Rescued by the Brooding Tycoon Read Free Page A

could. I’m glad to see you looking better, Father.’
    ‘I am better. I keep saying so but my womenfolk won’t believe me. I suppose Freya talked a lot when she collected you from the airport.’
    ‘I asked her questions and, like a good nurse, she answered them.’
    ‘Nurse be damned. She’s here as my stepdaughter.’
    ‘If you say so.’
    ‘What do you think of her?’
    ‘She seems a nice girl, what little I’ve seen of her.’
    ‘She cheers the place up. And she’s a good cook. Better than that so-called professional I employ. She’s doing supper for us tonight. You’ll enjoy it.’
    He did enjoy it. Freya produced excellent food, and could crack jokes that lightened the atmosphere. She was pleasant to have around, and Darius found himself wondering why more women couldn’t be like her instead of invading other people’s private property with their sharp remarks and their dangerous dogs.
    Awkward. She’d said it herself, and that was exactly right.
    After supper, in his father’s study, the two men confronted each other.
    ‘I gather things aren’t too good?’ Amos grunted.
    ‘Not for me or anyone else,’ Darius retorted. ‘There’s a global crisis, hadn’t you heard?’
    ‘Yes, and some are weathering it better than others. That contract you had the big fight over, I warned you how to word the get-out clause, and if you’d listened to me you could have told them where to stuff their legal action.’
    ‘But they’re decent people,’ Darius protested. ‘They knew very little about business—’
    ‘All the better. You could have done as you liked and they wouldn’t have found out until too late. You’re soft, that’s your trouble.’
    Darius grimaced. In the financial world, his reputation was far from soft. Cold, unyielding, power-hungry, that was what people said of him. But he drew the line at taking advantage of helpless innocence, and he’d paid the price for it; a price his father would never have paid.
    ‘But it’s not too late,’ Amos conceded in a milder tone. ‘Now you’re here there are ways I can help.’
    ‘That’s what I hoped,’ Darius said quietly.
    ‘You haven’t always taken my advice, but perhaps you’ve got the sense to take it now. And the first problem is how you’re going to deal with Morgan Rancing.’
    ‘I must tell you—’
    ‘I’ve heard disturbing rumours about some island he owns off the south coast of England. They say he’ll try to use it to cover his debts, and I’m warning you to have no truck with that. Don’t give it a thought. What you must do—’
    ‘It’s too late,’ Darius growled. ‘Herringdean is already mine.’
    ‘What? You agreed to take it?’
    ‘No, I wasn’t given the chance,’ Darius snapped. ‘Rancing has vanished. Next thing, I received papers that transferred ownership of Herringdean to me. His cellphone is dead, his house is empty. Nobody knows where he is, or if they do they’re not talking. I can either accept the island or go without anything.’
    ‘But it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth,’ Amos spluttered.
    ‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Darius murmured.
    ‘So you know something about it?’
    ‘A little. I need to go back and inspect it further.’
    ‘And you’re counting on it to pay your debts?’
    ‘I don’t know. But in the meantime I could do with an investor to make a one-time injection of cash and help me out.’
    ‘Meaning me?’
    ‘Well, as you’re always telling me, you’ve survived the credit crunch better than anyone.’
    ‘Yes, because I knew how to treat money.’
    ‘Like a prisoner who’s always trying to escape,’ Darius recalled.
    ‘Exactly. That’s why I came to live here.’
    He pushed open the door that led out onto the balcony overlooking the view over the bay that now glittered with lights against the darkness.
    ‘I talked to a journalist once,’ Amos recalled. ‘She asked me all sorts of tom-fool questions. Why had I chosen to live in Monte