Free Falling for the Secret Millionaire by Kate Hardy Page A

sense—and won. ‘All right. I’ll show you round. But it’ll have to be by torchlight,’ she warned.
    â€˜Cinemas are supposed to be dark,’ he said with a smile.
    She wished he hadn’t smiled like that. It gave her goose-bumps. Gabriel Hunter had a seriously beautiful mouth, and his eyes were the colour of cornflowers.
    And why was she mooning over him? Ridiculous. She needed to get a grip. Right now. ‘This is the foyer—well, obviously,’ she said gruffly, and shone the torch round.
    He gave an audible intake of breath. ‘The glass, Nicole—it’s beautiful. Art Deco. It deserves to be showcased.’
    The same thing she’d noticed. Warmth flared through her, and she had to damp it down. This was her business rival Gabriel Hunter, not her friend Clarence, she reminded herself.
    â€˜The cinema itself is through here.’
    He sniffed as she ushered him through to the auditorium, then pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got a mouse problem. That’s a pretty distinctive smell.’
    â€˜They’ve chomped the seats a lot, too.’ She shone a torch onto one of the worst bits to show him.
    â€˜There are people who can restore that. I know some good upholst—’ He stopped. ‘Sorry. I’ll shut up. You’re perfectly capable of researching your own contractors.’
    She brought him back out into the foyer. ‘From what you said the other day, you know that this place was originally an Edwardian kursaal or leisure centre. The downstairs was originally a skating rink and the upstairs was the Electric Cinema.’
    â€˜Does that mean you have a projection room upstairs as well as down?’ he asked.
    â€˜I’m still mapping the place out and working my way through all the junk, but I think so—because in the nineteen-thirties it was changed to a ballroom upstairs and a picture house downstairs.’
    â€˜So is upstairs still the ballroom?’
    Upstairs was the bit that she hoped would make him change his mind about ever asking her to sell again. Because surely, working for a company which renovated old buildings and redeveloped them into hotels, he must have some appreciation of architecture? Clarence would love it, she knew; but how much of Clarence had been designed simply to charm her and how much of Clarence was really Gabriel? That was what she hadn’t worked out yet. And until she did she wasn’t prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
    â€˜The stairs,’ she said, gesturing towards them.
    â€˜That’s beautiful, too. Look at that railing. I can imagine women sweeping down that staircase in floaty dresses after waltzing the night away.’
    Just as she’d thought when she’d seen the staircase. And there was no way that Gabriel could’ve known she’d thought that, because she hadn’t told him. So was his response pure Clarence, and that meant Clarence was the real part of him, after all?
    â€˜And this room at the top,’ she said as they walked up the stairs, ‘was used by Brian as a store-room, or so Mum says.’
    â€˜Is your mum OK?’ he asked.
    She frowned. ‘OK about what?’
    â€˜This place. It must have memories for her. And, in the circumstances...’ His voice faded.
    â€˜She’s fine. But thank you for asking.’
    â€˜I wasn’t being polite, and I wasn’t asking for leverage purposes, either,’ he said softly. ‘I was asking as your friend, Nicole.’
    Gabriel wasn’t her friend, though.
    Saying nothing, she opened the door to the upper room and handed him the torch. ‘See what you think.’
    He shone the torch on the flooring first. ‘That looks like parquet flooring—cleaned up, that will be stunning.’ He bent down to take a closer look. ‘Just look at the inlay—Nicole, this is gorgeous.’
    But it wasn’t the really stunning bit of the room.