‘There’s no point,’ he said again, and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. His other hand reached up and closed over her shoulder. She was held still, almost within the cradle of his arms, but her whole body strained away from him.
‘And there’s no need to panic the way you’re doing. Your brother has found his white knight. The bank is safe.’ He paused. ‘Salton is safe.’
She should feel relief sagging through her at his words, but she did not. Only the teeth of the hurricane again, biting at her the way Diego Saez’s hand was biting around her forearm. She strained away from him.
‘Wh—who…?’
She got the word out somehow.
And knew the answer even before he spoke.
She could hear the smile in his voice. Feel the sickening plunge of her heart.
He turned her around so that he could look at her. Look at her hearing what he was going to tell her.
‘Why do you think I’m here, Portia? Why do you think your brother brought me here?’ He looked down at her, savouring the moment. ‘He thinks I’m going to save his skin.’
Time had stopped again. The world was motionless around her. Not even her heart was beating. Her eyes were fixed on his; she felt them spear her. Her voice was a husk.
‘And are you?’
It was pointless asking. Because she knew—dear God, she knew what the answer was going to be. What it could only be. Because why else would Diego Saez be here, telling her that her world had just crashed around her ears?
For one purpose. One purpose only.
He went on holding her, looking down at her.
‘Of course,’ he told her. ‘I’ve thrown him a lifeline. I’ll sort out the bank’s debts—I’ll even let him stay on. It wouldn’t be good for the bank right now for him to leave. Martin Loring will have to go, of course—your brother should have cleared him out when he took over. He’s the worst liability the bank possesses. If your brother had got rid of him he might have stood a chance. He could have brought in a team of directors who knew one end of a balance sheet from the other! Who could have sold out to one of the global majors for a good price—because then it would have been a profitable deal, not a salvage sale! But your brother let Martin Loring behave as though Queen Victoria were still on the throne and he could order gun-ships to go in and secure British assets in the world’s rough spots!’
Her eyes fell, squeezing shut.
‘He wanted Uncle Martin to retire,’ she whispered.
‘He should have kicked him out on his useless backside! There’s no room for sentiment in business, Portia.’
Her eyes flew open and she forced herself to lift them to his again. Her body strained, rigid in his grip.
‘So why are you bailing him out?’
It was another pointless question.
And she answered it herself. Her eyes slid past him, out over the little sunken garden, through the archway in the yew hedge at the far side, down the path that wound back along to the lake, which lay like a glittering diamond in the emerald grass of the lawns that lapped around the jewel that was Salton. Her home. Tom’s home. It would have been Felicity’s home with him, and their children together, and their children’s children…
But it would now belong—her heart crushed like a rotten fruit inside her, oozing poisoned bile—to the man who was pinioning her, holding her immobile, powerless.
The man who had looked at the Gainsborough painting of Salton and wanted it there and then. Asked whether it was for sale…
‘You want Salton.’
Her voice was dull. Dead.
Her eyes went on gazing. The breeze was moving the branches of the trees beyond the garden, winnowing in the branches of the ornamental tree within it, showering blossom to the ground like a blessing.
She could feel nothing. Nothing at all.
Then, slowly, as if surfacing out of insensibility, she felt something. His hand moving on her shoulder, his fingers stroking the softness of her cashmere.
‘No.’ His voice was low. Accented.