‘Our wing?’ Nell whispered at her side as Havers gestured to invite them in. ‘It really is just one big house?’
‘Leave your luggage over there. I’ll see that it’s taken upstairs.’
‘Thank you.’ Effie gritted her teeth, cringing inwardly—their bags were hardly the designer luggage she suspected most women visiting this place used—and headed inside.
The tour progressed in a blur of one incredible space after another, so vast that her head was already beginning to spin and she had the impression that they were barely halfway through. It was a blessing and a curse when she heard footsteps tapping up the wooden hallway behind her and knew, without even turning around, that it would be Tak.
No one else made her body...prickle quite the way that he did. Right then she determined that she wouldn’t turn around.
‘Ah, there you are, Havers. Is it all going well?’
‘Mr Basu!’
The genuine warmth in the older man’s smile caught Effie by surprise.
‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. I thought this was your evening with your brother?’
‘I’m sure Rafi can manage without me for one week. Besides, I thought I could finish the tour myself—no doubt you have plenty of other work you’d rather be getting on with.’
‘As you wish.’ The older man nodded sagely and began to take a step away.
Was it panic or something else that made Effie spin around in an instant? Either way, it was calamitous the way her heart clashed with her head in that moment. She was grateful that her head won out. Just.
‘We’re fine with Mr...with Havers,’ she retorted primly.
But at exactly the same time her daughter boldly accepted Tak’s offer.
‘Then let us continue.’ Tak grinned at Nell as though Effie herself hadn’t even spoken.
And then her thirteen-year-old daughter straightened her shoulders and looked her host in the eye, as though she wasn’t remotely intimidated by him or the situation. As though her momentary lapse into awe had never happened.
‘We’re fine,’ Effie echoed, a little hollowly. ‘We’ve seen enough already. We don’t need to intrude on the rest of your home.’
‘We do if we don’t want to get lost,’ Nell objected.
‘We won’t get lost.’
Her daughter’s snort wasn’t the most ego-boosting of responses.
‘Let’s be fair, Mum, you’re geographically backward. Don’t you remember that estate we lived on a few years ago? It took you almost ten months to work out which way led to the supermarket and which way led to the motorway.’
‘The roads all looked the same,’ Effie muttered.
Tak chuckled loudly. There was no reason at all for that smooth sound to ripple over her as it did.
Nell continued, oblivious. ‘And here the corridors all look the same.’ She blew out a faintly triumphant breath. ‘So all the more reason to learn the layout. You don’t want to go wandering into Tak’s bedroom thinking it’s your own, do you?’
Fire rushed through her and Effie yanked her head up sharply, but her daughter’s expression was wholly innocent. Either Nell had a better poker face at thirteen than Effie herself had ever possessed, or she genuinely hadn’t intended to sound so inappropriate.
Effie chose to believe the latter. Still, she couldn’t stop her gaze sliding to Tak. Wondering if he’d caught on. Hoping that somehow he hadn’t.
‘We certainly can’t have that, can we?’
His amusement was palpable, as though he was reading her mind. And that voice, as rich and indulgent as ever, meant the undercurrents inside her only sloshed around her all the more turbulently.
She straightened her spine. ‘No, we cannot.’
Too prim. Too uptight. But too late now.