by Trish Morey
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVE gasped, tugging to free her hand, the fight-or-flight instinct telling her to get out while she still could, but Leo wasn’t about to let her go, his grip tightening until she felt her hand was encased in steel. ‘This is your fault.’ He leaned over and whispered in her ear as Eric Culshaw bounded towards them, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Remember that.’ And then he straightened and even managed to turn on a smile, although his eyes were anything but relaxed. She could almost hear the brain spinning behind them.
‘Eric,’ Leo said, his velvet voice all charm on the surface, springloaded with tension beneath. ‘What a surprise. I thought you were taking Maureen out.’
He grunted. ‘She spotted some article in a woman’s magazine—you know the sort of thing—and grew herself a headache.’ He shook his head. ‘Sordid bloody affair. You’d think the reporters could find something else to amuse themselves with by now.’ And then he huffed and smiled. ‘Which makes you two a sight for sore eyes.’ His eyes fell on the dozing child in her arms. ‘Although maybe I should make that three. Who’s this little tacker, then?’
Almost as if aware he was being discussed, Sam stirred and swung his head round, blinking open big dark eyes to check out this latest stranger.
‘This is Sam,’ Eve said, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth as she searched for things she could tell him that wouldn’t add to the lie tally. ‘He’s just turned eighteen months.’
Culshaw grinned at the child and Sam gave a wary smile in return before burying his head back in his mother’s shoulder, which made the older man laugh and reach out a hand to ruffle his hair. ‘Good-looking boy. I thought you two were playing things a bit close to the chest last night. When were you going to tell us?’
Eve felt the ground lurch once more beneath her feet. Eric thought Sam was theirs? But, then, of course he would. They were supposed to have been a couple for more than two years and Sam’s father was of Italian descent. It would be easy to mistake Sam’s dark eyes and hair for Leo’s. Why would they question it?
But she couldn’t let them keep thinking it. Weren’t there enough lies between them already?
‘Actually,’ she started, ‘Sam—’
Her efforts earned her a blazing look from Leo. ‘Eve doesn’t like to give too much away,’ he said, smiling at Eric, glancing back in her direction with a look of cold, hard challenge.
Suddenly Maureen was there too, looking pale and strained, her mood lifting when she saw Sam, clucking over him like he was a grandchild rather than the child of someone she’d only just met.
‘You didn’t tell us you had such an adorable little boy,’ she admonished, already engaging Sam in a game of peek-a-boo before holding out her hands to take him.
‘Some people wouldn’t approve,’ Eve offered stiffly, ignoring Leo’s warning glare as she handed Sam over, then adding because of it, ‘I mean, given the fact we’re not married and all.’
‘Nonsense,’ Eric said, pinching Sam’s cheek. ‘There’s no need to rush things, not these days.’
Leo smiled, his eyes glinting triumphantly as Maureen settled into a chair and jogged Sam up and down on her knees, making him chuckle.
‘So,’ said Eric, following his wife’s lead and pulling up a chair, and soon demanding equal time with Sam, ‘I assume Sam explains the “family reasons” you weren’t going to be able to join us on the island?’
Eve dropped into a chair, feeling like she was being sucked deeper and deeper into a web of deceit. Leo must have warned them she might not be coming and used one of the excuses she’d suggested.
‘That was my fault, Eric,’ he said coolly. ‘I figured that a toddler was hardly conducive to contract deliberations.’
‘He can be very disruptive,’ she added. ‘Especially when he’s out of his routine. You wouldn’t believe what a handful he can be.’
‘What, this little champion?’ Bouncing the laughing toddler on his knee with such delight until it was impossible to work out who was laughing the most, Eric or Sam, as the toddler got the horsy ride of his life. ‘You must come,’ he said, slowing down to take a breather.
‘More,’ demanded Sam, bouncing up and down. ‘More!’
Culshaw laughed and obliged, though at a much gentler pace. ‘You will come, won’t you? After all, it’s hardly fair to keep you two apart when you barely get to see each other as it is. You will love it, I promise. Tropical island paradise. Your own bungalow right on the beach. We’ll organise a cot for Sam and a babysitter to give you a real break. I imagine you don’t get too many of those, working for Leo and looking after this little chap. How does that sound?’
Eve tried to smile, not sure she’d succeeded when the ground beneath her felt so unsteady. ‘It does sound lovely.’ And it did. A few days on a tropical island paradise with nothing more to do than swim or read or sip drinks with tiny umbrellas. The bungalow probably even had hot running water. Except she’d be sharing that bungalow with him. ‘It’s just that—’
‘Oh, please,’ Maureen added, putting her hand on Eve’s arm. ‘Last night was the best time I’ve had for ages. I know it’s asking a terrible lot of everyone and disrupting everyone’s schedules, but right now it would mean so very much to me.’
‘Of course they’ll come,’ she heard Leo say, ‘won’t you, Eve?’
And finally the unsteady ground she’d felt shifting under her feet the last few days opened up and swallowed her whole.
A smiling flight attendant greeted them, cooing over Sam, as Eve carried him on her hip into the jet. Eve just nodded in return, weariness combining with a simmering resentment. As far as she was concerned, this was no pleasure trip and she certainly wasn’t happy about how she’d been manipulated into coming.
And then she stepped into the plane and found even more reason to resent the man behind her. It looked more like a luxury lounge room than any plane interior she’d ever seen before, the cabin filled not with the usual rows and rows of narrow seats and plastic fittings and overhead lockers but a few scattered wide leather armchairs with timber cabinet work trimmed with bronze. Beyond the lounge area a door led to what must be more rooms and Eve caught a glimpse of a dining table with half a dozen chairs in a recessed alcove.
So much wealth. So much to impress. Leo Zamos seemed to have everything.
Everything but a heart.
Maybe that’s how you got to be a billionaire, she mused as another attendant showed her to a pair of seats where someone had already fitted her child restraint to buckle Sam in more securely. She helped settle the pair in and to stow their things, chattering pleasantly all the time while Eve stewed as she stashed books and toys close by and missed every word.
It all made sense. No wonder Leo Zamos was the success he was. Being ruthless in business, ruthless in the bedroom, taking what you wanted when you wanted—a heart would surely get in your way if you had one.
And while Eve simmered, Sam, on the other hand, was having the time of his tiny life, relishing the adventure and the attention, his dark eyes filled with glee as he pumped his arms up and down and made a sound like a war cry.
‘I think someone approves,’ Leo said from the seat alongside when the attendants had gone to fetch pre-flight drinks.
‘His name is Sam,’ she hissed, her resentment bubbling over at how she’d been trapped into this weekend away, a weekend of continued pretence with people who didn’t deserve to be lied to. The only bright spots she could see were that the Culshaws and the Alvarezes were travelling together on the Culshaws’ jet, and that they would all have private quarters, which meant she didn’t have to pretend being madly in love with Leo twenty-four seven. She couldn’t have stood the strain of it all if she had. As it was, she didn’t know now how she was going to keep up the charade.
The attendant brought their drinks, advised there were two minutes until departure and discreetly disappeared.
What a mess. Eve poured a box of juice into a two-handled cup and passed it to a wai
ting Sam, along with a picture book to occupy him for a few minutes. How was she expected to act like Leo’s loving fiancée now? It had been so much easier last night when there had been so much sexual tension and simmering heat sparking between them. Now the tension and the heat had more to do with anger.
All to do with anger, she corrected herself with a sigh. She was over him, even if he did have a velvet voice and the body of a god.
Across the aisle, the subject of her dark thoughts raised his drink. ‘You sound like you have a problem.’
‘Funny you should mention that.’
‘You could have said no.’
‘I did say no, remember? And then you turned around and said yes, of course we would come!’
He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, and if they’d been on any normal kind of plane, Eve could have given in to the desire to smack him. ‘What can I say? Maureen likes you. It means the world to her that you can go.’
‘You don’t care about Maureen,’ she said, keeping her voice low so she didn’t alarm Sam. ‘You don’t care about anyone. All you care about is yourself and what you want, and you’ll do anything to keep this deal from going off the rails, even if it means lying to people.’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘I know you made the right decision to never get married. Because I understand you now, and I understand what makes you tick, and you might have a fortune and a private jet and do okay in the sack with women, but you have a stone where your heart should be.’
His dark eyes glinted coldly, his jaw could have been chiseled from the same hard stone from which his heart was carved. ‘Thank you for that observation. Perhaps I might make my own? You seem very tense, Evelyn. I think you might benefit from a couple of days relaxing on a tropical island.’
Bastard! Eve turned away, checking on Sam as the cabin attendant collected their glasses and checked all was ready for take-off.
The jet engines wound up as the plane taxied to the runway and Sam looked up in wonder at her, excited but looking for reassurance at the new sounds and sensations. She stroked his head. ‘We’re going on a plane, Sam. We’re going on a holiday.’
And Sam squealed with delight and the plane raced down the runway and lifted off. Good on you, Sam, Eve thought, finding the book she’d hoped to read a few pages of as the plane speared into the sky, at least one of us might as well enjoy the weekend.
She must have dozed off. Bleary eyed, she found her book neatly placed by her side, while beside her Sam was grizzling softly but insistently, unable to settle.
‘What’s wrong?’ Leo asked, putting aside the laptop he was working on as she unbuckled Sam from his seat and brought him against her chest.
‘It’s his nap time. He might settle better on my lap.’ She searched for the chair’s controls, although it was hard to manoevre with Sam’s weight on her chest. ‘Does this seat recline?’
‘I’ve got a better idea. There’s still a couple of hours’ flight time to go. You might both be more comfortable in the bedroom. Let me show you the way.’
And the idea of a real bed in which to cuddle up and snooze with Sam sounded so wonderful right now, she didn’t hesitate.
Maybe if she hadn’t been so bone-weary. Maybe in an ordinary airline seat, by holding onto the back of the seat in front of her to pull herself up, she could have managed it. Then again, she realised, maybe if she’d thought to undo her seat belt she could have done it. Damn.
‘What is it?’ he said, when she didn’t follow him.
‘Can you take Sam for a moment? My seat belt’s still done up.’
Leo turned into a statue right before her eyes, rigid and unblinking as he stared down at her restless child. And if she wasn’t mistaken, that look she saw in his eyes was fear.
‘Take him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her hands under his arms, ready to hand him over. ‘Just for a second. I just need to undo my seat belt.’
‘I…’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said one of the cabin attendants, slipping past the stunned Leo. ‘I’ve been secretly hoping for a cuddle of this gorgeous boy.’
She took Sam from her and swung him around, jogging him on her hip so that he stopped grizzling, instead blinking up at her with his big dark eyes, plump lips parted. ‘You are gorgeous, aren’t you? You’re going to be a real heartbreaker, I can tell.’ And then to Eve, ‘How about I carry him for you? I’m probably more used to the motion of the plane.’ Eve smiled her thanks, retrieving Sam’s bear from the seat as Leo remembered how to move and led the way.
‘There you go,’ the attendant said a few moments later, as she peeled back the covers and laid the drowsy child down. ‘Press this button,’ she said, pointing to a console on the side table, ‘if there’s anything else I can help you with.’ And with a brisk smile to them both and one last lingering look at Sam, she was gone.
‘Thank you for thinking of this,’ Evelyn said, sitting down alongside her son and tucking his bear under his arm. And then, because she felt bad about the things she’d said to him earlier and without taking her eyes from Sam, she said, ‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I had no right.’
‘Forget it,’ he said, his velvet voice thick with gravel. ‘For the record, you were probably right. Now, there’s an en suite through that door,’ he continued, and she looked over her shoulder, surprised to see a door set so cleverly into the panelling that she’d missed it as she’d looked around.
‘Oh, I thought that was the bathroom we passed on the way. Next to the galley.’
‘That serves the other suite.’
‘Wow,’ Eve said, taking it all in—the wide bed, the dark polished timber panelling and gilt-edged mirror and adding it to what she’d already seen, the dining table and spacious lounge. ‘Incredible. A person could just about live in one of these things, couldn’t they?’
‘I do.’
Her head swung back. ‘When you’re travelling, you mean?’
‘You know my diary, Evelyn. I’m always travelling. I live either in the plane or in some hotel somewhere.’
‘So where’s home?’
He held out his arms. ‘This is home. Wherever I am is home.’
‘But you can’t live on a plane. Everyone has a home. You must have family somewhere.’ She frowned, thinking about his voice and the lack of any discernable accent. Clearly he had Mediterranean roots but his voice gave nothing away. ‘Where do you come from?’
Something bleak skated across his eyes as he looked at his watch. ‘You’re obviously tired and I’m keeping you both. Have a good sleep.’
He turned to leave then, turned back, reaching into his pocket. ‘Oh, you’d better have this back.’ He set the tiny box on the bedside table. Eve blinked at it, already knowing what it held.
‘They extended the loan?’
He gave a wry smile. ‘Not exactly. But it’s yours to keep afterwards.’
‘You bought it?’
‘It looks good on you. It matches your eyes.’
She looked from the box to the man, still stroking her son’s back, aware of his soft breathing as he settled into a more comfortable sleep. Thank heavens for the reality of Sam or she could easily think she was dreaming. ‘What is this?’ she said, mistrustful, the smouldering sparks of their earlier confrontation glowing brightly, fanned by this latest development. ‘Some kind of bribe so I behave properly all weekend?’
‘Do I need it to be?’
‘No. I’m here, aren’t I? And so I’m hardly likely to make a scene and reveal myself as some kind of fraud. But I’m certainly not doing it for your benefit, just like I’m not doing it for any financial gain. I just don’t want to let Maureen down. She’s had enough people do that recently, without me adding to their number.’
‘Suit yourself,’ he said, his voice sounding desolate and empty. ‘But if you change your mind, feel free to consider it your parting trinket. And just like you said, you won’t even need to post it to yourself. So ef
ficient.’
And then he was gone, leaving only the sting of his parting words in his wake. She kicked off her shoes and crawled into the welcoming bed, sliding her arm under Sam’s head and pulling him in close. She kissed his head, drinking deeply of his scent and his warm breath in an attempt to blot out the woody spice of another’s signature tones.
She was so confused, so tired. Sleep, she told herself, knowing that after a late night of sexual excesses followed by today’s tension, what she really needed was to sleep. But something tugged at her consciousness and refused to let go as his words whirled and eddied in her mind, keeping her from the sleep she craved so much as she tried to make sense of what Leo had said.
A heart of stone she’d accused him of, and when she’d apologised, he’d told her she was probably right. She shivered just thinking how forlorn he’d looked. How lost.
A man with a stone for a heart. A man with no home.
A man with everything and yet with nothing.
And a picture flashed in her mind—the photographic print she’d seen in Leo’s suite before dinner last night.
She’d been looking for a distraction at the time, looking for something to pretend interest in if only so she didn’t have to look at him, so her eyes would not betray how strongly she was drawn to him. Only she hadn’t had to feign interest when she’d seen it, a picture from the 1950s, a picture of a riverbank and a curving row of trees and a park bench set between.
Something about the arrangement or the atmosphere of that black and white photograph had jagged in her memory at the time, just as it struck a chord now. It was the old man sitting all alone on that park bench, hunched and self-contained, and sitting all alone, staring out over the river.
A lonely man.
A man with no family and nowhere to call home.
A man with nothing.
And it struck her then. Twenty or thirty years from now, that man could very well be Leo.
It was just a hiccup, Leo told himself as he considered the task ahead, just a slight hitch in his plans. Only a weekend, three nights at most, and the deal would be wrapped up once and for all. After all, Culshaw knew that even though they all called the shots in their respective businesses, none of them could just drop everything and disappear off the face of the earth—not for too long anyway. Neither could he risk them walking away. It had to be tied up this weekend.