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Lydia gave a startled cry and whipped round.
‘Because they love them?’ Nicolas Regan-Phillips said, leaning against the kitchen doorway, looking much more like the photograph Izzy had found than he had the day before. He wore a sharp and very conventional pinstripe suit. Power dressing at its most effective.
And he was handsome. Her sister’s words popped into her mind and she silently cursed her. The resemblance to her favorite actor was really very superficial, but it was there all the same.
‘I—I came to feed the cat.’ Lydia turned away and pulled back the loop on the tin, irritated at the slight nervous stutter. Where had that come from? And, more importantly, why?
‘So did I.’ He placed a brown paper bag down on the draining board.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I—’ She stopped herself, swinging round to look up at him as a new thought occurred to her. ‘How did you get in?’
He held up a key. ‘Front door.’
‘Oh.’ Lydia cursed herself for the inanity of her reply. Of course he would have Wendy’s key. He would have needed it to lock up the cottage. What was the matter with her?
She carefully scooped out the contents of the tin with a spoon, aware that Nick continued to watch her. He made her feel uncomfortable, as though, perhaps, she’d been caught out doing something he considered wrong rather than the good deed she’d intended. ‘I suddenly remembered I’d seen a cat. I couldn’t leave it to starve,’ she said, glancing up.
He really did have the most inscrutable face. Normally she was good at picking up emotional nuances—but Nicholas Regan-Phillips seemed to short circuit some connection and she was left uncertain.
On balance he didn’t seem as angry as he’d been yesterday. More suspicious. She looked away. It probably wasn’t anything personal. He had a reputation for avoiding journalists and for protecting his privacy. Lydia swilled out the empty tin under the tap. ‘Does Wendy have a recycling bin?’
‘I imagine so.’
Lydia looked up in time to catch his swift frown. If she puzzled him she was glad. He certainly puzzled her. What had he to do with Wendy Bennington? She hadn’t managed to discover any connection at all. It was a mystery—and mysteries really bugged her.
‘Shall I leave this on the side then?’
‘I’m sure that’ll be fine.’
Lydia carefully placed the tin at the back of the draining board and rinsed the spoon. ‘How’s Wendy?’
There was a small beat of silence while, it seemed, he evaluated her right to ask the question. ‘Better than she looked yesterday.’
Lydia glanced over her shoulder, a question in her eyes.
‘She’s had a TIA. A mini-stroke, if you like. She’ll be fine.’ His mouth quirked into a half-smile. It was a nice mouth, firm and sensual. ‘No permanent damage, but she’s been told to make some life changes.’
‘That’s…fantastic.’
His smile broadened and something inside her flickered in recognition. ‘I’d love to hear you try and convince her of that.’
‘When will she be home?’
‘Well—’ he stretched out the word ‘—that depends on who you speak to. She’s broken her ankle. It’s a fairly simple break, apparently, and doesn’t need surgery, but…’
Lydia looked around her and then down at the uneven floor levels.
Nick followed her gaze. ‘Exactly. She’s not going to manage here for a few weeks, however much she’d rather be in her own home.’
‘No,’ Lydia agreed. She placed the clean bowl back on the floor and picked up the other one. ‘So, who’s won?’
‘The cards are stacked in my favour. I’m here to pick up Nimrod. Hopefully lure him in with food.’
Lydia emptied the water into the sink and put in some fresh. ‘That’s the cat?’
‘Nimrod, the mighty hunter,’ Nick agreed, moving away into the hall, his voice slightly muffled. ‘I gather his namesake was Noah’s great-grandson.’ He reappeared moments later, carrying a cat basket.
‘Great name,’ she said, smiling at the incongruous sight of a city gent with rustic cat basket.
‘Certainly appropriate. He’s something of a killer cat. Wendy picked him up as a stray a couple of years ago, only he turned out not to be so much a waif as a con artist. If it moves, Nimrod will hunt it. There never was a cat more suited to life in the wild.’
Lydia laughed. ‘Good luck getting it into that thing then,’ she said with a gesture at the cat basket.
‘So Wendy’s warned me,’ he said, setting it down on the kitchen table.
She rinsed her hands under the tap. ‘I’m glad it’s all sorted. It suddenly occurred to me, after I’d left, that you might forget about…Nimrod. I was going to contact you today.’
‘How?’
She looked up, surprised by the abrupt single word question. ‘It wouldn’t have been too difficult. A call to your company…’
His nod was almost imperceptible, but she could see his attitude towards her change. ‘I thought you didn’t know who I was.’
‘I didn’t, but you have an Internet presence—’
‘And you checked.’
Lydia thought of Izzy and smiled, deciding that she wouldn’t tell him that her description of him had inspired her sister with a burning fascination to discover who had managed to rile her so much. There’d been little enough information to find, nothing he could object to.
He was thirty-six and divorced. His only child, a daughter, lived with her mother and he was hugely successful at what he did. Nothing particularly unusual in any of that.
‘Do you always pry into other people’s business?’
‘Pretty much.’ She looked about her for a towel on which to dry her hands. ‘It’s an occupational hazard. But, this time, you’ve got to acknowledge I was invited to pry.’
‘Not by me.’
‘By Wendy.’ She turned to face him. ‘Though I dispute the use of the word pry.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you?’
‘She’s led an amazing life. Don’t you think it’s in the public interest to have that properly chronicled? What she’s achieved, particularly for women, is amazing.’
‘I think what’s deemed to be “in the public interest” is stretched beyond belief,’ he said dryly, ‘but that’s not to undermine what Wendy has achieved.’
‘Can’t argue with that, I suppose—but I’m not here as a representative of any tabloid paper. Wendy will have complete control over what I write about her and, as long as it’s truthful, I’ve no problem with that.’
‘No?’
‘Absolutely not.’
She sounded aghast, but Nick knew better. Confronting Lydia Stanford was like coming up against a snake in the grass. You could never trust her. Never.
Very early in her career she’d worked undercover to highlight the ill treatment of the elderly in care homes and, while you couldn’t question the validity of her findings…you had to be suspicious of her ability to lie. And lie convincingly enough for colleagues to trust her.
Wendy might be impressed by her ability to stick to her purpose, of owning a cause and staying with it, whatever the personal cost—but he suspected a different motivation lay at the heart of it. He suspected her only cause was herself—Lydia Stanford. And where was the virtue in that?
She carefully folded the towel and threaded it back through the loop. ‘So how do you know Wendy?’
‘You don’t give up, do you?’
Lydia smiled, her eyes the colour of topaz. Warm and beguiling. ‘It’s usually easier to give in and tell me what I want to know.’
He turned away as though that would stop him being drawn in. ‘She’s my godmother.’
‘Really?’
‘I have the rattle to prove it.’
She laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made him wish she was a different woman—and they were in a different situation. He ran an irritated hand through his hair. He’d been celibate for far too long. That rich throaty chuckle was exactly what could make him forget who and what she was.
‘Actually, that’s a lie. She didn’t give me a rattle. I received two engraved napkin rings and a boxed china bowl and plate set from the other two.’
‘And from Wendy?’
‘A copy of the Bible, the Koran and the complete works of William Shakespeare.’
He watched the way her eyes crinkled into laughter. She was dangerous. You could easily relax in her company, forget that she used anyone and everyone near her to further her career—even a vulnerable sister.
People often described him as ruthless, but he would never have taken something so intensely personal and used it to advance his career. Lydia Stanford might claim that her sister had made a complete recovery, but he doubted it.
Betrayal was painful—acutely painful—and when it came so close to home it was difficult to ever recover from it. He had personal experience of it and her Anastasia Wilson jacket was a visual reminder.
Better to remember how that betrayal had felt. Better to remember how much pain the woman who’d decreed that jacket should be in precisely that caramel colour had inflicted. It didn’t matter that it exactly picked out a shade in Lydia Stanford’s long hair. Or that it accentuated a narrow waist and visually lengthened her legs.
It was a warning. And only a fool would ignore it.
‘Have you read them?’
‘What?’ He brought Lydia back into focus. Her lips parted into a smile, showing her even teeth. The woman was stunning. Like a sleek lioness. A mixture of sunshine and fire.
‘Have you read them all yet? The Bible, the Koran and the complete works of Shakespeare?’
‘By the age of thirty-two.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘I’ve never used the napkin rings, though,’ he returned and was rewarded by the same sexy laugh. Hell, it did something to his insides that didn’t bear thinking about.
He closed his hand round the handle of the cat basket. ‘Have you seen Nimrod?’
‘Not yet, but I’m sure he’ll come in for food some time. He can’t have had anything to eat since yesterday morning.’
Nick glanced down at his wristwatch. ‘He’ll have to do it in the next twenty minutes or I’ll be out of time.’ He strode over to the back door and called.
‘Do cats come when you call?’
He looked over his shoulder. ‘No idea.’ Lydia was smiling, bright eyes ready to laugh and, God help him, he wanted to laugh back.
‘Look, why don’t you let me try and catch Nimrod? I can stay until he comes in for food.’
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that. I—’
‘Why ever not?’ She shook back her hair. ‘You’re obviously busy and I’m on holiday.’
‘On holiday?’
Her smile twisted. ‘I should be in Vienna. I flew back when I heard Wendy wanted me to write her biography.’
‘You broke off your holiday?’ He couldn’t quite believe it. What a pointless gesture. His godmother would have been more than happy to wait. There was nothing so important about the precise timing of this meeting which meant it couldn’t have been postponed.
‘Guilty as charged. Over-developed work ethic.’ She smiled, but this time it didn’t have the same effect. Nick could see a different face.
It was none of his business whether or not Lydia Stanford chose to curtail her holiday, but it reminded him of Ana. Still, four years after she’d left, he thought about her most days. There were reasons for that, of course. Good reasons.
In the three years they’d been married Ana had never taken a holiday. Had never turned off her cellphone. It was a price she’d been prepared to pay to achieve her goals. He couldn’t deny she’d been totally honest about that from the very beginning, and at the start he’d admired her for it.
Presumably Lydia Stanford would agree that that kind of commitment was necessary. They were wrong.
‘I’ve got the laptop in the car. I can work here and drive Nimrod over to you later.’ She looked across at him. ‘It’s not a problem.’
Nick glanced down at his watch. It was tempting to accept her offer. He had back-to-back meetings scheduled for the morning and paperwork that really needed looking at after that, besides squeezing in a visit to the hospital. But to accept meant…
She seemed to read his mind. ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t take it as an endorsement of your godmother’s choice of biographer.’ She met his eyes. ‘By the way, what is your problem with me?’
‘Have I said there’s a problem?’ he countered.
‘You haven’t needed to. It’s obvious.’
He hesitated. ‘Wendy is capable of making her own decisions. In fact, she would strongly resent my interference in what doesn’t concern me.’
Even in his own head his reply sounded pompous and formal. Famed for his ‘tell it like it is’ approach to business, how had he become so verbally challenged when confronted by a beautiful…?
What was she? Not a blonde or a brunette. Richer than a blonde and lighter than a brunette.
‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’
He looked up.
