Page 58 of The Grand Duel
“You don’t like it?”
I shrug but she doesn’t see. “I’m more of a pancake man, myself.” I nod towards her ice cream. “Unless it’s with dessert on a Sunday, I don’t really see the point.”
Her eyes finally lift and fix on me. “You don’t see the point?” She drops down her spoon with a clatter and reaches into her bag, flicking through her purse before pulling out a fifty-pound note.
“A tip,” I tell Bronwyn, not meeting her eyes as I place two thousand pounds on her desk. “I’ll transfer the rest tonight.”
“The rest.” She chuckles in amusement.
Sweet baby Jesus.
“Here.” She pushes the money across the table. My money. “Go now. Order something, or I’ll leave and pull a you and be grumpy all day because you refused to eat with me. They might even have pancakes.”
“Pull a me?” I repeat, maybe liking the way this conversation is chasing away the shadows that followed her into this shop a little too much.
She pops a brow.
I go to the counter and order myself an ice cream, feeling like a child as I take the bowl from the server. I take my friends’ children for ice cream sometimes, but never my employees. Definitely not women who are over ten years younger than me.
I’m back in my seat and three bites into my triple chocolate when her smile beckons me from across the table.
“What?”
“I’m just wondering if you’ve found the point yet?”
A rare smile threatens, and I tighten my mouth, my lips twitching. “I haven’t been to an actual ice cream shop in years.”
“Me neither,” she says, devouring her own. “I was thirteen. Me and my sister were dropped home early from school by our driver, and he gave us a fiver each to go and get a packet of sweets from the shop around the corner. Jove was only eight years old, and I knew she’d had a bad week at school. I put us on the tube, and we rode all the way to Macca’s.”
“Macca’s has been a thing for that long?”
“Yes,” she assures me. “I went to one every year on my birthday for years, so I’d know.” She smiles as if remembering. “My mum would bring me, and I’d get to order anything I wanted.”
“You’re close with your mum?”
She pauses with her spoon on the way to her mouth, her eyes flicking up to me. “I guess,” she says, and I’m not sure what it is that gives her away, the way her face drops or the way her eyes lose some of their spark, but I know it’s a lie.
“You’d come here every birthday?”
She nods. “Until around age six.” She drops her stare to her dessert, pushing the ice cream around.
“And you’d order a Neapolitan? Every time?”
Her eyes flick up defensively. “Neapolitan is versatile. Everyone thinks their favourite is the best.”
“Well, anything is better than that.” I gesture towards her bowl.
She rolls her eyes, but her smile still lingers, teasing me as it threatens to show teeth. “If you only get one ice cream a year, it’s sure as hell not going to be only one flavour.”
I try not to overanalyse her words, but it’s impossible, my mind trying to work her like I might a client, needing to know that little bit more. “One a year?”
The possibility of that smile is ripped away from me. “What?”
“You said one ice cream a year.”
Her face tells me she didn’t mean to share that with me.
I never found anything on her parents, and it seemed wrong to dig too deep, but something tells me this woman didn’t have the childhood you’d expect as the heir to one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world.