He looked at her for a moment as if she might have escaped a lunar landscape, and Alex had a secret desire to laugh.
‘So how do you get about?’
‘Buses,’ she said gravely. ‘I also have a bicycle. And, very occasionally, taxis.’
‘Where do you live?’
She told him.
‘That’s on my way.’ He pushed the basement button and the doors closed. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’
‘You really don’t need to do that, Mr Goodwin,’ she protested. ‘I’m quite used—’
‘Alex,’ he said with his eyes glinting, ‘a piece of advice, don’t argue with me. Especially not when I’m being at my best because it may not last that long.’
The lift came to rest at the basement floor and the doors slid open.
‘Well—’ She temporized.
‘Besides which,’ he added, eyeing her carrier bags, ‘you’ve got an awful lot of loot on you by the look of it, all paid for with my money—you could get robbed, mobbed, anything, and I wouldn’t appreciate that.’
‘Are you saying so long as the “loot” was OK, you wouldn’t mind what happened to me?’ she demanded.
‘Now that is putting words into my mouth,’ he drawled. ‘But enough of this chit-chat, let’s go!’
Alex had no choice but to follow him as he strode across the garage towards a gleaming navy-blue Bentley that looked brand-spanking new.
‘Wow!’ She pulled up and couldn’t help gazing at the car admiringly, her ire dissolving somewhat. ‘I don’t know much about cars but this is something else!’
‘Yes, a beauty, isn’t she? So damn classy—if she were a girl I could marry her.’
Alex had to laugh as he unlocked the boot and they deposited her bags, the flowers and the wine in it, then he unlocked the doors and she climbed into the cream leather and walnut interior. It even smelt beautiful inside.
‘Is it a conscious decision not to drive?’ he queried as he nosed the car up the garage ramp and onto the street. ‘A “greenie” decision?’
Alex wrinkled her nose. ‘I would love to say so, and I do think too many of them are wrong, but it’s a practical decision. I don’t have a garage and I’m so used to taking buses and so on.’ She waved a hand.
‘What is your economic situation?’ he asked with a sudden frown.
Alex watched the city street slide beneath the bonnet of the Bentley. It had rained while she’d been upstairs and the slick surface was reflecting myriad lights as the tyres hissed over them.
‘My parents did have a nest egg that came to me,’ she told him. ‘After—’ she stopped for a moment and swallowed ‘—after the accident they died in, my Mother Superior was appointed my trustee. My school fees were paid out of it, and my university expenses et cetera, and there was enough left for me to buy a terrace house, so I’m actually a woman of some substance even if I don’t have a car!’ She turned to him with a cheery grin.
But Max Goodwin noticed the added sparkle to her eyes behind her glasses, tears, he suspected, and felt a spark of pity for this orphan.
He said only, though, ‘Good on you! Is this it?’ He pulled the Bentley up outside a row of terrace houses in the inner suburb of Spring Hill.
‘Yes. Thank you very much for this. I suppose I’ll see you again at …’ Alex glanced at him enquiringly ‘… well, the cocktail party tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘What have you got on tomorrow morning? I just thought you might be interested in the state-of-the-art conference room and meeting the other interpreters.’
‘I would, normally, but it seems I have all sorts of other appointments tomorrow morning. Hair, nails, facials.’ She grimaced.
Max Goodwin frowned and turned to study her. He’d opened his door to retrieve her stuff from the boot so the overhead light was on.
‘You don’t—you don’t,’ he said as his dark blue gaze roamed over the very au naturel girl he’d hired as an interpreter—actually rather refreshingly natural, he found himself thinking suddenly, ‘need to go overboard.’
Alex hid a smile. ‘Mr Goodwin, since I have it on good authority I would feel like Cinderella otherwise, I intend to do what is necessary not to feel that way. But I don’t intend to go overboard. If anything, I was a restraining influence.’