The Latin Affair

Esteban looked at the telephone. His expression darkened. He was not going to admit to Francesca that the woman had hung up on him. Why did women always have to play games?

‘I’ve got it in hand,’ he said brusquely.

Francesca got up and came over to him. A faint hint of expensive scent wafted as she settled herself on the corner of the desk beside him. She crossed one leg over the other and smiled down into his eyes.

‘Don’t you see, darling? Marry me and you would never have to deal with kitchen designers again.’

Her high-heeled shoe tapped at his thigh to emphasise her point

‘An alluring prospect,’ said Esteban drily.

He pushed his chair back, removing his immaculate suit out of range.

‘And you need a hostess,’ Francesca went on, her smile unwavering. ‘Someone to organise the dinner parties, make sure you meet the right people.’

He almost shuddered.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Of course you do.’

She would have gone on but Esteban put an end to it. He stood up and looked down at her, all vestige of amusement gone.

‘I thought I had been clear, Francesca. If you misunderstood me, I’m sorry. But the truth is that my stepfather needs a housekeeper. You said you wanted a job. A job is all that’s on offer.’

‘But—’

‘If you remember,’ Esteban said drily, ‘I said at the time I thought you would find Hallam very isolated. But you wanted to give it a shot’.

Francesca’s mouth thinned. For a moment the pretty face looked almost ugly.

‘Are you saying you used me?’

Esteban stiffened imperceptibly. ‘Excuse me?’

There were people—witnesses for the prosecution, say, or opposing counsel—who would have run a mile when he spoke in that soft tone. Francesca did not read the danger signals. She tossed her head.

‘Of course I adore Patrick,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘I was very willing to help—’

Esteban said quietly, ‘You wanted a job.’

Francesca did not like that. ‘You know quite well what I wanted,’ she said sharply.

It was a moment of total self-betrayal. There was a nasty silence. Francesca bit her lip.

Esteban said heavily, ‘I seem to have been very stupid. I thought you knew that all that was over. I told you so last year.’

‘Darling, just because of a silly article in a magazine—’

He stopped her with an upraised hand. ‘It was not about the article. I don’t care what some tinpot journalist writes about me.’

‘Well, then—’

‘But I care that someone I trusted talked to a tinpot journalist,’ Esteban went on softly. ‘About stuff I told you in confidence.’

There was another nasty silence. Francesca watched him, frunstrated.

At last she burst out, ‘It’s such a stupid waste. I could really help your career. Daddy’s contacts—a bit of networking—’

‘And what about love?’ he said wryly.

‘Love?’ Francesca sounded as blank as if he had broken into a foreign language. ‘Grow up, darling.’

‘You think love’s an irrelevance?’

“Oh, come on. We’re talking real life here.’

Esteban gave an unexpected laugh. ‘We are indeed. And we seem to have different views on it.’

‘Are you saying you’re looking for love?’ Francesca sounded disbelieving. ‘You?’

‘I don’t think you need to look for it,’ Esteban said coolly. ‘In my experience it tends to sock you in the eye.’

Francesca snorted. ‘Your experience? So now you’re the last of the great romantics?’

Esteban gave that his measured consideration. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I wouldn’t call myself a romantic.’

‘Thank God for that, at least,’ Francesca muttered.

‘On the other hand, I’m not fool enough to marry anyone I’m not in love with.’

Francesca pulled herself together. She moved close to him, though she did not quite dare to touch him again. She gave him a winning smile.

‘But if both parties agree—’

He bent towards her so fast she took a step backwards in simple shock. At once she could have kicked herself. He had not come so close to her voluntarily for over a year.

But it was too late. Esteban had seen her alarm. He gave her a mocking smile.

‘Agree to change my nature? How?’

Francesca recovered fast. ‘But you’ve just said you aren’t romantic,’ she reminded him.

‘No, but I am passionate and possessive and I have a nasty temper,’ Esteban told her evenly. ‘Believe me, you wouldn’t like being married to me.’

‘No woman would,’ snapped Francesca, unexpectedly shaken.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m glad we agree on the matter.’ He sounded amused.

The telephone rang. He reached behind him, not looking, and swept it up to his ear. ‘Hi, Annie. Now? Yes, of course.’ He put the phone down. ‘Sorry, Francesca. Busy morning. Goodbye.’

Francesca was looking poleaxed. His court opponents would have recognised the feeling. Esteban gave her an enigmatic smile and held the door open for her. She did not move.

‘You’re not going to treat me like this. I’m no little boat chick,’ she jeered.

Esteban went very still. Francesca knew she had made a bad mistake. That was one of the few confidences she had not spilled out to the handsome young journalist in the quayside café last year.

She nervously touched her hair but said defiantly, ‘It just slipped out. You told me about it yourself, after all. I couldn’t help it. You upset me so much I forgot I wasn’t supposed to mention it.’ A thought occurred to her. She lowered her lashes. ‘If you go on being nasty to me, it might happen again—and who knows who could be listening?’

Esteban’s watchfulness dissolved into unholy appreciation.

‘Threats?’ he said, his eyebrows flying up. ‘Very attractive. Just the stuff to get me to marry you. You’re really one on your own, Francesca.’

There was nothing she could say. Once again Esteban Tremain had taken her well thought out strategy and turned it on its head. Francesca was determined but she was not an idiot. She recognised defeat, at least for the moment.

“I’ll go.’ She gathered up her handbag and elegant serape but was not leaving without the last word. ‘Call me when you’ve got your head together. You need me.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Esteban said quietly.

‘Oh, but you do.’ She had gone back to her caressing manner. She gave him a sweet smile. ‘You just don’t know how much yet. But you will.’

She left.

Immediately Esteban banished her from his mind. He flung himself back into his chair and reached for the Hallam file again. He picked up the telephone, his voice coming alive with the anticipation of battle.

‘Annie, get me that kitchen place again, will you? And this time I want to talk to de Vries in person.’

But when Anne put the call through it was the lieutenant again.

‘Hello?’ She did her best to sound composed but Esteban was used to reading the smallest nuance in his opponents’ voices and he recognised nerves. It was a lovely voice, Esteban noted, warm with an underlying hint of laughter. Currently, of course, the laughter was almost extinguished. Good, he thought.

‘What is your name?’ he demanded softly.

He did not have to say anything else. The tone alone intimidated opponents. Esteban knew it and used it effectively in court. If it could silence Francesca Moran, a judge’s daughter, it would make this obstructive girl crumble.

But, to his astonishment, it did not. There was a little pause, in which he could almost hear her pull herself together.

Then, ‘Piper,’ she said coolly. ‘Nicola Piper.’ She spelled it for him.

It disconcerted him. Esteban was not used to hostile witnesses spelling out their names and then asking kindly if he had got it all down. Where had she got that kind of confidence? Did he know her? Surely he would not have forgotten that golden sunshine voice?

‘Have we met?’ he asked slowly.

Nicky had remembered his visit as soon as Caroline had mentioned Hallam Hall. She had just come in from dealing with another client. And she had noticed him all right: a tall, dark man in the doorway of Martin’s office, watching her with lazy appreciation.

‘You could say that. In passing,’ she said frostily.

That startled him too. And intrigued him. ‘Where did we pass?’

‘At the office. We weren’t introduced.’

There was a thoughtful pause.

‘You’re the blonde,’ Esteban said on a long note of discovery.

He remembered now. She had shot in from somewhere, silk skirts flying, laughing. Her briefcase had bulged with papers and she’d been clutching it under one arm with decreasing effectiveness. He would have gone to rescue it, but Martin had detained him with some remark and one of her colleagues had got there first.

This picture was still vivid, though. Summer evening sun had lit her hair to gold. It had clearly started the day confined in a neat bow at her nape but by now it was springing free into wild curls about her shoulders. And her figure—Esteban found his mouth curving in appreciation at the memory. She had a figure to rival one of Patrick’s Renaissance goddesses at Hallam, lounging in naked voluptuousness among their sunlit olive groves. Add to that perfect legs, creamy skin—and, when she’d caught his eyes on her—a glare like a stiletto.

‘I remember,’ he said.

Alone in her office, Nicky winced. It was not the first time a man had called her a ‘blonde’ in that tone of voice. Or looked at her in blatant appreciation, as she now remembered all too clearly. It still stabbed where she was most vulnerable. Particularly this morning.

She hid her hurt under icy distance. ‘The name,’ she said with emphasis, ‘is Piper.’

‘Is it, indeed?’

Nicky could hear his amusement. She set her teeth and tried to remember that he was a customer.

He went on, ‘Well, Piper, you can tell Martin de Vries that I paid for a working kitchen and that’s what I expect to get’

Nicky was bewildered. In spite of what Caroline had said, the file had been clear. Admittedly, there had been complaint after complaint but they all seemed to have been dealt with. Moreover, the complainant was not Mr Tremain. The name on the telephoned demands was a Ms Francesca Moran.

In response, machinery had been tested and tested again, cabinets resited, floor tiling replaced. A month ago, Tremain had threatened legal action. But as far as Nicky could see all the disputed work on the Cornish mansion had been completed ten days before.

‘Do you have another complaint?’ she said warily.

‘Complaint!’ His derisive bark of laughter made her eardrums ring.

Nicky held the phone away from her head until he had finished.

‘Would you like to be more specific?’ she suggested sweetly, when she thought he might be able to hear her again.

‘Gladly.’ He launched into a list.

Nicky listened in gathering disbelief.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said when he finished. ‘That would mean every single appliance had gone wrong.’

‘Precisely,’ said Esteban Tremain.

In her astonishment Nicky forgot she had decided she loathed the man.

‘But they can’t have done. They’ve been checked. And they’re new.’

‘I certainly paid for new machines,’ he agreed suavely.

Nicky took a moment to assimilate that. ‘Are you suggesting-—?’

He interrupted again. ‘My dear girl, I am suggesting nothing.’

Of course, he was a lawyer, Nicky remembered with dislike. He knew exactly how to hint without actually accusing her or Springdown Kitchens of anything precise enough to be actionable.

Her voice shaking with fury, she said, ‘I object to the implication.’

‘Implication?’ His voice was smooth as cream. ‘What implication was that?’

‘Springdown Kitchens honour their contracts,’ Nicky said hotly. ‘If we charge you for new appliances, you get new appliances. You’re accusing us of installing substandard machines—’

‘Stop right there.’ It sliced across her tumbling speech like an ice axe. ‘I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Yet.’

Just that single word brought Nicky to a halt. She looked at her hand, gripping the telephone convulsively, and saw that she was shaking. Justified indignation, she assured herself.

But it did not feel like justified indignation. It felt as if she was a schoolgirl in a tantrum, not a serious professional dealing with an awkward client. Nicky breathed deeply.

She said, ‘You’d better take this up with Mr de Vries.’

‘As you may recall,’ Esteban Tremain said blandly, ‘that was exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.’

Nicky could not take any more. ‘I’ll tell him to call you as soon as I can catch him,’ she said curtly.

And flung the phone down before she screamed.

This time he did not call back.

It had made her late, of course. She had promised Ben she would be there at twelve-fifteen at the latest, before the little bistro filled up with the lunchtime trade. Ben hated to be crowded. Just as he hated to wait. Impatience ran in the family. Nicky gathered up her coat and bag with clumsy fingers. Caroline, having seen the phone call and its effect, wandered in.

‘Tremain again, I take it. That man thinks he only has to crook his little finger.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Have lunch,’ said Nicky, scribbling furiously on Martin’s notepad, just in case he came back during the lunch break.

Caroline was intrigued. ‘A date?’

Nicky tore off the note she had penned and stuck it over the top of Martin’s phone where he could not miss it, no matter how hard he tried. She looked up.

‘What price respect for personal privacy?’ she asked resignedly.

‘Never heard of it,’ Caroline said with a grin. Nicky bared her teeth and dived past her.

‘What will I do if Martin calls?’ Caroline yelled after her.

‘Tell him everything,’ Nicky called back. ‘It’s all in the note. Tell him I’ll deal with it if he wants. But not before lunch.’

She flung herself at the showroom door. Caroline followed her, grinning.

‘And what if the frustrated client turns up in person?’

A wicked light invaded Nicky’s eyes.

‘Tell Mr Tremain he’ll have to wait. I’m lunching with a man who won’t.’

CHAPTER TWO

HER brother was waiting outside the bistro, lost in thought Nicky broke into a run, calling his name. Ben looked up. He surged towards her, cleaving his way through the lunchtime crowd, and flung his arms wide.

It was an old joke. But Nicky felt oddly weepy as she ran full-tilt into them. Ben swung her off her feet with a rebel yell. Even on a rainy autumn street, dense with lunchtime crowds, heads turned; people smiled. He was so handsome, so full of life. He threw her into the air, looking up at her with a devilish grin.

‘Put me down,’ gasped Nicky. She was breathless, between laughter and unaccountable tears.

Ben only noticed the laughter. He returned her to the pavement and held her at arm’s length, surveying her appreciatively.

‘You look great,’ he said. ‘Even if you’re late.’

‘I know. I know,’ she said placatingly. ‘Sorry, I hit a natural disaster. Let’s eat.’

The waiter showed them to the small corner table for which Nicky had managed to wrest a reservation out of the management. He brought them water and menus and a carafe of wine while Nicky regaled Ben with the account of her battles with the difficult client.

It entertained him hugely.

‘Don’t know about a natural disaster. It sounds to me as if you’ve met your match,’ he said when she finished.

Nicky bridled. ‘Oh, no, I haven’t. He just—took me by surprise, that’s all.’

‘It’s the only way,’ murmured Ben teasingly.

Nicky sent him a look that would have crushed him if he had been anyone but her brother. He laughed.

‘It’s good for you,’ he said hardily. ‘You’ve been getting downright bossy.’

Nicky laughed. They both knew what he meant.

Ben was twenty-eight to her twenty-six but sometimes she felt as if he was still a teenager. He had been in London for three years, living a rollercoaster life. One day he was living in the lap of luxury with an old mate and earning a fortune. The next, he was standing on Nicky’s doorstep at three in the morning without even the wherewithal to pay the taxi that had brought him.

Nicky always paid the cab, gave him a bed for the night and a loan to tide him over. It never took long. Normally Ben was on his way up again within a week.

He repaid her scrupulously and, as often as not, took her somewhere wildly expensive to celebrate the revival of his fortunes. And then she would not see him again until there was something else to celebrate or he was back at the bottom of the ride again. In fact Nicky had been wondering ever since he rang which it was this time.

But she knew him too well to ask a direct question. Instead, she let him pour wine for them both.

‘You know, sometimes I feel like a changeling,’ she said suddenly.

‘You?’ Ben paused, the carafe poised over his glass. He looked across at her in unfeigned surprise. ‘But you’re the only sensible one in the family.’

‘Quite.’

‘You mean the parents are rogues and vagabonds and I’m a financial disaster,’ he interpreted.

Nicky shook her head.

‘No. I mean you’re relaxed. Free. You don’t have to plan everything.’

Ben shrugged. ‘So you’re a planner. Somebody has to be.’ He chuckled suddenly. ‘The parents didn’t do so well without you running the itinerary, did they?’

Nicky was startled into a little crow of laughter. When she’d moved to England eight years ago, her parents had announced that now, at last, they were going to sail round the world. But between one thing and another they had not quite set out yet.

Ben leaned across and patted her hand.

‘So don’t knock yourself just because you have some common sense.’ His expression darkened. ‘I wish to God I’d been as sensible.’

Nicky was concerned. ‘Problems? Can I—?’

But he shook his head decisively. ‘No. I can’t keep touching you every time I’m short. Anyway, I’ve got something to keep me going while I sort myself out.’

Nicky did not argue. She knew his pride. So she just said, ‘What do you think you’ll do?’

He pulled a face. ‘Winter’s coming. I’m tempted to go south, see if I can get some sailing. There’s bound to be a gin palace looking for a crew somewhere.’

Nicky could not repress her sudden shudder. Ben raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

‘You mean a boat like the Calico Jane?’

Ben grinned. ‘Hardly. Showiest boat in the Caribbean. Too many electronics for me. What made you think of her?’

She shrugged, regretting her unwary question.

But the name had awakened a forgotten mystery and Ben was not going to let it go.

‘Was she the one, then? When you went moonlighting?’ He laughed reminiscently. ‘God, Mum was furious.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Nicky said repressively.

The summer she was sixteen. It could have been yesterday.

Ben was intrigued. ‘What did happen? I never knew.’

Nicky shrugged again, not answering. She found that Ben was looking at her in sudden speculation.

‘You know, back then you were a babe to die for.’

That was more or less what they had said on board Calico Jane. Nicky could feel the colour leave her face. Fortunately, Ben was too taken up with his sudden memories to notice.

‘My friends were always on at me to bring you to parties.’ He grinned, remembering. ‘It used to drive me mad.’ He looked at her, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘Who would have thought you’d turn into a wage slave? You were born to be a party girl.’

In spite of herself, Nicky choked. ‘I have a living to earn,’ she pointed out drily.

Ben put his head on one side and smiled the charming smile that had girlfriends falling over themselves to share his bed and do his laundry. ‘You can earn a living and still have some fun, you know.’

‘I do. It’s just that your idea of fun and mine is different.’

Ben flung up his hands.

‘I give in. You will live and die a businesswoman. And the wildest day of your week will be the girls night out.’

Since Ben had met all her friends and, indeed, made a spirited attempt to lure at least one of them into his sex and laundry net, Nicky did not take this slight too seriously.

‘I want wild, I’ll call my brother,’ she said tartly.

And that, for some reason, silenced Ben.

Their food came. Slowly they eased back into their normal easy gossip about family and friends and her despised job.

‘What’s Martin going to say when he finds you’ve savaged one of his customers this morning?’ Ben teased.

Nicky pulled a face. ‘Any savaging that took place was in the other direction. You should have heard the way that man called me a “blonde”.’

Ben laughed aloud. ‘But you are a blonde. And gorgeous with it.’

‘Not in the way he meant it,’ said Nicky, ungrateful for the compliment. ‘He made it sound as if all blondes are empty-headed nymphomaniacs.’

Ben waved his fork at her. ‘And too ready to go to war. All you needed to do was sweet-talk him a little. The man would be eating out of your hand by now.’

‘What a horrible thought,’ Nicky retorted. ‘Esteban Tremain is not the sort of man you sweet-talk lightly.’

The effect on Ben was electric. He sat bolt upright, his eyes narrowing. ‘What?’

Nicky was faintly surprised. She amplified, If I have to butter up some man, at least let it be someone I can like.’

Ben ignored that. ‘Who did you say?’

‘Esteban Tremain,’ said Nicky, puzzled. ‘Do you know him?’

That commanding voice had nothing in common with her erratic brother. She could not imagine how they could have met

‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Ben, suddenly grim.

‘And you don’t like what you’ve heard,’ Nicky interpreted.

It did not surprise her. Ben was easygoing to a fault but he would not take kindly to Tremain’s habit of ordering everyone around. He was like his sister in that, at least.

‘I’ve never met the man,’ he said curtly. ‘But—’ He broke off, looking disturbed.

Nicky was intrigued. Not much worried her casual brother.

‘But—?’ she prompted.

He still hesitated, clearly torn.

At last he said, ‘He’s an ugly customer, from what I’ve heard. Steer clear of him.’ He sounded serious.

Nicky was touched. She reached across the table and covered the back of his hand reassuringly.

‘Don’t worry. He’s Martin’s client Martin can deal with him.’ But she could not resist adding naughtily, ‘So cancel the advice on sweet-talking him, then?’

Ben’s frown disappeared in a great shout of laughter.

‘Sharp,’ he said when he could speak. ‘Very sharp.’

The beep of Nicky’s mobile phone interrupted them. She pulled it out of her capacious bag and flicked the switch.

‘Hello?’

It was Caroline. ‘Told you,’ she said smugly. ‘He’s here. He virtually went through the broom cupboard looking for Martin.’

Nicky sniffed. ‘Well, at least now he knows I was telling the truth about Martin being out of the office. Did you call him? When will he be back?’

‘Not this evening,’ said Caroline with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Better get back here before Tremain starts throwing things.’

Nicky looked at Ben apologetically. He nodded.

‘Duty calls, eh? Fine. I’ll walk you back.’

He did. And then, to her surprise, he slid one arm possessively round her waist and strolled into the showroom beside her.

Caroline came towards them. ‘He’s in Martin’s office.’

Nicky looked across the showroom. A tall figure was pacing behind Martin’s glass walls. As she looked, he stopped, turned, went still… Their eyes locked.

Nicky felt her heart give an odd lurch. It was like catching sight of someone she recognised; someone very important Hardly knowing what she did, she removed herself from Ben’s encircling arm. She did not take her eyes off that still figure.