He smiled. He liked her innocent smart-ass attitude, but chose to ignore her question. “And what are you doing in this part of the world, then, Miss Verity?”
“Running away from my cheating husband.” As always Verity wished she’d thought before she’d spoken. It had just slipped out. She bit her lip, staring down at the dog who’d flopped, limp as a rag in the heat, between her feet. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that. No need to go into my problems, spoil your nice holiday.”
“You are certainly not doing that. In fact, Verity, you have made my day.” He took a long drink of his lemonade, signaled the waiter for more ice. It’s not often I get to meet a pretty girl.”
Verity gave him a skeptical upward glance that meant she certainly did not believe that. “Take another look around this terrace, Mr. Boss,” she said with a smile. “There’s dozens of them, most hoping to meet Mr. Right, and that he’s rich.”
The Boss laughed, he was enjoying her. He reached out and tucked a stray strand of corn-blond hair away from her face where it was in danger of dipping into the glass of Perrier. “I certainly qualify for one of those conditions,” he said. “Not boasting, mind you, but I’m a property developer down here, and it’s a rich man’s world, in case you had not noticed.”
“I had noticed. My friend, the one I’m staying with, Mirabella Matthews, inherited a wonderful old villa from her late aunt.”
“You must mean Aunt Jolly.”
Verity stared at him, astonished. “You knew Aunt Jolly?”
“Everyone knew her. She was here, on and off, for many years, quite old when she passed, I believe. And left it all to a niece she barely knew.”
It had not occurred to Verity to question how well Mirabella had known her aunt; all she’d heard was the Harrods story with the throat-choking velvet-collared princess coat and the dropped cream bun. She took a gulp of her Perrier. “Very generous of her, I’d say.”
“Or foolish. It depends on how you look at it.”
She sat up straighter in her faux-wicker chair. His tone was cold, dismissive. “Well, Mirabella looks upon it as a stroke of good fortune. And my good fortune was to meet her on the train coming down here.”
“Running from the cheating husband?”
She nodded, sighing. “You’d be surprised how many more cheaters there are than charmers.”
“Then we must hope that next time you find a charmer,” he said with a sudden smile of such warmth that Verity was indeed charmed.
“Hopefully,” she said. Then, getting quickly to her feet and unwinding the dog lead from the table leg, she said, “I must be on my way. So nice to have met you Mr.… er…”
“Boss,” he said.
She glanced suspiciously at him, as though he might be laughing at her. No, he was nice. She liked him. “Y’know what, Boss?” she said. “You are one of the charmers.”
“I hope that means you’ll come to the party I’m giving tomorrow night. My villa, the one you can see from here, the Villa Mara. You make a right off the up-road, can’t miss it. Eight. Black tie.”
“How very James Bond,” Verity said. She had not enjoyed herself with a man so much in years. “I’ll be there.”
“Oh, and bring your friend, Mirabella. After all, we are close neighbors.”
“Yeah, sort of like Chad Prescott.” She tugged the dog’s lead, edging from the table.
“Sort of,” the Boss agreed. He knew Chad Prescott.
20
The night of the party, the Villa Mara, on top of its own hill overlooking the Mediterranean, could surely have been seen from outer space, illuminated so extravagantly, so spectacularly, that every rosebush was defined in soft pink, every tree under-lit so its branches spiked into the dark blueness of a sky that seemed also to have been lit by the monied hand of the host.
The Boss had inspected everything an hour before his party was to start; checked the all-so-important lighting, the premier necessity for atmosphere, he’d always found. He’d seen that the tables were properly draped in simple white linen in classic style; that the white-cushioned chairs had golden chiffon bows tied around their backs; that the seventy-foot turquoise pool glittered like a jewel in the twilight; that crystal gleamed and silver shone and the bar was big enough to accommodate every guest, and stocked everything any guest could possibly want. Including, of course, Roederer Cristal Rouge. He believed it was every woman’s favorite champagne. Nothing like a slender flute of pink to elevate her sense of well-being, while at the same time possibly loosening her morals.