Time seemed to stand still as Tilly’s head lifted and he waited for her eyes to meet his.
He frowned.
She was not Matilda.
He recovered quickly. He’d come to see Art, not Matilda. What did it matter that she wasn’t at her desk?
‘Is Art free?’ he asked, his tone clipped, his words impatient.
‘Oh....um...’ She stared down at her desk and then reached for her phone, dropping it once before shaking her head and lifting it to her ear.
‘Mr Wyndham?’ she said, and then bit down on her lip shamefacedly as she pressed a button. ‘Mr Wyndham?’ she tried again. ‘There’s a man here to see you.’
The woman was quiet for a moment, nodding, and then she lifted her eyes to Rio’s face. ‘What’s your name?’
Rio’s lips curled in a small smile of disapproval. This woman wouldn’t have lasted two hours in his employ. ‘Rio Mastrangelo,’ he offered.
She’d obviously heard of him. ‘Oh! Oh! It’s Mr Mastrangelo, sir!’ Another pause. ‘Right away.’
She put the phone down and smiled brightly. ‘His office is the second door on the right.’
Confident that the usual form would have been for her to lead him there, and to offer refreshment, Rio nodded in a terse acknowledgement and strode across the floor.
‘Rio!’ Art pulled the door inwards, sending a bemused look down the hallway at his PA. ‘Come in.’
Rio stepped into the office, barely noting the luxurious surrounds.
‘You’ll have to forgive the temp. Nice enough girl, but what she knows about administration you could fit on the back of a postcard.’
Art waved a hand at the comfortable leather sofas near the enormous windows that painted an expansive view of the Thames.
Rio sat, crossing one ankle over his knee.
‘I had to fire my assistant,’ Art grumbled. ‘Though, having spent the last four weeks getting intimately acquainted with the dregs of every temp agency in the city, I almost wish I hadn’t.’
Rio didn’t want to analyse the emotional response he was having to this discovery. ‘You fired Matilda?’
Art narrowed his eyes, putting two and two together with less efficiency than Rio would have liked.
‘That’s right,’ he murmured. ‘You met her. Or rather you met her in the guise of my daughter.’ He spat out the summation with deep condemnation. ‘Sorry about that. Of course I had no idea what they were up to.’
‘Of course.’ Rio nodded, his mind poring over this fact. ‘When?’
Art looked confused. ‘When, what?’
‘When did you fire her?’
‘As soon as she got back. I can’t believe she helped Cressida marry that useless waste-of-space artist.’ He shouted the last word as if it were the worst thing a man could be. ‘Anyway, that’s not your concern. What can I do you for?’
* * *
The pounding wouldn’t stop. The pounding in her head and then, making it worse, the pounding at the door.
‘I’m coming,’ she called, wincing as the words shredded her raw throat.
She grabbed a tissue as she passed the nightstand and blew her nose, then discarded the white paper on the floor. She pushed her hair back from her face, tangling her fingers in knots. When had she last showered? Days ago, she thought with a frown, hating the idea of standing upright for any period of time.
A sneeze burst from her and it was like being slapped over the head with a hammer. She pulled the door inwards and the sneeze was quickly followed by a second, then a third, so that she was disorientated when she blinked her eyes open.