‘Oh, but I'll—I'll do anything to save him from going to prison,’ her eyes pleaded with him. ‘Anything!'
‘Don't you think that's rather a rash statement to make, Miss Halliday?’ he said coldly. ‘You don't know what manner of man I am. I could ask anything whatsoever of you and you would be compelled to comply.'
‘Oh, but I—you wouldn't—–’ She blushed fiery red.
‘You're right, I wouldn't.’ His lips curled with distaste. ‘At thirty-seven I'm nearly as old as your own father. I haven't taken to seducing babes, no matter how charmingly they offer themselves to me. Does your father know what you're doing?'
‘He knows I've come to see you, yes.'
‘Why couldn't he come himself?'
‘He isn't well,’ Farrah replied resentfully. ‘He couldn't go to prison, Mr Falcone, it would kill him. Please don't prosecute him!'
Joel began to look bored. ‘The prosecution of your father is not my concern. I have security people to deal with things like that.'
‘Please don't be so cruel, Mr Falcone. My father is a sick man, and this worry isn't helping him. He stole that money for a good reason, I promise you that. I'll pay it all back, really I will.'
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Twenty-five thousand pounds! My dear girl, you may only be nineteen, but it would take you nearly a lifetime to pay me back on the salary you earn.'
‘I don't intend to be working on the problem page the rest of my working life. I want to be a proper journalist.'
‘It would still take you years.’ He became thoughtful, his dark face almost satanic in its intensity. He might be thirty-seven years of age, but he was certainly the most excitingly handsome man Farrah had ever seen. He was like a sleepy feline, sleek and beautiful, and just as dangerous. She watched him as the silence continued, wondering what he was thinking behind that enigmatic expression.
‘You could just be the answer to my problem,’ he spoke softly, so softly she could hardly hear him. Joel looked at her critically. ‘A little young perhaps, but that can't be helped. At least you're beautiful.'
‘What are you talking about, Mr Falcone?'
He smiled slightly, but it was a smile without humour. ‘Just an idea I have. You said you would do anything—I hope you meant that. Go now, I have to think this over.'
‘But I—I—–When will I know?'
‘When I damn well choose to tell you,’ he snapped. ‘I'll call you in the department tomorrow. I take it you will be in to work tomorrow?'
‘Yes, but I—–’ She could just imagine the girls’ astonishment and curiosity if she were summoned up to the fifteenth floor to see the owner, Joel Falcone. She was only a very junior member of staff while this man was the owner of newspapers and magazines both in England and abroad, and was never seen by his minions. None of the girls in her office knew anything of her father's embezzling—she cringed at the word, but in truth there was no other description more fitting—they all assumed he was ill. How could she explain the reason for Joel Falcone's summons without involving her father?
Blue eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘I care nothing for your embarrassment,’ he guessed the reason for her silence correctly. ‘Just make sure you come when you're called.'
Farrah could do nothing else but accept his words as a dismissal, he was obviously a man of forceful character who didn't expect his words to be questioned. Miserably she made her way home. She had thought she would be able to give her father some good news when she returned, but she was to be disappointed, and so, unfortunately, was he. The interview hadn't yet been concluded.
Her father looked up expectantly as she quietly entered their flat, his green eyes so like her own looking at her avidly, almost eagerly, and what he read in her face made his shoulders droop unhappily. Farrah could cheerfully have hit Joel Falcone's arrogant face at that moment for causing her father this extra pain.
‘No luck, I see,’ said her father wearily.
She sat down beside him on the sofa, taking his painfully thin hand into her own, trying to give him some of the warmth she had felt from the blazing sun outside. She smiled at him reassuringly. ‘It will be all right, Daddy, really it will.'
‘I bet the arrogant devil wouldn't even let you through the door when he realised who you were.'
Farrah couldn't bear the look of defeat on her father's face, a man who had once been a tall proud man, now but a shrivelled shell of himself. ‘You're wrong, Daddy, I did see him. We talked for about ten minutes or so.'
‘But you didn't get him to stop prosecution did you?'
‘Well no, but I—–'
‘Typical Italian is Joel Falcone,’ mumbled her father. ‘Not an ounce of forgiveness in their body. Just pure revenge.'
Farrah attempted a light laugh, but her father's words had sent an icy shiver down her back. ‘He isn't pure Italian, Daddy—well, not really. He's an Italian-American, he's probably never even been to Italy.'
‘Of course he has, Farrah, he has a branch of Falcone's over there. So he wouldn't agree to drop the charges,’ he repeated.
‘I didn't say that, Daddy,’ she licked her lips nervously. ‘He hasn't made up his mind yet.'
Her father looked at her sharply. ‘What does that mean?’ he asked slowly.
Farrah stood up to pace the room, a large sun-filled room that seemed to reflect her mother's own sunny personality. God, she missed her mother! What would she have done in this situation? What a stupid question that was; if it weren't for their love of her mother this situation wouldn't have arisen. But neither of them had realised her father was stealing that money. She forced a cheerful smile. ‘I'm to go back and see him tomorrow.'
Paul Halliday looked at her suspiciously. ‘What for?'
‘I don't know, Daddy. Just to give me his answer, I suppose.'
‘He could have done that today. He didn't make a pass at you, did he? I've heard of his reputation with women and it isn't very flattering. He had a string of women before finally settling for Laura Bennett a few years ago. Not that he's changed much. There seem to have been just as many women, and she isn't much better.'
‘No, Daddy, he didn't make a pass at me. Far from it. He told me he was old enough to be my father.'
‘And so he is. Must be forty if he's a day.'
‘He's thirty-seven, actually. And he's rather handsome in a dangerous sort of way. He's not the ordinary type of man you see about. There's something sort of—well, sort of special about him. You know—he's the sort you could never ignore in the street,’ she bubbled over with laughter. ‘He looks as if he should be the head of the Mafia or something, with all that black, grey-sprinkled hair, that dark harshly handsome face and the expensive handmade suits.'
‘Don't even say things like that in fun, Farrah. You never know.'
‘Don't be silly, Daddy. He doesn't look the violent type—powerful, yes, and seemingly completely in control of his own destiny, but not physically violent, at least, not needlessly so.'
‘He made quite an impression on you, didn't he, child?'
‘Oh yes. He was—well, he was quite something. Frightening, but so very much alive. He seemed to emit suppressed power, as if it only needed some little thing and he would explode into life. But he's cold—so cold, as if love has never touched him, or he has never allowed it to. It's strange really, I only saw him for a few minutes and yet I can remember him vividly.'
‘Now then, Farrah,’ her father said briskly, ‘don't become fanciful about the man. Remember, my future depends on him.'