‘I will find out what’s happened and I will repay the money we owe to you. Your family will not suffer,’ she promised, her voice shaking with emotion. She turned her head and spoke to Rafael, her voice fierce. ‘Translate for me.’
His eyes were cold. ‘I don’t believe in giving false hope.’
‘Translate for me!’ The emotion in her voice clearly had some effect because he studied her for a long moment and then gave a faint shrug and said something in Portuguese to the woman.
Filomena hesitated and then put a hand on Grace’s shoulder and nodded.
‘There we are,’ Rafael’s voice held a sharp edge, ‘you’ve convinced her that you’re as innocent as the dawn. Happy now? Is that your motto? Why let someone down once if you can let them down twice?’
Still racked by self-reproach, she stood up, her fingers biting into her palms. ‘No. I’m not at all happy. I’m not happy that they’ve been hurt and that they’re struggling because of me. And I’m not happy that someone is using my business for personal gain. This is my life you’re talking about. Café Brazil means something to me. We were helping people. Helping people who were struggling.’ And she knew all about how it felt to struggle.
‘I’m sure you were.’ His faint smile was derisory. ‘You’re just a saint, Grace Thacker. A saint in high heels.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘Obviously there’s something going on and, in the circumstances, I can’t blame you for thinking that I’m involved. But I’m not. And you obviously have no idea how upset I am.’ What an enormous blow it was. Everything she’d built was collapsing around her and she had none of the answers. How? How?
For a moment she felt old familiar feelings of helplessness roll over her and she just wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from her life.
And then she looked at Filomena’s craggy, anxious features and heard the children playing outside, shrieking and laughing, with no idea that their future was in jeopardy. She couldn’t curl into a ball and there was no hiding.
People were relying on her.
She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. ‘I find your assumption that I had something to do with this really offensive.’
‘I find fraud offensive, particularly when the victims are innocent Brazilians.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Given what you’ve told me, you have a perfect right to be angry and I understand now why you refused to extend the loan on the business.’
‘Good. Then we won’t need to waste any more of each other’s time.’
‘Don’t say that.’ She reached out and put a hand on his arm, the message in her eyes suggesting that this was the most important thing that had ever happened to her. ‘If you pull the loan on my business then I can’t put this right. I can’t fix things. And I want to.’
His gaze was blisteringly unsympathetic. ‘I’m sure you do. It can’t be easy to see such a large part of your income about to vanish in smoke.’
‘I don’t care about my income. This isn’t about my money. Why can’t you believe that? If something has happened then it’s happened without my knowledge.’
The expression in his eyes was as hard as the tone of his voice. ‘You’re a director of the company and you have access to the company accounts. It would be impossible for you not to know.’
Grace stared at him in mounting horror as something occurred to her. Would it be impossible?
No, it wouldn’t be impossible. It wouldn’t be impossible at all.
Suddenly the pieces started to slot together like a jigsaw and the black, murky picture that began to emerge sickened her. Things that Rafael Cordeiro had said since she’d arrived came back to her, things that she hadn’t understood at the time. I don’t know how you can sleep at night.
It could have happened.
And now she knew how it could have happened. She knew how, but not who.
Horrified and more than a little panicked, Grace was suddenly tempted to blurt out the truth but the grim set of his mouth prevented her from speaking. It was too late for the truth. You didn’t have to be a genius with people to see that he’d already tried her and found her guilty. She could see the anger, raw and elemental, flickering deep in his eyes and suddenly she bitterly regretted not being honest at the beginning.
She should have told his business team all about her limitations from the start. She should have been open and honest. But if she’d told them, they never would have invested. Rafael Cordeiro would have written her off, the way everyone did.
Everyone, including her father.
And she was so used to covering up—so used to finding her own way round her problem—that she’d kept it a secret.
And she still couldn’t quite believe what was facing
her. Unwilling to accept what he was saying, she searched for alternative explanations and came up with nothing.