The Latin Affair. Sophie Weston
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stops traffic.’
Nicky winced, just as he had expected. Just as she always did when anyone mentioned her looks. Martin pushed home his advantage.
‘Compared with Mrs Lazenby, Esteban is a pussy cat.’
Nicky gave him an incredulous look. He laughed.
‘Well, OK, maybe not a pussy cat. But he’s not stupid and he’s not jealous of you. And he has got a genuine problem.’ He added in a wheedling tone, ‘Just your sort of problem, in fact.’
Nicky could hardly deny that.
‘And he wants you to deal with it personally.’
Nicky grimaced.
‘You and no one else. You obviously impressed him.’
‘I made him spitting mad,’ corrected Nicky.
‘Well, that makes two of you, doesn’t it?’
Before she could answer, Martin leaned forward and studied her earnestly.
‘Look, Nick, you know how I’m placed, with the exhibition and everything. I can’t afford the time to go haring off to Cornwall. I’m sorry Esteban Tremain rubs your fur up the wrong way but you’ve just got to be professional about it.’
Nicky’s jaw jutted dangerously. ‘Or?’ she said in a soft voice.
Martin closed his eyes. ‘Nick, don’t be difficult—’
‘Will you give me the sack if I refuse to go?’
His eyes flew open. ‘Of course not’
‘Then I refuse,’ she said triumphantly.
Martin did not laugh. ‘I won’t need to give you the sack,’ he said grimly. ‘If Tremain doesn’t pay his account by the end of the month the bank will probably foreclose. Then we’re all out of a job.’
Nicky sat down hard. ‘What?’
‘I’ve let it get out of hand,’ Martin admitted.
He stood up and thrust his hands into his pockets. He began to prowl round the room.
‘My accountant tells me I’ve spent too much time marketing and not enough collecting the debts. To be honest, we probably shouldn’t have taken a stand at the exhibition. But by the time I realised how bad things were it was too late to cancel without paying up. So I thought, What the hell?’
Nicky shut her eyes. It was all too horribly familiar. It was what her father had said all through her hand-to-mouth childhood. She had never thought to hear it from steady, sensible Martin, even though he was a long-standing friend of her ramshackle family.
‘You’re more like my father than I thought,’ she said involuntarily.
Martin had the grace to look ashamed. But he did not back down.
Nicky watched him. She felt numb. ‘I knew there was something wrong. But I had no idea it was this bad.’
‘It wasn’t. It’s all gone wrong in the last six weeks. To be honest, I was relying on Tremain settling his account to keep going until I can put in a bill to Hambeldons.’ He looked at her helplessly.
Nicky knew that look. It was just how her mother used to look when they landed on the next Caribbean island without money or stores and her father began declaring loudly that nothing would induce him to take another tourist out fishing. And Nicky knew she would do just the same now as she had then.
She swallowed. She could feel the volcano heaving under her feet, she thought.
‘All right,’ she said with deep reluctance. ‘Leave it to me.’
Martin cheered up at once. The others were unsurprised by Nicky’s decision when she was heard to telephone Esteban’s secretary for route instructions and a key. They were even envious.
‘He looks lonely,’ sighed Sally.
‘Lonely!’ muttered Nicky, scornful.
‘He has never met a woman to thaw his heart,’ Sally went on, oblivious. She spent a lot of her time reading the stories in the magazines where Springdown Kitchens advertised. ‘Don’t you agree, Nicky?’
Nicky was cynical. ‘I should think he’s found several and returned them all to store,’ she said unwisely.
Caroline laughed. ‘You are so right,’ she agreed. ‘The shelf life of an Esteban Tremain squeeze is about six months, they say.’ She added wickedly, ‘That should give you a fun Christmas, Nicky.’
‘He won’t be there,’ Nicky said hurriedly. ‘I double-checked with his secretary. She says he’s in London all week. As long as I’m away before Friday night, I don’t have to see Esteban Tremain at all.’
It was a long drive. Normally Nicky liked driving but on this occasion it gave her too much time to think. Alone in the car with a ribbon of motorway unfolding in front of her and recipes for a bonfire-night party on the radio, her mind slipped treacherously sideways.
Why did Esteban Tremain have this effect on her? She knew nothing about the man, after all. Just that slightly spiky article, a couple of personal encounters—that slow, dispassionate assessment—the note in his voice when he’d called her a blonde. And he smelled like the sea.
She could not suppress her involuntary shiver of awareness as she remembered that. There was something about him that set all her warning antennae on full alert.
Impatiently she leaned forward and twiddled the radio dial until she found some music with a cheerful beat. She moved her shoulders to it, trying to relax. Trying to remember how to relax. Trying to remember that some people actually wanted to be blonde.
She flicked her hand through her hair. For once, knowing she was going to be alone, she had left it loose.
‘Why don’t you dye your hair, if you hate it so much?’ one of her friends had said impatiently, when she was complaining about the blonde image.
Well, you could dye out the golden fairness, Nicky thought now. There was not much you could do about an hourglass figure and long, slim legs, unless you wanted to diet yourself into ill health. Her dislike of her looks had not yet taken her that far.
So she contented herself with wearing dark long-line jackets that disguised her remarkable figure and pulling her hair back into severe styles. Even so, it did not always work. She had learned to dread that speculative stare, as a man suddenly discovered her looks under the businesslike surface. It was too horribly reminiscent…
The car had speeded up as the memories approached. Nicky shook herself and made herself slow down.
These days she had almost forgotten that crippling sense of wanting to run until she disappeared into the horizon. Almost. Until someone like Esteban Tremain called her a blonde in that tone of voice.
Again Andrew’s words came back to her. ‘Find the guy. Get him out of your system. Or you’ll never be free.’
It was getting dark. Nicky shivered. The memories of the dark were worst of all.
She left the motorway at the next exit. She found a small inn and a fire and company. For a while the memories receded.
But in the end she had to leave the friendly landlord and his wife and go up to the pretty chintz hung bedroom alone. After getting ready for bed Nicky went to the window and looked out. In this country village you could see the stars. They were more brilliant than they were in London but even so they did not compare with the jewelled coverlet of the Caribbean.
Nicky closed her eyes in anguish. No, she was not going to banish the memory tonight She knew what that meant. No sleep until she faced it.
She sank into an armchair and tipped her head back. She let memory do its work…