‘I described you.’
‘How?’ she prompted with unhidden eagerness.
‘Do you always talk this much?’
‘If you tell me how you described me, I’ll shut up,’ she promised.
‘Very small, purple lips, workman’s boots.’
She was less than thrilled by that portrayal but after five minutes she forgot her promise to give him peace and soon became engaged in finding out what age he was and whether or not he was single. In the appointments that followed, it would have been an untruth to say that he chatted to her but he didn’t object to her chatting to him. She tried to get to know him by letting him get to know her. She asked him what he did for a living.
‘I work in a bank.’ A long time afterwards, she quite accidentally noticed the Sabatino name heading an article in the business section of a Sunday newspaper. That article revealed that, far from merely working in a bank, Roel pretty much owned a bank.
The day she heard him lamenting his grandfather’s will and the potential loss of the family home he so clearly loved, she leapt into his dialogue on pure impulse and offered to become his ‘fake’ wife. Breaking off from his phone call, he surveyed her in disbelief.
‘Well, why not?’ she continued, face burning at her own nerve in making such a suggestion, but even so she was desperate to grab at the chance to do something for him. Something, anything, that would make him more liable to take notice of her and maybe even like her.
‘I can think of a thousand reasons why not,’ Roel fielded in an icy putdown.
‘Probably because you’re a very cautious guy and you complicate things,’ she pointed out gently. ‘But you have a simple problem. You need a fake wife so that you can hang onto your home and I would help out—’
‘I refuse to discuss this with you. You eavesdropped on a personal conversation.’
‘Maybe you should ask one of your friends to help you out and stop being so proud,’ Hilary advised in addition.
‘Where did you learn to speak Italian like a hill-billy?’
‘Like a what? What’s wrong with my Italian?’ she flamed back at him, distracted as he had no doubt intended by the insult.
Roel started to laugh. ‘You use archaic words and expressions—’
‘Sometimes,’ Hilary seethed, ‘you’re incredibly rude!’
‘You interrupted a confidential dialogue and slung an outrageous proposition at me. What did you expect?’
‘I was offering to help you—’
‘Why? We’re strangers,’ Roel derided.
Cut to the bone, she just jerked her chin down in a nod and shrugged her stiff shoulders. ‘Sorry I spoke—’
‘Sulking is not attractive.’
Hilary perked up at amazing speed. ‘What do you find attractive about me?’ she pressed hopefully, less than subtle at the age of nineteen years.
‘Nothing,’ Roel imparted drily.
‘Come on…you don’t mean it…there’s got to be something reasonable about some part of me,’ she cajoled.
Watching him in the mirror, she saw him smile. That rare, wildly charismatic smile that made her palms damp and her tummy flip. But he still refused to be drawn. Three weeks later, he phoned her at work and asked her to meet him for lunch at a hotel.
‘Business,’ he specified lest she get the wrong idea.
‘I’m not fussy,’ she admitted cheerfully. ‘Don’t be surprised if I dress up.’
While Roel spelt out the terms of the marriage of convenience that she herself had originally suggested might meet his requirements, he was terrifyingly businesslike. He killed her appetite and she ate nothing. He said he would have to compensate her for doing him a favour. She said no, she didn’t want to be paid and she meant it. Then he mentioned a sum of money that bereft her of breath.
‘Think it over and we’ll discuss it next time I see you—’