The country lane she had been sent down was so narrow that she shuddered to think what would happen if she met a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. Sighing, she reached for the map on the seat beside her and climbed out of the car. At any other time she would have enjoyed the view of the English countryside in midsummer. The fields were lush and green beneath a cornflower-blue sky and the hedgerow on either side of the lane blazed with a colourful profusion of wild flowers. But Sophie was not on a sightseeing trip. Christos had sent her to Buckinghamshire to carry out a specific task and she was impatient to get on with it.
When she had set out from London two hours ago the weather had been beautiful. But now, although the sun was still shining, the air was strangely oppressive. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart sank when she saw ominous dark clouds on the horizon. Terrific! A storm was all she needed when she was stuck in the middle of nowhere. For a moment she thought the rumbling sound she could hear was thunder, but to her relief she saw a tractor trundling up the lane towards her.
‘I’m looking for Chatsfield House,’ she spoke to the tractor driver as he was about to turn into a field. ‘I think I must have gone wrong somewhere.’
‘Keep on going along the lane for another half mile or so and you’ll come to Chatsfield, miss.’
‘Along this track?’ Sophie looked doubtfully at the road that disappeared into dense woodland.
‘The road stops being a public highway from here and is privately owned by the Chatsfield family. But they don’t bother to maintain it.’ The man looked up at the darkening sky. ‘There’s rain on the way, and the potholes in the lane are deep. Be careful you don’t get a tyre stuck down one, or you’ll be stranded.’
‘Thanks,’ Sophie said drily as she slid back into the car.
The farmer gave her a curious look. ‘You’ve got business up at the house, have you? Not many visitors go to Chatsfield. The family left a long time ago.’
‘But Nicolo Chatsfield still lives there, doesn’t he?’
‘Aye, he moved back some years ago, but he’s rarely seen in the village. My wife’s sister works as a cleaner-up at the house and she says he spends all his time on his computer, doing some sort of financial stuff that has made him a fortune. It’s a pity he doesn’t spend a bit of his cash in the village pub. The King’s Head is in danger of closing down because of this here recession.’
The man stared at Sophie. ‘Don’t expect a warm welcome from Nicolo. And mind his dog, it’s the size of a bloody great wolf.’
Things were getting better and better! Sophie grimaced as she restarted the engine. She was tempted to turn the car around and drive straight back to London, but the idea of admitting failure to her boss was unacceptable.
Christos Giatrakos was the new CEO of the Chatsfield Hotel chain and had been appointed by the head of the family, Gene Chatsfield, to restore the once-famous brand name to its former glory. When Sophie had become Christos’s personal assistant she had realised that the only way to deal with his formidable personality was to stand up to him and show him that he did not scare her. The rest of his staff might treat him with kid gloves, but not her. Few things scared Sophie. Facing her own mortality when she had been a teenager had given her a different perspective on life. She was proud that Christos had picked her from hundreds of other candidates who had applied for the position of his PA, and her pride refused to admit defeat.
The trees lining the track were so overgrown that they formed a dark tunnel, and the faint light filtering through the leaves cast eerie green shadows. Any second now she would find herself in Narnia! Impatient with her overactive imagination, she carried on along the lane and drew a sharp breath when she rounded a bend and Chatsfield House came into view.
Her first impression of the huge, rambling building was that it looked like a nineteenth-century mental asylum. Built of dull red-brick, the architecture was decidedly Gothic, and the leaded-light windows gave the appearance of bars across the glass. Even the purple wisteria growing around the front door failed to soften the house’s grim facade. Sophie sensed that once it must have been a charming family home, but now the general air of neglect seemed intent on repelling any visitors.
Presumably that suited the only member of the Chatsfield family who lived here, she mused as she drove up the gravel driveway and passed an ornamental fountain that must have stopped working long ago. The pool had a couple of inches of muddy brown water at the bottom, and the stone statue of a water nymph had lost its head.
She recalled her conversation with Christos when she had arrived at the office at eight-thirty that morning. As usual, he had already been at his desk. He had ignored her breezy greeting and scowled when she placed a cup of coffee in front of him.
‘Hell and damnation! Sometimes I am seriously tempted to dump every one of the Chatsfield offspring on a deserted island and leave them there to rot.’
‘Ah.’ Sophie had immediately understood. ‘Which one of Gene’s children has annoyed you today?’
‘Nicolo,’ Christos snapped.
‘I take it he’s still refusing to attend the shareholders’ meeting in August?’
‘He’s as stubborn as …’
As you, Sophie was tempted to point out, but Christos’s glowering expression made her bite back the comment.
‘I’ve just spoken to him, and he informed me that he has no interest in the family’s hotel chain or his stake in the business, and therefore sees no point in coming to the meeting. He then advised me not to waste his time or mine by calling again, and hung up.’
Sophie winced as Christos growled a curse. People did not hang up on Christos Giatrakos—not if they knew what was good for them.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘There’s only one thing for it,’ Christos announced. ‘I don’t have time to deal with Nicolo, so you’ll have to go to Chatsfield House and persuade him to come to London. I can’t implement the changes needed to turn the Chatsfield brand name around without his agreement on certain matters. If he is as uninterested as he says, he might be willing to sell his shares, but I need him to be at the meeting.’
‘What makes you think he’ll listen to me?’ Sophie argued. ‘You’ve already told me he’s lived as a recluse for years and avoids any kind of social contact.’
Christos ignored her protest. ‘I don’t care how you do it. Drag him by his ears if you have to. Just make sure you get Nicolo to the shareholders’ meeting! Incidentally, I’ll find it useful for you to be in Buckinghamshire. I want you to sort through some of the paperwork relating to a property owned by the Chatsfield estate in Italy. Gene worked from an office at the house in the early years and only started spending his time in London after the twins were born and his marriage to Liliana ran into problems.’
He smiled persuasively at Sophie. ‘It’ll be a nice break for you to get away from the city for a while and stay at an English country house. The grounds of the Chatsfield estate are extensive, and apparently there’s even a swimming pool, which should be lovely to use at this time of year.’
Sophie looked doubtful. ‘That’s supposing Nicolo invites me to stay, which seems unlikely.’
‘You don’t need an invitation from him. He lives at the house, but he doesn’t own it, and you have permission from Gene Chatsfield to stay as long as you like.’
Lucky me! Sophie thought now as she stared up at the imposing house. The huge front door was painted black and had an ugly brass knocker in the form of a ram’s head hanging in the centre. Taking a deep breath, she struck the knocker against the door and waited for a couple of minutes before knocking again. Presumably Nicolo employed some staff to run a house of this size, and she was sure her loud knock must have been audible to whoever was inside.
A sudden gust of wind sent a pile of dead leaves