Greek Mavericks: His Christmas Conquest. Cathy Williams

by himself.

      ‘Didn’t you know that your father was in debt? Is that the problem?’

      ‘Part of it,’ Sophie admitted. ‘Do you mind if I help myself to another glass of wine? I’m not accustomed to discussing my private life with other people.’

      Theo felt a strange sense of satisfaction that he had got it right about this aspect of her personality. It seemed to him an almost masculine trait because, in his experience, there wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t enjoy discussing every small facet of whatever happened to be flitting through her mind.

      It was reassuring to think of his landlady in those terms. Masculine, brusque, quick to bristle, never mind the stubby girlish plaits or the soft pink of her cheeks as she glanced away from him.

      ‘There’s nothing less private than a financial mess,’ Theo said dryly.

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      ‘Because it always needs cleaning up and it’s almost impossible to hide the cleaning up tools once you set to work.’

      ‘Don’t say that!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I don’t want my father’s reputation to be ruined. I don’t want him to be remembered as the man who left a mess for his daughter to sort out. I don’t want to be an object of pity.’

      ‘No.’ Theo could certainly understand that one. ‘So how big is the mess?’

      ‘I honestly don’t know where to begin. Dad was the most disorganised person in the world. He has notes scribbled on pieces of paper in places no one would think of looking. Just yesterday I found a file stuffed at the back of the sofa in the sitting room above the office.’

      ‘Which your father used…?’

      ‘Oh, when he was very busy into the night reviewing something or other. Which is another problem. I don’t actually understand a lot of what’s in his files so I don’t know whether to bin them or not. Robert’s been good helping me go through them, but there are just so many!’

      ‘Tell me about Robert.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘How does he fit into the dynamics?’

      ‘He worked with my father, off and on, so to speak. He’s a trained pharmacist as well. I think he saw my dad as something of a mentor and, in the absence of a son to carry on the profession, Dad was pleased to have Robert tagging along over the past few years, especially as I’ve been away a lot of the time, going to university and doing my teacher training.’

      ‘So the two of you go back a long way?’

      ‘I guess so,’ Sophie said in a guarded voice.

      Theo’s curiosity cranked into gear and, with it, his age-old talent for reading members of the opposite sex. He had always been able to sense what the slight change in body posture meant, the barely noticeable shift in tone, the quick glance. It was a talent that had spent the past eighteen months getting rusty.

      ‘Why do I sense a certain reticence on your part to discuss him? Normally when it comes to women that usually implies a relationship there and more often than not sex is involved. Is it?’

      Sophie stared at Theo, stupefied.

      ‘Just an observation,’ he murmured, looking down at his empty glass and lazily reaching for the bottle of wine which Sophie had thoughtfully placed on the table in front of him. A thread of adrenaline seared through his blood.

      The highly charged emotion of winning an important deal or even taking a life or death risk with his life, as he had done on the dangerous black run a few weeks back, faded into insignificance as he looked at her face.

      He felt shamefully but guiltily alive. He knew that if circumstances had been different, if he had been in London, he would have resented her for awakening his ability to feel, but down here things seemed different. He had a different persona, just a man caught in a bubble in which reality was not much of an intrusion. He had no demands from the people he knew, no colleagues or clients to inspire, no familiar faces staring at him from the sidelines of his predictable run of social gatherings, most of which he ignored but a few of which he roused himself to attend.

      No, here he was a mystery author who had no past and no future. There were no expectations on his shoulders. In a few weeks he would pack his bags, get his driver down and return to his normal life.

      In the meantime he could be whoever the hell he wanted to be.

      Anonymity had never smelled sweeter.

      ‘Financial problems usually involve more than one player. Hence my curiosity as to where this Robert character fits in. He probably knows a hell of a lot more than you think about your father’s debts. Are you sure they’re all to do with his work? If he and this boy were close, you might want to consider that he may have been forking out money to him, treating him like a son who might need bailing out now and again…Or maybe this so-called old friend of yours has been taking money out of the till, hence his enthusiasm to help you out now. One way of making sure that he gets his hands on anything that involves him…’

      ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Sophie laughed shortly, allowing herself not to be poleaxed by his provocative suggestions about Robert. It was just good not to be lying in bed worrying and the fact that she didn’t like him much was even better for her because it meant that she could be herself. If he had disliked her attitude so much he would have left the cottage within minutes of being subjected to her first tirade but in some part of her she knew that he would just have written it off as unconventional behaviour and, from what she could see, he looked as though he exhibited quite a bit of that himself.

      ‘And how do you happen to know about financial players, whatever that means?’

      ‘I know about a lot of things,’ Theo said smoothly. ‘Certainly enough to be highly suspicious when it comes to anything to do with money.’

      Sophie opened her mouth to level something sarcastic at that sweeping piece of self-flattery, but thought better of it. She realised that he probably did know about a lot of things. ‘There are no players,’ she found herself saying, smiling in fact at the thought of her father being some kind of crazed, criminal puppet master with accomplices lurking behind every door. Or, even more comical, good-natured Robert cunningly sneaking money from the till.

      ‘What’s so funny?’

      ‘The thought of my father engaged in underhand wheeler-dealing. And Robert isn’t some kind of dastardly accomplice who’s stitched up the books.’ She sighed heavily. ‘No, the truth is much simpler. My father loved experimenting. He was born to live life in a lab. It used to drive my mum mad. He experimented and wrote his notes and ordered his substances and there are records of some and records of others and paperwork that keeps popping up from every nook and cranny. That’s what we’re doing at the office—trying to go through all of it and tie it up into bundles. Problem is, there’s paperwork in this house as well. I know it. And in the flat above the office. And Lord knows where else! And Robert is just trying to help me put it all in order.’

      ‘How thoughtful of him,’ Theo murmured. The woman must be half blind not to spot the fact that the man was more than halfway to being in love with her.

      He looked at her. Really looked at her. The slant of her body as she leaned forward in the chair. The combat trousers, he had to admit, looked a little sexy on her, probably because she was so slender, and under the cream jumper he was very much aware of the soft mounds of her breasts. Suddenly and painfully aware. After such a long haul of self-imposed celibacy, fierce heat slammed through Theo’s body like a sledgehammer. He crossed his legs, doing his best to ensure that his suddenly obvious physical response wasn’t visible.

      He was aware that she was telling him about her father, about his habits. She obviously hadn’t heard his sarcastic rejoinder about Robert and, for the time being, Theo was more than happy to