In the Brazilian's Debt(41)

                Because she had ignored her mother’s warning that Chico was poison?

                She couldn’t believe that. She wouldn’t believe anything bad about Chico, but she’d been so young at the time of the scandal it was hard to be sure of the facts. She could remember her grandmother holding her when Lizzie had needed reassurance after hearing her mother saying terrible things about Chico. Now Lizzie wondered if she had been meant to overhear her mother’s increasingly bitter condemnation of him, which had been liberally laced with Serena’s obvious dislike of her daughter Lizzie.

                There was no reason for Serena to be jealous of her, Lizzie reflected. Her mother was still a beautiful woman, while Lizzie would always be a carrot-top and unexceptional, but Lizzie’s growing friendship with the young Brazilian groom had been the final nail in the coffin of their relationship back then. He’s trouble, that one, Serena would say as she followed Chico with her hungry stare.

                Her mother’s words hung in the air now, tainting everything, and goading Lizzie with the fact that Serena might have been right about Chico caring for nothing and no one, which was one of her regular taunts. Chico’s childhood, running wild in the barrio, and witnessing his brother being shot dead, must have left him emotionally damaged, and possibly incapable of feeling, though Lizzie’s grandmother had insisted this wasn’t true, and that Chico was real—authentic. He had no airs and graces that her grandmother could detect. What you see is what you get with Chico, she had insisted, but some people can’t deal with that type of honesty, Lizzie.

                Her grandmother’s words had washed over her head when she was an impassioned teenager and all she’d cared about was Serena driving her friends away, but for some time she had known that her grandmother was right. She had disowned Lizzie’s parents shortly after Eduardo had left Rottingdean House with his young groom. Frustratingly, Lizzie didn’t know all the circumstances behind their departure, but, thanks to newspaper reports at the time, she did understand something of the way her parents had been living, and their accusations against Chico, especially as she had become the butt of everyone’s humour at school when the salacious details of her parents’ scandalous parties had leaked out, and everyone except Danny had mocked her.

                ‘See you down there, Lizzie—’

                As Chico closed the door behind him all that old humiliation came flooding back. She allowed it a few ugly seconds to inhabit her, and then she pulled herself together. She wasn’t fifteen now. This was very much the present day, and she had a goal and a purpose in being here that went far beyond moping around in Chico’s bedroom. She wasn’t even going to waste time being angry with herself for putting herself in this position. Grabbing her clothes, she headed for the shower.

                * * *

                Danny was waiting for her when she got back to the party.

                ‘Well?’

                Danny was avid for news, but Lizzie’s mouth firmed when she glanced at Chico, who was holding court in the middle of a group of polo players and their groupies.

                ‘Come on,’ Danny pressed again eagerly.

                Turning her back on the group and Chico, Lizzie met her friend’s gaze. ‘I screwed up.’

                ‘You didn’t...?’

                ‘Let’s just say, I won’t be a notch on our lord and master’s bedpost, more of a scratch.’

                ‘So, Chico had an itch?’

                ‘This isn’t a joke, Danny.’