A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

telling me the lease on this place is due to expire six months from now. He says he doesn’t wish to renew.’

‘Six months!’ Julia gave him her whole attention now. ‘How long was the lease?’

‘Ninety-nine years. I bought the place just over two years ago, thinking that when the lease expired it would naturally be extended, as many are.’

He fell silent, toying with the letter. He suddenly looked so very vulnerable that her heart went out to him. Her heart seemed to react to him in so many different ways these days. She often found herself watching him, noting the way he moved, listening with a different ear to the things he said, taking in all the small gestures that made him what he was.

He seemed for the most part unaware of her attention though every now and again she would see him looking at her, and then looking quickly away on catching her eye.

‘What will you do?’ she asked. It was all she could think of to say, making him smile at her naivety – a smile that again touched her heart.

‘Just have to find somewhere else.’

‘Can we afford to?’ Julia realized she had automatically taken it for granted that she was being included in his plans. What if this turned out to be the end of a wonderful episode after all? She waited anxiously for his response.

‘We’re going to have to,’ he said slowly. ‘It all depends on how the profits go in the next six months. One thing’s certain, we mustn’t say too much to anyone. If they realize the place is up for sale or changing hands, they’ll stay away. People always do. So we must watch what we say.’

The word ‘we’! She almost threw her arms around him but refrained. There were more important things to deal with now than her feelings.

‘Then we’ll have to concentrate on even better profits,’ she declared forcefully to allay the silly impulse she’d had. ‘We should start by doing a lot more direct advertising.’

‘We do that now,’ he reminded her.

‘I mean physical advertising, modelling, showing what the garments look like on real people. We need to actually demonstrate them to customers and have a proper showroom.’

‘That will cost…’ he began, but Julia already had the bit between her teeth.

‘It needn’t be anything too elaborate or expensive. We’ll need a model. I can’t do it because I’d have to run the show – and besides I’d be too embarrassed. But my sister Ginny might like to try. She’s so slim and beautiful. She’d make a perfect model. She’d love something like that, I’m sure. I’ll ask her.’

‘Steady, love!’ Simon put his hand on her arm to stop the headlong rush of words.

For a long moment their eyes met and held. Slowly his other hand reached out to rest on her other arm. Then, before she could take a breath, he had drawn her to him to kiss her full on the mouth.

There the two of them stood, in full view of a surprised Betty Lewis who was busily working on an exclusive-looking silk day dress. Her discreet cough made them step hastily away from each other. But she had already returned to her interrupted task of pinning sections of a paper pattern to the double layer of crêpe de Chine for all the world as if she were the only one in the room.

Twelve

Five weeks elapsed and Simon made no further move towards her, leaving Julia unsure where she stood with him. It wasn’t that he was brusque or stand-offish or even taciturn with her. If anything he seemed vaguely embarrassed, taking care to confine all discussion between them strictly to mundane matters. And all the while her whole being cried out to be held close, to be kissed by him again.

Sometimes it seemed to Julia almost as if that lovely moment of closeness between them had never happened; that she had dreamed it. But soon she had too much else on her mind to spend time fretting about Simon. As the expiry date of the lease drew closer the task of developing their business plans grew more urgent.

It had taken nearly a month to approach Ginny with her new plans. She was afraid she might turn down the idea, seeing it as another of her sister’s wild schemes. In fact it seemed to her that the whole family had taken her business venture for granted. If they suspected there was more to her relationship with Simon than mere business, nevertheless they said no more. James and Stephanie were caught up in their own lives and work and Ginny too was now pretty well established in her job, making friends and socializing. Why would she want to change direction now?

Julia’s approach was to emphasize how well Simon’s business was going and their intention to expand. She thought it better not to mention the problem of the lease not being renewed at the end of April. There was no point in alarming anyone.

‘I’ve been so lucky going in with him,’ she said to Ginny late one night as they sat in the living room together. Ginny had just come in from an evening with friends, the other two were still out and their mother had gone to bed at ten as she usually did.

‘The business is going really well,’ she continued, ‘and I’m so fortunate that I had to put so little into it other than the material. I still can’t believe my luck. I’d never have found the money to go into business in the usual way and I’m so grateful to Mr Layzell for his generosity.’

Ginny was responding only half-heartedly to this enthusiasm, obviously anxious to return to reading her magazine.

‘The thing is, Ginny, we’re thinking about finding ourselves better premises where we can have a showroom. Of course, we will need to get someone to model my dresses and I was thinking, how would you like to be that model? I could pay you well because we’re