for a living. Who looked as drab and plain as the back end of a bus. That would teach him to try and force his hand—
Magda saw the gleam of triumph in the obsidian eyes and quailed. She must be insane even to think of thinking about what he had offered her! A hundred thousand pounds—it was ridiculous. It was absurd. Almost as absurd as the notion of a female like her marrying a man like that…for whatever lunatic reason.
‘I really do have to go,’ she said with a rush, and got to her feet. As she did so she must have jogged Benji’s chair, because he gave a sudden start and woke up. Immediately he gave out a little wail. Magda stooped down and cupped his cheek. ‘It’s OK, Benji. Mum’s here.’
The wail stopped, and Benji reached out one of his little hands and patted her face. Then, promptly, he started wriggling mightily, trying to free himself from his bonds.
‘It’s all right, muffin, we’re just going.’ She hefted him up onto her arm, shifting her leg to balance the weight. She picked up her cleaning box with her other hand.
‘I’ll…er…let myself out…’ she said awkwardly to the man who had just asked her to marry him, and who was still sitting on the other side of the bar, watching her through assessing eyes.
‘A hundred thousand pounds. No more cleaning. No more having to take your son around like this. It’s no life for him.’
His words fell like stones into her conscience—pricking it and destroying it at the same time.
‘This isn’t real,’ she said suddenly, her voice sounding harsh. ‘It can’t be. It’s just nuts, the whole thing!’
The thin, humourless smile twisted his mouth again. ‘If it’s any comfort, I feel the same way. But—’ he took a deep, sharply inhaled breath ‘—if I don’t turn up next month with a wife, everything I have worked for will be wasted. And I will not permit that.’
There was a chill in his words as he finished that made her shiver. But what could she say?
Nothing. She could only go. At her side, Benji wriggled and started to whimper.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said helplessly, but whether to Benji or this unbelievable man with his unbelievable proposition, she didn’t know.
Then she got out of the apartment like a bat out of hell.
Music thumped through the thin walls of the bedsit, pounding through Magda’s head. She’d had a headache all day, ever since finally making her escape from that madman’s apartment.
But what he had said to her was driving her mad as well. She kept hearing it in her head—a hundred thousand pounds, a hundred thousand pounds. It drummed like the bass shuddering through from next door, tolled like a bell condemning her to a life of dreary, grinding, no-hope poverty.
Would she ever get a decent home of her own? The council waiting list was endless, and in the meantime she was stuck here, in this bleak, grimy bedsit. When Benji had been a baby it hadn’t been so bad. But now that he was getting older his horizons were broadening—he needed more space; he needed a proper home. This wasn’t a home—it never could be—it was barely a roof over their heads.
Not that she was ungrateful. Dear God, single mothers in other parts of the world could die in a gutter with their children without anyone caring. At least here, the state system, however imperfect, provided an umbrella for her. Not that she hadn’t been pressed to give Benji up for adoption.
‘Life as a single mother is very hard, Miss Jones,’ the social worker had said to her. ‘Even with state support. You will have a much better chance to make something of yourself without such an encumbrance.’
Encumbrance. That was the word that had done it. Made her stand up, newborn baby in her arms, and say tightly, ‘Benji stays with me!’
Encumbrances. She knew all about them.
She’d been one herself. An encumbrance so great that the woman who had given birth to her had left her to die in an alley.
Well, no one, no one—neither man nor God—was going to take Benji from her!
Through the wall the music pounded, far too loud. None of the residents dared complain. The man with the ghetto-blaster was on drugs, everyone knew that, and could turn ugly at the drop of a pin. Eventually he would turn it off, but often not till the early hours. No wonder Benji had broken sleep patterns.
Knowing there was no way she could get him to sleep, even though it was gone eight in the evening, Magda let him play. He was sitting beside her on the lumpy bed, quite happily posting shapes through the holes in a plastic tower and gurgling with pleasure every time he got it right. It was a good toy, and Magda had been pleased to find it in a charity shop. All Benji’s toys and clothes—and her own clothes and possessions—came from charity shops and jumble sales.
As she played with him, trying to ignore the pounding music, her mind went round and round, thinking about that extraordinary encounter this morning.
Had it actually happened? Had a man who looked like every woman’s fantasy Latin millionaire really suggested she marry him for six months and thereby earn a hundred thousand pounds? It was so insane surely it couldn’t have happened.
The knock on her door made her start. On the bed, Benji looked round interrogatively. The knock came again.
‘Miss Jones?’
The voice was muffled and she could hardly hear it through the racket coming from next door. Was it the landlord? He turned up from time to time to check up on his property, from which he made a substantial living by letting it out to those on state benefits. Cautiously she went to the door. She’d fitted a chain herself, not feeling in the slightest secure with neighbours like hers.
Bracing her weight against the back of the door, ready to slam it shut, she opened it a crack.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Rafaello di Viscenti. We spoke this morning. Please be so good as to admit me.’
CHAPTER TWO
TOTAL astonishment made her obey. As she opened the door to him Rafaello experienced a momentary qualm. Could he really go through with this? Marry this…this…what was the English word for it…? Skivvy? Even for the reasons he had. Seeing her again brought home just how dire she was. She was wearing a saggy sweatshirt and baggy trousers, her stringy, mud-coloured hair was scraped back, and her face was gaunt, with hollows under her eyes. She was, he could safely say, the most physically repellent female he’d ever set eyes on.
But that is what makes her so perfect. OK, so she was the antithesis of Amanda, his first choice, but now, instead of a sexy, airhead bimbo he could take home this plain-ass-in, single mother! It would work just as well—if not better.
Besides—the thought came to him with a stab of discomfort as his quick glance took in the dump she lived in and finally settled on the baby sitting on the bed, staring at him with big, chocolate eyes—she could certainly do with the money more than Amanda could…
‘What…what are you doing here? How…how did you find me?’
The girl was stammering, clearly in a state of shock. Rafaello
