Her father had been in the inner circle, dressed in his best suit, but as the tall man had headed to the open doors of the company, surrounded by his entourage, her father had fallen back and she’d taken the chance to race towards him on her bike so that she could tell him her good news.
Mr VIP had been heading off to inspect the building and the components centre. Later, Lucy hadn’t understood how it was that he had managed to notice her amidst the excited commotion surrounding him. Had he spotted her cycling away? Had he radioed one of his lackeys who had remained outside with the fleet of cars, primed for a hasty departure? Nor, at the time, had she thought anything of the beefy guy in the suit who’d asked her who she was and what she was doing on the premises.
Anxious not to mention any connection with her father, for she didn’t know if it was against rules for employees to speak when their attention should be one hundred percent focused on their leader, Lucy had instead vaguely told him that she worked at the garden centre and had been checking to make sure all the plants they’d installed for the visit were okay.
Later, packing up for the day, she had had her first real contact with Gabriel Garcia Diaz. About to cycle home, she had been bending down to the wheel lock on the bike. When she’d stood up, there he’d been. At a distance, two bodyguards had lounged by a shiny black car.
He had literally taken her breath away. Never had she felt such a strange compulsion to stare and stare and stare—as though her eyes couldn’t get their fill of his bronzed, exotic beauty. Up close he’d been so much more breathtaking, and when he’d spoken, his voice had been a low, dark, lazy drawl…asking her to tell him her name…telling her that he had noticed her…informing her that he hadn’t planned on staying over but he would now make an exception to take her out….
Lucy had been speechless, flustered and vaguely terrified. What sort of man approached a woman he didn’t know and informed her that she would be taken out to dinner? In a tone of voice that denied any negative response?
His urbane sophistication, his staggering good looks, and the lazy, sexual appreciation in those dark, dark eyes had made her head swim. Backing away, she had turned him down. She hadn’t been able to imagine what a man like him would want with someone like her, but as soon as she’d asked herself the question she’d come up with the answer. Sex.
She had virtually run for cover and had continued to turn him down for the remainder of that week, which had seen deliveries of flowers—terrifically expensive flowers, the centre of attention at the garden centre—and one express delivery of a gold bracelet that she had refused to accept. He hadn’t approached her again in person, but the sustained bombardment, designed to erode her defences, had confused her and sent her further into hiding. In the end she had left a text message on the cell number he had given her. She had told him to go away, that she had a boyfriend…
And he had.
Curiously, the abrupt cessation of all that attention had left her feeling deflated for weeks afterwards. Then, gradually, she had gathered herself and put the memory of him behind her as just one of those weird things.
Working at the garden centre left her no time to question the disturbing impact he had had on her. Nor had he returned to visit the offices where her father continued to work. Huge though the modernisations and expansions had been to Sims, it remained, or so she had been told, just a very small tentacle of one mammoth conglomerate.
Now, as Lucy looked at her parents, who seemed frightened and diminished by the rapidity with which everything they knew seemed to be unravelling, the image of Gabriel Diaz rose up in her head like a dark, avenging angel.
‘Perhaps I could help,’ she offered, her heart beating nervously. ‘I mean, I get a good salary at the garden centre, and I could always ask whether they would advance me some of the money for the illustrations I’ve already done for their second volume. I’m nearly through with them. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind…. Plus Kew Gardens are interested in commissioning me to do some work for them….’
‘It’s no good, honey.’ Nicholas Robins shook his head with something approaching despair. ‘I tried to talk to them…to explain the circumstances. I offered to have my salary cut by as much as it took to pay the debt off but they weren’t interested. They said that’s not how they run their organisation. One strike and you’re out.’
‘And you spoke to…to… Mr Diaz himself?’ His name passing her lips sent a shiver through her, and again she recalled those glittering, mesmerising dark eyes and the way they had looked at her.
‘Oh, no.’ Her father sighed. ‘I asked if I could see him but this matter isn’t important enough for him to get involved. The man’s hardly in the country as it is.’
‘So what’s going to happen?’ Lucy could barely phrase the question because she was so scared of the answer, but ducking reality was never a good idea. Her voice was thick with tears but she wouldn’t let herself cry. Her parents were both distressed enough as it was. She was an only child, and they had had her late in life and always protected her. Her unhappiness would be as wounding to them as their own.
‘At best,’ her father confessed, ‘we’ll lose the roof over our heads. At worst…’
That dreadful worst-case scenario remained unspoken, but it hovered in the air like a malignant cloud. At worst he could go to jail. Embezzlement was an offence that the courts took very seriously.
Lucy opened her mouth to suggest that they could both always come and live with her, sell their house and beg to pay off the debt with the proceeds, but practically how on earth would that work? She rented a small one-bedroomed cottage on the edge of the village. It suited her needs ideally, with its big, rambling garden and a tiny studio off the kitchen, where she often worked at her illustrations at night, but at best it was only good to house one girl and her dog. Stick two more human beings in and there wouldn’t be room to move.
The options were running out fast. Her mother rose to make them all another pot of tea, and in her absence Lucy leaned forward and hurriedly asked how her mother was doing. Really.
‘I’m worried,’ her father said unhappily. ‘She’s being supportive but she has to be scared stiff. And we both know her health isn’t good. If I get put away you’ll have to look after her, Luce. She can’t look after herself….’
‘You won’t get put away!’ But the sound of options running out was the sound of jail doors being clanged shut. ‘I could have a word….’ she said finally.
‘With who, my darling? Believe me, I’ve tried my damnedest and they’re not interested. I even offered to show them receipts for how the money was spent…the holiday Mum and I took after she had the stroke…. They don’t care. They’re there to do a job and there’s no appealing to them….’
‘I could see Mr Diaz…’
‘My love, he’ll be a hundred times worse. He’s a money-making machine without an emotional bone in his body. Sims went from being a small, friendly family firm to being part of a giant company where profits get made but there’s a price to be paid. There’s no such thing as compassionate leave. He has his minions there to make sure no one leaves early or even makes personal calls….’
Lucy thought back to that broodingly arrogant face and could well believe that anyone daring to disobey Gabriel Diaz would be hung, drawn and quartered without trial.