‘Doesn’t he get lonely, coming here by himself to relax?’ Abby was drawn into the conversation against her will. It was safe enough, she supposed, and besides, like it or not, he had a mesmerising voice, dark and deep like velvet.
‘My mother accompanies him whenever she can and usually brings some of her friends.’ Theo sat back in the chair and gazed out towards the endless landscape. ‘My grandfather is old. It would be more stressful for him to start taking holidays in a hotel some place he didn’t know than to come back to what he knows. Timos and Maria, who look after the place when it’s empty, have been here for ever. They are almost as old as he is and they are as familiar with him as old friends. Often, if he is here by himself, he will share his meals with them.’
‘And do you ever come here on holiday?’ Abby asked curiously.
‘I don’t tend to have holidays,’ Theo informed her flatly.
‘Why not?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Why don’t you take holidays? Are you one of these people who thinks that relaxation is some kind of sin?’
Theo looked at her incredulously. The way she addressed the question was very nearly bordering on insolent. Insolence was not a quality he ever encountered, not in the people he met in the line of work and especially not in the women with whom he came into contact. And the way she was looking at him, big brown eyes wide and steady and ever so slightly disdainful, made his pulse accelerate with anger.
A gold-digger, he thought, a common little gold-digger daring to cross verbal swords with him!
‘I run a vast and complex empire, Miss Clinton, and, crazy though this may seem, rushing off on holiday every two weeks is not a key ingredient to my success.’
‘People always think they’re indispensable but they never are. Michael often says that he may have opened two restaurants and a nightclub, and they may be doing well, but the most important role he could play would be to ensure that they carried on running well even if he wasn’t around. A bit like having a child, I guess. You put everything into bringing them up and of course they need you, but in the end, if the parenting is halfway decent, they’re confident enough to spread their wings and find their own destiny.’
‘And what would you know about children?’
Abby could have kicked herself. Theo Toyas was dangerous. She should have had her guard up instead of finding herself lulled into meaningful conversation. ‘I’m just saying that never looking up from the grindstone seems a pointless way of life.’ She shrugged, which sent his anger levels rising. To top it off, she actually turned away from him, dismissing him from her line of vision so that she could stare out towards the horizon.
His plan to find out about her had well and truly back fired and if he wasn’t so stunned he would have been substantially angrier with her.
He decided to postpone his inquisition for a little while longer. ‘Naturally I have highly dependable and talented people but I control the reins of my organisation. Call it doing things the Greek way.’ Her face, like her body, was neat. Small straight nose, sprinkling of freckles, surprisingly dark eyebrows for someone so blonde. He caught himself staring and gritted his teeth in exasperation.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay what?’ Theo grated.
‘Okay I’ll call it doing things the Greek way if it makes you feel better.’
Theo controlled himself with difficulty. ‘Tell me, how long have you known my brother?’
‘Oh, a couple of years.’
‘A couple of years. You’ve been going out with my brother for a couple of years and your name has only managed to surface now? I find that very hard to believe. Michael calls our mother every week. He would have talked about you a lot sooner.’
‘I said that I’ve known him for a couple of years, and I have. We’ve been friends for a while.’ Abby could feel herself slipping into dangerous territory. She knew where he was going. Thinking about it, she had seen the drift of his suspicious little mind the minute she had clapped eyes on him and she couldn’t afford to antagonise him into digging any deeper. She had to convince him that everything was precisely as it seemed and getting under his skin was not the right way to set about the task.
She turned to face him and smiled. Warmly, she hoped. ‘We clicked straight away. Michael’s got all the qualities I admire in a man. He’s kind and thoughtful and modest. You would think that in his line of work those are exactly the qualities that would let him down, but all his staff adore him and so do I.’
‘And how did you two meet?’ He could hear the sincerity in her voice but he couldn’t abandon the suspicion that it was all a little too good to be true. People were never straightforward towards each other when it came to dealing with vast sums of money.
‘I worked for him,’ Abby said simply. ‘I was the accounts manager for his restaurants when they opened up. At first there was just me and a secretary, but as they’ve become more and more successful the team has grown. Now, there are ten of us and we work flat out. You’ve never been to Brighton to see Michael, have you?’
‘It is easier for my brother to travel to London to see me, usually for lunch, although lately we have not met as often as we might have hoped. We both have busy schedules.’
‘His restaurants are super,’ Abby enthused, eager to elaborate on a safe topic. ‘One is a pub-style restaurant. Lovely cosy place but with superb French food, and the other’s fancier, although the menu is really quite simple. We’ve found that most people don’t actually want to go out and be faced with a choice of weird things. They like their food to be tasty and fairly straightforward, so we do fantastic sausages and garlic mash, and slow-cooked shin of beef and other dishes along those lines. It’s very popular. In fact, at the moment there’s a two month waiting list for tables at both restaurants.’
‘What a charming eulogy to my brother’s culinary ventures,’ Theo drawled. ‘I’m sure he would have found such enthusiasm very inspiring when he was first starting out.’
Abby tried not to show her intense dislike for the man sprawled in the chair next to her. Every inch of him spoke of arrogance. She had the unnerving sensation that he was circling her, taking his time, trying to find the chink in her storylines that would validate his low opinion.
‘I hope so,’ Abby said equably. ‘It’s a tough business starting out on your own. Other people’s support can be invaluable.’
‘And is this when my brother began appreciating your invaluable contribution to his life?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t the only one who had confidence in his success.’
But I bet you were the only one who had the added advantage of some seriously persuasive feminine wiles, Theo thought. Abigail Clinton might not have the immediate, obvious sex appeal of the full-busted hourglass centrefold, but he had to admit that there was something alluring about her.
‘You should get your swimsuit,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘The pool is lovely. Always at its best when no one else is in it.’
‘I haven’t brought one.’
‘You haven’t brought one?’
Abby blushed and looked away. ‘I…I’m not that confident when it comes to swimming,’ she confessed grudgingly. ‘I did think about bringing one so that I could tan on a beach some time, but then I changed my mind.’
For the first time hostility and apprehension gave way to simple embarrassment and she felt her skin begin to tingle uncomfortably under his piercing black stare.