The Beautiful Widow - By Helen Brooks Page 0,27

got in the oven and there’s plenty. He was only going to go back to an empty apartment, bless him, and a man should come home to a hot meal in the evening.’

Bless him? ‘He’s got a daily who sees to the apartment and his meals, Mum,’ Toni hissed through gritted teeth. ‘He’s not little orphan Annie.’

‘Talking of Annie,’ Vivienne continued, completely undeterred by her daughter’s simmering fury, ‘he was telling your father and I about his sister. He thinks the world of her, doesn’t he? And he must be worried to death. That man’s got a lot on his shoulders, Toni. Offering him a meal after how good he’s been to you was the least we could do.’

Toni gave up. She didn’t know what had been said downstairs, but for some reason her mother had decided Steel was in need of comfort and sustenance. Anyway, it was too late now. The deed was done. Trying to keep her voice from betraying just how angry with her mother she was, she muttered, ‘What did he say when you asked him?’ as it dawned on her Steel had been put in a very awkward position. He’d probably only accepted the offer of a cup of coffee to be polite, and now here was her mother pressing him to stay for a meal. Would he think she was in cahoots with her mother, that she was attempting to inveigle her way in with the boss by the back door? Worse, would he suspect she fancied him and had asked her mother to pave the way? Joy had said women fell over themselves to sleep with him. Would he assume she was prepared to assume the role of much more than his interior designer?

‘What did he say?’ Vivienne wrinkled her brow. ‘Something about he wouldn’t like to impose, I think, but I told him there was no question of that and we’d love him to stay.’

Toni groaned. ‘Mum, he was trying to say no.’

‘Nonsense, dear. He was just being polite.’

‘You probably totally embarrassed him.’

‘Of course I didn’t.’ Vivienne’s tone was sharper; she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. He’d looked so pleased when she’d asked him, poor soul. ‘You weren’t there, Toni, so don’t make assumptions. I’m going down to put a few more new potatoes on to go with the casserole, so if you want to change and come down in a minute, you can open a bottle of wine. All right?’ And with that Vivienne sailed off, bristling under her daughter’s criticism, her grey curls bobbing with righteous indignation.

Toni shut her eyes for a moment. Somehow she had been manoeuvred into the most ridiculous position; she could strangle her mother. This was so embarrassing.

Tiptoeing back into the girls’ room, she opened the wardrobe, which held some of her things along with a selection of the girls’ clothes. The rest of their clothes were packed in two enormous suitcases under the girls’ beds; there simply wasn’t room for them anywhere else.

The June evening was warm but, in view of her earlier thoughts, she didn’t intend to dress up in one of the floaty summer dresses she had. Steel might already have the wrong idea about her; she wasn’t about to confirm she was trying to seduce him. With this in mind she pulled on a pair of casual white linen trousers and a sleeveless tunic in a soft jade colour, brushing out her hair and leaving it loose about her shoulders after she had cleaned her face free of make-up. Part of her was itching to put on some mascara and lip gloss as she surveyed her scrubbed, squeaky-clean image in the bathroom mirror, but she resisted the temptation. She was not going to titivate in the slightest; just the opposite, in fact.

Thrusting her feet into a pair of old flip-flops, she went downstairs, so nervous she had to pause in the hall and unclench her fingers, which were in tight fists at her side.

Her mother had clearly already opened the bottle of wine. When she walked through to the patio Steel and her parents were deep in conversation, a bottle of red on the table and four wine glasses half full. The somnolent air was rich with the scents from the potted plants and herbs that were her father’s pride and joy, and as she paused in the doorway the three of them laughed at something that had been said. There was a naturalness to the scene, an easy-going