‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m a Carver Bride,’ Kylie said, suddenly ecstatic. She held her hands together in reverence. ‘Like in those glossy magazines we buy, Ma. I’m the first Australian Carver bride. I reckon we ought to phone some reporters.’

‘No,’ Guy snapped, rising and looking at Kylie in distaste. ‘You’re not a Carver Bride. You are Mrs Westmere’s responsibility. My takeover was supposed to be confidential, and the name-change won’t happen yet. There’ll be no Carver Brides until my people are here and we can get rid of this…’ he gazed around the salon with distaste ‘…this fluff.’

Had he made a mistake? Guy watched as the hem-marking continued. ‘It’s a small place,’ Malcolm had told him. ‘The council has the power to make all sorts of complications, like refusing our requests to expand the building. We need to keep the locals on our side. Make an effort, Guy.’

Maybe he hadn’t made an effort. But really…Kylie, a Carver Bride? Some things were unthinkable. And what had happened to the confidentiality clause? It could be a disaster.

He waited on, ignored by the Grubbs, which suited him. Finally the hem was finished, and Kylie and her mother sailed off down the street to spread the news. Indignation was oozing from every pore.

They might be indignant, but so was he.

‘I understood this takeover was to be kept quiet,’ he said, in a voice that would have had his secretary shaking. Cool, low and carefully neutral.

It didn’t have Jenny quaking. ‘Your accountant, or whoever he is, should have said that earlier. My mother-in-law had ten minutes between offer and acceptance where that stipulation wasn’t known. Ten minutes can mean a lot of gossip in Sandpiper Bay.’

‘It means I can call the contract off.’

‘Fine,’ she said and tilted her chin. ‘Go ahead.’

He was taken aback. She should be apologising. He’d come all the way here to find the terms of the contract had been breached, and all she was saying was take it or leave it.