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‘I am quite sure you do.’
‘But my problem is, I don’t want to devote twenty per cent of my life to the pursuit of polished perfection, the sort of gloss that can’t be achieved without good lighting and a master class in make-up. I wouldn’t do that for any man.’
‘You think that’s what I want in a woman?’
‘I think that’s what you and most obscenely wealthy menexpectin a woman,’ she countered.
‘So basically I’m shallow.’
‘You’re obscenely rich.’
It was pretty obvious she had based this harsh judgement of the ‘obscenelyrich’ on him. It came as a shock to know how the woman he had worked with for four years had been silently judging him. The question was, did he deserve it?
Ezio brushed away the question. The only reason to find out would be if he wanted to change—and he didn’t.
‘I wasn’t talking about you...’
She stopped digging. They both knew she was, and why should she worry? It wasn’t as if Ezio was going to cry into his pillow because she wasn’t giving him a five-star review.
‘Shall we just say joke over...? It’s crazy...?’ The upward lilt on the last syllable that turned her statement into a question made him give a smug grin.
‘Audacious and actually, when you think about it, totally logical. I know you like logic.’ He knew she considered herself the voice of reason, and there had been occasions when she had been.
‘I’m simply not a risk taker.’
‘You’re capable, smart and have no great opinion of...well, me, but I also believe you are pragmatic. This might not be a palatable solution to you but it is a solution,’ he pointed out, appreciating the novelty value of having to sell a prospect that any number of women would have spent a lot of time and energy trying to bring about.
‘You are proposing this seriously...it’s not a joke?’
‘You’re not normally five steps behind.’
‘No, just two.’
Her dry rejoinder drew a slow grin before it faded quickly as he continued, all brisk and business-like. ‘Obviously we can come to some sort of severance agreement upfront which will give you and your brother financial security.’
‘But I can’t just transplant us. There are schools and...’
He smiled to himself. He knew that schools would earn him points. ‘Actually, I know of a school within traveling distance of the villa. It has an international reputation and an...eclecticapproach to education. It has a child-first policy, the ethos is—’
‘You seem to know a lot about this place.’ Comprehension dawned on her face. ‘You went there?’
‘Let’s just say I was not thriving in the school my father and his father before him went to.’ It was one of the rare occasions when his mother had defied her husband and insisted that there was a tradition in her family too, one that said children should not be unhappy. ‘I spent my last three years in school there.’
‘And that is a recommendation...? Sorry,’ she said, instantly remorseful. ‘That was below the belt.’
His smile was rueful. ‘Do not worry, I can take it. I was simply pointing out that there is no need to see problems where there are none.’
‘This place sounds expensive.’
‘It is, but that will not be a problem for you now or in the future. In fact, money would never be an issue for you again. Or your brother,’ he emphasised, watching her face, well aware that her devotion to her sibling was the edge he needed, and having no qualms about exploiting this weakness.
‘Villa, you said. Villa...?’ Am Ireallyconsidering this?
‘My home—’
‘Oneof them,’ Tilda interrupted, going through a mental inventory of his penthouse apartments in several cities, the estate in Surrey that she had seen photos of in a glossy magazine, and where she knew for a fact that he had never spent a night. She suspected he’d never even seen it.
It was an investment; he had no emotional attachment to it. He had no emotional attachment to anything. Did he even know what a home was? A home in her mind was what she shared with Sam—the place her parents had bought when they’d first married. It held memories and it was Sam’s security.
