birth to him, summoned to her bedside by the nuns who had cared for her during her final days. Yet it hadn’t been like that. He shook his head. His reaction had surprised him. And angered him too, because he hadn’t wanted to feel that way. As he’d held her papery hand with its dark tracery of veins, he had felt a deep sorrow welling up inside him. He had been overwhelmed by a sense of something lost, which now eluded him for ever.
And he didn’t do that kind of emotion. Not now and not ever.
But he had to carry on. To brush off pointless grief and make like it had never happened. What other choice was there for someone who had turned indifference into an art form? He would get over it because he always did. And he would forgive himself for that rare foray into the saccharine world of sentimentality, because that was a place which held no allure for him.
He would continue with his inexorable rise to the top. He would keep on making a fortune from fundamentally changing the infrastructure of different countries. Building roads and building railways and creating a turnover which caused his competitors to shake their heads with frustration and awe. He had added a luxury hotel chain to his portfolio now and was surrounded by the kind of wealth which, strangely and rather disturbingly, had not brought him the satisfaction he’d sought. But it certainly made women’s eyes grow wide whenever they stepped over the threshold of one of his homes or slid into the leather-bound luxury of his private jet. And just because he had more money than he would ever need in several lifetimes, didn’t mean he wanted to slow down. Because he liked success. He liked it a lot. Not because of the material rewards it reaped, but for the glow of achievement it provided, no matter how fleeting that feeling proved to be. It was as if he was intent on proving himself over and over again, if not to the father and mother who had rejected him, then maybe to himself.