He looked distinctly cornered and shifty. ‘It’s possible.’
‘And maybe you could afford to put on a few lights now and then. If you have a fall in the dark at your age,’ Bella pointed out gently, ‘it could be serious. Gramps was never the same after his tumble down the stairs. The shock took an awful lot out of him. And then there’s the candles, Hector. They’re a fire hazard.’
‘I’ll think it over,’ he m
uttered, looking grey at the grim pictures she had painted. ‘You’re not thinking of moving out, are you?’
‘Where on earth would I go?’ she laughed, seeing his fear.
Hector sighed. ‘I meant to say to you last night but I fell asleep… I used to know da Silva’s father, João. He had a tremendous art collection. Old money, of course. Shame the son made such an idiot of himself, but then young people do…’
Bella frowned at him and then sat down opposite. ‘You’re talking about Rico?’
‘I was living in Spain then. Must be easily ten years ago,’ he mused. ‘His divorce case was plastered all over the newspapers out there. He had married some totally unsuitable female. She was an actress or some such thing. She had a string of lovers. There was a young child involved as well—’
‘A child?’ she broke in helplessly.
‘It wasn’t his child. I remember feeling very sorry for the family, and particularly for the boy, having all that dirty washing dragged out. Ghastly.’ Hector shook his head expressively, shooting her a troubled glance. ‘Not an experience I should think he came through unscathed. These days he seems to have more of a reputation as a womaniser.’
Bella was shaken by what Hector had told her. A failed marriage she was already aware of but this was something else entirely. ‘The Press went over my life with a fine-tooth comb… how come they didn’t pick up on his marriage?’
‘It happened in a different country. He’s just been lucky.’
She lay in bed that night mulling the bare facts over. By the sound of it Rico had been badly burnt. And at what age—twenty-one? He couldn’t have been much older. The same age as she was now. But Rico might well have been far more vulnerable. Growing up in a rich, privileged and happy family did not necessarily prepare you very well for the darker side of life and the people who used and abused you. In fact money had probably made him more of a target.
He had told her so much but she just hadn’t been listening carefully enough. That very first day, when he had quite unreasonably accused her of flaunting herself and trading on her looks, he had also called his attraction to her ‘a sick craving’. Right from the outset Rico had fought to deny that attraction. Heavens, did she remind him of his ex-wife? She recalled his preoccupation with the possibility of consequences … “The honey trap and then the price’ … Had it been a shotgun wedding?
Whatever the circumstances, Rico had been betrayed and humiliated, and just thinking about that made Bella’s heart go out to him. She was a soft touch. She couldn’t help it. Her fury with him from the night before evaporated. For all she knew the suggestion that she live with him for a month—an invitation that he had denied ever offering to any other woman—had been a courageous stab at what had felt like a mega-commitment on his part.
On the other hand, it could equally well have been a deeply basic indication of how highly he valued the sexual passion they had shared. Beneath those beautifully tailored suits lurked one very passionate male, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. And he did have a sense of humour. Anyone who could handle Hector without batting an eyelash deserved applause.
He wasn’t remotely intimidated by her intelligence either and even in a rage he had been capable of eating his own words and admiring her paintings. He even fitted Gramps’ yardstick of eligibility—good education, stable family background, steady employment. And she loved him. It was a shame that he had gone ballistic when she’d mentioned the large fluffy dog, the cat and the pony. Rico did not want children. Still, you couldn’t have everything.
And right at this moment you have nothing, she reminded herself in exasperation.
Griff rang her mid-morning the next day. ‘Bella… it would have been kinder to hit the guy with the bottle in the restaurant!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your exclusive interview… priceless, absolutely priceless. Let’s do lunch tomorrow. You really should be wearing my ring. It was too late to stop the announcement and I know you didn’t mean what you said,’ he asserted.
Bella dropped the phone as though she had been burnt. Half an hour later she was standing in a newsagent’s, learning that Hector had spoken truly when he’d said that you shouldn’t talk to journalists. Rico had been labelled as a boring stuffed shirt, a male so inflated with his own importance that he hadn’t even allowed her to call him by his Christian name, the implication being that he was a raging snob. There wasn’t even a mention of his taking his jacket off…probably because it might have made him sound human.
Bella cringed, cursing her own stupidity. She checked her watch. She had agreed to work a rare lunchtime shift at the restaurant. In her break she would get on the phone and apologise to him. It had never crossed her mind that anyone could turn their ordeal into sheer comedy, or that so unjust a picture might be drawn. If she had been able to choose a fellow victim out of a million names, she would have chosen Rico every time… She could have wept.
Gaston’s was choked to the gills with customers. Serious foodies ate there, studying the yard-long menu with blissful intensity. Bella was loaded with empty plates when she noticed a curious lull in the level of quiet conversation. She turned her head, saw Rico and simply froze.
‘What were you paid for that character assassination?’ he blazed at her down the length of the entire dining room.
Her staggered gaze clung to him. The tiger had escaped again. Rico in a rage. He strode across the floor in two long, lithe strides, indifferent to the turning heads, the buzz of conjecture. ‘How much?’ he breathed in a tone that quivered with fierce emotion.
There was a look of savage betrayal in his brilliant dark eyes. She couldn’t bear it. It cut her to pieces. She forgot she was holding the plates. They dropped with an almighty crash. She barely noticed. ‘Nothing…’
‘You hate me that much?’ he shot at her from between clenched teeth.
‘No… no,’ she whispered, on the brink of tears, appalled that he had taken it so badly, making the worst possible interpretation of that foolish interview.
‘I do not appreciate being lampooned in print. It was a pack of lies!’ he condemned with raw distaste.