by Various
‘I have.’ She spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Which is why I’m not getting into a car with you. Now, if you’ll let me go, it’s been a long day and I want to get home.’
He let her go without resistance. ‘Funny. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
The icy edge to his voice stopped her in her tracks and filled her with sudden misgiving. She turned back to him.
‘What?’
‘Home.’ He paused, his face impossible to read in the gloom. Emily felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Beyond the black car that waited behind him she could hear the sound of voices from the street, the distant wail of a siren. ‘I was at Balfour Manor last night.’
A door slammed inside the community centre. Emily darted an anxious glance over her shoulder, hoping Kiki hadn’t heard him. ‘Please…’ she implored.
In one smooth movement he turned and pulled open the car door. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to have this conversation in the car, before your cover is blown and your new friends find out that “Miss Jones” is really the daughter of a billionaire who could end all the financial problems of this extremely valuable community resource just by asking Daddy nicely.…’
Emily shrank back, as if the plush interior of the car was the mouth of a giant whale, waiting to swallow her up. Her voice was cracked and faint. ‘But I have nothing to say to you.’
‘That’s fine.’ His voice was cool as he placed a hand in the small of her back and brought her forward. ‘You can just listen.’
There was someone else in the car—a man in his thirties perhaps, in a dark suit. He smiled as Emily slid reluctantly onto the seat beside him, and she felt slightly reassured. At least she wouldn’t be alone with Luis.
On the downside, there wasn’t so much room. As Luis finished speaking to the driver and got in beside her, Emily found herself far closer than was comfortable to his long, hard thigh on the seat. The only alternative was to move more towards the silent, suited man on her other side. Forget ‘better the devil you know,’ she thought miserably. No one could be more dangerous than Luis Cordoba. She inched away, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
No such luck.
‘That’s Tomás, my private secretary,’ Luis said sardonically. ‘You can sit on his knee, if you like. He’s very good with children.’
Tomás smiled, with the indulgent air of someone who had seen all this before. ‘Take no notice of His Highness, Miss Balfour.’
‘Thank you, Tomás.’ Emily turned back to Luis. ‘I’m not a child, and you’re certainly not my father, so I don’t know why you think you can order me around.’
The car pulled out of the Larchfield compound and onto the road. ‘Thank goodness I’m not your father,’ Luis said laconically. ‘From what I saw of him yesterday Oscar isn’t a happy man.’
‘W-what do you mean?’
‘Well, there’s all this for a start.’ He leaned forward and plucked a copy of the newspaper Emily had bought earlier from a pocket in the back of the driver’s seat.
Holding her head up very stiffly she glanced at it in distaste. ‘I know. I’ve seen it. Look, don’t you want to know where I live?’
‘No, not really,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘Not unless you’re going to insist on going back there to change.’
A dart of alarm shot through her. ‘Change? Into what?’
‘Anything that wasn’t hand knitted by medieval peasants from yak’s wool,’ he suggested disdainfully, his gaze travelling downwards from her cardigan to the cheap, flat shoes she’d bought for work. ‘As disguises go I must say you’ve chosen very well. Who would have thought one of the celebrated Balfour girls would go around dressed like a refugee from a hippy commune?’
Emily raised her chin, ignoring the jibe. ‘Why would I want to change? Where are we going?’ A horrible thought occurred to her. ‘Not home? Not back to Balfour, because I can’t. I—’
‘Relax.’ He cut through her mounting panic. ‘I’m taking you out to dinner.’
‘Isn’t it polite to ask first?’ Emily slumped back against the seat, folding her arms mutinously. Of course, the normal rules of courtesy didn’t apply to the Prince of Santosa. His title made him think he could do anything and have anything. Or anyone.
‘If I had asked would you have accepted?’ he said evenly.
She shook her head.
‘Exactly. Just think of it as being cruel to be kind.’
Emily gave a bark of harsh laughter. ‘The cruelty I can believe. Kindness? Not so much.’
‘When was the last time you ate properly?
Emily thought back to the bowl of cut-price breakfast cereal she’d had in her room before leaving for work earlier. The milk had been off, so she hadn’t felt like eating much. The rent she paid for her room in Mr Lukacs’s house was supposed to include use of the kitchen, but she found that whenever she ventured in there he would appear, finding some excuse to squeeze past her in the narrow space, or just watching her with his damp, beady eyes. She preferred to avoid it.
‘Why do you care? It’s got nothing to do with you.’
Despair made her uncharacteristically ungracious. Despair and the uncomfortable feeling that, having been hit by the express train, she had now been hauled aboard and was speeding away into unknown and dangerous territory.
‘You’re right, it’s not. Not in itself, and believe me I have plenty of other things to worry about. But given that your father looks like a dead man walking because he has no idea where you are, and I discover you living like…like…’ Lost for words, he gave a small exhalation of frustration. ‘It’s become my business whether I like it or not. So I’m going to feed you, and you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on.’
Something in his tone silenced the retort that had sprung to her lips. There was an edge there, a tension that she hadn’t noticed in him before. The Luis Cordoba she knew was laughing, insouciant, urbane—a playboy whose most serious decisions in life involved which party invitations to accept, and which women to seduce when he got there.
This man was different. Harder. Colder. And possibly even more dangerous than before.
The car had picked up speed now. The street lights stained the soft, early summer dusk a lurid shade of orange, and threw neon bars of light into the car as they sped along. They were heading out of the city, she realised with curious numbness. When he had said dinner she had imagined some exclusive West End restaurant, but the traffic was thinning as they left London behind them.
The events of the exhausting day seemed to pile up in the centre of Emily’s mind, blocking her ability to think properly. Instead she sat motionless between the dark-suited men, keeping herself very upright, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her.
A dead man walking.
The phrase echoed in her head. She longed to ask Luis what he meant, what Oscar had said, but couldn’t bring herself to do it in the presence of Tomás and the faceless driver. The damned newspaper still lay on the seat between them, its salacious headline seeming to emit some high-frequency signal into her brain, which made it impossible to quite ignore it. Her chest felt like there was an iron band across it as she thought of Zoe, and Olivia and Bella—what were they doing now, in the aftermath of the latest shocking news? And her father…
Suddenly she felt very tired, and knew that it wasn’t just from the events of the day. It was from the past two months of fighting to keep her head above water since she’d left home—of battling loneliness, the grimness of her surroundings, the shock of struggling to make ends meet for the first time in her life. It was from before that too—from the sheer, grinding misery of missing her mother, mourning her death and her father’s betrayal.
She tipped her head back against the cushioning leather and closed her eyes. In the darkness behind their lids she was even more aware of Luis beside her. He was lounging nonchalantly, but she could sense the restlessness that lurked beneath his outward show of calm, the strength and steely determination that infused his who
le being.
And as her head drooped onto his shoulder and the soapy sweet scent of hawthorn drifted in on the warm May evening she forgot to be afraid of him.
She felt simply…safe.
Chapter Three
‘OSCAR, it’s Luis.’
At the other end of the line there was a slight pause. ‘Luis—how good of you to phone.’ The words were polite enough, but couldn’t quite disguise the weariness and disappointment in Oscar Balfour’s voice. ‘If it was just to say thank-you for last night’s party, I can assure you, there was no need.’
‘You credit me with rather more courtesy than I have, I’m afraid.’ Luis smiled, playing idly with the silken fringe on the overstuffed cushion beside him. ‘I wasn’t ringing to thank you, but to let you know that I’ve found Emily.’
‘Emily?’ Instantly Oscar was alert, and the rawness of the emotion in his voice almost made Luis flinch. ‘My God, Luis—where? Is she all right?’
‘Yes.’ He paused for a fraction of a second, thinking of the sharpness of her cheekbones, her bird-like fragility, the shadows beneath her eyes. ‘She’s fine. She’s teaching ballet to some inner-city kids in one of the charity projects I visited today.’ He thought it better not to mention the Pink Flamingo.
‘In town? Tell me where. I’ll get Fleming to bring the car and get there as soon as I can.’
‘No point.’ Getting up, Luis sloshed some whisky into a glass. ‘I’ve brought her down to my hotel for dinner. From what I gather in the papers you have enough on your plate today already. Let me talk to her, and I’ll update you tomorrow.’
Oscar hesitated, and when he spoke again he sounded old and uncertain—a million miles from the elegant patriarch of one of Britain’s most celebrated families, the powerful businessman at the helm of a billion-dollar empire. ‘All right. As you say, I have a few things to sort out here. You’ll probably handle her a lot better than I can anyway.’ He sighed heavily. ‘We had an argument, when Mia arrived, and afterwards she completely cut herself off from me. That’s what kills me, Luis—she just wouldn’t talk to me at all. I didn’t push it. Lillian was dying—’
His voice cracked, and Luis took a large swig of whisky while he waited for him to continue. ‘Nothing else seemed important. I thought that afterwards…when Lillian was gone I’d have time to talk to Emily, explain about Mia. But I didn’t get the chance. She left the day after the funeral.’
‘Did she give you any clue that she was going?’
Oscar gave a ragged, humourless laugh. ‘That was the hardest thing of all. Her leaving was so complete and so unexpected. No drama, no big scene. She just…did it—severed all her ties with us completely. She didn’t take anything with her—only her ballet things and the clothes she was wearing. She even left her mobile phone, which was a very obvious way of letting me know she didn’t want any further contact.’
Luis frowned. ‘She was serious about not being found, then.’
‘Oh, yes. But that’s Emily. She doesn’t do anything in half-measures. Never has. Whatever she does she does passionately, with her whole heart and soul. I’ve always admired her for that—I suppose it’s what made her do so well at dancing—but the trouble is she applies the same rigorous standards that she expects from herself to those around her. I’ve let her down—it’s as simple as that. She thought I was decent and honourable, and now she’s found out that I’m not.’
Luis let his eyelids flicker closed for a second. ‘None of us are,’ he said savagely.
‘Lillian was,’ Oscar said simply, ‘and Emily is so like her. She’s good, through and through. But strong too. She’d do anything for the people she loves.’
The memory of the little girl on stage earlier came back to Luis—the way Emily had taken her hand and danced alongside her, giving her the courage to carry on.
‘I’m sorry.’ Oscar’s rueful voice broke into his thoughts. ‘I’m boring you to death. Look, Luis, I’m so relieved that you’ve found her and that she’s all right. That’s the main thing, but if you could…’
The sentence trailed off. ‘Yes?’ Luis prompted. ‘What would you like me to do?’
Oscar laughed despairingly. ‘I was going to say, if you could make her understand…but of course that’s unreasonable.’
Meditatively, Luis swirled the dark amber liquid round in his glass and then drained it in one mouthful. ‘We’ll see, Oscar. Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you, Luis. I’m grateful.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘You’ll be all right here, Miss Balfour?’
Standing blinking in the doorway, Emily looked around the opulent room in front of her, and then turned to look at Tomás in alarm. ‘I—I don’t understand…whose room is this?’
‘Yours, Miss.’ Tomás’s tone was soothing. ‘Since you’re so tired His Highness thought you might like a chance to freshen up before dinner. Maybe to have a bath and relax a little before eating?’
Emily regarded the elegant antique furnishings, the soft lighting, the vases of flowers, warily, wondering what the catch was.
‘Where is Lu—His Highness?’
‘The Prince has a suite on the floor above, Miss Balfour. He’s in there right now having a drink and making some phone calls. Would you like me to ask him to come down when he’s finished?’
‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Emily said hastily. ‘No, it’s fine. I’d love to have a bath.’
If only to put off the moment when she’d have to face Luis Cordoba over the dinner table, she thought, stepping forward and feeling her feet sink into the thick pile of the cream carpet. The room was huge, decorated in a classic English country house style which—apart from the addition of a Victorian-style bath standing on a raised platform in front of the huge French windows—was poignantly reminiscent of Lillian’s pretty bedroom at Balfour. Or at least how it had been before the paraphernalia of illness had crept in to spoil its carefully designed scheme.
‘Very good, Miss Balfour. Perhaps you could phone down to reception when you’re ready? One of our staff will be there to accept the message.’ Tomás left, quietly shutting the door behind him, and Emily wandered slowly over to the dressing table, running her fingers along its polished surface as if in a dream.
She leaned forward, looking into the mirror, where her own eyes stared back at her—smudged and dark with exhaustion. She was so tired, maybe it was a dream. Maybe she’d wake up any minute and find herself back in the narrow, lumpy bed in her bedsit, beneath sheets from which no amount of trips to the launderette could remove the smell of damp…
But then she remembered Luis Cordoba was waiting for her and felt her stomach clench with painful unease that left her in no doubt that she was wide awake. Compared to where she’d just come from this place might look and feel like paradise, but it certainly wasn’t without its serpents.
She straightened up quickly, tugging the band from the end of her plait and loosening her hair with shaking fingers.
She’d been stupid to let her guard down by falling asleep in the car, but just for a moment it had felt so wonderful not to have to think any more. She was so tired of thinking, and the relief of having someone come along and take over, tell her what was going to happen and what she had to do, was profound.
It’s just a shame that that someone was a shallow, untrustworthy playboy whose interest in women extended only as far as the bedroom, she thought, crossing the room to where the bath stood in decadent splendour. Although today he hadn’t actually shown so much as a flicker of interest in her, she reflected miserably as she turned on the taps and remembered the cool, dismissive way he’d looked her over.
She stripped off quickly, wincing as she pricked her finger on the safety pin that held up the black skirt she’d bought in a charity shop. She threw it onto the bed, where it looked more depressingly cheap and nasty than ever against the silk coverlet and the smooth Egyptian cotton sheets. Quickly she reached for the hotel bathrobe that was folded, f
at as a cushion, on the end of the bed and put it on, wrapping its miraculous softness around her too-thin body.
She could hardly blame him for not being interested in her.
Even she was repelled by the jut of her hipbones, the hard ridges of her ribs beneath her skin, so she had no illusions about anyone else feeling differently. Especially not a connoisseur of the female form like Luis Cordoba. Call me when you grow up, he’d taunted. But she hadn’t just grown up in the past year. She’d grown old.
The bath was full. Turning the taps off Emily shrugged off the bathrobe and hastily slipped into the water, lying back so that it covered her body completely. Closing her eyes she inhaled deeply, savouring the exotic, expensive fragrance of the designer bath oil and trying to refocus her thoughts. It was criminal to let anything spoil this moment of rare luxury. Sinking farther down in the deep water she exhaled again, feeling some of the tension that had taken up permanent residence in her shoulders lately ebb away, and with it a little of her iron-hard resolve.
God, she missed the physical comforts of her old life at Balfour. The day after Lillian’s funeral, when she’d walked out with nothing but a heart full of hurt and a head full of moral indignation, if she had known what she was letting herself in for she might have hesitated for a second before slamming that imposing door behind her. Her leaving was hardly planned, it was simply a logical response to what she’d come to consider an intolerable situation. She needed time and space to come to terms with what had happened, and she’d imagined going to London, getting a place in one of the major ballet companies there, and finding herself a pleasant, sunny flat in an area where popping out to buy a pint of milk wasn’t an extreme sport…
In other words, behaving like a grown-up.
How naive she’d been. Sheltered from reality by the Balfour wealth, she hadn’t even known how much a pint of milk cost.
She had easily got auditions with three ballet companies, but it seemed that the months of grief and turmoil had taken their toll in ways she couldn’t have begun to anticipate. Each audition passed in an excruciating embarrassment of clumsy footwork, mechanical arm movements and missed timing. It was as if she had lead weights inside her, pulling her down. As if she was trying to dance with a heart full of cement.