Emilio frowned over the message. Federico was easily dealt with. Federico just needed to talk, to use his elder brother as a sounding board. Federico was on top of life, these days. A telephone call would probably do it.
But Isabel was different. Emilio doubted very much if the problem had anything to do with garbage. But, if she was trying to track him down across Europe, he was perfectly certain that the problem was real.
As real as his own problem, now that he had time to stand back from it.
Should he tell Abby that they had met before? She didn’t remember. That much was obvious. Or at least, if she remembered the incident, she didn’t associate him with the man she had kissed under the stars in the Montijo’s garden.
Have I changed so much? thought Emilio, torn between annoyance and an odd relief.
She had been so young. So honest. That innocent kiss, in all its unpractised fervour, had stayed with him long after he forgot more skilful embraces. It was not a child’s kiss. There was passion in it, a half knowledge of her own power—and his. But it was completely spontaneous. It felt like a first kiss, for both of them in a way. Surely that was not forgettable?
Maybe she had not forgotten, after all. Any more than he had. But what would she say if he suddenly announced, ‘I’m not the boring businessman you think I am, I’m the guy who kissed you in the garden all those years ago’?
But there was a core of cool logic in Emilio that had guided him through his business career. It took over now.
She had known his name, his little crane fly. She had said, ‘You’re Emilio Diz. You’re famous.’ If she wanted to, she could remember that he was the man who had shared that moment out of time with her. If she did not remember it was because she did not want to.
The thing to do, he told himself, is find out why she doesn’t want to.
He brought himself back to the present problem with an effort.
‘Tell the BA office, I’ll call my sister at the beach house this evening,’ he said. ‘Ask them to pass it on.’
He put his personal affairs to one side.
‘Now, I want a talk to every member of management, starting with,’ he consulted his personnel chart and chose a name from the middle rank, ‘the manager of project evaluations. The sooner I get started on the detail, the sooner I can think about strategy. First things first.’
Abby went through her list of calls faster than she expected. That left her time to telephone a stylist that C&C sometimes recommended to their clients. Five minutes later she had the telephone numbers of four separate firms which rented furniture. One was even close enough to visit in her lunch hour.
‘Sam, how are we off for cover?’
It was an unwritten rule that the office was never left unattended. Voice mail was never enough. Clients expected to talk to a real person if they called the main switchboard. So someone was always on duty.
Sam looked at the roster on the wall behind her desk. ‘Looks OK if you want to take a long lunch today.’
Abby looked dubious.
‘Or do you want some time off?’
‘Probably. I’ll have some furniture being delivered. I’m just not sure how soon they can do it. But maybe the porters can see it in if I ask them nicely.’
Sam’s eyebrows rose. ‘Refurbishing?’
‘In a way,’ said Abby uncomfortably. ‘Anyway, how’s it looking?’
‘This week we’re pretty full in the office. Next week is not so good. Can you get the stuff in before Friday?’
‘If I can manage it, I’ll get it in before tonight,’ said Abby with feeling.
Her conscience still smote her about Emilio’s unscheduled night in the hotel.
Sam was amused. ‘You don’t hang about when you make your mind up, do you? Well, no problem from the cover point of view. As long as you’ve done your own clients’ work, you can take as much time as you want. In fact, if you want to take the rest of the day sticking twigs into your nest, you go out and get on with it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Abby with real gratitude.
She took Emilio’s list and went.
The manager of the furniture warehouse went out of his way to be helpful. At first Abby was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm with which he whipped her round their riverside warehouse. She could not understand it. She was not one of their high-spending film set decorators and she was not going to rent much or for long. Surely she did not merit this much attention.
But then she reflected. C&C was a good customer and an even better source of referrals. So it was not surprising that they were so accommodating. And the manager was nice.
She had done the deal inside an hour. They made no fuss at all about using Emilio’s credit card. They dismissed with scorn Abby’s suggestion that they check her bona fides. They would not dream of checking with Señor Diz that she was authorised to use it. The name of C&C was reference enough.
They could even deliver by the end of the day, the manager assured her. His assistant opened his mouth, encountered a bland smile from his boss, and shut it again.
‘Since it is going to an address in central London, it will be easy. We can have this lot loaded and run it along south of the river. Best wait till after the rush hour, though. Shall we say seven-thirty?’
‘Thank you,’ said Abby.
She was surprised but relieved. It gave her time to pick up some cutlery and simple crockery before she had to be back to receive the furniture. She could also take the opportunity to go back to the garden flat while Justine was almost certainly out of the house on one of her shopping expeditions.
She really needed to pick up some of her things, thought Abby. The sooner she got out of Ravi’s shoestring-backed sex trap the better. Nobody but Molly had mentioned it but eyes at C&C were sharp.
So she said seven-thirty would be fine, signed the invoice and left at a brisk pace.
‘She’s in a hurry,’ said the manager, looking after her with a smile.
‘So are we,’ said the assistant in some dudgeon. ‘How on earth are we going to get that stuff loaded and delivered today? We’ll have to postpone all the other jobs.’
‘So postpone them,’ said the manager, unmoved.
‘And delivering that late! We’ll have to pay the guys overtime.’
‘Cheap at the price.’
‘But why?’ cried the assistant. ‘C&C aren’t that good customers.’
‘Do you know who that is?’
‘Some gopher from—’
‘No, she’s not a gopher. That, my boy, is Lady Abigail Templeton Burke. She’s just ditched some pop star, according to the papers. And here she is ordering up a new home’s worth of furniture for a guy they used to call the Romeo of the tennis courts.’
‘So?’
‘So doesn’t it sound to you as if they’re moving in together?’
The assistant shrugged, unimpressed. ‘Furniture rented by the month? Doesn’t sound like they expect it to last,’ he pointed out.
The manager closed his eyes in exquisite appreciation of his coup.
‘Doesn’t, does it?’ he said with satisfaction. ‘That, my boy, is why we’re delivering this one as a priority. And the later we get there, the greater the chance that Romeo will be home. The papers will pay good money for photographs of those two.’
The house looked dark in the gloomy February afternoon. Dark and unfriendly. Abby folded her lips together.
She could remember, all too vividly, tumbling out of the car outside the front steps, glad to be released after the long journey from Yorkshire. Her mother had been ill then, and tired, but she could still laugh at Abby’s eagerness. Abby remembered the way her father had scooped her mother out of the car and carried her up the steps. Abby, swelling with importance, had been allowed to unlock the front door.
Standing in the cold, empty street, fifteen years later, she could see it as clearly as if the little family were still there in the welcoming open door. Her father had switched on the light. The house had bee
n so warm.
Little Abby had looked up and seen the way her mother rubbed her cheek against her father’s collar; the way he dropped a kiss on her hair as he manoeuvred her into the hallway. It was so quick. So instinctive. So utterly ordinary. As if they loved each other so much that they touched all the time, the way they breathed, without noticing.
Abby felt her eyes sting. She blew her nose.
This is silly, she told herself. Your father was not going to stay in mourning for the rest of his life. Of course he wasn’t. You shouldn’t want him to.
But, oh, why did it have to be someone like Justine?
Abby swallowed. Well, it was Justine and there was nothing she could do about it.
Maybe Justine had qualities that Abby hadn’t managed to find. Maybe she was insecure and just needed to have her new husband to herself when he came back from his business trip. Well, it was a chance. So the only thing for Abby to do was get out and leave them to it.
And forget that this house had ever been a family home.
Abby ran down the basement steps and let herself into her flat, trying hard not to think that it might be for the last time.
She packed fast and efficiently. She did not have many clothes. They all went into a suitcase. She stuffed her shoes into a squashy exercise roll along with her sponge bag. Then she stood back, looking round.
Everything here had been familiar since she was child. The china King Charles spaniels, one with a chipped ear. The grandfather clock with its baritone tick. The portrait of her great-great-grandmother in its faded oval mount. The candlesticks. The children’s books…
Abby looked at the bags by the door. They were not that heavy.
She could not manage the grandfather clock. And the candlesticks were too valuable. But there was room for a few books surely?
Crazy. Pure sentimentality. Abby knew it. How on earth could she even think of taking those battered objects into Emilio’s pristine apartment?
‘But I want to read them to my own children,’ she whispered.
Emilio would just have to get used to it.
It was a revelation.
Emilio paused outside the door of his new apartment. He was conscious of an odd sensation. He had moved into countless apartments since he reached adulthood in ten cities or more. This one was neither the grandest nor the most attractive. Yet he had never before felt like this when he stood at his front door with his key in his hand.
It wasn’t—ridiculous idea—pride of ownership. Was it?
He had been proud of his first flat. He remembered that. He had been even more proud when he bought the big house in BA and collected his scattered family again. He had felt triumphant. He had beaten fate and the system then.
He was not feeling triumphant now. In fact, if anything, he felt tense and uneasy. As if there was a battle to be fought but he was not quite sure who the enemy might turn out to be.
And yet there was excitement, too. Anticipation. There was something new in the air. He did not know where it would lead. He did not know where he wanted it to lead. Except there was the matter of a kiss that needed to be dealt with. A kiss which she did not remember; and he could not forget.
He put the key in the door and turned it decisively.
Abby came out into the hallway at the sound of the door opening. She had changed into jeans and a threadbare sweater in expectation of shifting furniture around. For a wild moment, she thought perhaps the furniture deliverers had got a key from the porters. When she saw who it was her face fell.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
Emilio’s dark face was unreadable. ‘Should I apologise? Or go away and come back later?’
Abby was instantly contrite. ‘Of course not. Sorry. I hoped it was the furniture.’
‘Ah.’ His mouth quirked. ‘I take it we are still sitting on the carpet.’
She nodded miserably. ‘I thought I’d been so clever. I suppose it was too much to hope for. I’m afraid I’ve let you down.’
‘I doubt that.’
He shrugged himself out of his heavy overcoat and tossed it onto the floor as if it was a dishrag instead of over a thousand pounds worth of exclusive tailoring. His tie, discreetly but unmistakeably silk, followed it. It pooled on top of the coat, gleaming with dull gold and autumn-leaf colours.
‘Tell me what happened.’
Abby, who had never seen such elegant clothes on a man, could not take her eyes off the little pile of riches.
He unbuttoned the formal waistcoat. ‘Well?’
Abby jumped. There was something extraordinarily intimate about the moment. She tried to concentrate on the subject in hand.
‘I—er—’
He freed his cuffs casually and pushed his shirtsleeves up. His forearms were darkly tanned and sinewy. Abby felt her mouth dry.
She averted her eyes hurriedly and reported on her conversation with the hire company. She did not meet his eyes. And she did not look at the powerful forearms, either.
Emilio listened, frowning.
‘Very obliging,’ he commented when she finished. ‘Maybe too obliging.’
‘Yes that’s what I thought,’ admitted Abby, relieved to share her doubts. ‘But I can’t see what they have to gain by it. Can you?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing. But I think neither you nor I will be here when they arrive.’
‘Oh?’
‘The whole point of this is to avoid publicity,’ he reminded her.
She winced. ‘You think that’s what this is about?’
‘I think it would be wise to take avoiding action, just in case.’
She nodded glumly.
‘So what shall we do?’
His eyes flickered for a moment. Then he said, ‘Something ordinary. What about a movie and a pizza?’
Abby stared. ‘Really?’
‘Why not?’
‘But you’re so—’
‘So what?’
‘Sophisticated. A movie and a pizza seems a bit down market for you.’
‘Oh, you’ve no idea how down market I can be,’ he said with irony.
Abby frowned. There was an edge to the remark which she did not understand.
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she said uncertainly.
He relented. ‘I’m sure. Come on. Let’s go and have fun.’
They went to a multiplex. Emilio refused point-blank to go to the latest action adventure, which any of Abby’s brothers would have greeted with relish. Instead he offered her a straight choice between a metropolitan comedy, a well-reviewed thriller and tear-jerker.
‘But which one do you want to see?’ Abby asked.
‘Any.’
She chose the thriller. She had seen the comedy and did not want to risk the tear-jerker. She was still feeling a bit tremulous, after leaving the garden flat.
He bought her a bucket of popcorn and the cold drink of her choice. Then he led the way into the theatre and installed her in a seat. Solicitously he helped her out of her jacket and folded it away.
Abby found it all rather ceremonious. Also slightly uncomfortable. When he slid the coat down her arms she gave a little shiver of reaction that was, she told herself, quite uncalled for.
‘This is a treat,’ she announced, to take her mind off that small betrayal. ‘I was expecting to be hauling sofas and chairs around tonight.’
‘We’ll do that later,’ Emilio said, silencing her.
She had thought him stripping off his outer clothes intimate! But that was nothing to this casual assumption that they would be arranging the flat together. As if they shared their lives. As if they were a couple.
For a moment Abby had a blinding sense of rightness.
Then she realised that it was all in her imagination. That was not what Emilio meant at all. She had nearly fallen into a trap he did not even know he had set. She had better be careful.
She burrowed down in the seat and pulled her polo neck up to her ears. She sat quiet as a mouse as the auditorium darkened. She cou
ld feel the warmth of his body next to hers; his strength. She could hear his breathing. She could never remember listening to a man’s breathing before.
Then the music started. All eyes focused on the screen. Abby risked a sideways glance at Emilio. In silhouette, his profile looked haughty and remote. And yet he was holding her popcorn as if they had done this a thousand times; as if she knew how to breach that haughty remoteness.
Oh, yes it was like being half of a couple. It would have been quite perfect if the illusion had been true. And if she was the only one who did know how to make that breach.
But Abby was sensible enough to remember that none of it was true. She could easily have dropped her head on his shoulder. And if she had?
Well, he was sophisticated enough to handle it, she thought. He would no doubt respond beautifully. Very courteous. Utterly without meaning. She flexed her shoulders and stared straight ahead.
Very careful, her heart warned.
Emilio could feel her thinking beside him. He just did not know what. It bewildered him.
He had picked up that voluptuous little ripple of reaction when he took her coat. Yes! he thought. He waited for her to relax. Surely in the dark she would soften, turn towards him, lean against him, even if only slightly. He was holding her popcorn, for heaven’s sake. She could not stay foursquare on to the screen and share a bucket of popcorn.
But she could and she did. From time to time a hand came out of the darkness and rooted in the bucket. But it could have been attached to a robot arm for all the softening there was.
The movie was tautly written. Abby was soon absorbed. She did relax then. At least her shoulders came down from her ears. That did not mean that she turned to him.
What would she do if he took her hand? Emilio wondered savagely. He had not felt so uncertain with a girl since he was a teenager on his first date. Come to that he had never felt so uncertain with a girl. Even when he went on his first date he was recognised to be the most attractive boy in his class. His teenage date had known her luck—and her worth, being the choice of Emilio Diz. This awkward English girl could do with some of that confidence.
More Than A Millionaire (Contemporary Romance) Page 11