‘Besides,’ Ash was saying, ‘much as I’d love to come to Amsterdam and share a cramped cabin with Clueless, Monday’s no good for Molenaar. He’ll be in the States by then. This was the only window he had... Hang on! They’re saying something...’
Through the earpiece, Mia could hear a crackly announcement playing over the speaker in her brother’s carriage. She held her breath.
‘Up to an hour’s delay... Damn it! I’m going to have to cancel.’
The anguish in his voice was tearing her apart.
‘No! You need this. There has to be a way...’ She eyed her laptop. ‘I’m putting you on speaker, okay?’ She propped the phone against her coffee mug and typed ‘Theo Molenaar’ into the search bar. The screen filled with MolTec stuff: bulletins and business reports. Nothing about the man, until...
MOLENAAR HAS HIS EYE TO THE TELESCOPE!
She clicked the link and scanned the article, waiting for words to jump out: pioneering IT solutions; environmental interests; satellites; black holes; the expanding cosmos.
‘Bingo! Molenaar’s a star-gazer.’ She retrieved the phone. ‘He’s into astronomy.’
‘And that helps how?’
‘I’m not sure... Let me think...’ She got to her feet, drifted to the window. A white van was parked in the mews. Southeast Satellite & Broadband Services was written on the side of it in big purple letters. In her head the words clustered around the grain of an idea. ‘Ash, you’re coming in from the south east, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘The observatory’s in Greenwich.’
‘So?’
She felt a smile coming. ‘Tell Molenaar you’ve been delayed but can make it to the planetarium in an hour. If he meets you there it’ll save both of you a lot of time and, if you are held up for longer, then at least he’s in his happy place among the stars. Everybody wins.’
‘For pity’s sake, Mia—you’re talking about the CEO of MolTec! I can’t ask him to trek across London on my account. I’ll just have to postpone.’
Something inside her snapped. ‘No! I’m not letting you do that, not for the sake of one little hour.’ Her mind was racing. If she could deliver Theo Molenaar to the planetarium, give Ash his chance with MolTec, maybe that could be her atonement. Atonement for blindly believing that Hal had funded all their fancy trips to Paris, Prague and Berlin with an unexpected bequest from a distant relative.
‘I’ll meet him.’ She hurried into the hall and started pulling on her jacket. ‘I’ll make him see that going to Greenwich makes perfect sense.’
‘Mia, you can’t. He’ll think it’s weird.’
‘Maybe.’ She pushed her feet into some shoes, grabbed her bag. ‘Or maybe he’ll think it’s a...creative solution!’
‘It’s certainly creative.’ The smile she could hear in his voice faded to a sigh. ‘You’re crazy, you know that?’
She opened the door, squinted into the city sunshine. ‘But you still love me, right?’
‘Always.’
She smiled, then rummaged for her sunglasses and slipped them on. ‘Now, tell me where Molenaar’s staying, then get yourself to the planetarium.’
She preferred these small, boutique hotels to the generic glamour of the bigger five-star places. The reception lobby of this one was particularly nice. It had a cosy vibe—quirky art on the walls, comfy-looking sofas upholstered in dense fabric. If Molenaar felt at home in this hotel, it meant he wasn’t flashy. She liked that.
A desk clerk in a blue shirt looked up as she approached. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’
‘I have a meeting with one of your guests.’ She smiled. ‘Theo Molenaar.’
‘Your name, please?’
She paused for a beat. ‘Ashley Boelens.’ There’d be time for explanations later.
The man nodded and stabbed an extension code into the phone.
She drew in a slow breath, trying to quash the tremble that had just started in her knees. Hatching a plan to help Ash was all very well, but there was no getting away from it: Molenaar was expecting a business meeting, not an impromptu jaunt to Greenwich. He might be offended. Or dismissive. Maybe this wouldn’t help at all. Maybe she was messing everything up...
There was a little throat-clearing noise. The desk clerk was looking at her, his eyebrows slightly arched. ‘Mr Molenaar will be down in a moment. Please take a seat.’
In the seating area, she lowered herself onto a sofa, pulling her bag onto her lap. Mr Molenaar... A knot tightened in her stomach. She didn’t know what he looked like—or how old he was. There’d been no pictures with the article she’d read and in her five years as a features writer she hadn’t come across him. Of course, since she didn’t write about tech or astronomy, that was hardly surprising. She shifted on the sofa, running her fingers through her fringe. If she could just switch off her stupid nerves she’d be fine, but her nerves seemed to have developed a mind of their own and they were jangling chaotically.
She glanced at the lift doors and saw the floor numbers flashing...counting down. He was on his way!
She straightened her spine and lifted her chin, suddenly noticing the bulky weight of the bag in her lap. Lotte would be laughing at her: Mia! You look like Mary Poppins! Hurriedly, she turfed it onto the sofa, but her phone spilled out along with a lipstick and two pens. Frantically she raked them back inside, yanked the zip shut and then she looked up.
Blink! Breathe!
A thirty-something gorgeous man was standing in front of the closing doors looking right at her. He was tall, clean-shaven. His dark-blond collar-length hair was swept back from his forehead, so it was easy to see his brow furrowing as he gazed over. And then his eyes moved on, sweeping the lobby, clearly looking for the real Ash Boelens.
She knew she ought to go over and introduce herself, but for some reason she couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he have been much older or at the very least a stereotypical computer geek? What she’d come here to do was audacious enough without having to
