The Latin Affair. Sophie Weston
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not Mr Tremain. The name on the telephoned demands was a Ms Francesca Moran.
In response, machinery had been tested and tested again, cabinets resited, floor tiling replaced. A month ago, Tremain had threatened legal action. But as far as Nicky could see all the disputed work on the Cornish mansion had been completed ten days before.
‘Do you have another complaint?’ she said warily.
‘Complaint!’ His derisive bark of laughter made her eardrums ring.
Nicky held the phone away from her head until he had finished.
‘Would you like to be more specific?’ she suggested sweetly, when she thought he might be able to hear her again.
‘Gladly.’ He launched into a list.
Nicky listened in gathering disbelief.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said when he finished. ‘That would mean every single appliance had gone wrong.’
‘Precisely,’ said Esteban Tremain.
In her astonishment Nicky forgot she had decided she loathed the man.
‘But they can’t have done. They’ve been checked. And they’re new.’
‘I certainly paid for new machines,’ he agreed suavely.
Nicky took a moment to assimilate that. ‘Are you suggesting-—?’
He interrupted again. ‘My dear girl, I am suggesting nothing.’
Of course, he was a lawyer, Nicky remembered with dislike. He knew exactly how to hint without actually accusing her or Springdown Kitchens of anything precise enough to be actionable.
Her voice shaking with fury, she said, ‘I object to the implication.’
‘Implication?’ His voice was smooth as cream. ‘What implication was that?’
‘Springdown Kitchens honour their contracts,’ Nicky said hotly. ‘If we charge you for new appliances, you get new appliances. You’re accusing us of installing substandard machines—’
‘Stop right there.’ It sliced across her tumbling speech like an ice axe. ‘I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Yet.’
Just that single word brought Nicky to a halt. She looked at her hand, gripping the telephone convulsively, and saw that she was shaking. Justified indignation, she assured herself.
But it did not feel like justified indignation. It felt as if she was a schoolgirl in a tantrum, not a serious professional dealing with an awkward client. Nicky breathed deeply.
She said, ‘You’d better take this up with Mr de Vries.’
‘As you may recall,’ Esteban Tremain said blandly, ‘that was exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.’
Nicky could not take any more. ‘I’ll tell him to call you as soon as I can catch him,’ she said curtly.
And flung the phone down before she screamed.
This time he did not call back.
It had made her late, of course. She had promised Ben she would be there at twelve-fifteen at the latest, before the little bistro filled up with the lunchtime trade. Ben hated to be crowded. Just as he hated to wait. Impatience ran in the family. Nicky gathered up her coat and bag with clumsy fingers. Caroline, having seen the phone call and its effect, wandered in.
‘Tremain again, I take it. That man thinks he only has to crook his little finger.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Have lunch,’ said Nicky, scribbling furiously on Martin’s notepad, just in case he came back during the lunch break.
Caroline was intrigued. ‘A date?’
Nicky tore off the note she had penned and stuck it over the top of Martin’s phone where he could not miss it, no matter how hard he tried. She looked up.
‘What price respect for personal privacy?’ she asked resignedly.
‘Never heard of it,’ Caroline said with a grin. Nicky bared her teeth and dived past her.
‘What will I do if Martin calls?’ Caroline yelled after her.
‘Tell him everything,’ Nicky called back. ‘It’s all in the note. Tell him I’ll deal with it if he wants. But not before lunch.’
She flung herself at the showroom door. Caroline followed her, grinning.
‘And what if the frustrated client turns up in person?’
A wicked light invaded Nicky’s eyes.
‘Tell Mr Tremain he’ll have to wait. I’m lunching with a man who won’t.’
HER brother was waiting outside the bistro, lost in thought Nicky broke into a run, calling his name. Ben looked up. He surged towards her, cleaving his way through the lunchtime crowd, and flung his arms wide.
It was an old joke. But Nicky felt oddly weepy as she ran full-tilt into them. Ben swung her off her feet with a rebel yell. Even on a rainy autumn street, dense with lunchtime crowds, heads turned; people smiled. He was so handsome, so full of life. He threw her into the air, looking up at her with a devilish grin.
‘Put me down,’ gasped Nicky. She was breathless, between laughter and unaccountable tears.
Ben only noticed the laughter. He returned her to the pavement and held her at arm’s length, surveying her appreciatively.
‘You look great,’ he said. ‘Even if you’re late.’
‘I know. I know,’ she said placatingly. ‘Sorry, I hit a natural disaster. Let’s eat.’
The waiter showed them to the small corner table for which Nicky had managed to wrest a reservation out of the management. He brought them water and menus and a carafe of wine while Nicky regaled Ben with the account of her battles with the difficult client.
It entertained him hugely.
‘Don’t know about a natural disaster. It sounds to me as if you’ve met your match,’ he said when she finished.
Nicky bridled. ‘Oh, no, I haven’t. He just—took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘It’s the only way,’ murmured Ben teasingly.
Nicky sent him a look that would have crushed him if he had been anyone but her brother. He laughed.
‘It’s good for you,’ he said hardily. ‘You’ve been getting downright bossy.’
Nicky laughed. They both knew what he meant.
Ben was twenty-eight to her twenty-six but sometimes she felt as if he was still a teenager. He had been in London for three years, living a rollercoaster life. One day he was living in the lap of luxury with an old mate and earning a fortune. The next, he was standing on Nicky’s doorstep at three in the morning without even the wherewithal to pay the taxi that had brought him.
Nicky always paid the cab, gave him a bed for the night and a loan to tide him over. It never took long. Normally Ben was on his way up again within a week.
He repaid her scrupulously and, as often as not, took her somewhere wildly expensive to celebrate the revival of his fortunes. And then she would not see him again until there was something else to celebrate or he was back at the bottom of the ride again. In fact Nicky had been wondering ever since he rang which it was this time.
But she knew him too well to ask a direct question. Instead, she let him pour wine for them both.
‘You know, sometimes I feel like a changeling,’ she