‘Thanks to you, talking me through it so concisely.’
Pride whooshed through her, making her feel at least ten feet tall. She couldn’t control the smile as it took her over her face, her eyes locking with Tak’s. For a moment he looked as though he was about to say more, but then changed his mind.
‘Obviously. Now, if you don’t want the whole building buzzing about the strange man on your doorstep, perhaps you should let me in.’
She ought to refuse, stand her ground. Instead she found her fingers reaching for the bolt, her hand shaking a little too much with eagerness.
‘Hurry up.’ Agitation and excitement vied for supremacy in her tone. ‘Before someone sees you.’
The temperature hit him the moment he entered.
‘It’s really is like the tundra in here.’
It sounded more like an accusation than a comment. It was all she could do to eye him with disapproval. No doubt he wouldn’t be used to that. When was the last time anyone had eyed Tak Basu with anything other than approval? Admiration? Lust?
She pushed that thought out of her head in an instant. ‘Why are you here, Tak?’
‘Did the repair guy even turn up?’
‘Tak—’
‘Did he turn up?’ he interrupted.
She glared at him. ‘Yes.’
‘But he didn’t repair it?’
‘Oh, he did.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘But Nell and I don’t use it because we like it this cold.’
‘Why didn’t he repair it?’ Tak chose to ignore her sarcasm.
She tried to out-glare him, but when she saw that clearly wasn’t going to work she finally relented with a sigh. ‘It seems it’s a little complicated.’
‘How complicated?’
‘The boiler is on its last legs. It needs to be replaced. But a new boiler won’t connect to the old system. I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s something about microbore pipework. They need to run in a fresh central heating line.’
He nodded, as though he understood what she was saying. Which didn’t really surprise her.
‘And how long will that take?’
‘A few weeks. Maybe.’
‘A few weeks?’ Tak was disparaging. ‘It’s a small flat, surely a week would suffice?’
‘As I understand it, they think they will need to take down at least one ceiling from the building plant room above, access at least one wall void, and then certainly take up every floor covering, floor board and re-lay all new pipework. Without disturbing any of my neighbours in the building. Even a layperson like me can see that could take a while.’
‘I see. And where does this landlord of yours expect you—and all your belongings, to live during this period?’
‘Here,’ she tried for a nonchalant shrug They can work in one or two rooms at a time so we can move around with them.’
‘Then forget a few weeks! If they’re stop-starting like that to work around you—and your furniture—then that could take a month. Longer, even.’
‘I guess...’ She shrugged. ‘But that’s just how it is. At least we still have somewhere to live.’
‘And you just accepted that? For pity’s sake, Effie, can’t you see that your landlord is walking all over you?’
‘Probably—but what can I do about it? There’s nothing in my tenancy agreement stating that the landlord is legally obliged to find us alternative accommodation. If I shout and rage then he’ll only take it out on us in an even worse way.’
She’d thought it would help, but her calmness only seemed to creep under his skin all the more. As if her acceptance made him feel as though he needed to shout louder, fight harder on her behalf.
Or maybe that was just because she wanted him to.
It made no sense. She’d long since given up expecting anyone else to fight her battles, or even stand beside her whilst she fought them herself. She’d wanted someone to do that for her, her whole life. But they hadn’t. Except for that one time, but look how that had turned out.
‘No, that’s unacceptable.’
Effie blinked, barely recognising Tak’s voice. It sounded odd, somehow. Tight. A little like her smile felt as she twisted her mouth into some semblance of one. Something was bugging him. She couldn’t explain why that pleased her, but it did.
‘It’s unfortunate, I’ll grant you, but it’s just the way it is.’
‘I won’t accept it.’
His words were sharp, edgy. She could almost see them cutting the air. Something sloshed inside her.
‘What are you going to do? Repair it yourself? After having conjured the obsolete spare parts out of thin air, of course. We all know you’re a superhero surgeon, of course, but I didn’t realise your expertise stretched to boilers and central heating as well.’
A hundred thoughts were racing through Tak’s head at that moment. She could see them but she couldn’t grasp a single one of them. And the way he was watching her... It made it impossible for her to explain this dark thing which fogged her head and swirled in eddies around her chest.
‘You can’t stay here.’
His voice was too thick. It did things to her. She could almost feel her smile. It was sharp, edgy, so un-Effie-like.
‘And yet here I am.’
‘What about your daughter?’ he challenged, and her non-smile disappeared in a flash. ‘It’s like living inside a freezer.’
‘You think I don’t know that? But where else should I stay? I could stay at the hospital, but I can’t take Nell, and I can’t afford a hotel.’
‘You’ll stay with me.’
‘No!’ Effie exclaimed, a shrill note of panic echoing through her voice.
‘Effie, what does it tell your daughter that you’re putting up with this landlord messing you around? Taking advantage?’
He might not have intended it, but what he’d said played on every insecurity she had.
‘I don’t need someone to swoop in and save me,’ she growled. ‘I’ve been taking care of my daughter alone for thirteen years. I don’t need a...a...stranger telling me he knows best.’
‘For pity’s sake, this isn’t some test as to whether you’re a good mother or not,’ he countered. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you aren’t both absolutely freezing and miserable?’
She clenched and unclenched her fists at her sides. ‘We can cope. We’ve put up with worse.’
‘I don’t doubt it—more’s the pity!’
His voice was too even, too level, and somehow that got under her skin all the more. Her temper—which she’d kept hidden away for more years than she could remember—began to flare.
‘We don’t need you charging in thinking we need saving. Offering us your goodwill like we’re some charity case. Suggesting we can’t manage.’
‘It wasn’t an offer,’ he replied grimly. ‘Or a suggestion.’
‘Really?’ Effie could barely contain her incredulity. ‘You’re that high-handed you think you can just order me and my thirteen-year-old daughter to come and stay with you and I’ll obey? As if that doesn’t set a worse example to her than anything else?’
‘Fine.’ His jaw pulled taut. ‘Then I’m at least calling the creep to find out exactly what’s going on.’
She couldn’t possibly have articulated what it was in his expression that rooted her to the spot. That made her whole body shiver so deliciously despite everything. And before she could analyse it further he’d turned from her, pulling out his mobile phone. It was only when he began speaking that she realised with whom he was having his rather commanding one-sided conversation.
Goodness, he must have saved the number when Nell had given him their landlord’s contact details. She should react. Stop him. Grab the phone and take control. Awkwardly, stiffly, she reached her hand out, but abruptly his face darkened menacingly as he growled into the
phone.
‘Asbestos?’
Effie froze solid. She was watching and listening, but unable to move or to say a word. Her brain was apparently not even capable of understanding Tak’s side of the conversation, save for the fact that she would be eternally grateful his barely contained rage wasn’t remotely directed at her.
Finally, he terminated the call with a grim sound. All she could do was wait. Immobile. Barely even breathing.
‘It seems your flat is located directly below the plant room,’ he bit out at length. ‘It seems that since the last conversation, he found asbestos in the lagging around the pipes. It’s going to need to be cleared out immediately—which means taking your ceiling down to get to the pipes.’
She felt as though she was fighting to swim through treacle. ‘Okay, but that won’t take long, surely? It’s a small flat. Pulling out a bit of insulation might take a day? Two?’
‘They’ll have to remove the ceilings from your entire flat, clear out the lot, re-insulate, board the ceilings, then plaster then. You’re talking a minimum of a week. Then there’s still the week or so to replace all the pipework in your flat.’
‘Two weeks?’ it would eat up all her savings, and then some.
‘It isn’t just that, Effie. Your landlord is going to need surveys, HSE approval, and then find a fully licensed contractor to remove the asbestos. You’re talking a minimum of six weeks—and that’s assuming he can find someone available to start straight away.’
The ramifications came at her almost in slow motion. ‘Nell and I are going to have to move out?’ Her voice didn’t even sound like her own.
‘Yes.’
‘For six weeks?’
‘At least.’
‘No!’ Effie exclaimed, unable to cover the note of panic in her tone. ‘How dare you? You...you’ve no right.’
There was a note in her voice which threatened to betray the fact that it wasn’t just her pride talking, but rather her flip-flopping traitorous heart. A note which gave away just how wickedly tempting his offer was.
‘I didn’t create this, Effie.’ He sounded unperturbed. ‘I didn’t put the asbestos there.
‘No right to meddle!’ she cried. ‘You called him. You pushed him.’
‘Which meant he told the truth now instead of in a few days or weeks.’
‘And it’s just my flat?’
‘No, it’s all three flats on this floor.’
Her stomach somersaulted. ‘Oh, no—Mrs Appleby!’
‘Apparently, she’s going to stay with her sister, a few hours’ drive away. I don’t know about the other flat’s occupants.’
What did it say about her that she didn’t even know their names?
‘I have no idea where we can go,’ she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
‘Like I said. You’ll stay with me. Only this time I’m not offering.’
Effie didn’t miss the edge to his voice, but her mind was too busy reeling for her to be able to take it on board fully.
‘Anyway, my home is expansive enough that we could live in separate wings and not even see or hear each other.’
She hesitated. What other choice did she have? And why couldn’t she shake the part of her which was secretly revelling in this horrible turn of events?
‘Really?’
‘Unless you want us to see each other, of course.’
It was an attempt at a joke, she was pretty sure, but they were both too tense to laugh. The air was so fraught she was almost suffocating. And then something lurched inside her chest that she pretended not to notice.
She tilted her head a fraction higher. ‘You’re funny,’ she said, her voice cracked.
‘Did you just chin-check me?’
He grinned suddenly. It was a stunning, heart-stopping sight. And incredibly, impossibly, everything simply shifted.
‘Why are you being so nice, anyway?’ Effie valiantly fought to eye his obscenely tantalising grin with something she hoped approached disdain. ‘What’s in it for you?’
‘Would it make it easier for you if there was something?’
Would it? Probably.
She lifted her shoulders as casually as she dared. ‘Maybe.’
He laughed. A warm, rich sound which seemed to seep through her very bones like the sun on a gorgeously hot day.
‘Fine. Then what if I told you that my extended family have backed off on the whole arranged marriage idea since word got back to them about me being at the gala with you.’
She didn’t feel a tingle ripple through her. She didn’t.
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’
She waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. He was deliberately waiting for her to probe him. To show her hand. She wanted to hold her nerve, but curiosity won out—as galling as that was.
‘Go on, then. I’ll bite. Why isn’t your mother insisting on an arranged marriage any more?’
‘I guess because her endgame is for me to provide her with grandchildren. Whether she sets me up or I meet a future wife on my own terms is really neither here nor there to her.’
She could feel his words all over her. Sliding over her skin and slinking through her veins. He hadn’t meant it like that, but she couldn’t stop hearing the words echoing in her head, over and over...
His future wife. As if it could be her. As if she wanted it to be her.
She’d spent her whole life certain that she would never want that. People let each other down and betrayed each other—that was just human nature. They only wanted to know another person if there was something in it for themselves.
Except, perhaps, a very rare few—like Eleanor Jarvis, the closest thing Effie had ever had to a loving maternal figure. And look what had happened to her.
‘What about sex?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Are you offering?’
That sinful curve of his mouth was almost her undoing. ‘No!’
‘Relax. I’m teasing. No sex.’
‘And kissing?’
She hoped her cheeks didn’t flush as she recalled the spine-tingling kiss they’d shared outside her apartment door that night.
‘Not even a superficial air-kiss,’ he answered solemnly.
She narrowed her eyes. It sounded suspiciously as if he was teasing her.
‘Good,’ she offered at last.
She didn’t even sound as if she believed herself. But if Tak wanted to offer her and Nell a roof over their heads, as long as his gain wasn’t their downfall surely she could live with that?
* * *
‘This is where he lives?’ Nell whispered beside her as they both stood outside the house, staring up in undisguised shock. Suddenly she sounded small and...thirteen.
Their argument during the drive over here had been momentarily forgotten and Effie was grateful. She wasn’t sure she had the energy for dealing with living in Tak’s home as well as for another full-scale debate on why she was refusing to let her daughter attend the birthday party of a girl Effie had never met before.
Fortunately, the sight of the former seemed to have rather knocked the latter into the dirt, and Nell kept on staring up, her hand moving to clutch her mother’s arm.
Effie didn’t blame her. The place was imposing. Unquestionably huge and unfeasibly stunning. And yet somehow it was also surprisingly inviting.
How it achieved that Effie couldn’t quite be sure, but the arresting building seemed to ooze the personality of its owner through every substantial wall, every imposing sheet of glass and every single breathtaking view of the lush countryside.
‘It’s like...like a castle or something.’
It wasn’t. For a start it was far too modern, too sleek. But Effie could understand what her daughter meant. To a girl who had been brought up with as few material goods as Effie had
been able to give her this must seem like something out of a fairy tale.
Heck, if it hadn’t been for the unwelcome memories flooding her brain even to her it would have felt like something unbelievably enchanting and idyllic. But instead her stomach heaved and churned.
She felt like a thirteen-year-old herself, although her reactions were a lot more emotionally charged than her daughter’s. How many times had she stood in a stranger’s hallway, a battered duffel bag—which she’d held onto because somehow it reminded her of where she’d come from, and how hard she’d struggled to get to where she was now—in her hand, staring around at another person’s home and plastering a stiff smile on her lips in gratitude that they were deigning to let her into it.
‘It can’t all be his, Mum. I bet they’re luxury apartments and he just has one of them.’
Effie didn’t agree, but before she could say anything the front door swung open. A man stood on the doorstep, looking down on them. He was about fifty years old, perhaps sixty, in a dark, neat suit, his shoes polished to within an inch of their lives, and his face neutral. Some might say carefully so.
‘Dr Robinson? And this must be Miss Robinson.’
It took Effie a moment to realise that she should step forward. ‘Um...yes. That’s right. You can call me Effie, and this is Nell. And you are Mr Havers?’
‘Just Havers,’ he stated crisply. ‘Now, Dr Robinson, allow me to show you and Miss Robinson around—unless you’d prefer to go directly to your wing? Mr Basu hopes that you will be comfortable here.’
‘Our wing?’ Nell whispered at her side as Havers gestured to invite them in. ‘It really is just one big house?’
‘Leave your luggage over there. I’ll see that it’s taken upstairs.’
‘Thank you.’ Effie gritted her teeth, cringing inwardly—their bags were hardly the designer luggage she suspected most women visiting this place used—and headed inside.
The tour progressed in a blur of one incredible space after another, so vast that her head was already beginning to spin and she had the impression that they were barely halfway through. It was a blessing and a curse when she heard footsteps tapping up the wooden hallway behind her and knew, without even turning around, that it would be Tak.
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