He was right, and yet she shook her head. “It’s so complicated.”
“You are making it complicated. You worked for me at my hotel. That was a waste of your skills. Work for me as an artist instead.”
“But this is too much,” she said, handing his phone back to him. “It looks enormous.”
“It is not. Come and see it now?”
So many reasons to say no, and yet she found herself nodding. She walked beside him, matching his fast pace. When she went to pull the door shut behind herself, he shook his head. “Leave it. I have a removalist coming to pack your things.”
“What?” She looked up at him with a mix of consternation and surprise. “I haven’t even agreed yet.”
He shrugged enigmatically. “You will.”
“Sabato,” she shook her head and expelled a sigh. “You don’t understand. I can’t make snap decisions like that. It’s not that simple.”
He stopped walking and looked at her earnestly. “Everything is simple with money at your disposal.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, it isn’t.” She pulled the door inwards, wincing when it came freely and whacked her foot. “I have Andrew to consider. He goes to school near here. And he has friends in the building.”
“This apartment is in London Bridge. That’s ten minutes by your beloved bus. I am not suggesting you move to the moon, cara.”
So reasonable, and so right. She crossed her arms across her chest petulantly and shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go look at it. Just look,” she reiterated.
He shook his chauffeur away and opened the door for Emily himself. “You’re very beautiful when you’re sulking,” he whispered in her ear, as she slid into the backseat of the luxurious black car.
Emily didn’t look at him. He sat beside her, and the car eased away from her building – and, she suspected, her old life. For good. The luxury vehicle was the last word in elegance, and Emily felt like a duck out of water.
It was a short journey to London Bridge, as he’d said. The car pulled up outside a modern block of flats and a doorman greeted them with a professional clip of his greying head.
“Security,” Sabato said crisply, nodding curtly at the gentleman and guiding Emily into the palatial foyer. It was as different to her own modest accommodations that she couldn’t help but smile at him bemusedly.
The lift opened as soon as his finger pressed the button. His hand on her back nudged her into the mirrored cubicle, and Sabato swiped a card then pressed the button for the top floor. “More security,” he said unnecessarily; his disapproval of her own flat was obvious. The lift ascended swiftly, the doors opening right into the living space.
“Holy hell,” Emily muttered, spinning on the spot so that she could take in the forever-away ceilings, crisp white walls, sand-coloured timber floors, and all the natural light, even on a gloomy Autumnal day.
“I take it that you like it?”
Emily didn’t answer. She moved towards the windows, her face glowing. The kitchen was like something out of a space ship. All stainless steel and smooth edges. The fridge was almost bigger than Andrew’s bedroom.
“Sabato, it is way, way, way too good for us.”
He cringed at her statement. How could she think of herself in such a downtrodden manner? This woman who was flame and water, earth and matter.
She moved to the staircase, suspended like a spiral from the ceiling, in the middle of the room. She climbed it quickly, and inspected the three bedrooms and three bathrooms on the mezzanine.
Sabato was waiting for her in the kitchen when she returned several minutes later. “Well?”
“Well,” she bit down on her lip. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
Emily’s brow furrowed.
“What’s bothering you?” He pushed finally, reaching for her hand and lacing their fingers together. She took a step towards him, though it only muddied things further in her mind.
“Well,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Lots of things. I mean, what happens in a year’s time? I have to think of Andrew. I can’t move him somewhere like this and then expect him to move back to a tiny little hovel wardrobe bedroom.”
Sabato smothered his smile at her description. “Cara, do you know what I was doing when I was your age?”