Sofia’s lip curled and then, before she knew it, he was so much closer to her, standing right in front of her, and the atmosphere shifted. He reached out and stroked her bare arm. For a few shocking seconds she couldn’t react, was catapulted back to a time when the unwanted attention of men had made her heart beat faster with apprehension, then she drew back sharply.
‘Feel free to pass the message along, my dearest prodigal stepsister.’ He moved away, back towards the door. ‘He’s wasting his time. I’m here to stay and I intend to get fully involved in running this show, whatever Mr High-and-Mighty may think on the subject. Sooner or later, he’ll get bored trying to figure me out, and then he can ride off into the sunset, back to his own company. In the meantime, good luck to him!’ He half-saluted, pulled open the door and was gone.
Sofia only realised how tense the interchange had made her when she released one long, indrawn breath on a shudder. Sure enough, when she got her legs moving and peered out of the room, Paula was no longer around. Sofia had left her outside on a phone call and, yes, she had been dispatched while Freddy had done what he had wanted to do.
Which was what? Warned her to warn Rafael? She shivered, because there had been more to that twenty-minute exchange than a simple case of intimidation.
She sped through the rest of the company simply because she happened to be on a tour, even if it was a tour without a guide, and because she refused to be cowed by Freddy.
She’d met types like him before. Maybe without the power but he was definitely a type.
The thoughts clarified in her head but she had already joined Rafael, left the building and was sitting in a small restaurant with him with a menu in front of her before she said, hesitantly, ‘You’ll never guess who I bumped into...’
Rafael carefully dropped his menu and relaxed back in the chair to look at her with brooding intensity.
‘I must be psychic because I could sense something was wrong within five seconds of meeting you in the foyer.’ He beckoned the waitress across while keeping his eyes pinned to Sofia’s face. It was a talent she had noticed he possessed. There was never any need for him to beckon for anyone’s attention when they were in a restaurant or a bar. He just seemed to emanate some kind of invisible aura that did the talking for him. Or maybe serving staff had special antennae for guys like him. At any rate, the waitress had tripped over before Sofia had time to launch into what she wanted to say.
‘Will I need anything stronger than a glass of wine to deal with what’s bugging you?’
‘It’s no big deal.’
‘Tell me.’ He ordered a bottle of wine and waited until they had chosen what they wanted and the waitress had vanished. ‘Who did you bump into?’
‘Freddy.’
Rafael stilled and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything. ‘Interesting. I was hoping to do the same but he couldn’t be located for love nor money. The man has a peculiar talent for evasion when it comes to facing me down. What did that waste of space have to say for himself?’
‘Well...’ She sat back as a selection of tapas was placed in front of them, light and tasty and perfect for a late lunch. ‘For a start, I can tell you that he’s not your biggest fan.’
‘I think I came to that conclusion a long time ago.’
‘Aside from the business with work...and he’s very smug that you won’t be able to stop him from doing what he wants to do...he also told me that he didn’t believe in this, in us, and that he might just decide to share that with the rest of the world.’
Rafael regarded her narrowly. ‘Quite the conversation the pair of you had. How did this come about, bearing in mind you were supposed to have had a dedicated tour guide showing you the highlights and lowlights of the company?’
‘I went to the room where there’s a potted history of the company and its expansion. Paula had already shown me around various departments. I left her outside taking a call and the next thing I knew Freddy had entered the room and Paula had disappeared.’
‘And I’m thinking that the two things are somehow connected. Did he think that he could use scare tactics on you because he’s not man enough to face me himself?’
Sofia didn’t say anything. She realised, with some surprise, that she had nibbled away at most of the little dishes and drunk a glass of wine. Her mind had been a million miles away.
‘Do you plan on returning to David’s company after this?’
‘I hadn’t planned on it. You haven’t answered my question, Sofia. Did the man frighten you in any way?’
‘We weren’t having a conversation in a dark alley miles away from anyone.’ She tried to laugh but, thinking about it, he had creeped her out.
Rafael leant forward and took both her hands in his. The gesture was so tender and so unsolicited that her heart leapt inside her and she felt that thing again, the thing she cautioned herself against—a feeling of being cared for somehow.
She knew that it was an illusion but that was where hope always broke free and did its own thing. Hope that all her cynicism might one day be proved wrong. Hope that he would realise that, in the end, she was more, than a business transaction.
They made love, they talked, she made him laugh on occasion...they communicated...and then there were these instances of tenderness, a tenderness she knew he didn’t even realise he was indulging. Surely all of that must amount to something?
Sofia knew that that was why she just kept on hoping. Kept on hoping that he was interested in a whole lot more than just sex, if only he could see it with his eyes wide open.
‘Not the point,’ he was telling her now, his eyes pinning her to the spot. ‘Did he frighten you?’
‘What would you do if I told you that he had?’ she returned lightly, but then she wondered what she would achieve by mentioning that he had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and if that wasn’t a certain amount of fear then what was? ‘He didn’t, as it happens. Men like Freddy don’t scare me.’
‘Men like Freddy? Join the dots for me, Sofia.’
‘He...yes, he did waffle on a bit about you wasting your time rooting around for something to use against him, and I got the feeling that he was probably telling the truth. He might not be too bright but he’s bright enough to know that anything fraudulent would spell the end of his career at my father’s company, however many shares he was given in the divorce settlement.’
‘He’s read the fine print,’ Rafael said thoughtfully. ‘And you may well be right. I’ve shot down a few dead ends, even when I’ve smelled something fishy, something that might have compromised our man. All I’ve got to show for my hard work is a trail of semi-incompetence and a lot of shuffling and wheedling and machinations to get rid of people who might be inclined to block his crazy ideas and install a bunch of no-hopers who would do whatever he asked them to.’ He shrugged. ‘I might have to resign myself to taking what has been signed over to me and then just keeping a watchful eye on the rest. Damage limitation.’
He sighed with frustration and she could read him so well by now that she knew where that frustration stemmed from. He had assumed he would be able to sort everything out in record time and to find that his efforts might well result in nothing would make his pearly whites snap together in rage. He loathed Freddy, thought he was sly and devious and ultimately capable of ruining the company David had built. Maybe not overnight, but incompetence would eat at the foundations and eventually the whole structure