you two.’ Adding, ‘Do you want a lift, Chloe?’
The older woman shook her head. ‘No, I’m picking up some glasses for tonight from Sara on my way back.’
‘I hope you all have a great night, I wish I could come but…’ She lifted her slender shoulders in a regretful shrug; her babysitting arrangements had fallen through that morning.
‘You can…I know, just call me fairy godmother. You know how John’s mum is having Hannah? Well, she’s offered to have your two as well. John will pick up the twins on his way home and he’ll fetch them back in the morning.’
‘Oh, Chloe, that’s really kind but I couldn’t impose…’
‘It’s not imposing. Maud offered and they’ll have a great time, you know they will.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Yes but nothing, Cinders, you’re going to the ball and don’t forget the invite includes your utterly gorgeous boss…I tell you, if I was a few years younger I’d give you a bit of competition there.’
Zoe struggled to smile at the joke. ‘He’s not here, I’m afraid.’ She felt a guilty tug as her friend’s face fell.
‘I thought he was due back today. John’s going to be so disappointed—he wanted to thank him personally and return his hospitality. Half the people there only came because they wanted to take a look at the hall.’
Zoe’s unease increased. Short of admitting that the hospitality they wanted to return had not been given freely, she had no way of preventing the decision to treat the new lord of the manor as a community-minded philanthropist.
‘He was…is…due today,’ she admitted. ‘But when I left he hadn’t arrived.’
‘But he might do.’
‘Anything’s possible,’ Zoe admitted, but the thought of Isandro coming to a party where the glasses were borrowed and the food was provided by guests! Possible but not very likely, thank goodness!
‘Well, promise you’ll remind him if he does turn up? Tell him that we’d love to see him and he seemed very keen to come. He’s obviously making an effort to be part of the community.’
Zoe didn’t have the heart to shatter this illusion and explain that the man had only said yes to cut the scene short and get rid of them as quickly as possible.
‘If he does I will,’ Zoe promised, imagining with horror the admittedly unlikely scenario of Isandro putting in an appearance at the party. Him spending the entire evening with his lips curled contemptuously would suck the joy out of any occasion and Zoe wanted to save her friends that. On a less unselfish note she wanted to save herself from spending her precious off-duty time with a man who made her skin prickle with antagonism even before he opened his mouth and said something vile and unpleasant. The fact that half the vile things he said were actually the truth was neither here nor…Losing track of her train of thought, she shook her head slightly to banish the image of the lips that combined overt sensuality with an underlying hint of cruelty.
She was getting fixated on the man’s mouth when it was the things that came out if it that she ought to worry about.
‘John will be by around six to pick up the twins.’
Isandro did not get involved in other people’s lives. His charitable donations to selected good causes were made anonymously, and he never responded to any form of moral blackmail or sentimental sob stories, but the story of the little girl and her ‘last chance to walk’ trip to America continued to play in his mind.
Admit it, Isandro, the kid got to you.
This perceived weakness was responsible for putting the indent between his sable brows. His father had been a sentimental man, a kind, trusting man who was moved by the suffering of others. A man who taught his son the importance of charity, and led by example.
And where had that got him?
Universally liked and admired certainly—but at the end he had been a broken and disillusioned man.
Isandro had been forced to stand by helplessly and watch while the woman his father had married and her daughter had systematically robbed the family business, stealing not just from his father but from major clients. He had no intention of emulating his parent, had no room for sentimentality in his life, expected the worst from others and was rarely disappointed.
Experience had taught him that everyone had an angle and the most innocent of faces could hide a devious heart, like his stepmother and her daughter. Forced to brake hard to avoid a cat that shot across