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She could feel his words all over her. Sliding over her skin and slinking through her veins. He hadn’t meant it like that, but she couldn’t stop hearing the words echoing in her head, over and over...
His future wife. As if it could be her. As if she wanted it to be her.
She’d spent her whole life certain that she would never want that. People let each other down and betrayed each other—that was just human nature. They only wanted to know another person if there was something in it for themselves.
Except, perhaps, a very rare few—like Eleanor Jarvis, the closest thing Effie had ever had to a loving maternal figure. And look what had happened to her.
‘What about sex?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Are you offering?’
That sinful curve of his mouth was almost her undoing. ‘No!’
‘Relax. I’m teasing. No sex.’
‘And kissing?’
She hoped her cheeks didn’t flush as she recalled the spine-tingling kiss they’d shared outside her apartment door that night.
‘Not even a superficial air-kiss,’ he answered solemnly.
She narrowed her eyes. It sounded suspiciously as if he was teasing her.
‘Good,’ she offered at last.
She didn’t even sound as if she believed herself. But if Tak wanted to offer her and Nell a roof over their heads, as long as his gain wasn’t their downfall surely she could live with that?
* * *
‘This is where he lives?’ Nell whispered beside her as they both stood outside the house, staring up in undisguised shock. Suddenly she sounded small and...thirteen.
Their argument during the drive over here had been momentarily forgotten and Effie was grateful. She wasn’t sure she had the energy for dealing with living in Tak’s home as well as for another full-scale debate on why she was refusing to let her daughter attend the birthday party of a girl Effie had never met before.
Fortunately, the sight of the former seemed to have rather knocked the latter into the dirt, and Nell kept on staring up, her hand moving to clutch her mother’s arm.
Effie didn’t blame her. The place was imposing. Unquestionably huge and unfeasibly stunning. And yet somehow it was also surprisingly inviting.
How it achieved that Effie couldn’t quite be sure, but the arresting building seemed to ooze the personality of its owner through every substantial wall, every imposing sheet of glass and every single breathtaking view of the lush countryside.
‘It’s like...like a castle or something.’
It wasn’t. For a start it was far too modern, too sleek. But Effie could understand what her daughter meant. To a girl who had been brought up with as few material goods as Effie had
been able to give her this must seem like something out of a fairy tale.
Heck, if it hadn’t been for the unwelcome memories flooding her brain even to her it would have felt like something unbelievably enchanting and idyllic. But instead her stomach heaved and churned.
She felt like a thirteen-year-old herself, although her reactions were a lot more emotionally charged than her daughter’s. How many times had she stood in a stranger’s hallway, a battered duffel bag—which she’d held onto because somehow it reminded her of where she’d come from, and how hard she’d struggled to get to where she was now—in her hand, staring around at another person’s home and plastering a stiff smile on her lips in gratitude that they were deigning to let her into it.
‘It can’t all be his, Mum. I bet they’re luxury apartments and he just has one of them.’
Effie didn’t agree, but before she could say anything the front door swung open. A man stood on the doorstep, looking down on them. He was about fifty years old, perhaps sixty, in a dark, neat suit, his shoes polished to within an inch of their lives, and his face neutral. Some might say carefully so.
‘Dr Robinson? And this must be Miss Robinson.’
It took Effie a moment to realise that she should step forward. ‘Um...yes. That’s right. You can call me Effie, and this is Nell. And you are Mr Havers?’
‘Just Havers,’ he stated crisply. ‘Now, Dr Robinson, allow me to show you and Miss Robinson around—unless you’d prefer to go directly to your wing? Mr Basu hopes that you will be comfortable here.’
