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‘But it’s everything to do with who you are,’ Ernesto pressed with quiet, steely insistence that gave a glimpse of the willpower it’d taken to nurture an overwhelming personality like Joao’s through the formative years of his life.
Joao didn’t immediately respond and for the first time, Saffie spotted a sliver of vulnerability in the eyes that zeroed in on her and stayed. ‘Joao? What are you talking about?’ she probed.
His gaze shifted away, and she was left with the peculiar sensation that he was hiding himself from her, protecting himself from exposure.
‘It seems I must rise to one final challenge,’ he said tersely.
They left the stadium as they’d arrived, in Joao’s helicopter. But with one further guest in the form of Ernesto, and a pregnant silence nobody seemed in the mood to break.
Flying north, they headed for the outskirts of Sao Paolo, where there were more wide open spaces than favelas and neat little houses that spoke to a middle-class neighbourhood. More untouched land spread beneath them for another few miles before the chopper started to descend.
The setting sun bathed the brand-new housing development in golden colour as they landed in a large, beautifully landscaped park.
Saffie knew all of Joao’s business concerns off the top of her head. This housing project wasn’t one of them.
‘Where are we?’ she asked after he helped her out.
Ernesto smiled. ‘Joao Cidade.’
Saffie’s eyes widened. ‘Joao City?’ she translated.
‘No one calls it that,’ Joao interjected briskly.
‘Except everyone who lives in it,’ Ernesto parried.
She’d counted thirty blocks, set at architecturally pleasing angles from each other. About a quarter of a mile away, cranes and diggers were busy constructing another development.
The grounds were paved and landscaped, the apartments the kind that would command several hundreds of thousands in London.
Even before the chopper’s rotors had quietened, a large group had formed in the park, families calling out to Joao in deferential greeting. He acknowledged the greetings with nods but he remained tense, his gaze darting repeatedly to Saffie’s as they toured the nearest block.
They passed a small garden where someone had carved Joao Cidade into a bench with hearts on either side.
Saffie stopped. ‘Joao City...you built this, didn’t you?’ she whispered.
‘He not only built and is still building five hundred homes per quarter, he gives them away free of charge to families from favelas all over Brazil every December,’ Ernesto expanded with unmistakeable pride.
Saffie’s jaw dropped. ‘You do?’
‘Extraordinary,’ Lavinia agreed. ‘Simply extraordinary.’
Joao said nothing, and when they entered an apartment large enough to comfortably house a mid-sized family, she watched him stride over to one window to look out onto a courtyard where a fountain splashed water onto cobbled stones.
‘How long has this been going on?’
He tensed at Saffie’s question and flicked her another neutral glance. ‘I started the process eight years ago. Bureaucratic red tape meant it took another two years to get off the ground. The first phase finished eighteen months after that.’
‘So you’ve been rehousing families for four years?’ Mild shock coloured her voice. For a man who didn’t want children and didn’t believe in families, it was staggering. And the hope that kept wanting to push through surged again. Enough to draw shaky breath into her lungs.
Perhaps something of what she was experiencing showed on her
face. He took a step towards her.
‘Saffie—’
They were interrupted by a small commotion at the front door. Turning, she saw a pregnant mother with two toddlers clutching at her skirts hesitantly address Joao.
When he gave a curt nod, she entered, and Saffie saw that she clutched a bouquet of flowers. Tears spilled from her eyes as she spoke in rapid Portuguese.
