Читать книгу A Spanish Affair - Helen Brooks - Страница 8

‘WE MEET again, Miss Millett.’ In spite of the fact that Georgie had been steeling herself all morning for this encounter, her head snapped up so sharply she felt a muscle in her neck twang.

A full week had elapsed since that day in Robert’s office when she had first seen Matt de Capistrano, and it was now the first day of May and a beautiful sunny morning outside the building. Inside Georgie felt the temperature had just dropped about ten degrees as she met the icy grey eyes watching her so intently from the doorway.

‘Good morning, Mr de Capistrano.’ There was no designer suit today; he was dressed casually in black denim jeans and a pale cream shirt and if anything the dark aura surrounding him was enhanced tenfold. Georgie knew he and Robert were going on site for most of the day, along with Matt de Capistrano’s architects and a whole host of other people, but she hadn’t bargained for what the open-necked shirt and black jeans which sat snugly on lean male hips would do to her equilibrium. She wanted to swallow nervously but she just knew the grey gaze would pick up the action, and so she said, a little throatily, ‘Robert is waiting for you if you’d like to go through?’ as she indicated her brother’s office with a wave of her hand.

‘Thank you, but I wish to have a word with you first.’

Oh, help! He was going to come down on her like a ton of bricks for her rudeness a week ago. He held all the cards and he knew it. He could make their lives hell if he wanted. Georgie raised her small chin a fraction and her voice betrayed none of her inward agitation as she looked into the dark attractive face and said quietly, ‘Yes, Mr de Capistrano?’

Her little cubby-hole, which was barely big enough to hold her desk and chair and the filing cabinet, and barely warranted the grand name of an office, was covered by one male stride, and then he was standing at the side of her as he said, ‘Firstly, I do not think it appropriate we stand on ceremony with the Mr de Capistrano and Miss Millett now we are working together, yes?’

In spite of his perfect English he sounded very foreign. Georgie just had to take that swallow before she could say, ‘If that’s what you want, Mr de Capistrano.’

‘It is,’ he affirmed softly. ‘And the name is Matt.’

The grey eyes were so dark as to be almost black, Georgie thought inconsequentially, and surrounded by such thick black lashes it seemed a shame to waste them on a man. And he seemed even bigger than she remembered. ‘Then please call me Georgie,’ she managed politely.

He inclined his head briefly. ‘And the second thing is that I find myself in need of your assistance today, Georgie,’ he continued smoothly. ‘My secretary, Pepita, has unfortunately had a slight accident this morning and twisted her ankle. Perhaps you would take her place on site and take notes for me?’

Oh, no. No, no, no. She’d never survive a day in his company without making a fool of herself or something. She couldn’t, she really couldn’t do this! If nothing else this confirmed she was doing absolutely the right thing in trying to find a new secretary to take her place for Robert.

Georgie called on every bit of composure she could muster and said steadily, ‘Perhaps you had better ask Robert about that. It would mean closing the office here, of course, which is not ideal. His men are finishing work on a shop we’ve been renovating and are expected to call in some time this afternoon, and there’s the phone to answer and so on.’

‘You have an answering machine?’ Matt enquired pleasantly.

‘Yes, but—’

‘And your presence will only be required during the discussions with the architect and planner. After that you may return here and perhaps type up the notes for me,’ he continued silkily.

Oh, hell! It would be today his precious secretary decided to twist her ankle, Georgie thought helplessly. She doubted if Matt de Capistrano would be around much in the normal run of things; a wealthy tycoon like him had his fingers in a hundred and one pies at any one time, and within a few weeks she would hopefully be out of here anyway. This was just the sort of situation she’d been trying to avoid when she’d decided to find a replacement secretary for Robert. ‘Well, like I said, you’d best discuss this with Robert,’ she said faintly.

‘And if Robert agrees? I can tell him you have no objection, yes?’ he persisted.

No, no and triple no. ‘Of course, Mr—Matt,’ Georgie said calmly.

‘Thank you, Georgie.’

His accent gave her name emphasis on the last ‘e’ and lifted it into something quite different from the mundane, and she was just coping with what that did to her nerves when the hard gaze narrowed as he said conversationally, ‘You do not like me, Georgie.’

It was a statement, not a question, but even if it had been otherwise Georgie would have been unable to answer him immediately such was the state of her surprise.

‘This is not a problem,’ he continued smoothly as she stared at him wide-eyed. His gaze rested briefly on the dark gold of her hair, which hung to her shoulders in a silky bob, before he added, ‘Unless you make it one, of course.’

‘I… That is—’ She was spluttering, she realised suddenly, and with the knowledge came a flood of angry adrenaline that strengthened her voice as her mind became clearer. If he thought she was some pathetic little doormat who would let him walk all over her just because he was bailing them out, he’d got another think coming! She was no one’s whipping boy. ‘I have no intention of making it one,’ she answered smartly.

‘This is good.’

Georgie’s soft mouth tightened further as she caught what she was sure was the hint of laughter in the dark voice, although his face was betraying no amusement whatsoever, and she struggled to keep her tone even and cool as she said, ‘In fact, I don’t expect to be working for Robert much longer, actually. It’s far better that he has someone else working for him here so that I can divide my time between looking after the children and temping work. So I doubt our paths will cross after that.’

To her absolute horror he sat down on a corner of the desk, his body warmth reaching into her air space as he said quietly, ‘Ah, yes, the children. How old are they? Are they coping?’

That same expensive and utterly delicious smell she’d caught wafting off the hard tanned body before was doing wicked things to her hormones, but Georgie was pleased to note nothing of her inward turmoil showed in her voice as she answered evenly, ‘The twins are seven, coming up for eight, and they are coping pretty well on the whole. They have lots of friends and their teacher at school at the moment is actually Sandra’s—their mother’s—best friend, so she is being an absolute brick.’

‘And your brother?’ he asked quietly, his head tilting as he moved a fraction closer which made her heartbeat quicken. ‘How is he doing?’

Georgie cleared her throat. There were probably a million and one men who could sit on her desk all day if they so wished without her turning a hair and without one stray thought coming into her mind. Matt de Capistrano was not one of them.

‘Robert is naturally devastated,’ she said even more quietly than he had spoken. ‘Sandra was his world. They’d known each other since they were children and after they married they even worked together, so their lives were intrinsically linked.’

‘I see.’ He nodded slowly, and Georgie wondered if he was aware of just how sexy he looked when he narrowed his eyes like that. ‘Such devotion is unusual, one might even say exceptional in this day and age of supermarket marriage.’

‘Supermarket marriage?’ she asked bewilderedly.

‘One samples one brand for a while before purchasing another and then another,’ he drawled in cynical explanation. ‘The lawyers get fatter than anyone, of course.’

‘Not all marriages are like that,’ Georgie objected steadily. ‘Some people fall in love and it lasts a lifetime.’

The grey eyes fastened even more piercingly on her face and now the metallic glint was mocking. ‘Don’t tell me you are a romantic,’ he said derisively.

She had been, once. ‘No, I am not a romantic.’ Her voice was cool now, and dismissive. ‘But I know what Sandra and Robert had was real, that’s all.’

She couldn’t read the expression on his face now, but as he opened his mouth to speak Robert chose that moment to open the door of his office, his face breaking into a warm smile as he said, ‘I thought I heard voices out here. Come on in, Matt. There’s just a couple of points I’d like to discuss before we leave.’

Whew! As the door closed behind the two men Georgie slumped in her chair for a moment, one hand smoothing a wisp of silky hair from her flushed face. Something gave her the impression this was going to be one of those days!

She had been banking on using the time the office was quiet with Robert on site to organize the arrangements for the twins’ birthday party. She and Robert had suddenly realised the night before that the children’s birthday was only a couple of weeks away and neither of them had given it a thought. Sandra had always made a big deal of their birthday and Georgie wanted to keep everything as normal as she could in the circumstances, so—Robert being unable to face the thought of the house being invaded by family and friends and loads of screaming infants—she had thought of booking a hall somewhere and hiring a bouncy castle and a magician and the full works.

The buzzer on her desk interrupted further musing. ‘Georgie?’ Robert’s voice sounded strained. ‘Could you organise coffee, make it three cups, would you, and bring in your notebook? I want you to sit in on this.’

What now? Georgie thought as she quickly fetched out the best mugs and a packet of the delicious chocolate caramel biscuits her brother loved. He had lost a great deal of weight in the last months and she had been trying to feed him up since she’d come home.

Once the coffee was ready she straightened her pencil-slim skirt and demure, buttoned-up-to-the-collar blouse and steeled herself for the moment she faced those piercing grey eyes again. Since her first day of working for Robert she had always dressed well, bearing in mind that she was the first impression people received when they walked through the door, but today she had taken extra care and it was only in this moment she acknowledged the fact. And it irritated her. Irritated and annoyed her. She didn’t want to care what Matt de Capistrano thought of her. He was just a brief fleeting shadow in her life, totally unimportant. He was.

The brief and totally unimportant shadow was sitting with one knee over the other and muscled arms stretched along the back of the big comfy visitor’s seat in Robert’s office when she entered, and immediately her body’s reaction to the overt male pose forced her to recognise her own awareness of him. Georgie was even more ruffled when her innate honesty emphasised that his flagrant masculinity was all the more overwhelming for its casual unconsciousness, and after serving the men their coffee and offering them the plate of biscuits she sat down herself, folding her hands neatly in her lap after placing her own coffee within easy reach. She was not going to fidget or gabble or react in any way to Matt de Capistrano, not if it killed her.

‘So…’ Robert’s voice was still strained. ‘To recap, you feel Mains and Jenson will have to go?’ he said to Matt, referring to the two elderly bricklayers who had been with Robert since he first started the firm fourteen years ago.

‘What?’ Georgie forgot all about the non-reaction as she reared up in her seat. ‘George and Walter?’ She had known the two men even before she had come under Robert’s wing and they had always treated her like a favourite granddaughter, as had their wives. The first summer she had come to live with Robert and Sandra, when she’d been bitterly grieving for her parents, Walter and his wife had taken her away to France for two weeks to try and take her mind off her parents’ untimely death and they had been utterly wonderful to her. ‘You can’t! You can’t get rid of them.’

‘Excuse me?’ The steel-grey eyes had narrowed into slits of light and he was frowning.

‘They’re like family,’ Georgie said passionately.

‘Family’s fine,’ Matt said coolly. ‘Inefficient employees are something else. Walter Jenson is well past retiring age and George Mains turned sixty-five a year ago.’

‘They are excellent bricklayers!’ Her green eyes were flashing sparks now.

‘They are too slow,’ he said dismissively, ‘and this is not a charitable concern for geriatrics. Your brother must have lost thousands over the last few years by carrying men like Mains and Jenson. I’ve no doubt of their experience or the quality of their work, but Jenson was off sick more than he was at work over the last twelve months—severe arthritis, isn’t it?’ he asked in a brief aside to Robert, who nodded unhappily. ‘And Mains’s unfortunate stroke last year has slowed him up to the point where I believe he actually represents something of a danger to himself and others, especially when working on scaffolding. If you drop something from any sort of height you could kill or maim anyone beneath.’

‘I don’t believe this!’ She glared at him angrily. ‘They are craftsmen, the pair of them.’

‘They are old craftsmen and it’s time to let some young blood take over,’ Matt said ruthlessly, ‘however much it hurts.’

‘And of course it really hurts you, doesn’t it?’ Georgie bit out furiously, ignoring Robert’s frantic hand-signals as she jerked to her feet. ‘Two dear ol—’ She caught herself as the grey gaze sharpened. ‘Two dear men who have been the rocks on which this business was built just thrown on to the scrap heap. What reward is that for all their faithfulness to Robert and this family? But faithfulness means nothing to men like you, does it? You’ve made your millions, you’re sitting pretty, but you’re still greedy for more and if more means men like Walter and George get sacrificed along the way then so be it.’

‘Have you quite finished?’ He was still sitting in the relaxed manner of earlier but the grey gaze was lethal and pointed straight at Georgie’s flushed face. ‘Then sit down, Miss Millett.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Sit down!’

The bark made her jump and in spite of herself Georgie felt her legs obey him.

‘Firstly, your brother has made it clear just what he owes these two employees and they will be retired with a very generous package,’ Matt ground out coldly. ‘I think, as does Robert if he speaks the truth, that this will not come as a surprise to them; neither will it be wholly displeasing. Secondly, you talk of sacrifice when you are prepared to jeopardise the rest of your brother’s employees’ livelihoods for the sake of two elderly men who should have retired years ago?

‘It is human nature for the rest of the men to tailor their speed to the slowest worker when there is a set wage at the end of each week. Your brother’s workers have been underachieving for years and a week ago they were in danger of reaping their reward, every one of them. If Robert had gone bankrupt everyone would have been a loser. There is no place for weakness in industry; you should know that.’

‘And kindness?’ She continued to glare at him even though a tiny part of her brain was pressing her to recognise there was more than an element of truth in what he had said. ‘What about kindness and gratitude? How do you think they’ll feel at being told they’re too old?’

‘They know the dates on their birth certificates as well as anyone,’ he said icily, ‘so I doubt it will come as the surprise you seem to foresee.’

He folded his arms over his chest, settling more comfortably in his seat as he studied her stiff body and tense face through narrowed eyes.

Georgie didn’t respond immediately, more because she was biting back further hot words as the full portent of what she had yelled at him registered than because she was intimidated by his coldness. And then she said, her voice shaking slightly, ‘I think what you are demanding Robert do is awful.’

‘Then don’t think.’ He sat forward in his seat, draining his mug with one swallow and turning to Robert as he said, ‘I’d suggest you take this opportunity to change the men over to piece work. With a set goal each week and good bonuses for extra achievement you’ll soon sort out the wheat from the chaff, and you’ve limped on long enough.’

Georgie looked at her brother, willing him to stand up to this tyrant, but Robert merely nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d been thinking along the same lines myself,’ he agreed quietly.

‘Good, that’s settled, then,’ Matt said imperturbably. ‘Now, if you’d like to get Georgie to note those few points that need checking on site we’ll be on our way. Have you got any other shoes than those?’ he added, looking at her wafer-thin high heels which she had never worn to the office before but which went perfectly with the charcoal skirt she was wearing. They also showed her legs—which Georgie considered her best feature, hating her small bust and too-slender hips—off to their best advantage, but she’d tried to excuse that thought all morning.

Georgie was still mentally reeling from the confrontation of the last few minutes, and a full ten seconds went by before she could say, her voice suitably cutting, ‘I wasn’t aware I was expected to go on site this morning, if you remember, so, no, I haven’t any other shoes with me.’

‘There’s your wellies in the back of my car,’ Robert put in helpfully. ‘You remember we put all our boots in there when we took the kids down to the river for that walk at the weekend?’

Her brother probably had no idea why she glared at him the way she did, Georgie reflected, as she said, ‘Thank you, Robert,’ in a very flat voice. She was going to look just great, wasn’t she? Expensive silk jade-green blouse, elegant skirt and great hefty black wellington boots. Wonderful. And that…that swine sitting there so complacently with his hateful grey eyes looking her up and down was to blame for this, and he was enjoying every minute of her discomfiture. She didn’t have to look at him to know that; it was radiating out from the lean male figure in waves.

As it happened, by the time Georgie jumped out of Robert’s old car at the site of the proposed new estate she wasn’t thinking about her appearance.

Newbottle Meadow, as the site had always been called by all the children thereabouts, was old farmland and still surrounded by grazing cattle in the far distance. When Georgie had first come to live with her brother and his wife the area had been virtually country, but the swiftly encroaching urban advance had swallowed hundreds of acres and now Newbottle Meadow was on the edge of the town. But as yet it was still unspoilt and beautiful.

Georgie stood gazing at the rolling meadowland filled with pink-topped grasses and buttercups and butterflies and she wanted to cry. According to Robert, Matt de Capistrano had had the foresight to buy the land a decade ago when it had still officially been farmland. After several appeals he had managed to persuade the powers-that-be to grant his application for housing—as he had known would happen eventually—thereby guaranteeing a thousandfold profit as relatively inexpensive agricultural land became prime development ground. And then with the yuppie-style estate he was proposing to build…

Philistine! Georgie gulped in the mild May sunshine which turned the buttercups to luminescent gold and the grasses to pink feathers, and forced back the tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Badgers lived here, along with rabbits and foxes and butterflies galore. She and her friends had spent many happy hours marching out of the town to the meadow where they had camped for days on end and had a whale of a time. And now it was all going to be ripped up—mutilated—for filthy lucre. But it would be the saving of Robert’s firm and ultimately her brother himself. The blow of losing his business as well as his wife would have been horrific.

Georgie bit hard on her lip as she turned to see Matt de Capistrano’s red Lamborghini—obviously the Mercedes and the chauffeur were having a day off!—glide to a silky-smooth stop a few yards away. She had to think of Robert and the children in all of this, she told herself fiercely. Her ideals, the unspoilt meadow and all the wildlife, weren’t as important as David and Annie and Robert.

‘You could turn milk sour with that face.’

‘What?’ She was so startled by the softly drawled insult as Matt reached her side that she literally gaped at him.

‘Forget Mains and Jenson; the decision has been made,’ Matt said quietly, his eyes roaming to Robert, who had joined the other men waiting for them in the middle of the acres of meadowland.

‘I wasn’t thinking about George and Walter,’ she returned without thinking.

‘No?’ He eyed her disbelievingly.

‘No.”

“Then what?’ he asked softly, turning to look into her heart-shaped face. ‘Why the ferocious glare and wishing me six foot under?’

‘I wasn’t—’ She stopped abruptly in the middle of the denial. Maybe she had been at that. But he would never understand in a million years, besides which she would be cutting off her nose—or Robert’s nose—to spite her face if she did or said anything to stop Robert securing this contract. Matt de Capistrano would simply use another builder and the estate would become reality anyway. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she finished weakly.

‘Georgie.’ Before she could object he had turned her round, his hand lifting her chin as he looked down into the green of her eyes. ‘Tell me. I’m a big boy. I can take it.’

It was the mockery that did it. He was laughing at her again and Georgie stiffened, her eyes slanting green fire as she fairly spat, ‘You’re going to spoil this beautiful land, desecrate it, and you just don’t care, do you? You’ve got no soul.’

For a moment he just stared at her in amazement, and she observed—with a shred of satisfaction in all the pain and embarrassment—that she had managed to shock him. ‘What?’ he growled quietly.

‘I used to play here as a child, camp out with my friends and have fun,’ she said tightly. ‘And this land is still one of the few places hereabouts which is truly wild and beautiful. People come here to breathe, don’t you see? And you are going to destroy it, along with all the wildlife and the beauty—’

‘People have been allowed to come here because I didn’t stop them,’ he said impatiently. ‘I could have fenced it off but I didn’t.’

‘Because it was too much trouble,’ she shot back quickly.

‘For crying out loud!’ He stared at her with very real incredulity. ‘Is there no end to my crimes where you are concerned? Don’t you want Robert to build this estate?’

‘Of course I do.’ She stared at him angrily. ‘And I don’t. Of course I don’t! How could I when I look at all this and think that in a few months it will be covered with bulldozers and dirt and pretty little houses for people who think the latest designer label and a Mercedes are all that matters in life? But I don’t want Robert to lose his chance of making good; I love him and he’s worked so hard and been through so much. So of course I want him to have the contract.’

He shut his eyes for a moment in a way that said far more than any words could have done, and she resented him furiously for the unspoken criticism and the guilt it engendered. She was being ridiculous, illogical and totally unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t help it. This meadowland had healed something deep inside her in the terrible aftermath of her parents’ death. The peace, the tranquillity, the overriding continuing of life here had meant so much. And now it was all going to be swept away.

It had welcomed her after the Glen episode in her life too, reaching out to her with comforting fingers as she had walked the childhood paths and let her fingers brush through grasses and wild flowers that had had an endless consistency about them in a world that had suddenly been turned upside down.

‘I’m sorry.’ Suddenly all the anger had seeped away and she felt she had shrunk down to a child again. ‘This isn’t your fault, not altogether.’

He said something in Spanish that she was sure was uncomplimentary, then said in English, ‘Thank you, Georgie. That makes me feel a whole lot better,’ in tones of deep and biting sarcasm.

‘You won’t take the contract from Robert because you are angry with me?’ she asked anxiously.

His mouth tightened still more and now the hand under her chin became a vice as he looked down into the emerald orbs staring up at him. ‘I think I like it better when you are aware you are insulting me,’ he said very softly.

Under the thin silk shirt she could see a dark shadow and guessed his chest was covered with body hair. He would probably be hairy all over. Somehow it went with the intoxicating male perfume of him, the overall alienness of Matt de Capistrano that was threatening and exciting at the same time. And she didn’t want to be threatened or excited. She just wanted… What? She didn’t know what she wanted any more.

‘Georgie?’

She heard Robert calling through the buzzing in her ears as the warm hand under her chin held her for a second more, his gaze stroking over her bewildered face. And then he let her go, stepping away from her as he called in an unforgivably controlled voice, ‘We are just coming, Robert. Georgie has been reminiscing about her childhood up here. It must have been fun.’

Philistine!