Page 9 of Lela's Choice

“Have you spoken to your father?”

“I sent Papa a message saying we’d met and thanking him for booking the hotel.”

“No phone call? No inquiry about me?” he asked. “Just a polite acknowledgement of arrival.”

“Nothing wrong with politeness.”

“Unless you use it as a shield.” He tried a different approach. “Why did you accept his offer of accommodation?”

Her lips curved in amusement. “It came with free chauffeur service.”

“Hardly a consideration for a freewheeling financier making obscene amounts of money.” He was starting to enjoy the game, collecting clues to who she was in her monosyllables, half-answers, and deliberate attempts at deflection.

“Merchant banker, MacGregor, and I’m highly disciplined. First lesson in making money—parsimony allows you to keep it.” She was telling a bald-faced lie.

“Yet you flew first class.”

“The only ticket available at short notice.” She tucked some hair behind her ear, giving him a view of her strong profile.

“Pragmatic when you have to be.”

She swung back to face him. “How is this relevant to finding Sophie?”

“You’re relevant. I thought you were part of the solution. Now I’m wondering if you’re part of the problem. A merchant banker with your polished mix of graciousness and greed ...”

Her eyes flashed obsidian. “You’ve worked me out. Now can we move on?”

Incendiary is what you are. He studied her absolute stillness, marvelling anew at the self-control he’d first witnessed last night. Aside from the flashing eyes there’d been no reaction to his deliberate insult.

A very private person, his Miranda, adept at distraction. Her simmering sensuality was harder to ignore, especially as she seemed unaware of it. A dimple that fascinated, even when she didn’t smile. Not a Brazilian movie star, more like Shakespeare’s Miranda, beautiful and fearless.

“Another impression—you strongly disagree with your father about how to respond to your niece’s disappearance.”

“We’re exploring different theories.” She stared at the horizon. “It’s reasonable to make my own inquiries.”

“It’s reasonable to pool information if you’ve made inquiries.” His impression last night, once he’d tucked away the unexpected attraction, was of a passionate, decisive young woman, who’d dropped everything to search for her niece. Her job, if nothing else, told him she possessed a quick brain capable of weighing all the angles.

The wind caught her hair, tumbling it around her face. She caught it with one hand, pushing it back. “Will interrogating me help find Sophie?”

“I’m trying to understand the brief.”

“Last night you said there’s an investigator you use here in Malta.”

“Let’s finish with my impressions first. You live with your father, an aunt and your niece. No public ructions reported—one big happy family.”

“Family is important, especially in Maltese culture.” She made it a statement of fact.

“Agreed. Doesn’t family loyalty trump any petty theoretical dispute you have with your father?”

“My petty dispute is my business,” she said carefully.

“Not for long, if it interferes with my job. Is your father Sophie’s legal guardian?”

Still gazing out to sea, she let the silence lengthen. When her answer came, the wind snatched at it, tossing it high in the air as if it was worthless. “Yes.”

“What’s your role?”

“As Papa said, Sophie and I have always been close—sounding board, guide, mentor, confidant—until recently.”

---