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He nodded musingly, bringing the car to a stop at a junction. ‘It was fun.’
‘Wasn’t it? Saying that, my arms are killing me after all that tomato throwing.’ She eyed him suggestively. ‘I think I need a good massage.’
His hand drifted over to her thigh and gently squeezed. ‘I’m sure I can think of a good masseur.’
‘I’m sure you can.’
With his hand resting on her thigh, she rested her head against the window and closed her eyes with a contented sigh. ‘Do you know how the ticket sales for the fundraiser are going?’ she asked.
Raul had got a team of his people to organise the fundraiser, for which they were charging obscenely rich people obscenely high ticket prices. Charley was fully involved in the practicalities but not with the ticket sales.
She heard the clicking of his tongue on the roof of his mouth. ‘I was waiting for the right moment to share this with you,’ he said in a chiding voice.
‘Oh, just tell me!’
‘We’ve sold out.’
‘No way!’ If the traffic hadn’t chosen that moment to start moving again, she would have thrown herself at him. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘I have a good team.’
She hugged her arms, doing the maths in her head. ‘Ticket sales alone will guarantee everyone’s salary is paid for the next two years.’
‘By the time the fundraiser is over, you’ll be able to guarantee salaries for the next decade.’ He laughed.
That made her sit up. ‘Wow. Just think, with those kinds of funds we’ll be able to afford more staff and start taking teenagers in. The builders are dividing the building into two separate parts so there can be adolescent quarters, but we never thought we’d be able to start taking them this soon.’
‘You can start paying yourself a salary too,’ he said lightly.
‘I don’t know about that.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t sit right. I’ve got enough money left that, if I’m careful, should last me a long while yet.’
‘You have two hundred thousand euros, which you were prepared to give to the new centre, not loan. If you’d been successful in raising the rest of the money by other means, you would have been left penniless.’
‘How do you...? Oh, yes, you read my finance report.’ She’d listed on it how much of her own money she’d intended to contribute to the project, which had basically been everything in her account and her jewellery, all of which she’d sold with the exception of her wedding and engagement rings. As sentimental as she’d known it to be, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to part with them.
‘So you are intending to stay at the centre?’
‘What else can I do?’
‘You can start by drawing a salary. God knows, you work hard enough.’
‘Hardly. I just joke around and make the kids laugh.’ That was about all she was good for, she thought, her mood suddenly darkening.
‘You do a lot more than that.’
She shrugged.
‘Charlotte, if it wasn’t for you, the children wouldn’t have a new centre to look forward to and the staff would be job-hunting as we speak.’
‘If it wasn’t for you, you mean.’ While she had spent two months beating at doors to get the funding, putting an immediate freeze on personal spending other than on the bare necessities, selling anything of value, boiling her brain over design plans and finance reports, Raul had swept in and taken care of everything as easily as if he were taking a shower.
He drove them through the gate to the hangar. The Cazorla helicopter sat ahead of them, gleaming in the early evening sun. ‘You did all the hard work. The renovations are being done according to your plans. Vittore has adapted them a little but it’s still your work. Take the credit for it. You’ve earned it.’
‘Twaddle. I didn’t do anything that anyone else couldn’t have done.’
He banged his fist on the steering wheel, making her jump.
‘When,’ he said tightly, ‘are you going to stop putting yourself down?’
‘I’m not putting myself down,’ she protested. ‘I’m just saying that anyone else in my position would have done the same.’
He pulled the car to a stop and gazed at her with an intensity that sent a not unpleasant shiver running up her spine.
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think many people in your position would have done the same.’
She swallowed, staring at him, trying to read what lay behind the intensity.
‘Sometimes, Señora Cazorla, I look at you and I remember exactly why I fell in love with you.’
