A Devilishly Dark Deal. Maggie Cox

was feeling hemmed in, almost trapped. Because for him there was neither solace nor reassurance in revisiting scenes from his past.

      ‘Let’s continue, shall we? I’m sure we are all very busy people with much to accomplish before the day is out, and time is not standing still,’ he announced abruptly.

      Grimacing in embarrassment at his boss’s terse-voiced remarks, Joseph Simonson shuffled the sheaf of papers in front of him and cleared his throat before proceeding …

      Grace’s insides were churning. It was a minute or two away from midday, and three times now she had snatched her shaking hand away from the telephone. Right then the fact that she might be just a conversation away from getting the financial assistance the charity needed to rebuild the children’s home, set up a school and employ a teacher, didn’t seem to help overcome her nerves. Yesterday she’d been fired up … brave … as if neither man nor mountain could stop her from fulfilling her aim of getting what she wanted. Today, after a more or less sleepless night when memories of Marco Aguilar’s piercing dark eyes had frequently disturbed her, she didn’t feel capable of much … let alone feel brave.

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’

      Exasperated, she grabbed the receiver from its rest on the kitchen wall and punched out the number she had determinedly memorized, in case by some cruel twist of fate she lost the card.

      On arriving back at the villa yesterday afternoon, Grace had been seriously taken aback when she’d realised the number Marco had given her belonged to his personal mobile. It wasn’t the same as any of the numbers printed in gold on the front of his business card. Now, briefly shutting her eyes, she recalled the shining hopeful faces of the children she had left behind in that feebly constructed orphanage back in Africa and felt a resurgence of passion for helping make things right for them. Marco Aguilar was only a man. He was made of flesh and blood and bone, just as she was, she told herself. It didn’t matter that he wore hand-tailored suits that probably cost the earth, or that he might regularly make it onto the world’s rich lists. That didn’t make him any better than Grace. In this instance they were just two humane people, discussing what needed to be done to help those less fortunate than they were, and she would hold onto that thought when they spoke.

      The softly purring ringtone in her ear ceased, indicating someone had picked up at the other end.

       ‘Olá?’

       ‘Olá.’

      ‘Mr Aguilar?’

      ‘Ah … is that you, Grace?’

      She hadn’t expected him to address her by her first name, and the sound of it spoken in his highly arresting, accented voice made her insides execute a disorientating cartwheel. Staring out of the opened windows at the sun-baked patio, and the usually inviting deckchair that she’d had to vacate when the heat grew too intense to bear comfortably, Grace nervously smoothed her palm down over the hip of her white linen trousers.

      ‘Yes, it’s me. I presume I’m talking to Marco Aguilar?’

      ‘Just Marco is fine.’

      ‘I wouldn’t presume to—’

      ‘I am inviting you to address me by my first name, Grace, so you are not being presumptuous. How are you today? I trust you are enjoying this glorious weather?’

      ‘I’m … I’m fine, and, yes I am enjoying the weather.’ Threading her fingers through her wheat-coloured hair, Grace grimaced, taken aback that he should address her so amicably and not quite sure about how to proceed. ‘How are you?’ she asked cautiously.

      ‘I wasn’t planning on making this conversation that long,’ he commented wryly.

      Colouring hotly, she was glad that he couldn’t see her face right then … just in case he imagined that she was one of those starstruck women who didn’t have the wits to separate fantasy from reality …

      ‘Well, I know you must be a very busy man, so you needn’t worry that I’ll talk your ears off.’ She made a face, thinking that she sounded like some immature schoolgirl with that infantile remark. ‘I promise,’ she added quickly, as if to emphasise the point.

      ‘Talk my ears off?’ Marco echoed, chuckling, ‘I hope you won’t, Grace, because they are extremely useful at times … especially when I’m listening to Mozart or Beethoven.’

      ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It was a stupid comment.’

      ‘Why? Because you think I might lack a sense of humour? I hope I may have the chance to prove you wrong about that.’

      Taken aback once more by such a surprising remark, Grace hardly knew what to say.

      ‘It may surprise you,’ the man on the other end of the line continued, ‘but I have unexpectedly found myself with an entirely free afternoon today. Instead of us talking on the phone, I could send my driver round to where you are staying and get him to bring you back to my house. That would be a much more agreeable way of conducting our conversation don’t you think?’

      She must be dreaming. Confronting him outside the exclusive resort was one thing, and talking to him on the phone was another … but never in her wildest dreams had she envisaged a man like Marco Aguilar inviting her to his house to discuss the charity she was so determined to help—just like that. If she didn’t know better she’d think she was suffering from heatstroke!

      ‘If you—if you really do have the time then, yes … I’m sure that would be a much better way to discuss the charity.’

      ‘So you agree to allow my driver to pick you up and bring you back here?’

      ‘I do. Thank you, Mr Aguilar.’

      ‘Didn’t I already tell you to call me Marco?’ he answered, with a smile in his voice.

      All Grace knew right then was that her parents would have a fit if they knew she was even considering going to a strange man’s house in a foreign country in the middle of the day—even if that stranger was an internationally known entrepreneur. But then they were always so over-protective. She’d literally had to steal her freedom to leave home. Even when she’d made the decision to go to Africa to visit the children’s charity she worked for in London she’d had to stand her ground with them …

      ‘You can’t keep me wrapped up in cotton-wool for ever, you know,’ she’d argued. ‘I’m twenty-five years old and I want to see some of the world for myself. I want to take risks and learn by my mistakes.’

      ‘Grace?’

      Frowning, and with her heart beating a rapid tattoo inside her chest, she realised that Marco Aguilar was waiting for her reply. ‘I’m still here … I suppose I ought to give you my address if you’re sending a car for me?’

      ‘That would definitely be a good start,’ he agreed.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THEY called them casas antigas in Portugal … manor-houses and stately homes. Grace’s eyes widened more and more the further Marco’s chauffeur Miguel drove them up the long sweeping drive that had met them the moment he’d pressed the remote device in the car to open the ornate electronic gates at the entrance. As they drove past the colonnade of tall trees lining the way she caught sight of the palatial colonial-style house they were heading towards, with its marble pillars glistening in the afternoon sunshine. She stared in near disbelief, murmuring, ‘My God …’ beneath her breath.

      Inevitably she thought of the ramshackle building that housed the orphanage back in Africa, and was struck dumb by the heartbreaking comparison to the dazzling vision of nineteenth-century architecture she was gazing at now. Did Marco Aguilar live here all by himself? she wondered. Just the thought seemed preposterous.

      The smiling chauffeur in his smartly pressed black trousers and pristine white shirt opened the Jaguar door at her side to let her