CHAPTER THREE
MATIASLOWEREDHISstunning dark eyes. So she either had no idea what kind of man her father was or she knew perfectly well enough and was tainted with the very same streak of greed, hence her enthusiasm for him to plough money into the man.
He wondered whether, over time and with her father’s finances going down the drain faster than water running down a plughole, she had found herself an accidental victim of his limited resources. She had just declared that her father had supported her and her mother and Matias had struggled to contain a roar of derisive laughter at that. But she could have been telling the truth. Perhaps the dilapidated car and the debt owed to the bank were the result of diminishing handouts. She might have been an illegitimate child but it was possible that Carney had privately doted on her, bearing in mind that his own marriage had failed to yield any issue. Advertising a child outside marriage might have been no big deal for many men, but a man like Carney would have been too conscious of his social standing to have been comfortable acknowledging her publicly.
For a moment and just a moment, he wondered whether he could notch up some extra retribution and publicly shame the man by exposing a hidden illegitimate child, but he almost immediately dismissed it because it was...somehow unsavoury. Especially, he thought, shielding the expression in his dark eyes, when the woman sitting in front of him emanated innocence in waves. There was such a thing as a plan backfiring and, were a picture of her to be printed in any halfway decent rag, a sympathetic public would surely take one look at that disingenuous, sensationally sincere face and casthimin the role of the bad guy. Besides, Carney’s close friends doubtless knew of the woman’s existence already.
‘I will certainly think about contacting your father,’ Matias intoned smoothly, watching her like a hawk. He became more and more convinced that she was playing him for a sap because she was suddenly finding it seemingly impossible to meet his eyes. ‘Now, you’ve looked at the menu. Tell me whether you think you’re up to handling it.’
Sophie breathed a sigh of relief at the change of subject. She hated the little white lie she had told, even though she was surely justified in telling it. Matias might be disgustingly rich and arrogant but he still didn’t deserve to be deceived into believing her father was an honourable guy. On the other hand, if the choice was between her brother’s future safety and well-being and Matias investing some money he wouldn’t ever miss, then her brother was going to win hands down every time.
But that didn’t mean that she’d liked telling Matias that fib.
She jumped onto the change of topic with alacrity. ‘Absolutely.’ She looked around her at the expensive gadgets, the speckled white counters, the vast cooking range. ‘And it helps that your kitchen is so well equipped. Did you plan on doing lots of entertaining here when you bought the house?’
‘Actually, I didn’t buy the house. I had it built for me.’ He went to the fridge, extracted a bottle of chilled white wine and poured her a glass. It seemed wildly extravagant to be consuming alcohol at this hour of the afternoon but she needed to steady her nerves, which were all over the place. ‘And I had no particular plans to use the space for entertaining. I simply happen to enjoy having a lot of open space around me.’
‘Lucky you,’ Sophie sighed. After two sips of wine, she was already feeling a little less strung out. ‘Julie and I would have a field day if we had this sort of kitchen. I’ve done the best with what I’ve got, but getting all the right equipment to fit into my kitchen has been a squeeze and if the business really takes off, then we’re definitely going to have to move to bigger premises.’
Matias wondered whether that was why she had encouraged him to contact her father and put some work his way. Was it because she would be the happy beneficiary of such an arrangement?
Suspicious by nature and always alert to the threat of someone trying it on, he found it very easy to assume the worst of her, in defiance of the disingenuous manner she had. Judge a book by its cover and you almost always ended up being taken for a ride.
Not only did he have the example of his father to go on, who had paid the ultimate price for judging a book by its cover, but he, Matias, had made one and only one catastrophic misjudgement in his heady youth. On the road to the vast riches that would later be his and caught up in the novel situation of being sought after by men far older than himself who wanted to tap his financial acumen, he had fallen for a girl who had seemed to be grounded in the sort of normality he had fast been leaving behind. Next to the savvy beauties who had begun forming a queue for him, she had seemed the epitome of innocence. She had turned down presents, encouraged him to sideline the sort of fancy venues that were opening up on his horizon and professed a burning desire to go to the movies and share a bag of popcorn. No boring Michelin restaurants for her!
She had played the long game and he had been thoroughly taken in until she had sprung a pregnancy scare on him. Talk had turned to marriage pretty quickly after that and God knew he might just have ended up making the biggest mistake of his life and tying the knot had he not discovered the half-used packet of contraceptive pills in her handbag. Quite by accident. Only then, when he had confronted her, had her true colours emerged.
That narrow escape had been a turning point for him. A momentary lapse, he had discovered, was all it took for your life to derail. Momentary lapses would never again occur and they hadn’t. Matias ruled his own life with a rod of steel and emotions were never allowed free rein. He took what he needed out of life and discarded what ceased to be of use to him.
Art was the only person on earth who knew about that brief but shameful episode and so it would remain. Matias had had little time for the perils of emotional roller-coaster rides, having grown up as witness to the way his father’s emotional and trusting nature had led him down a blind alley, and his disastrous love affair had been the final nail in the coffin, after which he had entombed his heart in ice and that was exactly the way he liked it.
‘You said you’ve only been in the catering business for a year and a half. What prompted the change of career?’
‘We both enjoyed cooking.’ Sophie realised that her glass of wine was empty and he appeared to have topped it up. She moved to sit at the wonderful kitchen table fashioned from black granite and metal. ‘We became accustomed to friends asking us to cater for them and bit by bit we came to the conclusion that, in the long run, we might very well be better off doing something we both loved and were good at. Julie was fed up with her teaching job and I guess I just wanted a change of career.’
‘It must have been a leap of faith for you. Changing career that dramatically takes guts.’ Had she embarked on that career change with the mistaken impression that her father was still wealthy enough to fund her? Had she had to resort to borrowing from the bank when she found herself out of a job and unable to turn to her parent for a handout? Was that why she was struggling financially?
Lucas knew that James Carney’s financial position had been poor for a few years.
‘Maybe. Haven’tyouever had to change career or were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth?’ she asked.
‘You say that as though you’re not familiar with that situation yourself.’
‘I’m not,’ Sophie said flatly and Matias looked at her through narrowed eyes.
‘I confess I find that hard to believe, given your father’s elevated lifestyle.’
‘I’d really rather not talk about him,’ Sophie hedged warily.
‘You don’t like talking about your father? Why is that? I grant you, it must have been a nuisance living in the shadows, if indeed that was the case, but surely if, as you say, he helped you and your mother through the years...well, he must be quite a character because many men in a similar situation would have walked away from their responsibility.’
Sophie muttered something inaudible that might have been agreement or dissent.
‘Of course, life must be altogether easier for you now,’ Matias continued conversationally. ‘I gather his wife died some years ago, so presumably he has taken you under his wing...’
‘We don’t have that sort of relationship,’ Sophie admitted stiffly and Matias’s ears pricked up.
‘No?’ he encouraged. ‘Tell me about him. The reason I ask is simple. If I’m to have any financial dealings with him, it would be useful to try and understand the sort of person he is.’
