Read Online Blame It on the Champagne by Nina Harrington - Free Book Online Page B

Elwood House for the next two years.
Now that’s what I call a partnership made in heaven.’
    * * *
    Of all the arrogance!
    Saskia glared at Rick and decided that she must be hearing
things.
    Otherwise, this casually dressed hotshot had just demanded that
she drop everything and take off to France with him for a few days. With the
promise of a long-term meeting contract—if she agreed to buy and, more
importantly to her, serve his wine to her clients, who expected her to give them
the best.
    RB Wines would be sitting on her shelves next to a handful of
growers who had been supplying the Elwood family for decades and, in the case of
some chateaux, for over a century.
    As if flashing his money around would open the doors to the
cellars. Hah!
    She had grown up surrounded by people who thought that
arrogance and bravado could get them where they wanted to go. Charming,
attractive people like her father, who believed that they could do what they
liked and tell people what to do and get away with it.
    Her father was not so different from Rick.
    Handsome, tall, dark, with wonderful eyes and a smile that
could disarm a woman the minute she laid eyes on him and persuade even the
hardest businessmen into handing over their money and investing in commercial
property in cities all over the world.
    And they had.
    Shame that her father thought that using other people’s money
to pay for his high risk building projects was a perfectly acceptable thing to
do. He was arrogant enough to believe that he couldn’t fail and his plans for
office buildings designed by cutting-edge architects had become risky and
riskier. Blame the property market, he used to say, not me. Just wait until the economy picks up. Companies
will be desperate to use my office space and everyone will get a great
return on their money.
    It had come as quite a shock when the courts disagreed.
    Saskia remembered only too clearly what it was like for her
mother on the day he’d been arrested for embezzlement and fraud. She’d believed
in him, trusted him and had faith in all his excuses and rational explanations
for why they were losing money day after day.
    They had both loved him so badly that the truth was hard to
accept. He was a fool. An arrogant and delusional man who thought that money
could buy him status and class and power. That was why he’d married her mother.
Chantal Elwood was the only daughter of one of the famous Elwood brothers, the
most respected wine merchant in Britain. And the oldest. The Elwood family had
given him access to clients he would never have otherwise met.
    Little wonder that they’d trusted Hugo Mortimer when he came to
them with an idea for a thirty-storey office block in a mid-west American city. Trust me, he’d said. These
buildings are going to be safe havens for your money in the current
financial climate. And they had trusted him.
    And he had abused the power and influence and robbed them and
cheated them.
    She yearned to tell Rick exactly what he could do with his
proposal but she couldn’t.
    â€˜A partnership made in heaven?’ She gulped. ‘Well, your idea of
heaven is apparently a lot different from mine. What are you thinking?’
    She put down her fork and looked around the dining room. ‘You
don’t know anything about me apart from what you have picked up through a few
Internet searches.’
    â€˜That can be changed. And yes, I do know you.’
    â€˜Really? You might think you do. Well, I certainly do not know
you.’
    â€˜Then come to France with me tomorrow and find out for
yourself.’
    â€˜Thank you, but I have a business to run. What makes you think
that I can just take off when I please? Life is not like that.’
    â€˜It can be. Let’s decide this here and now.’
    He grabbed a paper napkin and scribbled something on it and
slid it across the table in front of her.
    â€˜This is the consultancy fee for your expenses. If, for