The Millionaire Affair Page 6

  Nikolai surveyed her unspeaking for a moment. ‘You mean you would prefer she had no one to look after her.’

  ‘That is so patronising—’ Lisa exploded.

  ‘Oh, very good,’ he applauded. ‘Call the concerned relative a chauvinist pig and he’ll slink away, apologising. Well, I’m not given to apologising. And I do what’s necessary, whether other people like it or not. Especially when they’re manipulative con artists with a good line in political correctness.’ He was very angry.

  Lisa looked at her cutlets. She had hardly touched them. But another mouthful would choke her. She put down her knife and fork and pushed her plate away.

  ‘Then there’s no point in continuing this.’ She gathered up her tiny handbag. ‘Thank you for lunch.’ She didn’t sound in the least grateful.

  Nikolai sighed elaborately and leaned back in his chair. ‘What on earth has come over Tatiana? Do you know?’

  Lisa’s head reared up. ‘Maybe she just likes me.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ he drawled.

  ‘Haven’t you ever just liked someone?’ she flashed.

  ‘Not to the extent of letting them move in with me.’

  Lisa’s lip curled. ‘I can well believe it.’ She stood up. ‘Well, you don’t like me and I certainly don’t want to spend any more time on this.’ She fished in her handbag and brought out a small white oblong. She tossed it down on the table. ‘My business card,’ she said curtly. ‘Do whatever checking up you want. Just don’t come near me again.’

  And before Nikolai could say another word, or even get to his feet, she walked out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  NIKOLAI got to Tom’s before lunch had ended. Tom welcomed him into their tiny flat while his girlfriend, Melissa, pressed a bowl of assorted desserts into Nikolai’s hand and cleared a place for him next to the great expedition leader.

  ‘Ivanov,’ said Professor Sedgewick through a mighty mouthful of bread and butter pudding. He swallowed hard, rose, shook hands with enthusiasm and sank back down again in one jerky movement. ‘My dear chap, what a pleasure at last. Meant to write and tell you how much I admired your work on the Macaques. But things go out of my head unless my wife is there to remind me.’

  ‘Well, she must have done,’ said Nikolai, entertained. ‘You sent me a very nice letter. My publishers cannibalised the best bits for the dustjacket, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said the professor, with the vagueness of one whose publishers never told him what they were doing to publicise his books in case he torpedoed it. ‘Now, you’re going to come to Borneo with me, is that right?’

  Nikolai was taken aback by this forthright approach.

  ‘I’d be very flattered, of course, but…’

  ‘Other commitments?’ The professor was sympathetic. ‘Book deadlines? Blasted television companies?’ His tone filled with loathing. ‘Graduate students?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. The commitments are personal, I’m afraid.’

  The professor looked bewildered for a moment. Then brightened.

  ‘Bring her with you. Lovely place for a honeymoon, Borneo.’

  Melissa made a choking sound. Tom stared her down.

  ‘That’s a very good thought,’ said Nikolai, with only the faintest quiver of amusement in his voice. ‘But I’m not getting married. To be honest, the commitment is to my grandparents.’

  This was clearly beyond the professor entirely. So he ignored it, talking about the expedition to return wild orangutan to the Borneo jungle as if Nikolai’s membership of the party was a foregone conclusion.

  When he finally left, Tom clapped Nikolai on the shoulder.

  ‘Jungle in October for you, then, you jammy devil. Sedgewick’s all the more interested because you didn’t seem too keen.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Are you being Machiavellian, or might something really stop you going?’

  Nikolai hesitated.

  ‘Don’t be nosy, Tom,’ protested Melissa.

  Tom laughed, unabashed. ‘The skirt?’

  ‘No,’ said Nikolai, with more violence than the denial really required.

  Tom’s eyebrows flew up in comic surprise.

  Nikolai added more moderately, ‘It’s my grandparents. Or the estate, to be more precise. I’ve been helping to run it since my brother died.’

  Tom sobered. He had known Nikolai a long time and stayed with him in the horrible aftermath of Vladimir Ivanov’s death in a car accident. He knew the burden of responsibility that Nikolai carried as the last surviving grandson.

  ‘That was over a year ago,’ he protested more quietly. ‘Your grandparents can’t expect you to put your career on hold for ever.’

  Nikolai’s expression was unencouraging. ‘They don’t.’

  ‘Well, then—’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Nikolai said with finality.

  And, knowing him, Tom recognised that the subject was closed.

  ‘So, who’s the new girlfriend?’ he said, slipping smoothly into a different gear.

  Nikolai looked irritated. ‘She’s no girlfriend of mine, thank God.’

  ‘Yet you very nearly stood up Sedgewick and Borneo for her,’ teased Tom. ‘She’s got to have something.’

  ‘Oh, she has indeed.’ In retrospect Nikolai was not at all pleased with the way he had handled Lisa Romaine. It showed in his voice when he said, ‘The woman has moved in on an elderly aunt of mine. Obviously she sold her some sob story or other. I’ve got to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that? Private eye?’

  ‘If necessary,’ said Nikolai coolly.

  Tom whistled. ‘Oh, boy, has she got you boiling.’

  ‘It won’t be necessary,’ Nikolai said with superb assurance. ‘The Ivanovs still have contacts. I shall make a few calls; that’s all.’ Suddenly a lot less cool, he said, ‘And then I’ll find out every damned thing there is to know about Lisa Romaine.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Tom, ever practical. ‘Even if she turns out to be the daughter of Fu Manchu, what do you think you can do about it? From Borneo? Or even from France for that matter?’

  Nikolai had already taken a decision on that one.

  ‘I’m not going back to France. I’m staying right here in London until this is sorted out.’

  Tom gaped. ‘But you hate London.’

  ‘I hate being beaten even more,’ Nikolai said with truth. ‘No ragamuffin is going to move in on my aunt without a fight.’

  ‘What you mean is, this girl isn’t going to get the better of you,’ Tom said shrewdly.

  Nikolai smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. ‘You are so right.’

  Lisa had gone home, muttering. Tatiana was out in the garden but Lisa didn’t want to talk to her. So she shut the French windows firmly and turned her attention to her week’s housekeeping.

  To help her along she played the latest Ibiza compilation loudly. She had put a second load of washing into the machine and was bopping happily round the sitting room with the elderly vacuum cleaner that Tatiana had supplied when the phone rang.

  Lisa switched off the vacuum cleaner and regarded the phone balefully.

  ‘Nikolai Ivanov, I will tell your aunt on you.’

  But it was not Nikolai. It was her mother. And she was fighting back tears.

  ‘I’ll come at once,’ said Lisa, when she’d heard what Joanne Romaine had to say.

  As soon as she’d been able to afford it, Lisa had moved her mother and sister out of their Bow tenement into a small semi-detached house in the suburbs. It was easy enough to visit after work, when the commuter trains were still running, but on a Sunday the trains were few and far between. Lisa called a minicab.

  Joanne was waiting. She hugged Lisa convulsively.

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Lisa, hugging her back.

  She tried not to sound resigned. Kit had been anorexic in her early teens, and ever since her mother had been braced for it to happen again. Lisa sometimes wondered if
Kit’s problems were caused as much by Joanne’s hyper-anxiety as anything else. But she was too loyal to say so.

  Joanna’s mouth was pinched. ‘Kit hasn’t had a meal with me this week.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Lisa. She had lived at home until she was eighteen. She knew the signs that her sister’s eating disorder was reviving. Maybe on this occasion her mother was not overreacting.

  ‘I rang the college.’ Kit was doing a course in computer studies. ‘The student counsellor more or less called me an over-anxious mother.’ She paused dramatically. ‘And then she said that everything was all right now.’

  ‘Now?’ Lisa was bewildered.

  Joanne’s eyes were strained. ‘Kit has been dating one of the older students. The counsellor said they keep an eye on him because they’re worried about drugs. So they know the last two college discos he’s come with another girl. So—’

  ‘He’s dumped her,’ said Lisa.

  She was already on her way up the stairs.

  Kit was sitting on the floor, listening to Pan pipes and staring into space. Lisa hesitated in the doorway.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Kit looked up vaguely. ‘Oh, hi, Lisa,’ she said. She showed neither surprise nor interest. ‘Sure.’

  Lisa pulled a pretty cushion off the bed and pushed it behind her back as she too slipped down onto the carpet and leaned back against the leg of the bed. She knew better than to ask how Kit was.

  ‘You really like this stuff?’ she said, jerking her head at the stereo she had given Kit for Christmas.

  Kit smiled, but it was clearly an effort. Lisa was shocked by her appearance. She didn’t say so. Instead she demanded, ‘What on earth do you dance to? I mean, you can’t boogie to something that sounds like a dentist’s drill.’

  Kit’s eyes were agonised. ‘I don’t dance.’

  ‘How do you get out of it? I thought student life was one long disco these days.’

  ‘Only if you’re pretty,’ muttered Kit.

  Lisa was silenced. She knew there was no point in telling Kit that her corn-gold hair and greeny grey eyes were charms that many girls would have killed for. When she was down like this Kit hated herself and was deeply suspicious of anyone who found anything good to say about her.

  Lisa sought for some topic to deflect Kit from her self-punishing despair.

  ‘Did I tell you I’m up for an award?’ she said at last in desperation.

  Kit knew nothing about Lisa’s work, and could not have cared less about the world of finance. But the sisters had always taken pleasure in each other’s successes.

  ‘Great. What is it?’

  ‘Trader of the Year. It’s presented at the annual Association dinner on Tuesday. It’s going to be the pits, because I won’t know until the end whether I’ve won or not.’

  Kit became more alert. ‘You’ll win,’ she said stoutly.

  Lisa pulled a face. ‘Maybe. I have to write a thank-you speech anyway, just in case.’ She paused. ‘You know, I could really do with some support.’

  Kit was startled. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, do you think Mother and you might come?’ Lisa suggested cunningly.

  Kit could very often be persuaded to do things for her mother and sister that she would not do for herself. Lisa paused hopefully.

  Kit looked away, not answering.

  ‘I know it’s boring. But it would mean a lot to me.’ Even as she said it, Lisa realised that it was true.

  Kit seemed to realise it too. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because my boss won’t come; that’s for sure.’

  Lisa realised that she hadn’t known until now how much she minded about that.

  ‘He won’t be able to resist giving me a public slap in the face.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ said Kit, concerned.

  ‘He’s never liked me since—’

  Since she’d had an affair with Terry Long.

  ‘He worked for Terry too,’ Lisa muttered.

  Kit nodded with understanding. She knew more about Lisa’s romantic disaster than anyone.

  Lisa had been eighteen, riding on top of the world as she’d begun to realise she not only liked her job, she was good at it. The department had started sending her on courses. She’d seen the sort of career she had never imagined opening up before her. And then Terry Long had arrived.

  Terry had been a man on the way up. As a boss he’d been inspiring, not just to Lisa but to Sam Voss and everyone else on the team as well. As a man he was an unscrupulous serial charmer. Lisa had had no defences against him at all.

  ‘But Terry went to New York ages ago,’ objected Kit.

  ‘Three years. But Sam doesn’t forgive. He thinks office affairs are unprofessional and I should never have let it happen.’

  ‘Stupid man,’ said Kit. ‘You don’t want him coming to your dinner anyway.’

  Lisa gave a reluctant laugh. ‘I’d rather he didn’t advertise to the whole City how much he disapproves of me, though.’

  ‘His loss. More important—’ her voice came to life ‘—what are you going to wear?’

  Lisa was taken aback. ‘Hey, it’s not the Oscars, you know.’

  ‘It is for you. And you have to show everyone that you don’t care.’ Suddenly mischievous, she said, ‘Crimson silk and diamonds.’

  Pleased, Lisa grinned. ‘Not my style,’ she said firmly. ‘Or the Association’s, for that matter. The men will all wear dinner jackets and the women are supposed to look as much like men as they can. So I’ll find something dark and respectable.’

  ‘No diamonds?’ asked Kit, disappointed.

  ‘Maybe one day. Can’t afford them yet.’

  Kit’s face froze. ‘You spend too much on us, don’t you? Especially me. All those therapies and consultants.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Lisa, furious with herself.

  ‘Don’t lie,’ said Kit. ‘That last clinic I went to—you said it was a charity. But everyone else who was there was a rich kid.’

  ‘Rich kids get sick too,’ said Lisa defensively.

  ‘Yes, and their daddies pay the bill for their treatment. And in my case you were doing it. Weren’t you?’

  Lisa made a great business of plumping up the cushion behind her. ‘Health is important.’

  But Kit shook her head and fell silent. In the end Lisa gave up and went downstairs.

  ‘I blew it,’ she said to her mother glumly. She told her the salient facts.

  ‘She may come. It takes her time to talk herself into these things,’ said Joanne, trying to look on the bright side, as always. She patted Lisa’s arm. ‘Get us both a ticket, anyway. I’ll talk to her.’

  The kettle began to boil. Joanne put teabags into the pot and poured the boiling stream of water onto them.

  ‘Everything seemed to be going so well,’ she said, concentrating. ‘But of course if there was a man…’

  Lisa made an exasperated noise. Joanne stirred the tea.

  ‘Yes, I know you think men are a waste of time,’ Joanna said with a touch of defiance. ‘But we’re not all like you, you know. Kit’s very vulnerable.’

  Lisa snorted again. ‘Everyone’s vulnerable if they let themselves be mucked around.’

  ‘It’s not always a question of letting,’ said her mother drily.

  Lisa was briefly conscience-stricken. Their father had left Joanne soon after Kit was born. Lisa didn’t remember him at all. What she could remember was that Joanne had never looked at another man since, all through the struggle with poverty that had been their childhood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, contrite. ‘It’s just—I don’t see how anyone can take men seriously. My boss is so jealous of me it’s transparent, Alec has behaved like a spoiled child, and today I met a man who looks like he walked out of a dream. And he turns out to be the worst of the lot.’ She gave an angry laugh.

  Joanne looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Who is this dreamboat?’

  Lisa shrugged impatiently. ‘Just some interfer
ing relation of my new landlady.’

  ‘Oh.’ Joanne digested this in silence.

  She poured tea and took the two mugs into the sitting room. Outside the rain was pelting down, but Joanne stood at the window and watched the soaked garden with pleasure. Lisa took the tea from her, smiling.

  They had lived in a succession of rooms and flats in the poorest parts of London. Until Lisa had bought this house Joanne had never owned her own home, still less a garden. Now, every time she passed the window and saw trees, she stopped to marvel at it.

  Lisa felt her eyes moisten and blinked. She was not sentimental, she told herself fiercely. She was not.

  Joanne tore herself away from her garden and sat down.

  ‘So how did you meet the interfering relation?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ Lisa had been briefly back in her slum childhood. She gave herself a little shake and returned to the present. ‘Oh, Boris. He came pounding on the door this morning, when I was still in bed.’

  Joanne bit back a smile. She knew Lisa’s weekend rising habits. ‘Then I’m surprised you still think he’s a dreamboat.’

  ‘It’s not exactly a matter of opinion,’ said Lisa wryly. ‘He fulfils the job description. Tall, dark and handsome. Even quite nice when he puts his mind to it.’

  ‘And you hate him,’ said Joanne, interpreting Lisa’s tone with the ease of long practice. ‘Just because he got you out of bed?’

  Lisa gave her sudden grin. ‘It didn’t help,’ she admitted.

  ‘Poor man,’ said Joanne with feeling.

  ‘Don’t waste your pity. Nikolai Ivanov doesn’t need it.’

  ‘I thought his name was Boris,’ said Joanne, bewildered.

  ‘That’s what I called him. He didn’t like it.’ Lisa dwelled on the memory with evident satisfaction.

  ‘It sounds as if you had quite a conversation.’

  ‘Oh, he took me out to lunch.’

  ‘He took—’ Joanne stared. ‘How long have you known this man?’

  ‘I told you. We met this morning when he got me out of bed.’

  ‘And you still had lunch with him?’ Joanne was impressed. She knew Lisa’s tactics with men. Since the Terry Long episode she kept them at arm’s length for several months before she agreed to have so much as cup of coffee with them. ‘He must be a world-class dreamboat.’