‘Not often,’ Matias admitted, adjusting position to control his insurgent body. He glanced away for a few moments and was more in charge of his responses when he looked at her once more. Her hair was extraordinarily fair and he could tell it was naturally so. Fine and flyaway—with her heart-shaped face it gave her the look of an angel. A sexy little angel.
‘In summer, I try and get up here for a weekend or so, but it’s not often possible. Taking time out isn’t always a viable option for me.’
‘Because you’re a workaholic?’ Not looking at him, Sophie stooped down to expertly assess what the situation was with pots and pans and, as expected, there was no lack of every possible cooking utensil she might need. Next, she would examine the contents of the fridge.
With her catering hat firmly in place, it was easy to forget Matias’s presence on the kitchen chair and the dark eyes lazily following her as she moved about the kitchen.
‘I’ve discovered that work is the one thing in life on which you can depend,’ Matias said, somewhat to his astonishment. ‘Which, incidentally, is how I know your father.’
Sophie stilled and turned slowly round to look at him. ‘You know my father? You actually know him?’
‘I know of him,’ Matias admitted, his dark eyes veiled. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever met the man personally. In fact, I was contemplating a business venture with him, which accounts for Art heading towards the house when you came racing out of the drive and crashed into my Maserati.’ The delicate bones of her face were taut with tension and his curiosity spiked a little more.
‘You had an appointment with my father?’
‘Not as such,’ Matias told her smoothly. ‘Art was going to...let’s just say...lay the groundwork for future trade...’ In other words, he had sent Art to do the preliminary work of letting Carney know that his time was drawing to a close. He, Matias, would step in only when the net was ready to be tightened.
‘Poor Art,’ Sophie sighed, and Matias looked at her with a frown.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t think he would have got very far with James even if he’d managed to gain entry to the house.’
‘James? You call your father James?’
‘He prefers that to being called Dad.’ Sophie blushed. ‘I think he thinks that the word dad is a little ageing. Also...’
‘Also,’ Matias intuited, ‘you were an illegitimate child, weren’t you? I expect he was not in the sort of zone where he would have been comfortable playing happy families with you and your mother. Not with a legitimate wife on the scene.’
Sophie went redder. What to say and how much? He was being perfectly polite. He wasn’t to know the sort of man her father was and, more importantly, the reasons that had driven her mother to maintain contact with him, a legacy she had passed on to her daughter. Nor was she going to fill him in on her private business.
But the lengthening silence stretched her nerves to breaking point, and eventually she offered, reluctantly, ‘No. My mother was a youthful indiscretion and he didn’t like to be reminded of it.’
‘He got your mother pregnant and he refused to marry her...’ Matias encouraged.
Sophie stiffened because she could see the man in front of her was busy building a picture in his head, a picture that was spot on, but should she allow him to complete that picture?
The conversation she had had with her father just before she had blindly ended up crashing into Matias’s car had been a disturbing one. He was broke, he had told her.
‘And don’t stand there with your hand stretched out staring gormlessly at me!’ he had roared, pacing the magnificent but dated living room that was dark and claustrophobic and never failed to make Sophie shudder. ‘You can take some of the blame for that! Showing up here month in month out with bills to settle! Now, there’s nothing left. Do you understand me? Nothing!’
Cringing back against the stone mantelpiece, truly fearful that he would physically lash out at her, Sophie had said nothing. Instead, she had listened to him rant and rave and threaten and had finally left the house with far less than she had needed.
What if he was telling the truth? What if he was going broke? Where would that leave her...? And more importantly, where would that leave Eric?
As always, thinking of her brother made her heart constrict. For all her faults and her foolish misjudgements, her mother had been fiercely protective of her damaged son and had determined from early on that she wasn’t going to be fobbed off by a man who had been happy enough to sleep with her for four years before abandoning her as soon as the right woman had finally appeared on the scene. She had used the only tool in her armoury to get the money she had needed for Eric to be looked after in the very expensive home where his needs were catered for.
Blackmail.
How would those fancy people James mixed with like him if they knew that he refused to support his disabled son and the family he had carelessly conceived, thinking that they would all do him a favour and vanish when it suited him?
James had paid up and he had continued paying up because he valued the opinion of other people more than anything else in the world, not because he felt any affection for either the son he had never seen or the daughter he loathed because she was just an extension of the woman who, as far as he was concerned, had helped send him to the poorhouse.
If there was no money left, Eric would be the one to pay the ultimate price and Sophie refused to let that happen.
If Matias was interested in doing a deal with her father, a deal that might actually get him solvent once again, then how could it be in her interests to scupper that by letting him know just how awful James was? If her father had money then Eric would be safe.
‘That’s life.’ She shrugged, masking her expression. ‘There aren’t many men who would have found it easy to introduce an outside family to their current one.’ She took a deep breath and said, playing with the truth like modelling clay, ‘But he’s always been there for my mother... And now...er...for me...financially...’
Matias wondered whether they were talking about the same person. ‘So you would recommend him as someone I should have dealings with?’
Fingers crossed behind her back, Sophie thought of her brother, lost in his world in the home where she visited him at least once a week, her brother who would certainly find life very, very different without all that care provided, care that only money could buy. ‘Yes. Of course. Of course, I would.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’m sure he would love to have you contact him...’
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