Falling for the Secret Millionaire Read Free Page B

never sure he’d ever be able to change their perception of him.
    Clarence, maybe you need to talk to your dad or whoever runs the show in your family business about the situation and say it’s time for you all to move on. You’re not the same person now as you were when you were younger. Everyone makes mistakes—and you can’t spend the rest of your life making up for it. That’s not reasonable.
    Maybe.
    Clarence must feel as trapped as she did, Nicole thought. Feeling that there was no way out. He’d helped her think outside the box and see her grandfather’s bequest another way: that it could be her escape route. Maybe she could do the same for him.
    Could you recruit someone to replace you?
    There was a long silence, and Nicole thought maybe she’d gone too far.
    Nice idea, Georgy, but it’s not going to happen.
    OK. What about changing your role in the business instead? Could you take it in a different direction, one you enjoy more?
    It’s certainly worth thinking about.
    Which was a polite brush-off. Just as well she hadn’t given in to the urge to suggest meeting for dinner to talk about it.
    Because that would’ve been stupid.
    Apart from the fact that she wasn’t interested in dating anyone ever again, for all she knew Clarence could be in a serious relationship. Living with someone, engaged, even married.
    Even if he wasn’t, supposing they met and she discovered that the real Clarence was nothing like the online one? Supposing they really didn’t like each other in real life? She valued his friendship too much to risk losing it. If that made her a coward, so be it.
    * * *
    Changing his role in the business. Taking it in a different direction. Gabriel could just imagine the expression on his father’s face if he suggested it. Shock, swiftly followed by, ‘I saved your skin, so you toe the line and do what I say.’
    It wasn’t going to happen.
    But he appreciated the fact that Georgygirl was trying to think about how to make his life better.
    For one mad moment, he almost suggested she should bring details of the business she’d just inherited and meet him for dinner and they could brainstorm it properly. But he stopped himself. Apart from the fact that it was none of his business, supposing they met and he discovered that the real Georgygirl was nothing like the online one? Supposing they loathed each other in real life? He valued his time talking to her and he didn’t want to risk losing her friendship.
    Thanks for making me feel human again , he typed.
    Me? I didn’t do anything. And you gave me some really good advice.
    That’s what friends are for. And you did a lot, believe me. He paused . I’d better let you go. I’m due back in the office. Talk to you later?
    I’m due back at the office, too. Talk to you tonight.
    Good luck. Let me know how it goes with your mum.
    Will do. Let me know how it goes with your family.
    Sure.
    Though he had no intention of doing that.

CHAPTER TWO
    B Y THE TIME Nicole went to the restaurant to meet her mother that evening, she had a full dossier on the Electric Palace and its history, thanks to the Surrey Quays forum website. Brian Thomas had owned the cinema since the nineteen-fifties, and it had flourished in the next couple of decades; then it had floundered with the rise of multiplex cinemas and customers demanding something more sophisticated than an old, slightly shabby picture house. One article even described the place as a ‘flea-pit’.
    Then there were the photographs. It was odd, looking at pictures that people had posted from the nineteen-sixties and realising that the man behind the counter in the café was actually her grandfather, and at the time her mother would’ve been a toddler. Nicole could definitely see a resemblance to her mother in his face—and to herself. Which made the whole thing feel even more odd. This particular thread was