Or perhaps it was her who was very far away.
‘You don’t look fine,’ he said bluntly. ‘You look bloody. I think you should see the quack—get him to check you out. Some of those foreign bugs can be really nasty. Where did you say you went, anyway? Anywhere tropical? That’s where the worst bugs are.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said again. Then, to get him to stop looking at her like that, she said abruptly, ‘How are things over here?’
The moment she’d asked she wished she hadn’t.
‘OK,’ he said. And then, expansively. ‘In fact, never better. I’ve been given my “Get Out of Jail Free” card and I couldn’t be happier! The takeover’s forging ahead, and it’s all a matter of paperwork now. Saez’s man is in place, and he’s just about running the show now—and I’m effectively on gardening leave. All I have to do is show up every now and then, just for appearances—I’m still a director, obviously, but I don’t take decisions any more, thank God! Uncle Martin is out—pretty miffed, I can tell you. I got an earful from him about “jumped up foreign financiers”—you know what he’s like! He rang a peal over me for my general incompetence and irresponsibility and went off in a huff. I don’t care. He’s not out of pocket, and he’s still got all his non-exec directorships in the City to play with.
‘You know,’ he said, in a more serious voice, ‘this takeover is the best thing that could have happened. It’s extraordinarily fortunate that Saez thought it worth his while to bother with us.’ He glanced at his sister. ‘He’s a seriously big wheel financially, you know. Still, maybe Loring Lanchester is just some sort of stepping stone for him—a lever to get to something else.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows? I’m out of it now and I am just incredibly grateful.’ His face sobered. ‘I very nearly lost Salton. I came within a hair’s breadth. Out of everything else that’s all I care about—that Salton didn’t go under the hammer. I’ve had a reprieve I didn’t deserve, and by God, sis, I’m not going to mess things up again. I’ve managed to hang on to Salton, and now it will go on to my son.’
He rested his gaze on Portia, an almost sheepish expression on his face.
Waves of coldness were going through her. A lever to get to something else…
That was, indeed, all Loring Lanchester was to Diego Saez. A lever to get what he wanted—her in his bed.
The enormity of it made her faint.
Tom was talking again, behind that thick, transparent glass wall that still separated her from him.
‘Speaking of which—son and heir and all that—I went to see Fliss this week. I’ve just come up from Salton now, actually, and it’s all settled. We’re not going to rush. Her mother wants a couple of months to buy her hat and all that malarkey, so it’s likely to be September. In the meantime, I’m afraid I’m going to take advantage of this gardening leave and buzz off with Fliss somewhere. She deserves it—I’ve been a rat, letting her stew down there, not having the courage to tell her that with the bank about to crash I could never ask her to marry me. So I’m going to whisk her away somewhere really gorgeous. What’s the Maldives like at this time of year? Is it the monsoon season now?’
He looked questioningly at Portia.
‘I’ve no idea,’ she managed to say.
‘Oh, well, I dare say the travel agent will recommend somewhere suitable. Where did you go, by the way? Wherever it was we won’t be going there! You’ve come home looking like a wet rag.’ He frowned again. ‘And you’ve lost weight too, Portia. You’re thin as a bone! You really should see the doctor, you know.’
‘I’m fine. Just jet-lagged.’
Her voice was short, but it was all she could manage. That pressure was building up again inside her head. She just wanted Tom to go—leave her alone—leave her inside her glass capsule.
But he wouldn’t go.
‘Jet-lag doesn’t make you lose weight,’ he retorted. ‘You’ve got a bug, you know. You must have, because the only other reason girls lose weight is either because they’re trying to catch a man or they’ve just been dumped by one. Neither is likely to apply to you, because I know there’s been no one since you got so cut up over Geoffrey so—’
He broke off, staring at her.
She was holding herself together. It was hard, excruciatingly hard, because she was like a porcelain vase with hairline cracks running all over its surface. Inside the pressure was building up, and building up, and the cracks were widening…
‘Oh, my God, sis,’ said Tom in a hollow voice. ‘Is that it? You ran off with some man and it all came to grief?’
He came towards her as if to take her hands, give her a comforting fraternal hug.
She stepped back. He mustn’t touch her!
Or she would break.
The glass wall that was holding out the world, cocooning her inside it, would shatter.
And so would she.
‘No! Don’t! I’m quite all right, Tom. It—it wasn’t anything serious. Just—just a fling.’
He shook his head, contradicting her.
‘You don’t do flings, Portia. So if some man persuaded you to go off with him there must have been something pretty deep going on for you.’