Chapter 20
After staying up late studying Theo’s assessment of their business, Nic slept through his alarm.
He woke to the sound of the doorbell. Checking his phone to see who it was, he quickly threw on some jeans and a sweater.
Two minutes later, he opened the door to the journalist, and profusely apologised.
‘I honestly never oversleep. Must be this refreshing Lakeland air!’
‘No problem, my previous interview overran. But I’m afraid I can’t stay long.
I have to be in Penrith for midday.’ She accepted his offer of coffee, and asked for a picture of him on the balcony.
‘Have you spoken to your neighbour recently?’ she enquired as they moved outside.
‘You’ve probably heard Aria is starting a Clean Up Inglemere campaign.
Her target is companies who dump waste into the lake, but she’s also concerned with run-off from developers and farmers. ’
Nic clicked his jaw in frustration. He always combed through plans before each round of discussions, making sure all the details were taken care of. Theo had pimped the latest documents until they were more sustainable than natural wine, while her accusations were as watertight as shredded cork.
‘We strictly adhere to environment regulations and have a spotless record on health and safety. I am all in favour of keeping the Lake District clean and vibrant, which is why we’ve sponsored the swim,’ he told the reporter.
‘And of course, we want to give something back to this wonderful community which I hope to be part of for a very long time.’
The journalist looked down to check her phone was recording. ‘I believe the late Mr Wilson set up the swim to try and protect the lake in the long term. He knew it would need to be regularly tested and meet health requirements for a public event.’
Something about her statement was off and it took him a moment to work out what it was. ‘Sorry, did you say the late Mr Wilson?’
She nodded. ‘He died a couple of months ago, I believe.’
‘Oh,’ Nic said, his face dropping. ‘I didn’t know.’ For fuck’s sake, had the whole town conspired to keep yet another thing from him? Aria herself had had plenty of opportunities to tell him her dad had passed away.
‘Did you ever meet him?’
Nic thought back to the confrontations they’d had while the show home was being built, and quickly shut her down.
She raised her camera. ‘Could you smile? Then I think I have everything I need.’
***
Nic was busy all day, but he stopped work to engage a cleaner before taking a walk around the lake.
It was an uncomfortable stroll as one of his new walking boots dug into his toes.
On his way back, while distracting himself with thoughts of what he’d have for dinner, he knocked on a door so riddled with woodworm an asthmatic wolf could blow it away in one huff.
When it swung open, he blinked twice. Aria Wilson had answered his knock in pale-green silk pyjamas with spaghetti straps.
The colour accentuated the shade of her eyes, but it wasn’t her face that arrested him – it was the sheerness of the fabric draped across her chest that left little to the imagination.
Intending to ask why she’d lied about her father and to probe into the misguided campaign, he now found himself unable to speak at all.
Instead, his gaze travelled downwards to the matching shorts that hardly covered any of her thighs, before returning to her chest.
Noticing his stare, she grabbed a cardigan from behind the door and threw it on.
‘I was chilling out after tea and fell asleep,’ she said defensively.
In an effort to regain his composure and to stop wondering what it would feel like to be wrapped around her like the sweater, he glanced into the hut, expecting to see some fishing tackle and gardening equipment.
Instead, he was astonished by the sight that met his eyes.
A fully furnished room, complete with mini fridge, coffee table, and pictures on the walls.
The whole set-up was rammed with stuff and cosy as hell.
There was even a corner crammed with toys for the dog.
On cue, Tiger trotted over and tugged at one of Nic’s laces with his teeth.
Aria bent down to scold her pet for trying to fetch her neighbour’s boot while it was still on his foot.
In the process, she gave Nic an eyeful of a chest without a bra, her soft white flesh coming to points in neat buds.
Jesus, he was starting to come undone. Thoughts of caressing that unblemished skin with his lips and tongue mingled with confirmation this was where she was living.
It wasn’t a fishing cabin or weekend retreat.
Nic stepped out of the way as Tiger went for his other lace, his mind racing straight to the solution of all his problems. One word to the authorities and she’d be out.
Then she’d be more inclined to sell, assuming it was legally hers.
If she didn’t cooperate, he could still get the council on side or make a stink in the paper, if he couldn’t get any traction there.
But then, was he the kind of guy who forced a woman onto the street?
‘You’re living here.’
She looked around the hut, as though trying to see it through his eyes. ‘I am not,’ she said defiantly. ‘The sofa bed has been here for years.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘And the cooker?’
‘Barbecues,’ she replied, without much conviction.
‘Indoor barbecues?’ he said, not buying any of it. ‘So, tell me, where do you live?’
‘None of your business,’ she said, trying to push the door closed on him. ‘Now I must get to feeding Tiger.’
He put his foot in the door. ‘Not so fast.’ He hadn’t meant to be combative, but he also didn’t take kindly to being dismissed. ‘It is my business when you are basically squatting next door to me.’
‘Goodnight, Nic,’ she said.
Frustrated, he stepped further into the doorway to block her next move, grabbing the frame as she slammed the door shut.
‘Aaargh!’ Pain shot through his thumb as his nail became trapped in the gap.
‘Hell!’ She let go of the door. ‘I didn’t mean to lean on it. Well, I did, but only to push you out. Are you OK?’
Nic held his wrist, gnashing his teeth as he tried to internalise the pain instead of hitting out at the door.
Meanwhile she was babbling about how many times she had trapped her fingers in that gap as a kid.
‘The door is deceptively heavy. And full of splinters. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed, along with everything else that’s falling to bits…
’ She paused, grabbed a breath, and then looked down at his thumb.
‘Oh no! Nic, has it drawn blood? You poor thing! This needs fairy magic.’ Opening her lips slightly, she allowed his thumb to trace down her cupid’s bow and took him into her mouth.
He watched in astonishment as she licked it like she was eating an ice cream or a lollipop.
Or something else. This weird, tender moment took his attention from the pain, and the blood seemed to stop.
In fact, the sight of her sucking his thumb like that had sent all the blood in his body downhill.
He looked down to see if his hard-on was showing. Fairy magic? This was witchcraft.
‘You stumbled on your laces. It was Tiger’s fault. Your thumb, I just figured it would stop the pain, I—’
‘I’ve renovated countless old properties. Doors are inanimate assassins, always waiting to injure a body part. I’ll be fine.’ Nic excused her, relieved to take back control of his thumb and his dick.
‘Let me get you a tissue or bandage…’ She glanced around the hut.
‘I should go,’ he said, his voice coming out in a strange growl.
He turned around, laces trailing, wondering what the hell had just happened.
He’d come to ask her about her dead father.
Instead, he’d ended up seeing her exposed breasts before she swallowed his thumb.
As he walked up the path, he landed on a new train of thought.
Could he use this information to his advantage, threatening to report her unless she put in a word for him with decision makers?
If she was as local and influential as she claimed, maybe it could make all the difference.
As he approached his house, he spotted the new cleaner at the gate and buzzed her in.
‘Oh, it’s you. From the supermarket. I should have recognised your voice,’ he said as he met her at the door.
‘It is a unique timbre. Now what needs doing? You said it was a couple of hours’ work. I came in a cab so I didn’t have to drag this on the bus.’ She patted the vacuum cleaner.
He opened the cupboard. ‘Unnecessary. I have a robot.’
Her eyes widened as she saw the compact gadget. ‘Fuck me, that is cool. Does it mow the lawn too?’
Nic spent a further twenty minutes giving her a full briefing of the house, reminding him of the day he’d been shown around by Aria.
‘Do I need to go through anything again?’
‘Don’t worry, boss, I got it all,’ she said, whistling at the opulence of his stand-alone bath.
‘I very much doubt that,’ he said. But, to his surprise, she worked fast. Sophie was clearly a grafter, and maybe he could use her to clean the marina when it was built.
While she cleaned he unzipped a first-aid kit and covered his thumb in an antiseptic wipe, before winding a plaster around it.
Then he booked a train to London. He needed to talk to his father without Theo getting wind of it.
He’d get their finances back on track and push this planning through, if it killed him, he told himself, before an email from his brother informed him a rival bidder for another tranche of land had just forced prices up further.
Nic messaged back, asking Theo to dig into who it was and how much they’d bid.
He fired off some more messages, before allowing himself to recall the moment Aria had kissed his thumb so erotically.
He also allowed himself to imagine where else her cute mouth might have ventured, and then gave his head a wobble.
Business before pleasure – he needed to stay focused.
He wandered into the kitchen to find his cooker dismantled, with every removable part of it in a bowl of soapy water, while Sophie was on the floor scrubbing at the tiles.
‘You should remove your boots when you come in. It’s a mint house, this.
If it was mine, I would make a no-shoe rule.
Me and Grandad only wear slippers indoors.
Mind you, he’s taken to wearing his outdoors too.
Stepped in a cow pat up to his knees the other day.
I hate the countryside sometimes, don’t you? ’
Smiling at her chatter, he asked if she lived in town.
‘Yep, at the edge of it, anyway. In the terraced houses near Poet’s Panorama.
I look after Grandad these days as he looked after me for so long.
It’s a fair arrangement. I get a free washing machine, and he gets his meals cooked.
Although, when I say cooked, I mean porridge and pizza, and he complains that both are either too hot or too cold.
You live on your own?’ Nic nodded at her question.
‘But you have two sinks in your bathroom. I’m surprised women aren’t queuing round the block to use one of them.
That’s if you are into women. Your shoes tell me you are. ’
Good God, would anyone else like to give him their opinion on his shoes?
He did have two sinks, though. And four bedrooms. And plans for more houses that were going down the pan.
He thought back to his confrontations with his neighbour.
Aria wouldn’t put up with being blackmailed.
Was he even capable of such a thing? Theo would tell him it was the kind of move their father played.
He suspected she wouldn’t be bought out either, as she was stubborn, just like Eddie.
But maybe she could be enticed with a business deal that would be good for them both?
Like Sophie’s quest to please her grandad, perhaps he could come up with a porridge that wasn’t too hot or too cold for Aria, but just right.