The Latin Affair

by Sophie Weston

  Caroline ran.

  Esteban Tremain looked at the suddenly buzzing telephone with disbelief. Nobody cut him off. Nobody. He began to punch buttons savagely. The door opened. ‘Er—’ said his secretary.

  One glance was enough to tell her that he was in a temper. She did not think much of Francesca Moran’s chances of getting in to see him when he looked like that.

  Esteban glared at her across the telephone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Miss Moran,’ said Anne fast. Her tone was strictly neutral. ‘She’s been shopping. She wondered if you would like to take her to lunch.’

  Esteban breathed hard.

  Anne held her breath. When she’d come to work for him three years ago there had been plenty of people to warn her that Esteban would be impossible. He was a heart-breaker; he was a workaholic; he had a fiendish temper. She had learned that it was all true. Only he did not take any of it out on his secretary. Normally…

  With an angry exclamation, he threw the telephone from him and flung out of his chair. Anne quietly restored the telephone to its cradle and waited.

  Esteban strode up to the floor-length window. He thrust his hands into his pockets and glared out at the rain-lashed lawns. A muscle worked in his cheek.

  Esteban wrestled with his temper. None of this was Anne’s fault, he reminded himself. He gave an explosive sigh and swung back to the room.

  ‘My regrets to Francesca,’ he said rapidly, not sounding regretful at all. ‘Anything else?’

  Anne, the perfect secretary, did not protest. She just said carefully, ‘I’ll go along and tell her you’re too busy to see her, shall I?’

  There was a small, sizzling pause.

  ‘She’s here?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But I told her last time—’ He remembered again that it was not Anne’s fault and stopped. ‘Damn. ’

  Esteban thought, then took one of his famous lightning decisions. ‘OK. You’d better wheel her in for a bit But not long.’

  He reached for his jacket.

  Esteban never received visitors in his shirt sleeves, Anne thought. Not even a lady he regularly spent the night with. Though she was not sure that Francesca Moran was in that category these days, in spite of the gossip or, indeed, the hints that Miss Moran herself let fall so heavily.

  ‘I’ll just clear a space,’ murmured Anne, again the perfect secretary, advancing on a tower of papers.

  Esteban looked around his room in faint surprise. Apart from the papers that covered his desk, there were two large books open on the floor beside him and piles of more papers that needed his attention on every one of his comfortable chairs. He looked amused suddenly.

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘But she’s got to have somewhere to sit.’

  ‘Why? It will only encourage her,’ said Esteban wickedly.

  He flicked his lapels straight. Looking up, he gave her a conspiratorial grin.

  ‘Buzz me in five, max. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Anne.

  Francesca Moran, she thought with satisfaction, would be back in the rainy garden a lot sooner than she expected. Anne did not like Francesca.

  It would have been impossible to tell from Esteban’s manner whether he liked her or not. He kissed her on both exquisitely made up cheeks in welcome. But he adroitly avoided her move to deepen the embrace and retired behind the bulwark of his desk. Francesca accepted the rebuff as gracefully as if she had not recognised it. She took up a perch on the arm of an ancient leather chair and gave him a sweet smile.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said caressingly.

  Esteban raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’

  Francesca’s myopic grey eyes made her look vague and fragile. It was misleading.

  ‘Yes. I was thinking all the time I was in Cornwall. It’s stupid for us to be like this. We ought to let bygones be bygones and pool our resources.’

  Esteban’s poker face was famous. But for a moment he could not contain his astonishment. At once, he controlled his expression. But one corner of his mouth twitched.

  ‘Are you proposing to me, Francesca?’ he asked politely.

  She was not disconcerted. She batted her eyelashes and gave him a smile of calculated charm.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to propose to me, are you?’

  Esteban was surprised into laughing aloud. ‘You’re right there,’ he agreed, watching her with fascination.

  Francesca shrugged. ‘So it’s up to me,’ she said with no sign of rancour. ‘You need a wife. It would be ideal.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t, you know,’ said Esteban. He was gentle but quite firm.

  But Francesca, as he had learned in Gibraltar last year, did not recognise firmness when it meant someone not doing what she wanted.

  ‘It would be perfect,’ she said, unheeding. ‘The time is right for both of us.’

  Esteban leaned back in his chair and surveyed her in disbelief. She smiled back, not discouraged. He decided to try another tack.

  ‘What makes you think I need a wife?’ he drawled.

  She gestured round the untidy room. ‘You’re in a complete mess. You need someone to run the practical side of your life so that you can get on with your career.’

  ‘That’s what Anne does,’ he objected.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling. That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

  ‘Then explain,’ he said blandly.

  Francesca refused to be annoyed. ‘You’re being silly,’ she said in an indulgent tone. ‘What about your private life? Where would you have been if I hadn’t gone down to Hallam Hall and sorted out those workmen?’

  ‘Ah. I wondered when that would come up,’ said Esteban with satisfaction.

  Francesca frowned. ‘You would have been lost without me’, she said, her tone sharpening. ‘You were out of the country and those cowboys were getting away with murder.’

  ‘And I was grateful for your help but—’

  Francesca regained her good humour. ‘I bet you haven’t even talked to the kitchen people yet.’

  Esteban looked at the telephone. His expression darkened. He was not going to admit to Francesca that the woman had hung up on him. Why did women always have to play games?

  ‘I’ve got it in hand,’ he said brusquely.

  Francesca got up and came over to him. A faint hint of expensive scent wafted as she settled herself on the corner of the desk beside him. She crossed one leg over the other and smiled down into his eyes.

  ‘Don’t you see, darling? Marry me and you would never have to deal with kitchen designers again.’

  Her high-heeled shoe tapped at his thigh to emphasise her point

  ‘An alluring prospect,’ said Esteban drily.

  He pushed his chair back, removing his immaculate suit out of range.

  ‘And you need a hostess,’ Francesca went on, her smile unwavering. ‘Someone to organise the dinner parties, make sure you meet the right people.’

  He almost shuddered.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  She would have gone on but Esteban put an end to it. He stood up and looked down at her, all vestige of amusement gone.

  ‘I thought I had been clear, Francesca. If you misunderstood me, I’m sorry. But the truth is that my stepfather needs a housekeeper. You said you wanted a job. A job is all that’s on offer.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘If you remember,’ Esteban said drily, ‘I said at the time I thought you would find Hallam very isolated. But you wanted to give it a shot’.

  Francesca’s mouth thinned. For a moment the pretty face looked almost ugly.

  ‘Are you saying you used me?’

  Esteban stiffened imperceptibly. ‘Excuse me?’

  There were people—witnesses for the prosecution, say, or opposing counsel—who would have run a mile when he spoke in that soft tone. Francesca did not read the danger signals. She tossed her head.


  ‘Of course I adore Patrick,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘I was very willing to help—’

  Esteban said quietly, ‘You wanted a job.’

  Francesca did not like that. ‘You know quite well what I wanted,’ she said sharply.

  It was a moment of total self-betrayal. There was a nasty silence. Francesca bit her lip.

  Esteban said heavily, ‘I seem to have been very stupid. I thought you knew that all that was over. I told you so last year.’

  ‘Darling, just because of a silly article in a magazine—’

  He stopped her with an upraised hand. ‘It was not about the article. I don’t care what some tinpot journalist writes about me.’

  ‘Well, then—’

  ‘But I care that someone I trusted talked to a tinpot journalist,’ Esteban went on softly. ‘About stuff I told you in confidence.’

  There was another nasty silence. Francesca watched him, frunstrated.

  At last she burst out, ‘It’s such a stupid waste. I could really help your career. Daddy’s contacts—a bit of networking—’

  ‘And what about love?’ he said wryly.

  ‘Love?’ Francesca sounded as blank as if he had broken into a foreign language. ‘Grow up, darling.’

  ‘You think love’s an irrelevance?’

  “Oh, come on. We’re talking real life here.’

  Esteban gave an unexpected laugh. ‘We are indeed. And we seem to have different views on it.’

  ‘Are you saying you’re looking for love?’ Francesca sounded disbelieving. ‘You?’

  ‘I don’t think you need to look for it,’ Esteban said coolly. ‘In my experience it tends to sock you in the eye.’

  Francesca snorted. ‘Your experience? So now you’re the last of the great romantics?’

  Esteban gave that his measured consideration. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I wouldn’t call myself a romantic.’

  ‘Thank God for that, at least,’ Francesca muttered.

  ‘On the other hand, I’m not fool enough to marry anyone I’m not in love with.’

  Francesca pulled herself together. She moved close to him, though she did not quite dare to touch him again. She gave him a winning smile.

  ‘But if both parties agree—’

  He bent towards her so fast she took a step backwards in simple shock. At once she could have kicked herself. He had not come so close to her voluntarily for over a year.

  But it was too late. Esteban had seen her alarm. He gave her a mocking smile.

  ‘Agree to change my nature? How?’

  Francesca recovered fast. ‘But you’ve just said you aren’t romantic,’ she reminded him.

  ‘No, but I am passionate and possessive and I have a nasty temper,’ Esteban told her evenly. ‘Believe me, you wouldn’t like being married to me.’

  ‘No woman would,’ snapped Francesca, unexpectedly shaken.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m glad we agree on the matter.’ He sounded amused.

  The telephone rang. He reached behind him, not looking, and swept it up to his ear. ‘Hi, Annie. Now? Yes, of course.’ He put the phone down. ‘Sorry, Francesca. Busy morning. Goodbye.’

  Francesca was looking poleaxed. His court opponents would have recognised the feeling. Esteban gave her an enigmatic smile and held the door open for her. She did not move.

  ‘You’re not going to treat me like this. I’m no little boat chick,’ she jeered.

  Esteban went very still. Francesca knew she had made a bad mistake. That was one of the few confidences she had not spilled out to the handsome young journalist in the quayside café last year.

  She nervously touched her hair but said defiantly, ‘It just slipped out. You told me about it yourself, after all. I couldn’t help it. You upset me so much I forgot I wasn’t supposed to mention it.’ A thought occurred to her. She lowered her lashes. ‘If you go on being nasty to me, it might happen again—and who knows who could be listening?’

  Esteban’s watchfulness dissolved into unholy appreciation.

  ‘Threats?’ he said, his eyebrows flying up. ‘Very attractive. Just the stuff to get me to marry you. You’re really one on your own, Francesca.’

  There was nothing she could say. Once again Esteban Tremain had taken her well thought out strategy and turned it on its head. Francesca was determined but she was not an idiot. She recognised defeat, at least for the moment.

  “I’ll go.’ She gathered up her handbag and elegant serape but was not leaving without the last word. ‘Call me when you’ve got your head together. You need me.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Esteban said quietly.

  ‘Oh, but you do.’ She had gone back to her caressing manner. She gave him a sweet smile. ‘You just don’t know how much yet. But you will.’

  She left.

  Immediately Esteban banished her from his mind. He flung himself back into his chair and reached for the Hallam file again. He picked up the telephone, his voice coming alive with the anticipation of battle.

  ‘Annie, get me that kitchen place again, will you? And this time I want to talk to de Vries in person.’

  But when Anne put the call through it was the lieutenant again.

  ‘Hello?’ She did her best to sound composed but Esteban was used to reading the smallest nuance in his opponents’ voices and he recognised nerves. It was a lovely voice, Esteban noted, warm with an underlying hint of laughter. Currently, of course, the laughter was almost extinguished. Good, he thought.

  ‘What is your name?’ he demanded softly.

  He did not have to say anything else. The tone alone intimidated opponents. Esteban knew it and used it effectively in court. If it could silence Francesca Moran, a judge’s daughter, it would make this obstructive girl crumble.

  But, to his astonishment, it did not. There was a little pause, in which he could almost hear her pull herself together.

  Then, ‘Piper,’ she said coolly. ‘Nicola Piper.’ She spelled it for him.

  It disconcerted him. Esteban was not used to hostile witnesses spelling out their names and then asking kindly if he had got it all down. Where had she got that kind of confidence? Did he know her? Surely he would not have forgotten that golden sunshine voice?

  ‘Have we met?’ he asked slowly.

  Nicky had remembered his visit as soon as Caroline had mentioned Hallam Hall. She had just come in from dealing with another client. And she had noticed him all right: a tall, dark man in the doorway of Martin’s office, watching her with lazy appreciation.

  ‘You could say that. In passing,’ she said frostily.

  That startled him too. And intrigued him. ‘Where did we pass?’

  ‘At the office. We weren’t introduced.’

  There was a thoughtful pause.

  ‘You’re the blonde,’ Esteban said on a long note of discovery.

  He remembered now. She had shot in from somewhere, silk skirts flying, laughing. Her briefcase had bulged with papers and she’d been clutching it under one arm with decreasing effectiveness. He would have gone to rescue it, but Martin had detained him with some remark and one of her colleagues had got there first.

  This picture was still vivid, though. Summer evening sun had lit her hair to gold. It had clearly started the day confined in a neat bow at her nape but by now it was springing free into wild curls about her shoulders. And her figure—Esteban found his mouth curving in appreciation at the memory. She had a figure to rival one of Patrick’s Renaissance goddesses at Hallam, lounging in naked voluptuousness among their sunlit olive groves. Add to that perfect legs, creamy skin—and, when she’d caught his eyes on her—a glare like a stiletto.

  ‘I remember,’ he said.

  Alone in her office, Nicky winced. It was not the first time a man had called her a ‘blonde’ in that tone of voice. Or looked at her in blatant appreciation, as she now remembered all too clearly. It still stabbed where she was most vulnerable. Particularly this morning.

  She hid her hurt under icy distance
. ‘The name,’ she said with emphasis, ‘is Piper.’

  ‘Is it, indeed?’

  Nicky could hear his amusement. She set her teeth and tried to remember that he was a customer.

  He went on, ‘Well, Piper, you can tell Martin de Vries that I paid for a working kitchen and that’s what I expect to get’

  Nicky was bewildered. In spite of what Caroline had said, the file had been clear. Admittedly, there had been complaint after complaint but they all seemed to have been dealt with. Moreover, the complainant was not Mr Tremain. The name on the telephoned demands was a Ms Francesca Moran.

  In response, machinery had been tested and tested again, cabinets resited, floor tiling replaced. A month ago, Tremain had threatened legal action. But as far as Nicky could see all the disputed work on the Cornish mansion had been completed ten days before.

  ‘Do you have another complaint?’ she said warily.

  ‘Complaint!’ His derisive bark of laughter made her eardrums ring.

  Nicky held the phone away from her head until he had finished.

  ‘Would you like to be more specific?’ she suggested sweetly, when she thought he might be able to hear her again.

  ‘Gladly.’ He launched into a list.

  Nicky listened in gathering disbelief.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said when he finished. ‘That would mean every single appliance had gone wrong.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Esteban Tremain.

  In her astonishment Nicky forgot she had decided she loathed the man.

  ‘But they can’t have done. They’ve been checked. And they’re new.’

  ‘I certainly paid for new machines,’ he agreed suavely.

  Nicky took a moment to assimilate that. ‘Are you suggesting-—?’

  He interrupted again. ‘My dear girl, I am suggesting nothing.’

  Of course, he was a lawyer, Nicky remembered with dislike. He knew exactly how to hint without actually accusing her or Springdown Kitchens of anything precise enough to be actionable.

  Her voice shaking with fury, she said, ‘I object to the implication.’

  ‘Implication?’ His voice was smooth as cream. ‘What implication was that?’

  ‘Springdown Kitchens honour their contracts,’ Nicky said hotly. ‘If we charge you for new appliances, you get new appliances. You’re accusing us of installing substandard machines—’