just told me that you have this deal to complete—remember? All hands on deck? ‘ She was about to press the ‘ground’ button, but Luc got there before her, and she spun round to face him in angry disbelief,
‘Why are we going down to the basement?’
‘Because my car is there, and I’m giving you a lift to your house.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Look, do you want the truth?’
Agatha, in receipt of various home truths from him already, was heartily against hearing any more, but her mouth refused to work.
‘I had my mother on the telephone yesterday,’ Luc imparted bluntly. ‘It would seem that I haven’t shown sufficient interest in what you’ve been up to since you’ve come here.’
This was turning out to be a favour that carried a very high price. Normally indifferent to the opinions of other people, Luc dearly loved his mother, and so had gritted his teeth and listened in silence as she’d gently quizzed him about Agatha. She’d registered concern when told that he hadn’t the faintest idea how she was doing. Nor had she bought in to the logic that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain and so what was the problem if he washed his hands of the problem?
Agatha gaped at him, mortified, barely noticing when the lift doors pinged open and he guided her out of the lift towards a gleaming, silver Aston Martin.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said in a tight, breathless voice.
‘Well, you’d better start. Edith is worried. You don’t sound happy; you’re vague when she asks you about the job. You tell her that it’s all right, by which she takes it to mean that it’s making you miserable. The last time she saw you, you seemed to be losing weight.’ As far as Luc could make out, under the shapeless coat she looked perfectly healthy to him.
Agatha groaned and buried her head in her hands.
‘Strap up and tell me where you live.’
While he fiddled with his sat nav, giving it instructions to go to the address she could barely impart through gritted teeth, Agatha had time to conduct a quick mental review of the last hour, starting with his sudden interest in producing more challenging work for her to do.
‘This is awful.’ She placed cool hands on her burning cheeks.
‘You’re telling me.’
‘Is that why you hunted me down to give me all that stuff to do?’
‘Try getting one-hundred percent involved and you might have less time to spend crying down the line to your mother and complaining that you’re bored and unhappy. I have no idea how I managed to get roped into a caretaker role, but roped in I’ve been.’
‘But I don’t want you taking an interest in me!’ she all but wailed. Luc, in passing, thought that was interesting because women usually wanted just the opposite out of him.
‘I’m not taking an interest in you,’ he disputed flatly. ‘I’m broadening your work parameters: more interesting projects. Less back-room stuff. So you can start thinking about the wardrobe issue. Front-of-house demands a more stringent dress code than sacks and old shoes.’
‘Okay, I will.’ Just to bring the horrifying conversation to an end.
‘And call me a mug, but I’m giving you a lift back to your house because I want to find out about this date of yours, satisfy myself that you’re not about to put your life at risk with some low-life drifter. The last thing I need is my mother showing up at my office like an avenging angel because you’ve managed to get yourself into trouble.’
If she could have burrowed a hole in the soft, cream leather of the car seat and escaped to another county, Agatha would have done so. Never had she felt so humiliated in her life before. In all the scenarios that had played in her head over the years, not one had involved Luc taking an interest in her because he had no option. Nor had she ever envisaged being told that she looked like a bag lady, which was what he had implied.
She should never have accepted this job. No good ever came of accepting hand outs, although she knew that if she voiced that opinion he would have the perfect come back. Hadn’t his own mother accepted a hand out of sorts when she had moved in with her parents in their rambling vicarage? That, to her way of thinking, was different, as was the dispenser of the hand out. Luc Laughton was hardly a kindly, middle-aged man charmed at the thought of doing a favour for a neighbour in need. He was a predatory shark who would have no qualms about eating the recipient of his charity if he felt like it.
‘I can take care of myself,’ she opined, staring straight ahead. ‘I’m not going to get myself into any trouble.’
‘You obviously haven’t breathed a word of this so-called date to your mother,’ Luc guessed shrewdly. ‘Which leads me to think that you might be ashamed of him. Am I right?’
‘I haven’t said anything to Mum because I’ve only just met him! ‘
He noticed that she hadn’t tackled the issue of whether she was ashamed of the man. Was he married? If he were to guess the kind of guy she would go for, it wouldn’t be a married man. Her life had been nothing if not sheltered. His distant memory was of a girl with almost no sense of style, certainly not the sort of style favoured by her peer group: short, tight skirts, skinny, tight jeans, dangly jewellery. No, if he had to take a stab in the dark, he would bet his last few bucks on a fellow garden-lover, someone who got worked up about eco issues and saving the planet.
But if that were the case wouldn’t she have been on the phone in a heartbeat to tell all to Edith? Even if, as she said, he had only recently landed on the scene.
‘Is he married? You can tell me, although don’t expect me to give you my blessing, because I strongly disapprove of anyone getting entangled with someone who’s married.’
Agatha’s head jerked round at the cool contempt in his voice. Who did he think he was, she wondered? A shining example of morality? Normally reduced to quaking jelly in his presence, she took a deep breath and said very quickly in a very high, tremulous voice, ‘I don’t think you have a right to disapprove of anything.’
For a few seconds she actually wondered if he had heard her because he didn’t say a word. She found that she was holding her breath, which she expelled slowly when he finally answered, his voice icy cold. ‘Come again?’
‘I’ve been given the job of buying all your discards their parting presents,’ Agatha admitted tightly. ‘Flowers, jewellery, expensive holidays—what’s so great about having a string of pointless relationships? How can you preach about married men when you think it’s all right to string some poor woman along knowing that you have no intention of getting involved with her?
Luc cursed fluently under his breath, outraged that she dared bring her opinions to bear on his private life. Not that he was about to justify his behaviour.
‘Since when is pleasure pointless?’ was all he said, clamping down on the rising tide of his temper because for Agatha fun without commitment would be anathema. When he had launched himself into the City, climbing that first rung of the ladder which he knew would lead him to the top, he had had the misfortune to fancy himself in love with a woman who had turned from a softly
