‘Oh,you’dsee through her in a moment, I’m sure.’
Adoni’s answering smile was tight. He’d been furious when he realised Alice had duped him. But learning he was just one of those she’d fooled...
Had he been this incensed when his fiancée Chryssa dumped him and revealed her true colours? It didn’t seem possible.
‘She tried to deceive you?’
Dawlish shook his head. ‘No, I saw her for what she was. It was my uncle she conned. David Bannister.’
‘Bannister. The name is familiar.’
‘From the documents I sent. He was my uncle by marriage. My aunt, his wife, left the family estate to me but only after David’s death. They didn’t have children and I was her closest relative. David had free run of the estate while he was alive.’ Dawlish clamped his jaw as if grinding his teeth. ‘Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-in-Her-Mouth Trehearn moved into his house years ago. She was in her teens, you know, but David was besotted. She could do no wrong in his eyes.’
Adoni frowned. Theft was one thing. But a teenager seducing a much, much older man? Such things happened. Adoni had seen it. Yet it left a nasty taste in the mouth.
‘How old was your uncle?’
‘In his sixties. Old enough to know better. But they say there’s no fool like an old fool, eh?’ Dawlish settled back in his seat, stretching out his legs. ‘He even let her handle his money, would you believe? And she had the hide to bar my calls and visits, saying David didn’t want to see me.’
He sneered. ‘But she got her comeuppance. I bet David didn’t tell her the estate wasn’t his. She probably thought she was sitting on a goldmine and he’d leave it all to her instead of putting it towards running the estate or leaving anything for me to inherit. But she got her hands on everything she could.’
‘And was it? Put towards the estate, I mean?’
Dawlish nodded. ‘Don’t worry on that score. The place is flourishing. David might have been besotted but he’d never let the place go to rack and ruin. He and my aunt even started up an artists’ colony a decade or more ago in some of the old estate buildings. You’ll see from the material I sent you there are some quite prestigious artists living there. That’s in addition to the house and farmlands.’
‘It sounds fascinating.’ And indeed it was. Adoni and his most trusted staff had been over the details of the place with a fine-tooth comb. It was just what he was looking for. The ancient house would be perfect for a luxury country hotel.
Adoni’s fortune was founded on innovative software but he believed in spreading his investments. The upmarket London hotel, another in Santorini and potentially one in the country were part of a plan to ring-fence his wealth.
But of all the things Dawlish told him, Alice Trehearn was most fascinating.
She really was something. She’d almost convinced him he’d taken a virgin to bed, yet she’d been living with a man old enough to be her father, or maybe her grandfather, for years.
Adoni was torn between disgust and curiosity about why she’d show her face again. Did she believe they could take up where they’d left off?
If so, she was in for a short, sharp lesson.
* * *
Alice tugged at her cropped black jacket then smoothed unsteady hands down the matching straight skirt as she walked the London street to the address she’d been given. She’d worn this outfit to her father’s funeral, then David’s. She hated the colour and the memories it evoked, but it seemed the most suitable for today.
It was her going-to-job-interviews outfit. Before David’s death she’d worn it again and again while dealing with strangers over estate business. As his illness progressed and he retreated into art and books, David had entrusted her with the day-to-day running of his much-loved property. And while those who lived there knew her capabilities, outsiders saw only her youth and decided she was a pushover to be dismissed or even duped.
Her lips twitched with wry humour. They’d learned. You didn’t have to be old to be competent and organised.
Was stark black an improvement on bilious yellow?
Compressing her lips, Alice reminded herself it didn’t matter what Adoni Petrakis thought of her appearance. What mattered was delivering her news and discovering if she’d been right about him. She’d been drawn not just to his sexy looks and take-charge air but by the glimmer of humour in his eyes, his tenderness and his patience with a woman who was clearly not at her best.
Surely that boded well? If he were a decent guy, and she had no reason to suspect he wasn’t, maybe they could come to an amicable arrangement so their child didn’t grow up without knowing its father.
Remarkable how important this tiny baby had become in just a few short days. What would it be like when she held it in her arms? When it was no longer a baby but a toddler, able to run and laugh and hug her back?
A rush of warmth drenched her at the thought of loving and being loved again. This wasn’t at all the life she’d planned, but she was determined to look on this pregnancy as a positive, not a burden.
No matter how terrified she was.
Alice swallowed hard, pushing down doubts and fears, reminding herself she was determined and capable. She’d had to be.