by Lynne Graham
‘I hope so.’ Griff gave her a wide, self-satisfied smile as their menus arrived and he ordered wine in execrable French.
‘I don’t drink,’ she reminded him.
He leant almost confidingly closer. ‘I believe you’ll break that rule tonight.’
Just as she was on the brink of questioning the peculiarity of his behaviour, Bella’s attention was stolen. Griff could have stood up and stripped and she wouldn’t have noticed. Rico da Silva was in the act of taking a seat at a table about fifteen feet away. She froze, her heartbeat slowing to a dulled thud as if she was being forced to witness a disaster. And, inside herself, indeed she was…
For three endless weeks Bella had rationalised away every single feeling that Rico had inspired in her. She had blamed fear, propinquity, hysteria and her own repressed sexuality. She had lost weight, endured sleepless nights and stubbornly considered herself cured of emotions that she refused to rate higher than the level of an adolescent infatuation.
But at the same second as her shocked gaze located him and everyone else in the room vanished from her awareness, her so-called cure came apart at the seams. A hunger so intense that it was agonising clawed at her. Her mesmerised eyes roved from his dark head to the soles of his hand-made shoes and back up again. Worst of all, she couldn’t stop herself from doing it.
‘Your wine..: Griff prodded her fingers with the glass at the same instant as Rico’s dark, restive gaze landed on her. Bella watched his hard, bronzed face tauten with something that looked very much like savage disbelief, and hurriedly she tore her dazed scrutiny from him. She fumbled for the wine and drank the whole glass down in one go.
‘I do realise that you haven’t indulged before,’ Griff reproved, ‘but one is supposed to enjoy the bouquet.’
The waiter was already refilling her glass.
‘Now…’ Griff dealt her an expectant look.
‘Now what?’
Belatedly she noticed the ring glittering in the palm which he was extending to her. ‘What do you want me to do with that?’ she muttered helplessly.
‘I am asking you to marry me,’ he told her smugly, reaching for her hand.
‘You’re what?’
Everything happened at once. A camera flash went off somewhere near by. The head waiter looked shattered. A man in a dinner jacket, clasping a camera, raced past… ‘Thanks mate!’ he tossed back, apparently at Griff, as he headed for the exit fast.
‘I’m sure you won’t mind if we join you.’
Open-mouthed, Bella stared incredulously as Rico, appearing out of nowhere, cooly pulled out one of the two vacant chairs at their table for the exquisite blonde who was hovering with an air of unease beside him.
‘Sophie Ingram, this is Bella. Bella, meet Sophie. Since we are the cynosure for every eye in the room, we might as well join up, es verdad?’
‘Es verdad nothing!’ Bella hissed, recovering her tongue. ‘I do not wish to share a table with you. You’re butting in where you are not wanted—’
‘Bella, please,’ Griff intervened in a shocked whisper.
‘If you whisper at Bella you’ll make her shout,’ Rico murmured flatly, sinking down into the seat beside her and signalling to the hovering head waiter with an imperious movement of one hand. ‘Now, you are Griff Atherton… Does she accidentally call you Biff from time to time? I ask because when we first met it took Bella four attempts to even recall my name.’
‘Shut up!’ she bit out from between clenched teeth.
‘Bella, please,’ Griff said again. ‘Mr da Silva and Miss Ingram are very welcome.’
‘Of course we’re welcome,’ Rico drawled with lancing satire, shooting Griff a look of unconcealed derision.
Bella reached for her glass and drained it for a second time all in one go.
‘I’m very sorry about this,’ Sophie murmured, openly studying the engagement ring still lying on the linen cloth in front of Bella.
‘Wedding bells…’ Rico laughed sardonically.
‘If you don’t shut up and back off,’ Bella spat in a shaking undertone, ‘I’m going to hit you with that bottle!’
‘That would be a first.’ Incandescent golden eyes challenged her, his strong mouth twisting. ‘Another first. But not one half as enjoyable as the last we shared.’
‘Excuse me.’ It took immense restraint but Bella shakily reached for her bag and rose from the table.
She reached the cloackroom only seconds before Sophie. She spun from the sink her green eyes swimming with tears. The blonde gave her a wry glance. ‘If I could do to Rico what you can do, I wouldn’t be crying over it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bella said in a stifled voice.
‘You’re so young.’ Sophie sighed, studying her averted profile. ‘I came to bitch but I can’t. It isn’t your fault he’s about to dump me—he never stays with anyone longer than a couple of months. I’m past my sell-by date and frankly I’ve had enough. Rico has been like a stranger since the kidnapping—’
‘Has he?’ Bella looked up, all damp eyes and helpless curiosity.
‘He’s all yours.’ Sophie was extracting several items from her beautiful beaded bag. ‘The card that opens the city apartment, the keys for the main house on the Winterwood estate and the keys for the Porsche. He told me to keep it… but I don’t think I earned that size of pay-off.’
‘I don’t want them!’ Bella exclaimed in horror as the items were thrust into her hand.
‘You’re planning to marry Biff or whatever his name is?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Save Rico the trouble of getting extras cut,’ Sophie said very drily.
‘You’ve got it all wrong—’
‘Good luck. You’ll need it. He’s anti-love, anti-commitment and anti-marriage. Sensational divorces leave scars,’ she murmured tightly, turning to the door. ‘It’s just a pity that Rico doesn’t appreciate that he’s not the only one ever to have been hurt!’
Bella was left holding the keys. Sophie had shattered her. She was one very strong lady… one very generous lady. After all, had it once occurred to Bella whilst in that container that she was playing around with another woman’s man? Not once. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to recall seeing Rico with Sophie that very first night, emerging from that hotel, climbing into the Bugatti. Suddenly Bella, who prided herself on her principles, saw that she had sacrificed more than one with Rico, and whether it was fair or otherwise she hated him for reducing her to that level.
Head high, she walked back to the table, as beautiful and as remote as a moving statue. Without looking once at Rico, she dropped the keys and the card in front of him. ‘I want to go home, Griff.’
‘Hasta la vista, gatita,’ Rico drawled smoothly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT HAD taken quite some time for Griff to unload her paintings and possessions from the BMW. He was in an astonishingly good mood. Rico had known the way to Griff’s heart. He had promised to recommend him to one of his friends, who was currently enduring the horrors of a broken marriage.
‘And once I get those kinds of people coming to me for advice,’ Griff bored on, ‘I’ll be offered a senior partnership.’
‘Marvellous.’ Had he always been this boring, this predictable? She felt awful even thinking that, but couldn’t wait to escape.
‘It could bring our wedding forward by a year or two—’
‘Say that again?’ she practically whispered.
Griff gravely outlined his agenda for their future—a three-year engagement, her discovery as an artist to facilitate the expense, marriage only when they had left no stone of possible incompatibility unturned and explored. It was so very sensible that she wanted to tear her hair out, for this was a man whom a few short weeks ago she had believed she would marry, should he ask.
Without warning she belatedly recalled the photographer who had shouted his thanks to Griff before he’d taken off. ‘Why did that man with the camera thank you?’
/> Griff frowned. ‘I told him we would be there.’
‘You did what? Were you also aware that Rico would be there?’
‘It’s his favourite watering-hole, I understand, and I was delighted when he showed up and joined us. It was unfortunate that his date chose to take off early, but there’ll be no more undesirable publicity once our engagement is announced in print, complete with photo,’ Griff pointed out with pride, blind to the gathering rage and disbelief in Bella’s face, he was so patently′pleased with himself.
‘But I didn’t say yes!’ she hissed.
He took a step back, flinching from her venom.
‘The answer is no. I don’t want to marry you. Not only are you unfaithful, you are stingy. You pocketed the ring again… You just couldn’t bring yourself to part with it!’ she reminded him witheringly.
‘How dare you call me stingy?’
‘And you can take that announcement right back out of the paper again, because I’d sooner starve than be married to a stingy, manipulative man who is more concerned with his image at the office than with me!’ Thrusting him bodily out of the dingy hall, Bella slammed the door on him before he had the chance to snap his dropped jaw closed again.
She perched on the step one up from the bottom of the stairs. She was waiting for Rico. He would come. She knew it in her bones. And she was all shaken up just thinking about it. A man who bought women the same way he bought his shirts. Sophie had ripped the scales from her stupid eyes. Anti-love, anti-commitment and anti-marriage. How could she have fallen in love with a man like that?
For it was love. She could no longer lie to herself. Seeing Rico again tonight had torn her apart but it had also made her face the truth. She had fallen violently in love with a man who bonded with women on an immoral basis of keys and gifts of expensive cars, a male who might have remarkable staying power in bed—her cheeks burned—but whose staying power in relationships was abysmal. Two months? Even Bella allowed men to last longer than two months…most of the time, she adjusted. Griff had lasted three, but then he worked a lot of overtime, she conceded absently.
And what about the sensational divorce? She should have asked Liz about Rico’s failed marriage. It was strange that there had been no mention of it in the papers. Liz was a walking encyclopaedia on celebrity lives and scandals. But then maybe Liz hadn’t known, or maybe Liz had just been too good a friend to mention Rico when Bella had gone to such ridiculous lengths to avoid referring to him herself. Poor Liz. She must have used superglue to keep her lips sealed on all the questions she’d been dying to ask!
The mechanical Edwardian doorbell shrilled and made her jump. She unlocked the door.
‘You should have a chain on,’ Rico grated, striding in. ‘Why is this place in total darkness?’
‘Hector doesn’t like electricity bills!’
Thrusting arrogantly past her, Rico skimmed a hand along the wall, and abruptly the great chandelier above blazed into light. Bella had never seen it illuminated before and she stared up, wondering how it would look without the cobwebs. There was a strangled moan from the landing above.
‘Switch that off!’ Hector urged in horror. ‘Are you trying to ruin me? Have you any idea how many watts that burns?’
‘Switch it off, for heaven’s sake…before he has a heart attack!’
Rico stared up at the thin figure wrapped in the ragged wool robe and mounted the stairs. ‘Mr Barsay… I am Rico da Silva.’ He extended a lean hand with awesome cool.
Hector pressed his hand to his palpitating chest instead. ‘Switch off that light!’ he pleaded.
‘I’ll pay for it,’ Rico drawled smoothly, tugging out his wallet and extracting a crisp note. ‘I’m reduced to a shuddering wreck by darkness after my experience in that container. My nerves couldn’t stand the strain.’
‘Bella has candles—’
‘Not enough.’ Rico pressed the note apologetically into Hector’s trembling hand. ‘And I do understand what a struggle it is for you to survive in this house.’
There was no subject dearer to Hector’s heart. He managed a brave smile while surreptitiously pocketing the money. ‘Hector!’ Bella moaned in embarrassment.
‘Women don’t understand these things,’ Rico sighed.
‘I don’t like visitors,’ Hector snorted. ‘But you can stay.’ And off he went.
Bella raced upstairs.
‘Where do you hang out?’ Rico enquired, shooting an incredulous glance over the peeling walls and general air of decay surrounding him. ‘In the attic with the bats? No wonder you’re off the wall, gatita. He’s as nutty as a fruitcake.’
‘How dare you?’ she said, her teeth gritted. ‘He can’t help being poor—’
‘Poor?’ Rico burst out laughing. ‘He could buy and sell everyone else in this street! He has a solid-gold investment portfolio that keeps on raking in the cash year after year.’
‘I don’t believe you—’
‘He has just about everyone fooled but I checked him out. Hector Barsay is stinking rich and he never parts with a penny if he can help it. Charities know not to knock on this door.’
‘You’ve mixed him up with someone else…you must have done!’
‘Where’s your lair?’
Stiff-backed, she mounted the second flight of stairs ahead of him and reluctantly pushed open the door. He reached for the light switch.
‘There’s no bulb,’ she said with pleasure, and then abruptly she recalled her paintings and spun round. ‘We’ll go downstairs.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve always wanted to see a starving artist’s garret. Where’s the flea-ridden straw pallet and the mousetraps?’ he enquired, lifting the solid-silver candelabra by her bed and using the matches sitting beside it. ‘Madre de Dios…’ he breathed, surveying the bare room with an emotion akin to incredulous fascination. ‘You will think you have entered paradise when I take you home with me!’
‘You’re not taking me anywhere, Rico.’ She folded her arms. In the flickering light from the candles he was a dark silhouette in bronze and black—lithe and sleek and as graceful as a jungle cat. Her mouth went dry.
‘Even if you can’t paint anything other than blobs in primary colours I’ll be your patron,’ Rico said smoothly. ‘And you deserve that I say that to you. I’ve learnt more about you in the papers than you ever deigned to tell me.’
She flushed. ‘And that should tell you something—’
‘That you like to dramatise… that you like to play games?’ He shot the demand at her in fast, fluent French. ‘You may not attach too much importance to spelling but you speak French, German, Italian and Russian like a native, I believe.’
She tensed even more, her mouth tightening. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read—’
‘Do you or don’t you?’ he raked at her in German.
‘OK… OK… guilty as charged!’
‘You described yourself to me as a waitress—’
‘I’m not ashamed of being a waitress—’
‘But you could have been a rocket scientist if you’d wanted to be! Your teachers said you were brilliant—’
‘A slight exaggeration—’
‘But bone-idle academically and fixated on art… and I have this awful suspicion that you can’t paint for peanuts,’ Rico bit out harshly. ‘Hector’s the father you never had and you would very much like to walk in your lousy father’s footsteps!’
Bella had turned white. She hadn’t expected such a forceful attack as this. Rico was so angry. Why? Did he think that she had made a fool of him? Was she supposed to have reeled off a boastful list of her abilities for his benefit? ‘Clever clogs’, the other kids had whispered nastily behind her back when she had been at school. Bella had learnt the hard way that it was easier to be average than gifted.
‘Biff thinks you’re as thick as the proverbial plank; can’t understand why the papers are making up so many ridiculous lies,’ Rico derided.
‘His name is Gr
iff and he does not think I’m thick—’
‘“Exquisite on the eye, dizzy as a dodo,” he told me cheerfully. He would run a mile if he knew that you were capable of out-thinking, out-guessing and out-plotting his every move!’
Bella compressed her lips. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You were waiting for me,’ he reminded her smoothly, surveying her with smouldering golden eyes that burned wherever they touched. ‘When I saw you in that restaurant I wanted to put my hands round your throat and squeeze hard. Where the hell have you been for the past three weeks? Why the hell did Chief Superintendent Nazenby treat me like a convicted criminal who was dangerous to women and refuse to divulge your whereabouts?’
Bella went pink and managed a jerky shrug. ‘It didn’t occur to me that you’d ask.’
‘This is not Biff you are talking to… this is Rico,’ he growled, moving forward, his handsome face as hard as iron. ‘And I can scent female deviousness a mile away. I offended your pride at the police station, and you removed yourself from my radius to let me learn to appreciate you in your absence. Then magically you reappeared in my favourite restaurant with another man—a man all primed and ready to propose holy matrimony with me as an audience!’
‘You conceited jerk!’ Bella slung at him in disbelief. ‘You actually think I would sink to that level to try and trap you?’
‘Si…’ He threw her a seething look of condemnation. ‘I might respect you more if you simply admitted how calculating you are!’
‘How did you get through the front door with an ego that size?’
‘My apologies if I did not rise to your expectation of me throwing a jealous scene! I am not the jealous type.’
‘I’ll believe you… thousands wouldn’t,’ she responded sweetly, recognising with a kind of savage pleasure that he had indeed been jealous, and ready to thank him even more sweetly for bringing it to her notice. ‘You were rude to me, rude to poor Sophie, and rude to Griff, although it probably went over his head. I don’t know what I did to earn that… And as for Sophie, my heart went out to her—’