The Beautiful Widow - By Helen Brooks Page 0,62
went straight in to see him, holding the envelope in her hand. ‘I didn’t expect anything like this. It’s too much.’
‘Everyone gets a healthy bonus twice a year. It’s a good incentive,’ he answered, without looking up from the papers he was working on. ‘The money is already in your account.’
She stood staring down on the dark head, knowing if she tried to say anything more she’d burst into tears, and then left the room.
He sent Amelia and Daisy parcels through the post too, with a small card saying the exquisite little gold charm bracelets were from the ‘steel man'. Toni’s mother oohed and ahhed over them to the girls but made no comment to Toni. They’d had to agree to disagree over her finishing with Steel and it was now a forbidden subject. Toni made Christmas special for the girls but she was glad when the ‘jolly’ season was over, and everyone she came into contact with was miserable because they’d spent too much, eaten too much and drunk too much. It fitted her mood.
The one thing that kept her going, apart from Amelia and Daisy, was the work on Steel’s house. She’d fallen in love with the magnificent old cottage and was determined each alteration and each room would be perfect, as the house deserved. This was to be her swansong with Steel’s firm and everything had to be right. She wouldn’t allow herself to picture Steel living here with another woman, starting a family, enjoying winter evenings together in front of a roaring fire or summer afternoons with cucumber sandwiches and lemonade on the patio while watching the children play in the fresh air. She’d had one day when she had made the mistake of indulging such notions and had got herself into such a state she had been physically sick.
January was a month of heavy blue-grey skies and squalls of blustery sleet and icy rain, but the wave of thick snow that had been forecast way back in December had never materialised. The army of workmen employed on site had meant the project flowed without interruption, and in the first week of February Toni could finally say the job was all but finished.
She’d had intermittent contact with Steel during the last two months. When she was in the office he made no effort seek her out, but when she had to consult with him about something he was always businesslike and agreeable. Once or twice she had caught him staring at her, but there was never any readable expression on his face. As far as she knew he wasn’t dating, but he could have been. That was something else she didn’t allow herself to think about.
He hadn’t actually visited the site once since the day he had taken her there. It was unfortunate that the boss of the building firm she’d contracted for the alterations had an Aston Martin too. A number of times her heart had stopped as she’d heard the car draw up, but it had never been Steel unfurling himself from the sleek interior. Just a paunchy little man who laughed too loudly and stank of BO and garlic.
The day she had set aside for Steel to come and view her work was one of extreme cold and bitter winds. She arrived at the house early in the morning, driving there as soon as she had dropped the girls off at breakfast club.
After checking every cushion was in place and every drape arranged just so, she wandered through to the beautiful drawing room and stood gazing out over the grounds. The frozen landscape intensified every colour and shade, highlighting the few brightly toned leaves clinging to a mature beech tree and the green of the ivy climbing a far wall. The sky had clouded over as she’d been titivating this and that, and there was the smell of snow in the air when she opened the front door to Steel mid-morning.
He smiled at her and a vice gripped her heart. It was the first time for some weeks she had allowed herself the luxury of looking straight at him, and the silver-blue eyes cut through to her soul. He looked wonderful but tired. Definitely tired.
‘You have a house to show me, I think?’ His voice was warm, relaxed, and yet she thought she detected something else underneath. A tenseness perhaps? Or perhaps it was just excitement. This was to be his home, after all. It was much more important than her previous projects.
He