—Romantic Times Mothers-To-Be(22)

The mechanical Edwardian doorbell shrilled and made her jump. She unlocked the door.

“You should have a chain on,” Rico grated, striding in. “Why is this place in total darkness?”

“Hector doesn’t like electricity bills!”

Thrusting arrogantly past her, Rico skimmed a hand along the wall, and abruptly the great chandelier above blazed into light. Bella had never seen it illuminated before and she stared up, wondering how it would look without the cobwebs. There was a strangled moan from the landing above.

“Switch that off!” Hector urged in horror.

“Are you trying to rain me? Have you any idea how many watts that burns?”

“Switch it off, for heaven’s sake … before he has a heart attack!”

Rico stared up at the thin figure wrapped in the ragged wool robe and mounted the stairs.

“Mr Barsay … I am Rico da Silva.” He extended a lean hand with awesome cool.

Hector pressed his hand to his palpitating chest instead. “Switch off that light!” he pleaded.

Tll pay for it,” Rico drawled smoothly, tugging out his wallet and extracting a crisp note.

“I’m reduced to a shuddering wreck by darkness after my experience in that container.

My nerves couldn’t stand the strain. “

“Bella has candles—’ ” Not enough. ” Rico pressed the note apologetically into Hector’s trembling hand.

“And I do understand what a struggle it is for you to survive in this house.”



There was no subject dearer to Hector’s heart. He managed a brave smile while surreptitiously pocketing the money.

“Hector!” Bella moaned in embarrassment.

“Women don’t understand these things,” Rico sighed.

“I don’t like visitors,” Hector snorted.

“But you can stay.” And off he went.

Bella raced upstairs.

“Where do you hang out?” Rico enquired, shooting an incredulous glance over the peeling walls and general air of decay surrounding him.

“In the attic with the bats? No wonder you’re off the wall, gatita. He’s as nutty as a fruitcake.”

“How dare you?” she said, her teeth gritted.

“He can’t help being poor—’ ” Poor? ” Rico burst out laughing.

“He could buy and sell everyone else in this street! He has a solid-gold investment portfolio that keeps on raking in the cash year after year.”

“I don’t believe you—’ ” He has just about everyone fooled but I checked him out. Hector Barsay is stinking rich and he never parts with a penny if he can help it. Charities know not to knock on this door. “

“You’ve mixed him up with someone else … you must have done!”

“Where’s your lair?”

Stiff-backed, she mounted the second flight of stairs ahead of him and reluctantly pushed open the door. He reached for the light switch.

“There’s no bulb,” she said with pleasure, and then abruptly she recalled her paintings and spun round.

“We’ll go downstairs.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve always wanted to see a starving artist’s garret. Where’s the flea-ridden straw pallet and the mousetraps?” he enquired, lifting the solid-silver candelabra by her bed and using the matches sitting beside it.

“Madre de Dios…” he breathed, surveying the bare room with an emotion akin to incredulous fascination.

“You will think you have entered paradise when I take you home with me!”

“You’re not taking me anywhere, Rico.” She folded her arms. In the flickering light from the candles he was a dark silhouette in bronze and black—lithe and sleek and as graceful as a jungle cat. Her mouth went dry.

“Even if you can’t paint anything other than blobs in primary colours I’ll be your patron,” Rico said smoothly. “And you deserve that I say that to you. I’ve learnt more about you in the papers than you ever deigned to tell me.” She flushed.

“And that should tell you something—’ ” That you like to dramatise . that you like to play games? ” He shot the demand at her in fast, fluent French. ” You may not attach too much importance to spelling but you speak French, German, Italian and Russian like a native, I believe. “

She tensed even more, her mouth tightening.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read–’ ” Do you or don’t you? ” he raked at her in German. ” OK . OK . guilty as charged! “

“You described yourself to me as a waitress—’ ” I’m not ashamed of being a waitress—’ “But you could have been a rocket scientist if you’d wanted to be! Your teachers said you were brilliant—’ ” A slight exaggeration—’ “But bone-idle academically and fixated on art … and I have this awful suspicion that you can’t paint for peanuts,” Rico bit out harshly.

“Hector’s the father you never had and you would very much like to walk in your lousy father’s footsteps I’ Bella had turned white. She hadn’t expected such a forceful attack as this. Rico was so angry. Why? Did he think that she had made a fool of him? Was she supposed to have reeled off a boastful list of her abilities for his benefit?

“Clever clogs’, the other kids had whispered nastily behind her back when she had been at school. Bella had learnt the hard way that it was easier to be average than gifted.

“Biff thinks you’re as thick as the proverbial plank; can’t understand why the papers are making up so many ridiculous lies,”

Rico derided.

“His name is Griff and he does not think I’m thick—’ ’” Exquisite on the eye, dizzy as a dodo,” he told me cheerfully. He would run a mile if he knew that you were capable of out-thinking, out-guessing and out-plotting his every move I’ Bella compressed her lips.

“What are you doing here?”

“You were waiting for me,” he reminded her smoothly, surveying her with smouldering golden eyes that burned wherever they touched.

“When I saw you in that restaurant I wanted to put my hands round your throat and squeeze hard. Where the hell have you been for the past three weeks? Why the hell did Chief Superintendent Nazenby treat me like a convicted criminal who was dangerous to women and refuse to divulge your whereabouts?”

Bella went pink and managed a jerky shrug.

“It didn’t occur to me that you’d ask.”

“This is not Biff you are talking to … this is Rico,” he growled, moving forward, his handsome face as hard as iron.

“And I can scent female deviousness a mile away. I offended your pride at the police station, and you removed yourself from my radius to let me learn to appreciate you in your absence. Then magically you reappeared in my favourite restaurant with another man—a man all primed and ready to propose holy matrimony with me as an audience!”

“You conceited jerk!” Bella slung at him in disbelief. “You actually think I would sink to that level to try and trap you?”

“St’…” He threw her a seething look of condemnation.

“I might respect you more if you simply admitted how calculating you are!”



How did you get through the front door with an ego that size? “

“My apologies if I did not rise to your expectation of me throwing a jealous scene! I am not the jealous type.”

“I’ll believe you … thousands wouldn’t,” she responded sweetly, recognising with a kind of savage pleasure that he had indeed been jealous, and ready to thank him even more sweetly for bringing it to her notice.

“You were rude to me, rude to poor Sophie, and rude to Griff, although it probably went over his head. I don’t know what I did to earn that… And as for Sophie, my heart went out to her—’ ” What heart? ” Rico slashed back viciously.

“Por Dios … to see you sitting there holding hands with him! You got exactly the reaction you expected—’ ” I didn’t know you would be there! ” But she knew that she was talking to a brick wall. Rico was convinced that she had set him up. Griff had set them both up, but Rico would not believe that. Why? Because Griff had been so polite that Rico had written him off as a lame brain. But Griff would never have risked offending someone as powerful and rich as Rico da Silva.

“I want to see these famous paintings, not one of which has ever been sold,” Rico derided, heading for the pile of canvases stacked along the entire length of the spacious room, ‘but which Nazenby considers works of pure genius. Infierno! He probably couldn’t tell an old master from a Picasso! “

“No!” Bella planted herself squarely in his path.

“And what happened to your terror of the police force? I did everything within my power to support you at that police station,”

Rico reminded her rawly, setting her out of his path with one imperious hand.

“And now Nazenby talks about you as though you’re part of his family!”

“Face that container and you can face anything. I’d kept up the fear out of habit… No, Rico!”

“I want to see them. You live with Hector Barsay and, unless old age has mellowed him, you have to be accustomed to criticism.”