‘Employee,’ Matias replied. This just in case she got it into her head that special favours were going to be granted because of Art’s personal connection with him.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Art Delgado is my employee. He was driving my Maserati. Miss Watts, do you have any idea how much one costs?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Sophie said faintly. He was having the most peculiar effect on her. It was as though the power of his presence had sucked the oxygen out of the air, making it difficult to breathe.
‘In that case, allow me to enlighten you.’ He named a sum that was sufficiently staggering to make her gasp. ‘And I have been told that your insurance policy is invalid.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Sophie whispered. ‘I’m usually so good at dealing with all that stuff but things have been a bit hectic recently. I know I cancelled my old policy and I had planned on renewing with somewhere cheaper but...’
Matias held up one imperious hand to stop her in mid flow. ‘I’m not interested in the back story,’ he informed her coolly. ‘To cut to the chase, the damage you have done to my car will run to many, many thousands.’
Sophie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Thousands?’ she parroted.
‘Literally. I’m afraid it won’t be a simple case of sorting out the dent. The entire left wing of the car will have to be replaced. High-performance cars charge high-performance prices.’
‘I... I had no idea. I haven’t got that sort of money. I...when I spoke to your friend...sorry, your employee Mr Delgado on the phone, he said that we would be able to work something out.’
‘Sadly working something out really isn’t in his remit.’ Matias thought that his old friend would raise a sardonic eyebrow at that sweeping statement.
‘I could pay you back over time.’ Sophie wondered what sort of time line would be acceptable to the unforgiving man staring coldly at her as though she were an undesirable alien that had suddenly invaded his personal space. She somehow didn’t imagine that his time line was going to coincide with hers. ‘I run a little catering business with a friend,’ she hurtled on, desperate to bring this uncomfortable meeting to an end and even more desperate to find some sort of solution that wouldn’t involve bankruptcy for her and Julie’s fledgling start-up company. ‘We only opened up a year and a half ago. Before that we were both primary school teachers. It’s taken an awful lot of borrowing to get everything in order and to get my kitchen up to the required standard for producing food commercially, and right at this moment, well...there isn’t a great deal of spare change flying about.’
‘In other words you’re broke.’
‘We’re really making a go of things, Mr Rivero!’ Heat flared in her cheeks. ‘And I’m sure we can work something out when it comes to a repayment schedule for your car...’
‘I gather you’re James Carney’s daughter.’ Matias lowered his eyes, then he pushed back his chair and stood up to stroll across to the impressive bank of windows, in front of which was a tidy sitting area complete with a low table fashioned in chrome and glass.
Sophie was riveted at the sight of him. The way he moved, the unconscious flex of muscle under the expensive suit, the lean length of his body, the casual strength he exuded that was frankly spellbinding. He turned to look at her and it took a big effort not to look away.
His throwaway remark had frozen her to the spot.
‘Well?’ Matias prodded. ‘Art was on his way to pay a little visit to James Carney on business,’ he expanded, ‘when you came speeding out of his drive like a bat out of hell and crashed into my car. I had no idea that the man even had a family.’ He was watching her very carefully as he spoke and was mildly surprised that she didn’t see to ask him a very fundamental question, which was why the heck should Carney’s private life have anything to do with him?
Whatever she was, she clearly didn’t have a suspicious nature.
Sophie was lost for words. She had been shaken by the accident, upset after the visit to her father, and Art Delgado, so different from this flint-eyed guy assessing her, had encouraged her into a confidence she rarely shared with anyone.
‘Of course...’ Matias shrugged, curiosity spiking at her continued silence ‘...I am not primarily concerned with the man’s private life but my understanding was that he was a widower.’
‘He is,’ Sophie whispered, ashamed all over again at a birthright she hadn’t asked for, the consequences of which she had been forced, however, to live with.
‘So tell me where you fit in,’ Matias encouraged. ‘Unless, of course, that was a little white lie you told my employee on the spur of the moment.’ He appeared to give this a little thought. ‘Maybe you were embarrassed to tell the truth...?’
‘Sorry?’ That garnered her attention and she looked at him with a puzzled frown.
‘Young girl having an affair with an old man? I can see that you might have been embarrassed enough to have said the first thing that came to your head, anything that sounded a little less unsavoury than what you really are to Carney.’
‘How dare you?’ Sophie gasped, half standing. ‘That’s disgusting!’
‘I’m just trying to do the maths.’ Matias frowned and tilted his head to one side. ‘If you’re not his lover, the man must have had a mistress while he was married. Am I right? Are you Carney’s love child?’
Sophie laughed bitterly because nothing could have been further from the truth. Love had never come into the equation. Before her untimely death, her mother, Angela Watts, had been an aspiring actress whose great misfortune had been her Marilyn Monroe blonde-bombshell looks. Prey to men’s flattery and pursued for her body, she had made the fatal error of throwing her net too wide. James Carney, young, rich and arrogant, had met her at a club and, like all the others, had pursued her, but he had had no intention of ever settling down with someone he considered a two-bit tart with a pretty face. Those details had been drummed into Sophie from as soon as she was old enough to understand. He had had fun with Angela and she had foolishly thought that the fun would actually go somewhere, but even when she had contrived to trap him with a pregnancy he had stood firm, only later marrying a woman he considered of the right class and social position.
‘He met my mother before he was married,’ Sophie confessed, belatedly adding, ‘not that it has anything to do with...well, anything. Mr Rivero, I would be more than happy for you to draw up a schedule for repayment. I will sign it right here and right now and you have my word that you will have every penny I owe you back. With interest if that’s what you want.’
Matias burst out laughing. ‘That’s very obliging of you,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Believe it or not, I haven’t become a successful businessman by putting my faith in the impossible. I have no idea what you owe the bank but I suspect you’re probably barely making ends meet. Am I right?’
He tilted his head to one side and Sophie looked at him with loathing. He might be sinfully handsome but she had never met anyone she hated more on the spot. She wasn’t stupid. He had all the money in the world, from the looks of it, but he wasn’t going to be lenient when it came to getting back every penny she owed him and she knew that he wouldn’t give a hoot if he drove her little company into the ground to do it.
Right now, he was toying with her like a cat playing with a mouse.
‘We could work out a schedule,’ he mused, ‘but I would be on my walking frame before you made the final payment.’ She really had the most wonderfully transparent face, he thought. Impossible though it was, she