Good Girl or Gold-Digger? by Kate Hardy Read Free Book Online Page B

people to come back because they’ve had a great time and they don’t feel they’ve been fleeced.’
    ‘You don’t have to hike the prices. But at the moment when they buy their tickets they can have as many rides as they like. Maybe you could look more closely at that,’ Felix said. ‘Do a deal where you offer so many rides as part of the admission price, but if people want additional rides they pay for them. That way, it’s fair usage—the heavier users pay more.’
    ‘I’d rather not put extra pressure on the staff to take money,’ Daisy said. ‘Besides, if we’re handling money in the fairground other than in the ticket office, café or shop, the insurance company will see it as extra risk and our premiums will go sky high—an extra cost we could do without.’
    ‘Not if you do it as a ticket system, or with tokens that don’t have monetary value outside the fairground.Then you won’t have to worry about extra cash tills or security.’
    She liked the way he thought on his feet. And the way he backed up his arguments.
    Again, she met his eyes, and wished she hadn’t. Right now they were a cool, analytical grey, and she could just imagine them darkening with desire. The way they had when she’d teased him with her asparagus. And it would be oh, so easy to…
    No. The fairground had to come first. She pulled herself together. ‘That’s definitely worth considering. Thank you. Anything else?’
    ‘Is there a village hall nearby?’
    ‘The nearest one’s five miles away.’
    ‘So you could have a community centre. You have the room to build a hall. If you had moveable seating, you could use it for wedding receptions, for shows and a cinema, and any seasonal events, as well as hiring it out to groups—who will then use your cafe facilities. You could do educational events and children’s parties. I see from the website that you already do something special at Hallowe’en and Christmas.’
    She nodded. ‘We don’t have a ghost train—Bell’s never built any—but I’d love one. At the moment for Hallowe’en we do a steam-train ride with pumpkin-lanterns lighting the way, and all the staff and volunteers wear fancy dress that evening. At Christmas, Bill’s a brilliant Santa. And one of the local farmers has a small herd of reindeer that he brings at weekends.’ She smiled. ‘We do trips on the steam train to Santa’s grotto, and we have fairy lights all along the route. The kids love it.’
    ‘So having a hall would fit in nicely. You could decorate it as Santa’s grotto for your Christmas events, hold pantomimes and music-hall evenings there, and maybe get local craftsmen to have stalls at certain times of the year. Plus it would be easier to keep private than a marquee. It’d be a really flexible space.’
    ‘But it’s not a short-term solution—and building it would cost.’
    ‘You have to speculate to accumulate.’
    ‘What a cliché.’ Was he really not listening to her? ‘Besides, to do that, you need money.’
    ‘Not necessarily. That’s where external investment comes in,’ Felix suggested.
    ‘And external investors want to see a good return on their money. No way would a sponsor agree to build a hall for us, even if we named it after them.’ Daisy shook her head. ‘You’re still missing the point. I keep telling you, it isn’t about profit. It’s about keeping our heritage alive.’
    ‘If you don’t make a profit, how can you afford to maintain the rides?’ he asked. ‘And, if you want to buy neglected vintage ones that you can restore to working condition, you need an investor, Daisy.’
    ‘A sponsor,’ she corrected. ‘And you’re offering?’
    The second the words were out of her mouth she realised that they could be interpreted in a different way. Particularly as she was staring at his beautifully shaped mouth.
    She dragged her gaze up slightly, and realised that he was staring at her mouth, too.
    Bad.
    This was meant to be business.
    So why couldn’t