Read Online Dream a Little Dream by Sue Moorcroft - Free Book Online Page A

his streaky hair. His glance was a flash of silver.
    She dropped into the chair across from him. ‘Bloody Nicolas! Did you think I wasn’t coming?’
    His smile was slow and lazy, tugging suddenly at her insides. ‘The possibility occurred. If you want to eat, we need to order right away and there are only three things we can have this late: chicken korma, goat’s cheese and pear salad or tuna pasta bake.’
    ‘Is the korma with white rice or brown rice?’
    He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re not going to go all Miranda on me and extol the virtues of brown rice?’
    She sighed. ‘But it is better for cholesterol, energy … Never mind. I’ll have the korma, please, I’m starving. And one of those passion-fruit-and-pomegranate drinks.’
    Whilst Dominic ordered at the bar, Liza hung her ski jacket around the back of her chair, rubbing her hands, wishing he’d chosen a table nearer the fire. She glanced around, smiling and waving at people she knew, enjoying the gentle buzz of conversation, the occasional laugh, the crackle of the fire. Three men at the next table, flushed with alcohol, halted their conversation to look her over. One sent her a wink. She acknowledged him with a tiny smile. Angie and Rochelle may have been right that she needed to put some life back in her life, but red-faced pub bugs had never been her type.
    Dominic returned and slid two glasses onto the table. His held Guinness. ‘Bloody Nicolas what?’
    ‘Bloody Nicolas came to talk just as I was leaving.’ She sipped at the drink, sweet and tart together.
    ‘Let me guess.’ He drank from his black beer, returning it to the circle of moisture it had left on the table. ‘He’s reconsidered giving you notice on your treatment room?’
    She propped her chin on her fist. ‘Good guess. Now it’s my turn – you and Miranda are the investors he’d arranged to meet today? That’s why you were leaving as I arrived?’
    He was nodding before she’d finished speaking.
    What did that mean? Where did he fit into her picture? ‘You haven’t opted in yet, and he’s realised he needs my rent a while longer?’
    ‘I’m not opting in with him at all.’ His grey gaze was steady. ‘He got some dodgy information from the business opportunity agency that made him think I’d make bringing Miranda in as a therapist a condition of my investment.’
    ‘So he put me on notice in case he had to get me out to make way for her, knowing he could pretend a change of heart if he needed to?’ A lick of anger. ‘But Miranda’s not even a therapist.’
    ‘Nope. I’ve delisted from the agency, because it’s obviously staffed by monkeys and gibbons, quite unable to understand the concept of losing a dream job and having to find a new one. I’m glad Nicolas isn’t turfing you out.’
    ‘It does make life easier.’ She blew out her cheeks. Last night she’d tossed and turned over whether to find a treatment room in Peterborough, where population would be dense and trade more plentiful but she’d have a fifteen-mile drive each way, or to try to drum up enough business around the villages. It would mean being a mobile, as Mrs. Horrible Snelling might report her or object or whatever it was you did to stop people if they tried to trade from home. And she didn’t know anyone who was making being a mobile pay as a full-time business. ‘It’s nice not to be up against a deadline, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problems.’
    His gaze was thoughtful, focused. ‘I presumed from what you said this afternoon that there are some. Am I allowed to ask what those problems are?’ His eyes smiled. ‘I do have a reason for asking.’
    She shrugged. ‘When I moved out of Peterborough I knew I’d lose existing clients, but there was supposed to be a flood of guests from the hotel to more than make up. But it’s been more of a trickle than a flood and, of course, many are only around long enough for single treatments. But the premises are fabulous and I keep on