The Dark Side of Desire (10 page)

He glanced at her plate as she lifted her fork to make a start.

‘That looks very frugal,’ he observed, referring to the scattered salad leaves and slivers of asparagus.

She gave a constrained flicker of a smile—the barest acceptable.
‘I’m not very hungry,’ she replied, focussing her gaze on her food, not Leon.

Leon’s eyes washed over her. ‘You are very slender,’ he observed, meaning it as a compliment.

She didn’t reply, only gave that brief, constrained flicker in response, and reached for her glass of mineral water. Her movements were still stiff and jerky. Leon cast about for another subject, as he started in on his own first course, an array of seafood.

‘What do you think of the restaurant?’ he enquired conversationally.

Flavia glanced around. ‘It’s very … good,’ she said, having sought for an appropriate word, and only coming up with ‘good’.

‘I thought you might prefer somewhere like this to anywhere more flashy and crowded.’

The hesitant indentation of her lips in acknowledgement came again as she gathered some asparagus onto her fork. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you. I do.’

Even to her own ears her voice sounded staccato and disjointed. She tried again, looking about her, knowing that she had to make an effort, that she owed him that, at least, however impossible—
totally
impossible!—her presence here was.

‘I like the way it’s been furnished, in eighteenth-century style,’ she managed to say.

He must have sensed the unspoken approval in her voice, for she heard him say, as he took a mouthful of his wine, ‘Do you like historic houses?’

Without thinking, she glanced across at him. ‘Yes. I live in one.’

He frowned slightly. ‘Your father’s apartment is very modern, its style ultra-contemporary,’ he said.

She looked at him. ‘I don’t live there,’ she said.

Leon’s expression changed. ‘Your father didn’t say—’

Flavia’s face tightened. ‘No, I doubt he did.’ Her voice was clipped.

‘So where
do
you live?’ Leon was intrigued, realising just how little he knew about her. ‘Do you have your own flat in London?’

‘No.’ The rejection of such an idea was audible in her voice.

‘So where …?’ He let the question trail.

Flavia bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to risk was Leon finding out about Harford. He might start asking questions about it she dared not answer.

‘In the country,’ she said shortly, keeping it deliberately vague. ‘I don’t like cities.’

He was looking at her curiously and she could see he was about to pursue the subject. She knew she must head him off instantly. It was dangerous ground—far, far too dangerous!

‘How … how does eighteenth-century style in Britain compare with its equivalent in South America?’ she asked, trying to find an anodyne topic, the kind of neutral small talk she made when at her father’s social gatherings, to draw him away from her own situation. ‘I’ve never been anywhere in Latin America, but the historic colonial style is very distinctive, and so attractive—both in the town houses and in the country
estancias
.’

Leon’s voice, when he replied, was dry. ‘Yes, indeed. For those few fortunate enough to live in such style. Unfortunately most of the population does not. It was not until I visited my country for the first time in a dozen years since I left for Europe that I was able to set foot in such a property—one that had been converted into a luxury hotel. Until then my only experience of accommodation in my native land was in a shanty town.’

Flavia stared. Frowned. ‘A shanty town?’ she echoed.

‘A
favela
—though strictly speaking that is a Brazilian term.’ He paused, looking at her openly astonished expression. Questioning it. ‘I was raised in a city slum,’ he said. ‘I came to this country, penniless, at the age of fifteen.’

Flavia set down her fork. ‘I had no idea,’ she said.

Leon’s frown deepened. Could it be true that she had no
idea of his background? There had been astonishment in her voice.

But not revulsion
.

He could feel hope flare within him again. Were his doubts about her unnecessary? Let them be so …

‘How did you manage to get here?’ she asked. There was genuine enquiry in her voice, interlaced with her astonishment.

She wanted to know? Well, he would tell her. Tell her the grim, difficult story of his rise from penury to wealth. See how she reacted to it.

‘I came with my uncle—he spent his life savings getting us here. He wanted a better future for me, his dead sister’s son, than could ever have been possible at home.’

She was still staring at him. ‘But how on
earth
did you manage to get from that to … to what you are now?’

There was a note of disbelief in her voice, as if she thought he must be exaggerating the poverty of his origins. But what there was
not
, Leon could tell—and the realisation surged through him—was any note of repugnance or revulsion at his lowly start in life.

‘I worked,’ he said simply. ‘To anyone from the Third World Europe is a place of incredible opportunity to make good. So I worked non-stop. And, though it was hard, little by little I put money aside. My uncle, to my grief, became ill three years later and died, but by then I was on my way. I studied at evening college to understand the financing of business, and did any work going to increase my savings.’

He warmed to his theme, feeling memories leap in his head from a dozen years ago. ‘What I spent them on was others like me, striving to make good. I chose very carefully, and if I thought they were serious and dedicated, and above all, hardworking, I loaned them the small amounts of money that they needed to buy inventory, rent premises, machinery, transport—to start their own businesses. I took a share in their profits—a fair one, no more as they prospered, and
little by little I prospered, too. I increased my investments, my loans, nearly always amongst the immigrant community who understood—still understand—how much the West has in comparison with the Third World, how hard work can lift them out of poverty with an ease that is almost impossible in the Third World primarily because of the lack of credit, the mass poverty there. And that is why,’ he finished, ‘now that my investments are on a corporate scale, and my profits, too, I run an extensive financing programme in microloans and similar on-the-ground investment back in South America.’

There was a caustic note in his voice now, Flavia heard, listening with growing astonishment and attention as he went on. ‘Some economists who are used to vast government-backed investments from the global banking community, and they might consider my efforts small fry. But—’ his eyes narrowed, becoming piercing with his intense emotion ‘—they have never lived in those shanty towns, never realised that it is individuals who are poor—not populations. National prosperity is built from the ground up, family by family, and
that
is my focus. My goal. My mission in life.’

He fell silent at last, burningly conscious that he had done something he had never done before—bared his soul about what was most important in his work. She was gazing at him, lips parted. The expression in her eyes was different from any he had yet seen there.

And it filled him with an emotion he had never yet felt.

‘I think it’s extraordinary,’ she said quietly. ‘An extraordinary achievement.’ She paused, picked up her fork again. ‘No wonder you think me shallow and spoilt for not working.’ Her voice was small, subdued, and she would not look at him.

Emotion was coursing through Leon. Not just because he had bared his soul, but because of how Flavia had reacted. Relief—more than relief—leapt in his breast.

She didn’t know I was born poor—and she is not offended or contemptuous of it!

If there was any hint of contempt it was for herself.

He was swift to dissolve it.

‘None of us is responsible for our background. Only for what we do, how we live our lives, the decisions we make,’ he said.

It was meant to be a gentle remark, a soothing one. Yet before his eyes her face changed. The animation that had been there a moment ago as she’d spoken to him vanished. Tension leapt again, and it was as if a mask had shut down over her. Her eyes dropped and she swallowed, reaching for her wine glass.

She took a mouthful, feeling the need for it. His words burnt like a new brand on her skin. Consciousness of what she was doing here—why she was there, at whose bidding and for what purpose—scalded her. But there was nothing she could do—
nothing!
If she did not go along with what her father wanted he would turn her grandmother out of the house she loved, sell it from under her feet, without pity or compunction or remorse.

But if she’d felt bad before about what she was doing at her father’s behest, now, having heard just what kind of man Leon Maranz truly was, she was excruciated.

I thought him just one more fat cat financier, born to some wealthy South American family, cocooned in money, caring only about the next profit-making deal to be made
.

The truth was utterly different.

Involuntarily her eyes went to him again, seeing for the first time not the five-thousand-pound Savile Row suit, the silk tie, the gold watch snaking around his lean wrist—all the appurtenances of wealth and luxury. Seeing something quite different.

The young, impoverished, desperate immigrant, striving with all his determination, all his dedication and perseverance, to transform his destiny from what would have awaited him in his place of birth—the teeming, fetid
favela
—to one he had wrought for himself out of the opportunities he had been given in coming to Europe, to the rich Western world.

And not just for himself. Leon Maranz had not turned his back on his origins, not left his compatriots to rot, but had determined to use the wealth he’d made to help lift them out of the same poverty he’d once known. He’d have to have faith in them, offered them a chance just as he’d once had.

Emotions clashed within her. One, she knew, was a strong, bright glow—a shining sense of admiration for what Leon Maranz had achieved, was still achieving. An admiration that brought with it something else.

He’s a man I need have no reservations about, no qualms—he’s free from the venal, avaricious taint of my father, who built his fortune ruthlessly and without any compunction for anyone else. He’s nothing like my father—for all his wealth—nothing like him at all!

Yet even as the realisation sent that glow through her it brought in its wake more bitter anguish. A burning, shaming consciousness of being her despised father’s tool, being used by him for his own ends, forced into deceit, manipulation, lies, to safeguard what she held so dear.

It was unbearable—unbearable!

Her eyes dropped again, tension once more racking her body.

Across the table, Leon watched the transformation. He had almost broken through the web of constraint and nerves that had been so visibly possessing her since she had walked into the restaurant—almost! But now it had webbed around her again, and she was back to being as tense as a board …

For the rest of the evening he strove to break through again, to see once more that spark of contact, of communication with her. But it was gone. Extinguished. All he could achieve was a strained, awkward conversation, with him doing nearly all the talking, about one anodyne subject after another. Frustration bit in him. Just as she’d started to thaw towards him she’d frozen solid again. Yet something had changed between them, making his fears about her attitude towards him dissolve. And on that he could build—work. Work to rekindle
that small but so-revealing spark of human warmth he had seen in her. Work to draw her out, draw her to him—win her to him.

And if that took time—well, so be it, then.

He accepted her halting conversation, making the evening as easy for her as he possibly could. And when the meal was over he thanked her for her company, evinced his pleasure at it, told her his car would take her back to her father’s apartment and then asked if he might see her again.

Flavia stood on the pavement outside the restaurant. At the kerb the large black limo was hovering, its driver dutifully holding open the door for her. Leon was smiling down at her.

‘Can I persuade you, if not to Shakespeare, then to something else at the theatre? Is there anything playing that might tempt you? Or perhaps,’ he elaborated, wanting to give her not the least reason to turn down his seeing her again, ‘you might prefer the opera, or a concert? Or what about an art exhibition?’ he finished, wanting to give her as many options as he could in the fervent hope that something—anything!—might trigger her interest, be the key to break down her constraint.

But all he got was a low-pitched, awkward, ‘I don’t really mind … Whatever you would like …’

What I would
like, thought Leon frustratedly,
is what
you
would like
. But all he said in response to her lukewarm reply was a measured, ‘Well, I’ll see what I can come up with, OK?’ He delivered it with a smile he hoped was reassuring and complaisant. Then, in a slightly brisker tone, he said, ‘Till tomorrow, then—will seven o’clock be all right for you?’

‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you for this evening. Um—goodnight.’

She flickered her hesitant social smile at him and climbed into the car, murmuring a semi-audible thank you to the driver holding the door. Then she sank back into the deep leather of the interior.

Misery writhed within her. Seeing Leon Maranz again had been a torment of exquisite proportions! To sit opposite
him, across that small table lit by candlelight, to want to do nothing more than drink in everything about him! But to be every single moment tormentingly conscious that she was there at her father’s bidding, the tool of his machinations—pimped out to the man he wanted to save his riches for him …

Shame burnt along every nerve-ending, inflamed with anger at her father—anger at his threat to her frail, vulnerable grandmother; anger that he was prepared to use his own daughter to try and save his sorry skin; and anger, above all—the realisation came like a blow to the heart—that he was poisoning something that could have been so incredibly special to her.