this further after we’ve been to the hospital.’ He put the paper under a paperweight and, picking up her overnight bag, ushered her out of his office.
He spoke a few quick words to his receptionist Claudia, explaining what was happening, and Claudia expressed her concern and assured him she would take care of everything back here at the office. Ailsa felt a twinge of jealousy at the way the young woman seemed to be such an integral part of the business. She wondered what had happened to the receptionist who had worked for him during their marriage. Vinn liked surrounding himself with beautiful women and they didn’t come more beautiful than Claudia, who looked as if she’d just stepped out of a photo shoot.
Ailsa waited until they were in Vinn’s car and on their way to the hospital before she brought up the subject. ‘What happened to your other receptionist, Rosa?’
‘I fired her.’
She rounded her eyes in surprise. She’d thought his relationship with the middle-aged Rosa had been excellent. She’d often heard him describe Rosa as the backbone of the business and how he would be lost without her. Why on earth would he have fired her? ‘Really? Why?’
He worked his way through the gears with an almost savage intensity. ‘She overstepped the mark. I fired her. End of story.’
‘Overstepped it in what way?’
He sent her a speaking glance. ‘Could we leave this until another time?’
Ailsa bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry... I know you’re feeling stressed and this must be so upsetting for you with your grandfather so desperately ill...’
There was a long silence.
‘He’s all I have,’ Vinn said in the same hollow-sounding voice he’d used back in his office. ‘I’m not ready to lose him.’
She wanted to reach for his hand or to put her hand on his thigh the way she used to do, but instead she kept to her side of the car. He probably wouldn’t welcome her comfort or he might push her away, which would be even worse. ‘You still have your dad, don’t you?’ she said.
‘No.’ He made another gear change. ‘He died. Car crash. He was driving under the influence and killed himself and his new girlfriend and seriously injured a couple and their two children travelling in the other car.’
‘I’m so sorry...’ Ailsa said. ‘I didn’t know that.’
It pained her to think Vinn had gone through such a tragic loss since she’d left and she’d known nothing about it. She hadn’t even sent a card or flowers. Had he kept his dad’s death out of the press? Not that she went looking for news about Vinn and his family...well, not unless she’d had one too many glasses of wine late at night when she was feeling particularly lonely and miserable.
He shrugged off her sympathy. ‘He was on a fast track to disaster from the moment my mother died when I was a child. Without her steadying influence he was a train wreck waiting to happen.’
Ailsa had rarely heard Vinn mention his mother’s death. It was something he never spoke of, even in passing. But she knew his relationship with his father had never truly recovered after his father was charged with fraud when Vinn was barely out of his teens. The shame on the family’s name and the reputation of the bespoke furniture business had been hard to come back from, but coming back from it had been Vinn’s blood, sweat and tears mission and he had done it, building the company into a global success.
‘I guess not everyone gets to have a father-of-the-year dad,’ she said, sighing as he turned into the entrance of the hospital. ‘Both of us lucked out on that one.’
Vinn had pulled into a parking spot and glanced at her again with a frown. ‘What do you mean? You’ve got a great dad. Michael’s one of the most decent, hardworking men I’ve ever met.’
Ailsa wanted to kick herself. She even lifted one foot to do it, welcoming the stab of pain from her high heel because she was a fool to let her guard slip. A damn fool.
‘Yes...yes, I know. He’s wonderful...even since the divorce he still makes an effort to—’
‘Then why say something like that? He’ll always be your dad even though he’s divorced from your mother.’
‘Forget I said it. I... I wasn’t thinking.’ Ailsa hated that she sounded so flustered and hoped he’d put it down to the emotion of seeing his grandfather under such tense and potentially tragic circumstances. She had a feeling if he hadn’t been in such a rush to see his grandfather before the surgery he might well have pushed her to explain herself a little more. It was a reprieve, but how long before he came back to it with his dog-with-a-bone determination?
It was a timely reminder she would have to be careful around Vinn. He knew her in a way few people did. Her knew her body like a maestro did an instrument. He knew her moods, her likes and dislikes, her tendency to use her sharp tongue as a weapon when she got cornered.
He didn’t know her shameful secret, but how soon before he made it his business to find out?
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