Page 32 of Lela's Choice

“I’ve already worked that out,” Hamish said. She was an illicit sweet when he was on the strictest diet. Knowing family loyalty not self-indulgence was her guiding principle in making her choices was a big part of her appeal. “Tea or coffee, if they ask while you’re away?”

“Tea, thank you. Lady Grey if they have it. And some water.”

Before she reached the buffet, she’d hailed a stewardess, asked her a question, smiled, then touched the woman’s arm in thanks before moving to another section of the room. Hamish bet she didn’t ever shout or throw tantrums. With what he’d learned in a short time, he bet she’d given long and hard consideration to people, how she wanted to interact with them, how best to deflect their curiosity.

“Tea’s coming.” He glanced at her plate. “Just cereal and fresh fruit?”

“The fruit selection is irresistible.” While she ate, she asked questions about the names of the different buildings she could see from the window.

“Ready to discuss business?” Hamish asked.

“Let me order another pot of tea first.” She raised the teapot in one hand, pointed to it with the other. A waitress nodded.

Beautiful hands. Ambushed by her serious eyes, he hadn’t noticed those long, elegant fingers until he’d had them on him. Her nails were painted with a translucent sheen. Subtle, like her clothing. She could blend with any group, had deliberately chosen camouflage again today.

Lela Vella consciously duped onlookers. Not a chameleon; she didn’t change who she was, just didn’t reveal herself to casual observers.

“Have you heard from Marty?” She settled back in her chair with a fresh cup of the delicately flavoured tea.

“Not this morning.” A different perfume teased Hamish’s senses today, elusive but equally alluring, and he fought to resist its pull on his concentration. When she leaned forward to rest her chin on her cupped hand a second time, he drew a long steadying breath. With her simple act, he could believe there was no one in the world except him. “I updated your father,” he continued, breaking out in a sweat. “He’s concerned about his granddaughter.”

“Papa loves her,” she replied. “Do you intend to report all our conversations to him?”

Her ability to focus absolutely was mesmerising. If she’d been Hamish’s banker, he’d have handed over every cent he had without a question. Oblivious of her power to distract, yet she used it effortlessly.

“I’ll let him know when we locate her, if she’s safe, and discuss next steps.”

“He isn’t interested in her safety.” When Hamish raised a disbelieving eyebrow, she amended her statement. “He isn’t only interested in her safety. I thought he’d mellowed in recent years, when my brothers and their wives started to have babies. Ultimately, Mari ran away. Maybe that’s the trigger—an intolerable challenge to his authority.”

“He doesn’t like challenges to his authority?”

Raking her hand through her short hair to leave it tousled, and framing her face like a dark, bed-rumpled Botticelli angel, might delay the need for her to give Hamish an answer, but it drained the blood from his head. His hands formed fists to keep them from pulling her into his arms.

“You’re speaking from experience?” he asked.

“I’ve never moved out of the house.”

“Did he ask you to?” Hamish bet he had.

“He’s issued ultimatums that I’ve accepted. But this time it’s different.”

“How?” He was developing his own theories.

“Neither Sophie nor I are children.”

“But sheisvulnerable.” He guessed she’d made plans based on Sophie’s legal age of independence, but life was more complicated than that. “Isn’t that why we’re both here?”

She hesitated, but this morning proved she wouldn’t shy away from difficult questions if they were needed to get to the truth. The flash of hope she’d been unable to hide when Hamish had first said he was looking for her niece, like her decision to set aside their attraction, betrayed her. She’d sacrifice privacy, pride, and her own needs to find Sophie, making it odd that she wouldn’t confront the truth of Sophie’s mental state. Vella had said his daughter was wilfully blind.

“Yes,” she agreed.

Sophie’s vulnerability was the deciding factor in Hamish accepting the case.

“Then how could sharing information with your father compromise Sophie’s well-being?” Hamish recalled the notes he’d received from Giovanni Vella, the pleas to find his granddaughter and make sure she was safe.

“I part fund a foundation in Sydney that works with young people on the streets, particularly young pregnant women.”

She was like those Russian Matryoshka dolls: you lifted the head off the first and discovered another hidden beneath.

---