A Price Worth Paying(6)

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Coming here was a mistake.’ She was halfway to turning but he had hold of her forearm and, before she knew it, she was propelled inside his apartment with the promise of fresh coffee on his lips and the door closed firmly behind her.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered, gesturing towards a leather sofa twice the length of her flat at home and yet dwarfed here by the sheer dimensions of the long, high-ceilinged room that seemed to let the whole of the bay in through one expansive wall of glass. ‘Maybe now you could tell me what this is all about.’

She sat obediently, absently rubbing her arm where he’d touched her, the skin still tingling as if his touch had set nerve endings dancing under her skin. But then, why wouldn’t she be nervy when she didn’t know which way to look to avoid staring at his masculine perfection; when every time her eyes did stray too close to his toned, bronzed body, they wanted to lock and hold and drink him in?

How could she even start to explain when she didn’t know where to look and when her tongue seemed suddenly twice its size?

‘All right,’ she said, ‘if you insist. But I’ll give you a minute to get dressed first.’

‘No rush,’ he said, dashing her hopes of any relief while he poured coffee from a freshly brewed jug. He didn’t ask her how she wanted it or even if she wanted it, simply stirred in sugar and milk and handed it to her. She took it, careful to fix her gaze on the cup, equally careful to avoid brushing her fingers with his and all the while wondering why she’d ever been crazy enough to think this might work. ‘So tell me, what’s wrong with Felipe?’ he asked, reminding her again of the reason why she was here, and she wondered at his ability to make her forget what should be foremost in her mind.

Giving Felipe a reason to smile.

She’d made it this far. She owed it to Felipe to follow through. She’d return to Melbourne one day after all. The humiliation wouldn’t last for ever …

So much for wondering if she matched her husky voice. Instead she looked like a waif, he thought, lost and lonely, her grey-blue eyes too big and her mouth almost too wide for her thin heart-shaped face, while her cotton shirt bagged around her lean frame. She stared blankly at the cup in her hands, whatever fight she’d called upon to secure this interview seemingly gone. She looked tiny against the sofa. Exactly like that mouse he’d imagined her to be when she’d first spoken so hesitantly on the phone.

‘You said he was dying,’ he prompted. And suddenly her chin kicked up and she found that husky note that had captured his interest earlier.

‘The doctor said he has six months to live. Maybe twelve.’ Her voice cracked a little on the twelve and she put the cup in her hands down before she recovered enough to continue, ‘I don’t think he’ll last that long.’

She pushed honey-blonde hair that had fallen free from her ponytail behind her ears before she looked up at him, her eyes glassy and hollow. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, swiping a rogue tear from her cheek. ‘I’ve made a complete mess of this. You didn’t need this.’

He didn’t, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little bit curious about why she thought it so necessary to knock on his door to ask for his help. He had his suspicions, of course—but he had to admit that the whole granddaughter turning up on his doorstep to plead her case was unexpected. ‘Why do you think Felipe won’t last that long?’

She shrugged almost impatiently, as if the reason was blindingly obvious and there was nothing else it could be. ‘Because he’s given up. He thinks he deserves to die.’

‘Because of the land?’

‘Of course, because of the land! It’s about losing his wife and daughter too, but don’t you see, losing the land on top of everything else is killing him faster than any disease.’

‘I knew it.’ He padded barefoot to the window, strangely disappointed, regretting the impulse to let her in, and not only because his curiosity about Felipe’s long lost granddaughter with the husky drawl had been satisfied with one look at this skinny, big-eyed waif. But because he’d been right. Of course it had to be about the land. And yet for some reason being right gave him no pleasure.

Maybe because he knew what would come next, and that any moment now she’d be asking for the favour she’d obviously come here to ask—for him to either return the land out of the goodness of his heart, or to lend her the money to buy it back.