fine here, thank you very much.’ She perched awkwardly on the edge of one of the pristine leather sofas and rested her hands primly on her lap.
‘Suit yourself.’
But as soon as he had left the room, she began exploring like a kid in a toyshop, touching some of the clearly priceless objets d’art he had randomly scattered around: a beautiful bronze figurine of two cheetahs on the long, low sideboard against the wall; a pair of vases that looked very much like the real thing from a Chinese dynasty; she gazed at the abstract on the wall and tried to decipher the signature.
‘Do you like what you see?’ Luiz asked from behind her and she started and went bright red.
‘I’ve never been in a place like this before,’ Aggie said defensively.
Her mouth went dry as she looked at him. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a grey-and-black-striped woollen jumper. She could see the collar of his shirt underneath, soft grey flannel. All the other times she had seen him he had been formally dressed, almost as though he had left work to meet them at whatever mega-expensive restaurant he had booked. But this was casual and he was really and truly drop-dead sexy.
‘It’s a house, not a museum. Shall we go?’ He flicked off the light as she left the sitting room and pulled out his mobile phone to instruct his driver to bring the four-by-four round.
‘My house is a house.’ Aggie was momentarily distracted from her anger at his accusations as she stared back at the mansion behind her and waited with him for the car to be delivered.
‘Correction. Your house is a hovel. Your landlord deserves to be shot for charging a tenant for a place like that. You probably haven’t noticed, but in the brief time I was there I spotted the kind of cracks that advertise a problem with damp—plaster falling from the walls and patches on the ceiling that probably mean you’ll have a leak sooner rather than later.’
The four-by-four, shiny and black, slowed and Luiz’s driver got out.
‘There’s nothing I can do about that,’ Aggie huffed, climbing into the passenger seat. ‘Anyway, you live in a different world to me…to us. It’s almost impossible to find somewhere cheap to rent in London.’
‘There’s a difference between cheap and hazardous. Just think of what you could buy if you had the money in your bank account…’ He manoeuvred the big car away from the kerb. ‘Nice house in a smart postcode…Quaint little garden at the back…You like gardening, don’t you? I believe it’s one of those things you mentioned…although it’s open to debate whether you were telling the truth or lying to give the right impression.’
‘I wasn’t lying! I love gardening.’
‘London gardens are generally small but you’d be surprised to discover what you can get for the right price.’
‘I would never accept a penny from you, Luiz Montes!’
‘You don’t mean that.’
That tone of comfortable disbelief enraged her. ‘I’m not interested in money!’ She turned to him, looked at his aristocratic dark profile, and felt that familiar giddy feeling.
‘Call me cynical, but I have yet to meet someone who isn’t interested in money. They might make noises about money not being able to buy happiness and the good things in life being free, but they like the things money can do and the freebies go through the window when more expensive ways of being happy enter the equation. Tell me seriously that you didn’t enjoy those meals you had out.’
‘Yes, I enjoyed them, but I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there.’
‘And what about your brother? Is he as noble minded as you?’
‘Neither of us are materialistic, if that’s what you mean. You met him. Did he strike you as the sort of person who…who would lead Maria on because of what he thought he could get out of her? I mean, didn’t you like him at all?’
‘I liked him, but that’s not the point.’
‘You mean the point is that Maria can go out with someone from a different background, just so long as there’s no danger of getting serious, because the only person she would be allowed to settle down with would be someone of the same social standing as her.’
‘You say that as though there’s something wrong with it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about this. It’s not going to get us anywhere.’ She fell silent and watched the slow-moving traffic around her, a sea of headlights illuminating late-night shoppers, people hurrying towards the tube or to catch a bus. At this rate, it would be midnight before they cleared London.
‘Would you tell me something?’ she asked to break the silence.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Why didn’t you try and put an end to their relationship from the start? I mean, why did you bother taking us out for all those meals?’
‘Not my place to interfere. Not at that point, at any rate. I’d been asked to keep an eye on things, to meet your brother and, as it turns out, you too, because the two of you seem to be joined at the hip.’ He didn’t add that, having not had very much to do with his niece in the past, he had found that he rather enjoyed their company. He had liked listening to Mark and Maria entertain him with their chat about movies and music. And even more he had liked the way Aggie had argued with him, had liked the way it had challenged him into making an effort to get her to laugh. It had all made a change from the extravagant social events to which he was invited, usually in a bid by a company to impress him.
‘We’re not joined at the hip! We’re close because…’ Because of their background of foster care, but that was definitely something they had kept to themselves.
‘Because you lost your parents?’
‘That’s right.’ She had told him in passing, almost the first time she had met him, that their parents were dead and had swiftly changed the subject. Just another muddled half-truth that would further make him suspicious of their motives.
‘Apart from which, I thought that my sister had been overreacting to the whole thing. Maria is an only child without a father. Luisa is prone to pointless worrying.’
‘I can’t imagine you taking orders from your sister.’
‘You haven’t met Luisa or any of my five sisters. If you had, you wouldn’t make that observation.’ He laughed and Aggie felt the breath catch in her throat because, for once, his laughter stemmed from genuine amusement.
‘What are they like?’
‘All older than me and all bossy.’ He grinned sideways at her. ‘It’s easier to surrender than to cross them. In a family of six women, my father and I know better than to try and argue. It would be easier staging a land war in Asia.’
That glimpse of his humanity unsettled Aggie. But she had had glimpses of it before, she recalled uneasily. Times when he had managed to make her forget how dislikeable he was, when he had recounted something with such dry wit that she had caught herself trying hard to stifle a laugh. He might be hateful, judgemental and unfair, he might represent a lot of things she disliked, but there was no denying that he was one of the most intelligent men she had ever met—and, when it suited him, one of the most entertaining. She had contrived to forget all of that but, stuck here with him, it was coming back to her fast and she had to fumble her way out of her momentary distraction.
‘I couldn’t help overhearing those messages earlier on at the house,’ she said politely.
‘Messages? What are you talking about?’
‘Lots of business calls. I guess you’re having to sacrifice working time for this…unless you don’t work on a weekend.’
‘If you’re thinking of using a few messages you overheard as a way of trying to talk me out of this trip,