social occasions. That was why he had fallen into the habit lately of taking Martine along with him to any private gathering to which he was invited.
They weren’t romantically involved, simply very good friends as well as close colleagues; it suited them both to have an escort for an evening now and then, and they were both deeply involved in their work.
Charles had told her that he had been an afterthought by his parents, both of whom, apparently, had been in their late forties when he was born, their first and only child, a much loved and indulged one. Perhaps having old parents had made him so serious, so tied to duty and work?
They had died long ago, when he was a young man, leaving Charles an enormous fortune and the major interest in the family merchant bank. Charles had once said that he had begun to work as soon as he left university, and hadn’t noticed much about the world outside banking until he was nearly forty himself. That year he had been in Paris at an international conference and met a beautiful French model half his age, Elizabeth, raven-haired, tiny, exquisite. Charles fell like a ton of bricks, married her just weeks later, only to lose her again within two years, a tragedy which made him, for Martine, a deeply romantic, star-crossed figure.
She felt highly protective towards Charles, as well as liking him.
‘Bruno is the only close relative I have,’ Charles said now, giving her a smiling, rueful shrug. ‘And I’ve only met him a couple of times; he lives in Switzerland.’
‘Switzerland? And he’s in banking, of course,’ she said with a wry expression.
Charles looked amused suddenly. ‘You think that follows naturally? Well, you’re right, he is in banking, I suppose it was in his genes. Or perhaps his mother talked him into joining a bank? Anyway, he works for the Swiss Bank Corporation at the moment, but tonight I intend to ask him to join us.’
Martine’s green eyes widened. ‘Oh, I see.’ Now what did that mean? she wondered, startled.
Charles went on quietly, ‘I don’t want anyone else to know this, Martine; I’m telling you because I trust you completely. I want you to know, I’ve just made a new will, leaving my shares in the bank to him. There’s nobody else for me to leave them to.’
Martine felt cold suddenly. ‘You’re talking as if...good heavens, you’re only forty-odd. You’ll marry again, Charles. Oh, I know you still miss Elizabeth, and it isn’t easy to get over things like that, but you sound as if you’ve given up on life, and you mustn’t! There’s plenty of time to think about making wills!’
Charles gave a faint, wry smile. ‘After working in banking for years, Martine, I’d have thought you knew better than that! It is never wise to put off making a will.’
Frowning, she shrugged. ‘In principle, no, but...’
‘In practice, too. You should make one yourself. One never knows what’s around the next corner.’ His blue eyes had that haunted look again; he was thinking about Elizabeth and that crash.
Martine put a hand on his arm, comforting silently, and he gave her a quick, crooked smile, coming back to the present moment.
‘Anyway, I’ve made my will. Actually, Bruno should have had shares in the bank long ago; his mother was my father’s only sister! But my grandfather refused to leave anything at all to his daughter, Una, because she married against his will—a Swiss doctor she met on a holiday at Lake Como. Her parents disapproved violently. First, Frederick was a foreigner, and secondly he was not in banking. Worst of all, he had very little money, but he was apparently a delightful man, a good man and a good doctor. Una was very happy with him, but her father never forgave her for marrying him, so he left all his money to my father.’
‘That does seem unfair,’ Martine agreed. ‘It must have made your aunt very unhappy.’
‘I’m sure it did.’
‘And it led to a family feud!’ Martine murmured, and Charles laughed.
‘You have a disconcerting streak of romanticism!’
She blushed. She always tried to hide it; it didn’t go down well in banking circles, for one thing, and, for another, it had led her into a painful love-affair and left her with a broken heart and bitter disillusion.
‘I suppose it was something along those lines, though,’ Charles shrugged. ‘My parents exchanged Christmas cards with Aunt Una but they never visited Switzerland, and Aunt Una never came back to England. This big gulf opened up between them.’
‘How sad!’ It seemed pretty childish to Martine, but the things people did to each other often were, she thought.
Charles sighed. ‘It is really, isn’t it? Sad and very stupid. When my parents died I lost contact with Aunt Una altogether, but she died a few years ago, and Bruno wrote to tell me. I happened to be going to Switzerland on that banking commission tour so I looked him up while I was there, and I liked him.’
‘Does he know you’ve made him your main beneficiary?’ Martine shrewdly asked.
Charles gave her an amused look. ‘Not yet.’
Martine’s eyes narrowed speculatively. This Bruno Falcucci might not know yet that Charles had left the Redmond share of the bank to him, but he would know that Charles was unmarried and had no other heir, and, if he was shrewd, as he probably was if he was a senior bank executive, he would probably have worked out that he had a chance of persuading Charles to leave him some money.
‘Did you invite him to come to London, or is he here off his own bat?’
‘He rang me last week to say he had to come to London on business,’ Charles informed her, still looking amused. ‘What a suspicious little mind you’ve got!’
‘I didn’t say a word!’
‘You don’t need to! I can read your thoughts—after all, I know you very well, Martine.’ He looked down into her green eyes and they exchanged an intimate, laughing look.
At that instant somebody strolled up to the table and Charles glanced round, exclaimed, stood up, holding out his hand, his drawn and tired face lighting up.
‘Ah, there you are, Bruno! I was beginning to think you had forgotten all about tonight!’
‘I’ve been looking forward to the evening all week,’ a deep, cool voice drawled.
Martine sat there transfixed, her mouth open and her nerves in shreds. It would be him, wouldn’t it?
Of all the men in the world, she had had to pick on Bruno Falcucci to take an instant dislike to! It hadn’t occurred to her for an instant that the man she had got stuck in the revolving door with might be the man she and Charles were waiting for.
Charles was smiling, gesturing to include her in the circle. ‘Bruno, I want you to meet my right hand—Martine Archer, my personal assistant for the last four years.’
Martine numbly held out her hand.
Bruno Falcucci took it, his powerful tanned fingers swallowing up her small, pale ones.
She risked a glance upwards. His black eyes coldly mocked her. He said something polite and distant. She answered with equal remoteness.
