She took a breath. ‘Well, if you can get us more funding we won’t say no,’ she managed to get out. There was something about the way he was casting a long look at her that threatened to bring the colour rushing to her cheeks.
‘Good,’ Max said. Then blithely went on. ‘The thing is, though, you’ll need to come up to London with me today—make a personal presentation. Time is very short—they have to spend the last of this year’s money before the end of the financial year coming up.’
He was hustling her, he knew, and it was deliberate—he wanted to give her no excuse to get out of this.
‘What?’ Consternation filled Ellen’s voice. ‘Impossible!’
‘No, it’s quite all right—it won’t inconvenience me at all,’ said Max in a smooth voice, deliberately misunderstanding the cause of her objection. He glanced at his watch. ‘You go off and get ready while I take another stroll around the gardens—admire those rhododendrons!’ He smiled at her, completely ignoring the fact that her mouth was opening to object yet again. ‘I’ll give you twenty minutes,’ he said blandly, and was gone.
Ellen stared after him, open-mouthed. Consternation was tumbling around inside her—shot through with aftershock. Slowly she gathered her composure back, by dint of piling her marking neatly into class rows. Did Max Vasilikos really imagine she’d waltz off with him to London for the day, to pitch for more funding for her camping project?
More money would be really helpful right now. We could double the numbers at the half-term session—buy more tents and sleeping bags. Run another week in the summer holidays...
The problem was, though, she thought, as she descended to earth with a bump, that in order to get her hands on the funding she’d have to sit next to Max Vasilikos all the way to London, enclosed in his car. Would she be a captive audience for his determination to wrest Haughton from her?
But the reverse will be true, too. If he goes on at me, then he’ll also have to listen to me telling him I’m never going to agree to sell. Never!
Yes, that was the way to think—and not about the way the image of Max Vasilikos, seen again now in all its devastating reality, was busy burning itself into her retinas and making her heart beat faster. Because what possible point was there in her pulse quickening? If even ordinary men looked right past her, wanting only to look at Chloe, then to a man like Max Vasilikos, who romanced film stars, she must be completely invisible.
In a way, that actually made it easier. Easier for her to change into something more suitable for London—the well-worn dark grey suit and white blouse that she donned for parents’ evenings and school functions, and sturdy, comfortable lace-ups, before confining her unruly hair into a lumpy bun—and then heading back out into the courtyard.
Max Vasilikos was already behind the wheel of his monstrous beast of a car, and he leant across to open the passenger door. She got into the low-slung seat awkwardly, feeling suddenly that despite being invisible to him, as she knew she was, he was very, very visible to her.
And very close.
With a shake of her head, to clear her stupid thoughts, she fastened her seat belt as he set off with a throaty growl of the engine. Oh, Lord, was she insane to head off with him like this? All the way to London in the all too close confines of his car? She sat back tensely, fingers clutching the handbag in her lap.
‘So, tell me more about this charity of yours,’ Max invited as he turned out of the drive on to the narrow country lane beyond. He wanted to set her at ease, not have her sitting there tense as a board.
Gratefully Ellen answered, explaining how she and a fellow teacher had started it two years ago. She also told him about their hopes for expansion, which more funding would definitely enable.
Max continued to ask questions that drew her out more, and as she talked he could see she was gradually starting to relax. The enthusiasm he’d seen so briefly over lunch the other day was coming through again, and she was becoming animated as she spoke. He moved the subject on from the practicalities of the venture to some of its underlying issues.
‘How do you find the children respond to the camping?’ he asked.
‘Usually very well,’ she replied. ‘They all have to do chores, share the work, and most discover grit and strength in themselves—a determination to achieve goals that will, we hope, enable them to transfer those lessons to their future and make something of themselves, despite their disadvantaged and often troubled backgrounds.’
She became aware that Max was looking at her, a revealing expression on his face.
‘Reminds me of myself,’ he said. ‘When my mother died I had to make my own way in the world—and it definitely took grit and strength and determination. Starting with nothing and building myself up from scratch.’
She glanced at him curiously. ‘You weren’t born to all this, then?’ she asked, indicating the luxury car they were sitting in.
He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I worked five years on building sites to make enough to buy a ruin that I then spent two years restoring myself and selling on. I took the profit to do the same again and again, until I’d bootstrapped my way up to where I am now,’ he told her. His sideways glance was caustic, but there was a trace of mordant humour in it. ‘Does that improve your opinion of me at all?’ he posed.
She swallowed. She would have to give him his due—anything else would be unfair, however unwelcome he was in her life. ‘I respect you for all the hard work you’ve obviously had to put in to make yourself rich. My only objection to you, Mr Vasilikos, is that you want to buy Haughton and I don’t want to sell it to you.’
Belatedly she realised that she herself had brought the subject back to what she did not want to discuss—selling her home. But to her relief he did not respond in kind.
‘Tell me, how old were you when your mother died?’ he asked instead.
Her eyes widened and she stared at him, wondering why he was asking such a personal, intrusive question. Then something he’d said chimed in her head. ‘When my mother died...’
‘Fifteen,’ she answered. ‘She was killed in a head-on car crash.’
‘I was the same age when mine died,’ Max said.
His voice was neutral, but it did not deceive Ellen.