The Millionaire Affair

“Take me inside,” he murmured against her throat.

For a hectic moment, Lisa didn’t know whether he meant her home or her body. Or both. And, crazily, did not care. She almost agreed to let him in and go wherever it took her….

But then she opened her eyes. Behind his head she saw the elegant sweep of the terrace, the chauffeur-driven car. A cold thought struck: this is a rich man playing a game. A clever game but a game nonetheless. She had been there before and it hurt.

Nikolai felt her turn to a block of wood in his arms. He raised his head and let her go.

“You change your mind fast,” Nikolai said.

“No, I don’t. I’ve always said I didn’t want to have anything to do with you.” To her own astonishment she sounded quite cool about it.

“Are you denying you wanted me just now?”

The streets of London aren’t just paved

with gold—they’re home to three of the

world’s most eligible bachelors!

London, England: a city of style, sophistication—

and romance! Its exclusive Notting Hill district is

the perfect place to fall in love. Sparks fly as

three sexy, single men meet—and marry?—three

lively, independent women….

This fabulous miniseries features the talents of

Sara Craven, Mary Lyons and

Sophie Weston: three hugely popular

authors who between them have sold more

than 35 million books worldwide.

Notting Hill Grooms:

Irresistible Temptation by Sara Craven #2077

Reform of the Playboy by Mary Lyons #2083

The Millionaire Affair by Sophie Weston #2089

The Millionaire Affair
Sophie Weston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THE overheated ballroom was heady with the scent of hot house lilies. The party had got to the stage of slow dancing. In clouds of figured satin the bride was circling in the arms of the most glamorous man in the room.

A photographer, indistinguishable in his dinner jacket from the elegant guests, pointed his camera at the couple.

‘Bride and Count Nikolai Ivanov,’ he murmured to his assistant.

‘Exposure ninety-eight: Ivanov,’ she wrote down obediently.

She peered over the top of her notebook.

Count Nikolai Ivanov was well over six feet, with midnight-dark hair, broad shoulders and an unambiguous self-confidence that hit you between the eyes. Add to that the haughty profile of an Aztec prince, and eyes at once intense and alert with sophisticated amusement, and it was no wonder that the bride was gazing up at him, mesmerised. When he swung her into the air with an easy strength, the assistant sighed.

‘Wow,’ she said, appreciative and envious. ‘Now why haven’t I seen him before?’

‘Wouldn’t have done you any good if you had.’ The photographer continued to rake the room with his lens. ‘Most eligible bachelor in Europe and he spends half his time in the jungle. Terrible waste. Not your style at all.’

‘Oh, I could stretch a point in this case,’ said the assistant with feeling. ‘He’s gorgeous.’

Her boss looked at her cynically. ‘He’s also a heartbreaker. And the last of his line since his brother died.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of trying to marry the man,’ protested the girl, laughing.

‘Just as well. The Ivanovs can trace their line further than the Romanovs, I’m told. Count Nikolai won’t be marrying anyone unless she has at least three coats of arms and a title in the family.’ He raised his camera again. ‘Ah, there’s the mother of the bride with our hostess. Exposure ninety-nine: Madame Repiquet and Countess Ivanova.’

‘Grandmère is looking tired,’ Nikolai murmured in his grandfather’s ear. ‘Shall I take her away?’

‘You can try,’ said his grandfather humorously.

Véronique Repiquet was lucky to be allowed to hold her wedding reception in this exquisite French château. The revels, as everyone knew, would go on all night. So it had been arranged that the old Count and Countess would spend the night at Nikolai’s small villa on the estate.

His grandson chuckled. ‘I shall take a firm line,’ he said confidently. ‘Women always respond to that.’

His grandfather cast his eyes to the magnificent gilded ceiling.

‘You think you know so much about women, don’t you?’

‘I’m an animal behaviourist,’ said Nikolai with a twinkle. ‘I’ve been trained to know about women.’

His grandfather smiled. But he looked perturbed as well.

‘Do you never have any doubts, Nicki?’

Nikolai looked startled. ‘All the time. Every expedition, every paper I write, every lecture I give. If I didn’t have any doubts there wouldn’t be anything interesting left to research.’

‘I didn’t mean about your work,’ snapped his grandfather, suddenly annoyed. ‘I meant about women.’

Nikolai looked at him in concern. The loss of temper was out of character for his gentle grandfather. He slipped his arm round the older man’s shoulders.

‘What is it, Pauli? Regretting lending the château for this junket?’

The older man shook his head. ‘No,’ he said on a half-sigh. ‘No. But your grandmother was saying—it should have been Vladi’s wedding.’

For a moment Nikolai’s expression was stark. Pauli cursed himself for his clumsiness. Vladi had been killed a year ago, but sometimes he wondered whether Nikolai was over his brother’s death even yet.

He said hurriedly, ‘Still, it’s good to see her enjoying herself again. I thought a big party might be too much for her. But she said it would be good practice for your wedding.’

‘Ouch,’ said Nikolai. His expression was half-rueful, half-sad.

His grandfather did not pretend to misunderstand him.

‘Why are you so set against marriage, Nicki?’

Nikolai looked round at the crowded room. The music had started again, louder and heavier now that the older guests were leaving. Men threw off their hot jackets. Girls bared their shoulders and let their elaborate hairstyles fall as they would. Nikolai grimaced.

‘Maybe I’m just not a party animal.’

His grandfather was not deflected. ‘You can party with the best of them when you want. Anyway, marriage is more than a party.’

‘Exactly.’

Pauli peered up at his tall grandson. ‘Are you afraid of marriage, Nicki?’

Nikolai looked away. The firm mouth set into a stubborn line.

He knew that expression, thought Pauli. The shutters had come down. Normally he would have stopped there. But tonight, for some reason, he kept on.

‘We’ve never asked. You like your privacy and we’ve never wanted to intrude. But—have you ever lived with a woman, Nicki?’

Nikolai’s eyes flickered. He gave his grandfather a wide, false smile and shuddered dramatically. ‘Never.’

‘But there have been women,’ said Pauli, revealing that even if he didn’t ask he had other ways of finding out what he wanted to know.

‘Of course there have been women,’ said Nikolai calmly. ‘I just don’t let them move in.’

‘But—’

‘It only encourages them. Once a woman hangs her clothes in your wardrobe, she thinks she’s got rights in you.’

Pauli’s expression darkened. He turned his head away so Nikolai could not see it.

‘You sound very cold-hearted.’

‘That’s me,’ said Nikolai cheerfully. ‘Hot blood. Cold heart. Makes for a peaceful life.’

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO FIRE me!’

Lisa Romaine tilted her pointed chin to a challenging angle. She leaned insolently against the wall, looked her boss straight in the eye and waited.

Behind his desk, Sam Voss shifted irritably. ‘Can’t I give my Head of Bond Trading a hint?’

‘Hint!’

He tried a winning smile. ‘Now, Lisa, don’t overreact. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?’

Predictably, she did not move. Her green eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Not about my private life,’ she said dangerously.

‘When you work for Napier Kraus, merchant bank to the new industrialists, you don’t have a private life.’

Lisa looked ironic. ‘You might not,’ she said. ‘I do.’

Sam shook his head. ‘I thought you wanted to get on.’

‘Sure,’ said Lisa evenly. ‘That’s why I work hard and deliver the goods. I’m not going to turn myself inside out trying to be a clone of the managing director.’

‘That’s enough.’ Sam’s voice hardened. ‘You’re on the management team now. If you want to stay there, act like it.’

‘At work, of course. But I’m not going to change my whole lifestyle. And turn my back on my friends.’

‘Look, kid—’

‘I’m twenty-two,’ flashed Lisa, suddenly losing her cool. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘Then stop digging your heels in. You’re a clever girl and you deserve your chance. Don’t blow it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean the Personnel Committee aren’t sure about you,’ he told her brutally.

‘Why? With my score—’

‘Oh, they like your results,’ he allowed. ‘You’re up there on the shortlist for Trader of the Year. Of course they like your results. They’re just not sure about a woman bossing a lot of punchy guys.’

Lisa gave a scornful shrug, not answering.

‘And, frankly, they’re not sure about your image either,’ said Sam, goaded.

‘What’s wrong with my image?’

He waved a hand. ‘You’re a good-looking kid. Sorry—woman. Get yourself a decent haircut and couple of designer suits and you could be in there mixing it with the MBA dollies. God knows, you’re bright enough. So why go out of your way to look like a punk?’

Lisa looked down her nose. Sam lost no chance to put her down, but on the issue of her appearance she was quite confident. The glass wall behind his desk reflected an image back at her which no one but Sam had any problems with: natural blonde hair, gamine features, long legs in spite of her moderate height and a figure to die for. It had taken all her considerable personality to stop her new staff from wolf-whistling at her every time she left her desk. ‘I don’t look like a punk,’ she said calmly.

Sam was alone in Napier Kraus in his lack of appreciation of Lisa’s black-clad legs. Even the Financial Controller had been known to give them a passing beam. Now Sam glared at her short skirt.

‘One day soon you’re going to find yourself hosting one of our corporate entertainments. How are the clients going to feel being taken to the races by a woman with earrings like a modern art gallery?’

Lisa put her hand to one of the offending ornaments.

‘You’re not serious!’

‘The top brass already know you live in a place that’s one up from a student squat. The chauffeurs talk, you know.’

Lisa was outraged. Her eyes were usually a green flecked with the gold of a woodland summer. Now they were green ice. ‘You’re a snob.’

‘No. I just know the score.’ He was torn between affection and exasperation. ‘Face it, Lisa. We’ve got a parent company with some very definite ideas about how it wants its management to live. You don’t qualify on any count.’

Lisa folded her arms across her chest and glared. ‘And to qualify I’ve got to pretend to be something I’m not?’

‘Up to you,’ said Sam, losing patience. ‘Now get out of here and make us some money.’

It was the end of a bad week. With Far Eastern markets in freefall, Lisa had had to be at her desk earlier than ever, staying well after New York had closed for transatlantic strategy discussions, and she hadn’t got home until after ten.

As a result, she’d missed her turn to clean the shared kitchen. But what had really offended her housemates was her failure to make it to Anna’s twenty-first on Wednesday evening.

‘Too grand to remember something like a birthday party now,’ Alec Palmer had sneered.

Of all the people she shared the house with, Alec was the one who knew most about her job. He had even worked at Napier Kraus briefly himself. When he’d first moved into the house they had got on well. But since her promotion he had sniped constantly.

In a way, she could understand it. He was older and, unlike Lisa, who had left school at sixteen, he had a university degree. It was natural that he would feel competitive. But there was an edge of spite in his remarks these days that Lisa found hard to bear.

Maybe I should do what Sam wants and move out, thought Lisa. She hated the idea of giving in to what she thought of as snobbery. But if Alec was going to pick at her all the time, she would be better off living somewhere else.

So her heart sank when she went into the kitchen that night and found Alec was the only one home. He was standing at the stove, stirring onions into a Bolognese sauce.

‘The others have gone clubbing,’ he said, his back to her. ‘They said they were going to try to get into the Equinox Club. You could always catch them up.’

Lisa tossed her briefcase onto a kitchen chair.

‘Frankly, I can do with a quiet night. It’s been a pig of a week.’

‘The burdens of responsibility,’ said Alec, with an edge to his voice.

Lisa tensed. But he waved his spatula at the pan of boiling pasta.

‘Want some spaghetti?’

Lisa seized the olive branch gratefully. ‘That would be great. Just let me change.’

She went and had a quick shower, then pulled on jeans and a sloppy shirt and went back to the kitchen.

Alec had set the table and opened a bottle of red wine. Lisa sank onto a pine chair. She took the glass he offered her and raised it to him in a silent toast.

‘This is a real treat. Thanks, Alec.’

‘Pleasure.’

He dished up and put the plate in front of her. She grated some parmesan onto the meat sauce and began to eat hungrily.

At first it was easy. They talked about the food, plans for the weekend, families. Even work, carefully. But then Lisa asked idly, ‘Is Equinox part of the on-going birthday celebrations?’ and Alec blew up.

‘You’ve got no right to sneer.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘A six-figure salary doesn’t make you better than the rest of us.’

Lisa sighed. As far as her housemates were concerned she was an East End kid made good: irrepressible, hardworking, quick on the draw. None of them knew the hours of work it had cost her, or the loneliness. And not one of them even suspected the private burden of the responsibilities she carried.

‘I’m too tired for this, Alec.’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Too tired,’ he mimicked savagely. ‘A big job is all-consuming, isn’t it? I suppose I should be grateful that you had the time to eat my food tonight.’

Lisa winced. But she said indignantly, ‘Garbage.’

He stood up and came round the table, looking down at her broodingly. ‘When did you last have time for me?’

‘Alec—’

He seemed not to hear. He searched her face.

‘You don’t even see it, do you?’

His own face twisted. For a horrible moment, Lisa thought he was going to cry. She winced away from his too revealing expression, but it was too late. He had seen her distaste. He grabbed her up from her chair.

‘Look at me, Lisa.’ Suddenly he was a stranger, panting and desperate. ‘Please. Please. I love you. No one loves you like I do.’

Lisa was appalled. It came out of the blue. The house had an agreement: no relationships between tenants. She had thought of Alec as a friend, and, lately, as a self-selected competitor she would have to treat carefully. It had never occurred to her that he was in love with her. She had no idea what to do.

‘Don’t say that,’ she begged.

But he wasn’t listening. He held onto her like a lifeline.

It pressed all the wrong buttons for Lisa. She had been vulnerable and in love herself. The sight of Alec’s vulnerability twisted her heart. I can’t bear it, she thought.

‘Let me go.’

She struggled to free herself. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘You think you’re so strong,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘But you need love. Everyone needs love. I can give you love.’

And, to Lisa’s inexpressible horror, he slid down on one knee and pressed his face into her stomach.

‘Alec, please don’t do this.’ It was a cry of real pain.

She pushed at his shoulders. But his grip was like a vice. Lisa looked round, helpless, hurting, and acutely embarrassed. He seemed unaware of his own strength. Or the fact that she was trying to get away.

Lisa stood very still and held her breath. Keep calm, she told herself. She had deflected plenty of over-enthusiastic guys in her time. This was just another one, for all his anguish. She just had to keep calm and stay discouraging but kind. He would stop in a minute. And then they could be friends again.

Who was she kidding? They could never be friends again. Not when he had let her see his feelings naked like this. Lisa leaned away from him, wincing.

Alec didn’t notice that she was discouraging him. Intent on his own feelings, he was oblivious of hers. He began to tug at the fabric of her shirt. Whether to get it off or to pull her down onto the floor, was not clear. He kept muttering, like a mantra, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you…’

Lisa’s heart leaped in primitive disgust. She tore herself away.

‘Love,’ she spat.

That was when Alec looked up at her at last. There was a gleam of anger in his eyes, along with the tears. He came lithely to his feet and took hold of her. His lips were clumsy, suffocating, desperate.

Lisa closed her eyes. She was torn between pity and simple horror. She tried to push him away but he was too intent to pay any attention to her resistance. She wasn’t even sure he noticed. It was faintly ludicrous, this pretend battle with a man she had thought of as a friend for more than three years. She jerked out of his hold.

‘But I love you,’ he repeated insistently, as indignant as if she had shot him.

He had stirred up old memories he had no idea of, and, between them, Alec and the memories had shaken Lisa to her core. They left her too upset to remember to be kind.

‘Love. Huh! Don’t insult my intelligence,’ she said, retreating behind the table. ‘You want to get into my bed and you think saying you love me will do it. Well, I’ve got news for you. That doesn’t work with me. Not any more.’

‘Lisa—’ He was full of despair. And the beginnings of anger. He advanced on her with unmistakable purpose.

Lisa stopped even trying to spare his feelings. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she cried.

She ran.

The next morning she got out of the house before anyone else was up. She toyed with the idea of going to her mother’s. And rapidly discarded it. Joanne would say that she had enough problems dealing with Kit. Lisa was supposed to be the strong one, the one who found her own solutions.

In the end she went to the dance studio in Ladbroke Grove. There was an early class in jazz dance. Lisa flung herself into it.

With such effect, indeed, that as they left the studio at the end one of the other dancers said to her, ‘And who were you trying to kill?’

‘What?’ Lisa looked round. ‘Oh, hi, Tatiana. I didn’t know you did jazz dance.’

Tatiana Lepatkina must be over seventy years old, but she still taught a ballet class at the centre. She and Lisa had bumped into each other first at an enthusiastic salsa session over a year ago. Now they strolled along to the changing room together.

‘Dance!’ sniffed Tatiana. ‘What you were doing wasn’t dance. That was pure combat training.’

For the first time since Alec’s pounce, Lisa laughed.

Tatiana grinned. She was small and astringent. She was also something of a guru to the younger studio members, though no one actually knew how old she was. She had muscles like an athlete’s and wore full dramatic make-up at all times. Even after she had showered it remained untouched.

Now they both stripped off and went into shower cubicles.

‘I wouldn’t have wanted to come within catching distance of your elbows. Or your feet, for that matter.’

She went silent for several minutes under the whooshing of water. When she emerged, wrapped in a huge white towel, Lisa was already dressed and combing her damp hair in the mirror. Tatiana put her head on one side, eyes bright with inquisitiveness.

‘You are so lucky, with hair like that. Pure gold and natural too.’ She added without a break, ‘Who were you kicking this morning?’

Lisa raised an eyebrow at her reflection. ‘Was it that obvious?’

Tatiana nodded. ‘A man, I suppose?’

‘Or two,’ said Lisa, only half joking.

‘Sounds complicated,’ said Tatiana, pleased. ‘Let’s have something decaffeinated and you can tell me all about it.’

Rather to her surprise, Lisa found herself doing exactly that. When she had finished, Tatiana looked at her in silence for a moment, narrow-eyed.

‘And you’re sure you gave this man no encouragement?’

‘Alec?’ Lisa sighed. ‘I’ve never thought so. We all had this agreement right from the start—no inter-house affairs. Everyone stuck to it.’

There was an ironic pause. After a moment Lisa flung up her hands in a token of surrender.

‘OK. OK. I thought everyone had stuck to it.’

‘You can’t make rules about feelings,’ Tatiana said largely. ‘Never works.’

Lisa looked mulish.

‘Believe me,’ Tatiana insisted. ‘When I was still dancing, we used to be on tour for months at a time. You always start off saying no attachments. But human nature wins every time.’

Lisa said something very rude about human nature.

‘No point in fighting it, though,’ Tatiana pointed out practically. ‘So—what are you going to do?’

Lisa sighed. ‘Look for somewhere else to live. Alec will never forgive me, and I—well, frankly I’m not too proud of the way I handled it. I got in a panic, I suppose. All that passion.’ And she pulled a face.

Tatiana, who was rather in favour of passion, was intrigued. ‘Attracted in spite of yourself?’

Lisa was startled. ‘Not a chance. Men are such idiots.’

‘Oh.’

‘I had my drama when I was eighteen,’ said Lisa grandly. ‘I got over it and grew up. Why can’t they?’

Entertained, Tatiana murmured something about human nature again. Lisa frowned.

‘Well, it’s a terrible bore. Now I’ll have to go house-hunting and I haven’t got the time. What’s more, my boss will start nagging me about getting what he calls a suitable address, and I almost certainly won’t have the money for that without mortgaging my underwear. And anyway, I just hate doing what my boss tells me.’

‘Ah.’

Tatiana was not only a teacher of ballet, she was a choreographer. Listening to Lisa, she had begun to perceive the story of a ballet. Now here was the dramatic pas de deux: the powerful man, the woman who fights him because she cannot admit the attraction between them.

‘What’s wrong with your boss?’ she said carefully.

Lisa was savage suddenly. ‘He doesn’t like it that a woman has the best trading results in the room. He couldn’t get out of promoting me, but he compensated by—’ Just the thought of Sam’s lecture made her choke with rage.

Tatiana made a few editorial amendments to her scenario.

‘Did he suggest you say thank you in the traditional way?’

‘What?’ Lisa looked blank for a moment. Then she understood. ‘Oh, no. He wouldn’t dare make a pass at me.’

Looking at her pugnacious chin, Tatiana could believe it.

‘So what did he do, then?’

‘He gave me a lecture on my style. Style! I made half the portfolio’s profits last quarter and he complains about my style!’

Tatiana was disappointed. She liked more passion in her drama. ‘What is wrong with your style?’

Lisa listed the points on her fingers. ‘Wrong address. Wrong clothes. Wrong friends.’

Tatiana began to see that this was a satisfactory drama after all.

‘He thinks you are not good enough for him,’ she deduced. She was indignant.

‘In bucketfuls,’ agreed Lisa. A shadow crossed her face. ‘And he’s not the first,’ she added, almost to herself.

Tatiana didn’t notice. She was thinking. ‘Do you want to rent or buy?’

‘Well, I’m renting at the moment—’

‘Because you could always have the garden flat in my house. As long as you aren’t determined to buy.’

‘—but I don’t want to have to go through—’ Lisa realised what Tatiana had said. ‘What?’

Tatiana repeated it obligingly.

Lisa shook her head, stunned. ‘I didn’t know—I mean I didn’t realise—I wasn’t fishing…’ she said, acutely embarrassed.

Tatiana was amused. ‘I know you weren’t. Why should you? You don’t know where I live, or that I have a flat to let.’

‘No,’ agreed Lisa, still slightly dazed.

‘Well, I have. Just round the corner from here.’ She paused impressively. ‘Stanley Crescent.’

‘Oh,’ said Lisa.

Tatiana waited expectantly. It was clear that something more was required. Lisa had no idea what. She felt helpless.

Seeing her confusion, Tatiana smiled. ‘It’s a very good address.’

‘Is it? I mean—I’m sure it is.’ Lisa was floundering. She said desperately, ‘I just don’t know much about this part of London.’

‘Secret gardens,’ said Tatiana in thrilling tones.

‘Sorry?’

‘When you walk through Notting Hill all you see are these great white terraces on both sides of the street, right?’

‘Right,’ said Lisa, puzzled.

‘Well, what you don’t know is that behind several terraces there are huge communal gardens. Big as a park, some of them. Mature trees, rose gardens, the lot. It’s like having a share of a house in the country.’

She waved her hands expressively. Quite suddenly, Lisa could see green vistas, trees in spring leaf, birds building nests, space. She gave a sigh of unconscious longing.

‘Like gardens, do you?’ said Tatiana, pleased.

‘Never had one. Don’t know,’ said Lisa.

But her dreaming eyes told a different story. Tatiana took a decision.

‘Move in on Monday.’

Lisa did.

It was a blustery day that blew the cherry blossom off the trees in a snowstorm of petals. Fortunately she didn’t have much to move. She installed her boxes in the sitting room of Tatiana’s garden flat, paid the movers and took a cab to work. She was at her desk by eleven.

She was greeted by a teasing cheer.

‘Hey, hey, half a day’s work today?’ said Rob, her second in command.

‘I moved house,’ Lisa answered briefly. She settled behind her desk and tapped in her access code.

Rob’s eyebrows climbed. Lisa had told him, raging, about her lecture from Sam on Friday afternoon.

‘You don’t hang about, do you?’

She was scrolling through the position pages on the screen but she looked up at that. Her wicked grin flashed.

‘No sooner the word than the deed, me.’

‘Sam will be impressed.’

Lisa chuckled naughtily. ‘I know. But I can’t help that.’

‘I bet he checks up,’ Rob mused. ‘Just to make sure you’ve got a proper up-market place this time.’

Her laughter died. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’

‘Want to bet?’

‘If he does,’ said Lisa with grim satisfaction, ‘he’s in for a surprise.’

For Lisa, too, the move turned out to have its surprises. For one thing she had the greatest difficulty in getting Tatiana to name a figure for the rent. Her new landlady had escorted her enthusiastically through the house—stuffed with an eclectic collection of furniture, ferns and objets d’art—the garden—as green and private as Lisa had imagined—and the local shops—everything from a late-night grocer’s to a bookshop which sold nothing except books about food and even smelled like a good kitchen. There was no doubt that Tatiana was delighted to welcome her. But she clearly thought anything to do with money was low and wouldn’t be pinned down on it.

‘Look,’ said Lisa, turning up at Tatiana’s door one evening with a bottle of expensive Rioja, some information from the local estate agent and an expression of determination, ‘this can’t go on. You need a contract and so do I.’

She threw down a printed document onto a walnut sofa table which gleamed softly under an art deco lamp.

‘That’s a standard form. I’ve signed it but run it past your solicitor before you sign.’ Something in Tatiana’s expression gave her pause. ‘You have got a solicitor?’

‘The family has,’ said Tatiana, without enthusiasm.

‘Fine. Call him tomorrow. The one thing that I haven’t put in is the amount of rent. Now, the agent gave me a range for one-bedroomed flats in this area.’ A handful of leaflets joined the contract. ‘Pick one.’

Tatiana wrinkled her nose disdainfully. ‘When I was your age, girls did not admit that they knew money existed. It was men’s business.’

Lisa was not deflected from her purpose, but she grinned.

‘Don’t wriggle. I’m not leaving until I’ve given you a cheque.’

Tatiana picked up one of the estate agent’s pages and looked at it with distaste. ‘That’s far too much. Anyway, that one’s got a separate entrance.’

Lisa had come prepared. ‘All right. There are monthly rentals for nine flats there. I’ve worked out the average.’ She magicked a slip of paper out of her jeans pocket.

Tatiana took it gingerly. Lisa laughed. She had seen her look at a snail on the garden path with much the same shrinking distaste.

‘Talk to your solicitor, or I’m moving out. And that would be a pity. This is a lovely place.’

The May evening was dark. From Tatiana’s first-floor window the shadowed sweep of trees and lawns looked like a magic landscape. Lisa sank into a 1920s chaise longue under the window and sighed with pleasure.

‘Wonderful,’ she said exuberantly. ‘I’ve never known anywhere like it.