‘So what was it between you and your generous benefactor?’ he asked eventually. ‘The love-affair to rival all love-affairs?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ she answered flatly, then sighed, wondering just how much to tell him. The trouble was that there was nothing much to tell—but nobody ever believed her! Lola had grown used to people who didn’t really know her drawing their own tacky conclusions! But for some reason that cold look of disapproval on the face of Geraint Howell-Williams was more than she could bear.
She leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands to look at him earnestly. ‘I don’t really like talking about it,’ she admitted.
‘Oh?’
Lola glared at him. ‘Because nobody believes me, and because people tend to pre-judge me—they all seem to think that I’m some kind of amateur hooker who played for very high stakes—and won! A horrible, critical look comes over their faces—a bit like the expression you’re wearing now!’
‘Am I? Sorry.’ He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of appeal which had something of the little boy about it, and it stabbed at Lola’s soft heart.
‘Of course the other reason I don’t talk about it,’ she explained, her blue eyes glinting with mischief, ‘is because now that I own a prime piece of real estate I’m very wary of would-be fortune hunters.’
‘And do you put me in that category?’ he asked her softly.
She looked at him with a wry expression. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snorted. ‘Fortune hunters don’t usually come kitted out in handmade Italian suits!’
‘Thank you,’ he said gravely, though Lola thought she detected a reciprocal glitter of humour lurking in the depths of his stormy eyes. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’
Lola went pink. ‘If you want.’
‘So why don’t you tell me all about the house?’ he suggested. ‘And let me judge for myself.’
What harm would the truth bring? Lola thought. Anything would be better than him believing that she had been Peter Featherstone’s lover. She began to pleat her napkin with fidgety fingers. ‘About three years ago, I first met Peter Featherstone on a flight to. Brussels—’
‘Did he have a woman with him?’ he demanded quickly.
Lola frowned at the interruption. ‘No.’
He nodded. ‘And so you got chatting—naturally?’
Lola gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, with sardonic emphasis. ‘We aren’t discouraged from chatting to passengers, you know. Do you have a problem with that, Geraint?’
His face was expressionless. ‘I guess not.’
‘Peter used to travel all over Europe quite regularly, and often I was among the cabin crew. And then one day, while we were chatting, quite by coincidence I discovered that he was on the board of a charity I’m involved with—’
‘Charity?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘You’re involved with a charity?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ exploded Lola. ‘Now who’s talking stereotypes? What’s the matter, Geraint—don’t I fit into your idea of the kind of person who does things for charity?’ She looked at him, and her mouth twitched. ‘No, on second thoughts don’t answer that!’
‘Which charity?’ He frowned.
‘Dream-makers,’ Lola told him, still gratified by the rather dazed expression which had not left his face since the mention of the word ‘charity’! ‘It’s for very sick children. We find out where they’d most like to go, or who they would most like to meet, and we try and arrange it for them. Peter owned a number of toy shops and factories in the south of England and he was a very generous benefactor.’
‘So what happened?’ he asked carefully. ‘Between you and Peter.’
‘Well, nothing—that’s the odd thing.’
‘No romance?’ he barked.
‘He was years older than me, for heaven’s sake! Over sixty—’
‘But an attractive man, all the same?’
Lola afforded him an icy look. ‘I honestly never thought of him in those terms. I only had dinner with him once or twice, after which for some inexplicable reason, he must have changed his will—leaving me the house. And then he died. Perhaps he knew just how sick he had become. Anyway, he suffered a fatal heart attack about a year ago.’ ‘That’s terrible,’ he said automatically.
It was strange, and Lola couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but she definitely got the feeling that her first impression of him this evening had been the right one, and that Geraint was only going through the motions of responding to what she was saying. It was as though his answers were conditioned, rather than genuine. Almost as if he was asking questions to which he already knew the answers . . . But how could he? They had only met for the first time last night.
‘Yes, it was terrible,’ she agreed slowly, but more out of respect than out of sorrow—she had not known Peter Featherstone either long enough or well enough to feel any deep grief at his passing.
There was silence for a moment while he studied her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, but there was a strained, indefinable note to his voice. ‘That he died, I mean.’
‘You don’t sound particularly sorry.’
‘Don’t I? Maybe that’s because I’m jealous.’
Jealous?
Lola despised herself for the longing that his flippant little remark produced. Even after all the nasty slurs he had directed at her, too! Would nothing keep her from coming back for more? She put on her most bemused voice. ‘But you barely know me, Geraint. So why on earth would you be jealous?’
He lowered his voice to a sultry whisper. ‘Because I’d like to know what spells you could possibly weave and cast on a sixty-year-old man to make him leave you a house worth a million pounds. You must be pure dynamite in bed, Lola.’
For a moment, she thought that she had not heard him correctly, and then the full horror of his words hit her like a kick in the teeth. Lola slammed her glass down on the table and stared at him.
‘What right,’ she whispered incredulously, ‘what right do you think you have to say a thing like that to me? And after all I’ve said! And after convincing myself that you were the kind of person who could be trusted to hear the whole story! Well, more fool me!’ She leaned across the table, and her eyes spat sapphire fire at him. ‘Do you think that buying a woman dinner gives you carte blanche to make boorish remarks?’ She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘Well? Do you?’ she repeated shrilly.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he asked her calmly.
Lola nearly exploded with rage. ‘I don’t think I’m going anywhere! I am going! Back to my hotel! Where else? Because if you imagine that I would spend another minute in your company after what you’ve just said to me, then you haven’t an ounce of perception in your body!’
‘And if I happen to apologise for my boorish remarks—as you so sweetly put it?’
‘Oh!’ Lola exclaimed exasperatedly, not caring that the diners around them were steadily growing silent as they observed a very un-English display of public passion. ‘Isn’t that just like a man?’
‘It is?’
‘Yes, it damn well is! You think you can come out with all kinds of inconsiderate, brutish comments, and then all you need to do is to bat your eyelashes and mumble “I’m sorry” and suddenly