Pacific Heat

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He hadn’t, actually. Quite the reverse, but she didn’t contradict him. She had no desire to arrive at Diane’s estate while he was in this mood. If she wasn’t careful he’d be crying on her shoulder. God knew what Diane would say if she found out

She wished he’d pull himself together and stop treating her like an accomplice. As if the only reason she’d come here was to be with him. She drew an uneven breath. She was beginning to wonder what she’d ever seen in him. Had he always blamed other people when things went wrong?

The memory of what he’d said when they’d been trying to have a family returned to haunt her. Although they’d both had tests and there’d seemed no reason why they shouldn’t have a baby, she knew he’d blamed her. And perhaps it was her fault, she reflected. They’d probably never know. And at that time she’d been far more willing to blame herself.

‘I meant what I said, you know, Liv,’ he muttered, attracting her attention. ‘I have missed you more than you’ll ever know. Leaving you was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. I wanted to tell you that right from the start.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have!’ exclaimed Olivia hotly, convinced that Manuel could hear what he was saying. He had no right to involve her in his marital problems, whatever excuse he thought he had. She chewed her lip. She suspected his confession was a deliberate attempt to gain her sympathy, and also make her a party to his resentment whether she liked it or not.

‘I can’t help myself.’ he told her now, and once again she had to suffer his efforts to touch her. His arm along the back of the seat descended onto her shoulders and she felt his fingers stroking her neck. ‘I know I hurt you, Liv, but I’m hoping you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. The love we shared—I can’t believe we let it go.’

‘You let it go, Richard,’ said Olivia flatly, removing his arm from her shoulder and shifting onto the opposite seat. She glanced about her. ‘Is it much further?’

Richard heaved a heavy sigh. ‘No,’ he said, and although his tone was sulky Olivia was relieved. Sulky was acceptable; tearful wasn’t. She gave a slight shake of her head. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

The limousine began to slow a few minutes later, and as Olivia glanced round to see where they were Manuel turned between wrought-iron gates that had opened at their approach. A long curving drive confronted them, hedged with laurel and acacia, and she felt her nerves tighten as they drove up to the house.

A pillared façade of cream sandstone confronted them. Within its shadows, a shaded loggia stretched along the front of the house. Built on two floors, its many windows protected by terracotta-painted shutters, it was large and impressive, with a wealth of flowering shrubs and trees surrounding its manicured lawns.

‘Well, this is it,’ said Richard sardonically as Manuel got out of his seat to open the rear doors. The Villa Mariposa. Are you ready to meet your employer?’

‘She’s not my employer,’ said Olivia, rather too vehemently, and was annoyed when Richard’s lips curved in a knowing smile.

‘No, she’s not,’ he applauded, ‘and don’t you let her forget it.’ He clutched her arm, and she was forced to follow him out of the car. ‘Go for it, Liv,’ he added softly. ‘I knew you weren’t as indifferent to me as you pretended.’

Olivia dragged her arm away as soon as she was able, aware that once again Manuel was watching their exchange with curious eyes. And who could blame him? she thought, regarding Richard with some frustration. This was hard enough without Richard making it worse.

The doors at the top of the shallow flight of steps had opened, and Olivia glanced somewhat apprehensively in that direction. But she saw to her relief that it was just a maid who stood there, dressed in a navy uniform and a white apron.

She gestured for Olivia to come up the steps and offered a polite smile as they entered a cool marble-floored reception hall with an arched ceiling stretching up two floors. At its peak, a circular stained-glass window cast a rainbow shaft of sunlight down into the hall, while the gentle hum of air-conditioning prevented any surge of heat.

‘Mees Haran is waiting by the pool, Mees Pyatt,’ she said, inviting Olivia to follow her. And her announcement solved Olivia’s other problem of what to call Richard’s wife.

‘Thank you.’

Olivia shouldered her tote bag, and, not caring whether Richard was following them or not, she accompanied the maid across the hall. An arched doorway exposed several steps down into a sunlit garden room, where a pair of glass doors stood wide to a flagged terrace. Rattan tables and chairs stood in the shade of the upstairs balcony, and a pair of inquisitive sparrows picked crumbs from between the stones.

There were flowers everywhere, Olivia noticed. In pots and planters in the garden room, in tubs and hanging baskets on the terrace, and climbing over the columns that supported the balcony above. The scent was glorious, but perhaps a little overpowering, and she was glad when they descended more steps and she glimpsed the aquamarine waters of the pool glinting below them.

She saw Diane at once.

The woman she had never expected to meet again was propped on a cushioned lounge chair, with a huge yellow umbrella protecting her from the direct rays of the sun. Although she must have known that Olivia had arrived, she didn’t look in her direction. Her attention was focussed on a child who was splashing about at the edge of the pool beside her.

Her child?

Olivia caught her breath. If it was, it had been a well-kept secret. She couldn’t believe she wouldn’t have heard about Diane’s having a child if it had appeared in the press. Richard’s child, too? she wondered, aware of a not unnatural sense of envy. Not for the fact that it was Richard’s child, she assured herself, but because she would have so much liked a child of her own.

Diane had evidently heard the sound of her feet on the tiled apron, and with another quick word to her companion she got smoothly to her feet. In a one-piece bathing suit with exotic orchids adorning its navy background, she looked magnificent. No sign of excess flesh here, thought Olivia ruefully. Diane was every bit as beautiful as she recalled.

‘Hi,’ Diane said, by way of a greeting, coming to meet her. Her bare feet left damp patches on the tiles, revealing that she had been in the water, too. It made her seem more human, somehow, Olivia thought, aware of how tense she was feeling. No statue, this, but a living, breathing woman.

‘Hello.’

The word stuck in Olivia’s throat, making any further speech impossible at that moment, and she glanced behind her, half hoping that Richard was there. But if she’d expected his support she was disappointed. She and Diane were alone together, apart from the child.

‘I’m so glad you agreed to come.’ Diane pushed a hand through the sun-streaked cap of blonde hair that curved confidingly in at her chin. The action was unstudied, but so elegant that Olivia could only admire her composure. ‘Ms Pyatt—or may I call you Olivia?—you probably won’t believe this, but I’m hoping we can be friends.’

Olivia felt the hot colour invading her cheeks and despised herself for it. It was Diane who should be feeling uncomfortable here, not her. But Diane was probably used to handling difficult interviews, and she wasn’t. Indeed, the other woman’s casual approach took her breath away.

‘I don’t think that’s possible, Ms Haran,’ she declared now, swinging her tote bag off her shoulder and allowing it to hang from its straps in front of her knees like a shield.

‘Well—we’ll see,’ said Diane, with an enigmatic little smile. She indicated the chair beside hers. ‘Why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk about it? Oh, and call me Diane. Ms Haran is far too formal.’

Olivia drew a breath. In fact, what she really wanted to do was turn around and go back to the hotel. Her anticipation of this meeting had not prepared her for Diane’s familiarity, and she wondered now what she had expected from Richard’s wife.

But the sun was hot, and she knew she shouldn’t take unnecessary risks by standing in its glare. Besides, however surreal this seemed, she had come here to do a job. Unless she was prepared to be sued for breach of contract, she had to do as Diane said and accept the status quo.

Nevertheless, she seated herself on the next but one chair to Diane’s, grateful for the shade offered by its striped canopy and the distance it put between them. With her face in shadow, her colour subsided, and she opened her tote bag and extracted her notebook and tape recorder.

Meanwhile, Diane had approached the child again, who was still hanging onto the tiles at the side of the pool. He was a little boy, Olivia saw as Diane lifted him out. Dark-haired and dark-skinned, with a mischievous smile that exposed several missing teeth.

‘Go and find your mother,’ Diane advised him, after wrapping a fluffy towel about his shoulders. ‘My maid,’ she added, by way of an explanation as the boy ran off. ‘She and Manuel have three grown-up sons. Antonio is their baby.’

‘Ah.’

Olivia nodded, making a play of checking that there were batteries in the recorder. But Diane’s careless clarification had answered her question. Not Richard’s son, but Manuel’s.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Diane had seated herself again and was regarding her with enquiring eyes and Olivia wondered what she was really thinking. Was this any easier for her than it was for Olivia? Was she really as indifferent to her feelings as she’d like to appear?

‘Oh, I don’t think—’

‘Oh, yes, let’s have some coffee.’ Without waiting for her guest to finish, Diane got up again and pressed a button that Olivia now saw was set into the wall beside a row of changing cabanas. She came back and sat down again. ‘I think we should get to know one another before we start work.’