His voice was grave and his face did not change by a muscle.
So why did she think he was mocking her?
Annis set her teeth and decided to fight fire with fire. ‘And what to you do when you’re working on my father’s new building?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘I keep Carew in line.’
Annis was genuinely startled. ‘What?’
He repeated it obligingly.
Clever, she thought. Her father’s friends called him Tony; his subordinates called him Mr Carew. Konstantin Vitale was making a point. Not an employee, then. And if he was a professional adviser, he was not a very respectful one.
Annis bristled. ‘Forgive me if I say that I find it difficult to imagine.’
‘Too right,’ said Konstantin Vitale blandly. ‘He’s stubborn as hell.’
Most people who worked with Tony Carew were impressed by him. If they weren’t impressed they did not last very long.
‘I take it that your professional relationship with my father is on its last legs?’ said Annis
He was surprised. ‘No. Why? He wants the best. I am the best. He just needs a bit of education to appreciate it, that’s all.’
Annis blinked. She found she had nothing to say in the face of such superb assurance. Out of my depth again.
‘Could be it runs in the family,’ he murmured provocatively.
Annis was instantly suspicious. ‘What does?’
‘A need to be challenged.’
She met his eyes in fulminating silence. He raised one eyebrow. He was amused, confident and—quite temporarily—ready to duel with her. Oh, that Look! Annis could have stamped her foot with frustration.
She stopped pretending that she did not know he was trying to wind her up.
‘No chance,’ she said curtly. ‘Forget it, Mr Vitale. I not only don’t date, I don’t play any other silly games either. Now, I must find my stepmother. Excuse me.’
Annis was still seething when she tracked Lynda down. Her stepmother kissed her on both cheeks, all wide-eyed innocence.
‘So lovely to see you, darling. I saw your father was looking after you. How did you get on with lovely Kosta?’
Annis did not answer that directly. ‘He’s tonight’s people’s choice, is he?’ she said grimly.
Lynda fingered her fabulously simple, fabulously expensive gold collar nervously. She avoided Annis’s eyes.
‘Your father asked him. They’re doing business together, I think.’
‘And no doubt I’m sitting next to him at dinner.’
Her stepmother did not deny it. Another unwelcome thought occurred to Annis, based on previous experience.
‘And my flat just happens to be on his way home, I suppose?’
Lynda did not deny that either. She scanned Annis’s face, clearly concerned.
‘Darling—’
Annis was surprised at the gust of fury that whipped through her. Konstantin Vitale had disturbed her more than any other of Lynda’s offerings, though she could not have said why. She just knew that she hated it.
‘So he offers to drive me home and I’m supposed to say thank you kindly. And go out with him when he calls next week.’ She was shaking with anger. ‘Tell me, Lynda, have you given him my number already?’
In spite of a designer cocktail suit and several thousand pounds’ worth of discreet jewellery, Lynda Carew looked like a guilty four year old caught out in the playground.
‘Not to Kosta. But darling—’
‘Lynda, I love you very much. But will you just stop interfering in my life?’
Lynda looked shaken. Annis had never reacted like this before. All right, she did not usually go out with the men Lynda introduced to her more than once. But at least she greeted them with amused resignation. Lynda had never seen such passion in her level-headed stepdaughter. Or not about men.
She tried to sound airy. ‘But your father had these business types he really wanted to invite. So I thought, Why not?’ Her eyes were huge, blue and limpid. ‘Starting out on her own like that, Annis will probably be glad of a chance to meet some people who could put work her way.’
Annis stared. It was so close to what she had already claimed herself that Lynda might have been eavesdropping. Hoist with my own petard, she thought. In spite of herself, her lips twitched. She flung up her hands in surrender.
‘OK. I’m here to network. Let’s leave it at that.’ But she still looked at Lynda severely. ‘And I get to go home alone, right?’
‘Right,’ said Lynda relieved. She patted Annis’s sober blue shoulder. ‘I suppose you’ve come straight from work?’
Annis sipped the champagne. ‘How did you guess?’
‘You’re always scratchy when you’re tired,’ Lynda said frankly.
That was undoubtedly true. Annis, always fair minded, had to admit it.
Lynda sensed a softening. ‘I wish you wouldn’t make things so difficult for yourself, darling. Why don’t you just try to enjoy yourself for once?’
Annis closed her eyes briefly. ‘You’ve been saying that since I was fourteen.’
‘Then, it’s about time you gave it a try.’
Annis opened her mouth to retort.
‘What you ought to do is go upstairs to my room and freshen up,’ Lynda said coaxingly. ‘That will make you feel better. Borrow an earring or something. And then come downstairs and be nice to people.’
There was a shout of loud laughter from her father’s group at the fireplace. Lynda put a hand on her Annis’s arm. Her expression was suddenly serious.
‘Don’t spoil it, Annis,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s so long since he relaxed properly.’
Annis looked down from her five feet eleven into her diminutive stepmother’s exquisite face. Annis had given thanks for Lynda every day since she’d married Tony Carew and had taken his daughter under her wing. They were as different as two women could be but Lynda had given her unstinting affection, making no distinction between Annis and her own daughter Isabella.
What was more, she made Tony Carew laugh again. Under Lynda’s influence he came home from the office at night. He even took some notice of his neglected ugly duckling daughter and found, to his astonishment, that she was interesting. Found that she was not a sullen adolescent, just painfully shy. Found that he liked her.
