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She said unevenly, ‘I suppose this is your doing. That you’re sending him to work in Melbourne.’
‘I respect my colleagues there too much to inflict Adam upon them.’ His tone was curt. ‘No, he is buying a partnership in the boat chartering business on the Gold Coast owned by his father and uncle by marriage. He leaves next week.’
She was leaning back against the desk, her hands gripping its edge so tightly that the oak bit into her palms.
She said, ‘After waiting all this time for Mannion, he’s throwing it away to go to Australia of all places? I don’t believe it.’
‘Why not?’ Zac’s shrug was negligent. ‘His father walked away. His mother too, for that matter.’
‘But he can’t just abandon it. If this move to Australia doesn’t work out, he’ll need Mannion to come back to.’
His mouth twisted. ‘On the contrary, mia bella, I think he abandoned it a long time ago, as you must have seen for yourself.’
‘Then why did he agree to the gift in the first place?’
He said quietly, ‘Serafina is an honourable woman who wished her husband’s home to remain with the Latimers but unburdened by extra taxation. When his father decided he preferred a life in the sun, Adam became the heir.
‘In the beginning, he was flattered. But it was not long before he began to think of the financial benefit it could bring him.’
‘You mean he’s planning to rent it out while he’s away?’ Dana asked with sudden eagerness.
‘No,’ Zac said. ‘That is not what I mean.’
‘Well, he can’t leave it empty, so he’ll have to put in caretakers.’ She began to smile. ‘Which is perfect, because whatever he’s paying them, I’ll do it for less—and do it better. That’s an offer he can’t refuse.’
‘And the job in London you do so well?’ Zac countered silkily. ‘What of that?’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she blazed at him. ‘You don’t see that the only thing that counts—that’s ever mattered to me—is Mannion. That I’ve wanted it all my life and that I’d do anything—make any sacrifice—to live here again. To look after it and bring it back to the way it used to be.’
‘You are wrong, mia bella,’ he said with a touch of grimness. ‘I have always known these things. Why else would we be having this conversation?’
She was barely listening. ‘I must get back to London. Talk to him.’
‘You would be wasting your time.’
‘You can’t say that,’ she returned defiantly. ‘He’ll be glad to leave Mannion in safe hands, so it will be here, waiting for him, when he realises Australia has been a mistake and comes home.’
‘This house is your passion, not his, Dana mia. He lives for surfing, and he is going to a place called Surfer’s Paradise.’
He added sardonically, ‘And I hope he does find it his personal Eden, as the PR world clearly has nothing more to offer him.’
‘It’s easy for you to sneer,’ she hit back. ‘The man who’s always had everything. The apple of his father’s eye.’
‘We Belisandros have worked for what we have,’ he said harshly. ‘Fought to maintain our commercial eminence through succeeding economic crises. Never think it has been easy—not with the futures of thousands of employees dependent on the decisions we make each day. It has been—essential.’
And living here is essential for me too, she thought. I can’t—I won’t let it go. Not after all these years of dreaming and planning.
But it was horribly apparent that she’d totally misjudged the nature of Adam’s ‘serious talk’.
None of it made any sense, she thought. Neither Nic nor Adam had ever seemed sufficiently enamoured of Sadie Latimer’s family to want any closer ties.
And while he was realising his error, she would be the greatest live-in caretaker in the world.
All I have to do is convince him, she thought, releasing her grip on the desk and flexing her aching fingers.
‘It’s time I was gone,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘And I mustn’t detain you either,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’m sure you have other places to be—saving the economy.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not. Besides, I understood you wished to talk to me and so far we have spoken only of Adam.’
‘Mrs Harris has made a mistake,’ she said. ‘I asked for the master of the house.’
