Читать книгу: «Rich As Sin»

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS the thumping in his head that woke him. That, and the sour taste in his mouth, which was an unpleasant reminder of the amount of alcohol he had consumed the night before. But what the hell? No one really cared whether he went to bed sober, or drank himself into a senseless stupor. He was unattached: a free agent. No longer the brunt of any woman’s dissatisfactions. He could please himself what he did; how he lived. And if the knowledge didn’t exactly please him, then tough! Given enough time, he’d get used to it.

Or would he? Rolling over in the tumbled bed, Matthew cast a bleary eye at the clock on the nearby table. God! he grunted ruefully. It was after twelve o’clock! No wonder his head was thumping. As he hadn’t eaten a thing since noon the previous day, he was probably starving as well as dehydrating.

Still, he defended himself, as he hauled himself into an upright position and sat for a moment, waiting for the sledgehammer in his skull to slow its pace, he had been working until after midnight. The new program he was devising was probably going to outsell all his other programs, and he shouldn’t be too hard on himself if he used alcohol as a stimulant. The fact that he hadn’t needed that kind of stimulation until Melissa walked out on him was something he preferred not to remember. Time would deal with Melissa as it had dealt with everything else. And at least he had his work to alleviate his misery.

Pushing himself to his feet, he paused again before lurching across the expensive shag-pile carpet to the bathroom. After attending to his most immediate needs, he leaned on the porcelain basin and viewed his stubbled features without enthusiasm. His eyes were bloodshot; there was a distinctly unhealthy tinge of greyness in his skin; and, to cap it all, it was two days since he had shaved, so that he resembled nothing so much as a derelict, one of those homeless vagrants who wandered around the country looking for hand-outs.

Which was probably unfair to them, reflected Matthew drily, rubbing a hand over his bristling jawline. At least they had a reason for looking the way they did. He had a decent home, and an occupation, and, because of his maternal grandfather’s business acumen, more money than he knew what to do with. No reason at all to behave like an alcoholic, and certainly no reason to look like one.

Grimacing, he turned away from the mirror and stepped into the shower stall. Deliberately ignoring the temperature control, he allowed a stream of cold water to cascade down on to his shuddering body. God! For a moment, the iciness of it almost stopped his breath. But then, squeezing shower gel on to his hands, he began to lather himself fiercely, abrading his protesting flesh, as the water pummelled his head and shoulders.

He felt marginally better when he stepped out of the marble-tiled stall, and wrapped a huge cream bath-sheet about him. His head was still throbbing, but the dragging feeling of lethargy had dissipated somewhat. He didn’t feel good, and he knew better than to believe that he would improve as the day wore on. But at least he was awake and active. And the computer keyboard would take care of the rest.

His razor beckoned, and with a sigh of resignation he picked it up. He wouldn’t suit a beard, anyway, he consoled himself, as he concentrated on not turning his face into a mess of bloody cuts. Which wasn’t easy, when his hand tended to shake at the most inopportune moments. God, he should have had a drink before he started this. It was amazing how a shot of Scotch could stabilise his senses.

He managed to finish the job without creating too much havoc, and dropped the towel on to the cold tiles of the bathroom floor. Then, after another ironic grimace at his appearance, he walked back into the bedroom, wrinkling his nose at the sour smell of alcohol that hit him. Indifferent to the fact that he was naked, and the temperature outside somewhere in the low forties, Matthew unlatched the windows to his balcony and threw them open. Then, after withstanding the blast of cold air that hit him with what he considered was admirable fortitude, he groped for his denims and pulled them on.

He was rummaging in his closet for a clean polo shirt when there was a knock at the bedroom door. Turning, he surveyed the closed door for fully fifteen seconds without answering, and then, stifling his impatience, he called, ‘Yeah? What do you want?’

The door opened, just a crack, and a man’s bald head appeared. ‘Oh,’ he said, when he saw Matthew. ‘You’re up, sir. Will you be wanting some breakfast?’

Matthew’s mouth compressed. ‘At half-past twelve, Jeeves? I don’t think so. I’ll just have a sandwich. I want to get to work.’

The door widened to admit the intruder, a huge, giant of a man, whose massive shoulders and straining paunch were constrained beneath navy blue worsted and spotless white linen. The uniform of a gentleman’s gentleman sat oddly on such a big man’s shoulders, but Matthew knew better than to suggest an alternative. The other man was proud of his appearance.

‘Are you going to the office, sir?’ he enquired, his sharp eyes taking in the open balcony doors and the untidy state of the bedroom. ‘And I wish you wouldn’t call me Jeeves, Mr Putnam. I don’t like it, and you know it.’

Matthew gave the man a resigned look, and then, having no luck in finding a clean shirt, he reached for the sweatshirt he had discarded the night before. ‘No, I don’t plan to go into the office today,’ he was beginning, when the manservant snatched the sweatshirt out of his hands. ‘For God’s sake, Victor, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Well, judging by your appearance, I’d guess you’d just had a shower, sir,’ declared Victor mildly, ‘and I’m sure you didn’t intend to wear this rather—odorous—item. You have a whole drawer full of clean shirts in the closet behind you. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it out for you.’

‘I can dress myself, thank you—Creighton,’ drawled Matthew, with rather less patience. ‘Why don’t you get out of here until I’m finished? Go and make some coffee or something. I don’t need a nursemaid.’

‘Did I say you did?’ Victor rolled the offending sweatshirt into a ball, and stood his ground. ‘But, as it happens, you look as if you need someone’s assistance. Your mother isn’t going to like this. She’s not going to like it at all.’

‘My mother?’ Matthew paused in the act of choosing a shirt from the drawer Victor had indicated, and turned to look at him again. ‘What does my mother have to do with anything?’

‘Have you forgotten? You’re meeting her for lunch in a little over half an hour.’

‘Oh, God!’ Matthew slammed the drawer with his hip, and pulled a black polo shirt over his head. The sombre colour only accentuated the pallor of his olive skin, and Victor’s tongue clicked his disapproval. But Matthew was indifferent to anyone’s feelings but his own at that moment, and the prospect of eating lunch with his mother and enduring her condemnation of his lifestyle was enough to make him wish he’d stayed in bed.

‘A sandwich, you said, sir,’ murmured Victor, evidently deciding it would be politic to give his employer a breathing space, and Matthew cast him a brooding look.

‘Nothing to eat,’ he snarled, the jaw he had shaved so inexpertly clenched aggressively. ‘Just fetch me a beer, and no arguments. Oh, and call me a cab. With a bit of luck there won’t be any available.’

Victor paused in the doorway, his broad features showing his dismay. ‘I can drive you, Mr Putnam,’ he protested, but his employer’s face was adamant.

‘I said I’ll take a cab,’ Matthew retorted. ‘Just do it, Victor. And hurry up with that beer!’

Three-quarters of an hour later, Matthew stepped out of the minicab and bent to shove a five-pound note into the driver’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said, without meaning it, waving away the change the man would have given him. Then, with a tight smile at the doorman’s proffered greeting, he vaulted up the steps and through the swing glass doors into the Ritz’s elegant foyer.

The dining-room was at the far end of the hallway, but guests took pre-luncheon drinks in the gilded splendour of the Palm Court. It was there Matthew knew he would find his mother, delicately sipping the Perrier water which was all she allowed herself in the middle of the day. Caroline Putnam—née Apollonius—guarded her appearance with almost as much reverence as her son disregarded his, and it was her proud boast that her wedding dress fitted her as well today as it had done more than thirty years ago.

Of course, the fact that the marriage she had worn the wedding dress for had lasted a considerably shorter time she considered of little consequence. She had married Joseph Putnam when she was only eighteen, much against her parents’ wishes, and had soon come to realise her father had been right all along. A penniless Englishman, of good stock but little business acumen, Joseph Putnam had lingered only long enough to sire their only offspring, before taking off on a round-the-world yacht-race that had ended in disaster off the Cape of Good Hope. Of course, Caroline had been suitably grief-stricken when the news was delivered, but no one could deny she had been relieved. It had saved her the publicity—and the expense—of a messy divorce, and Aristotle Apollonius—who preferred the sobriquet of Apollo, for obvious reasons—had been more than willing to take his errant daughter, and her small son, back to Greece.

But, from Matthew’s point of view, it had not been an entirely satisfactory solution. Despite the fact that ‘Apollo’ had had only one child, Caroline, and that therefore Matthew was the only heir to the enormous shipping fortune he had amassed, the boy grew up with a regrettable dislike of his grandfather’s use of his money. The politics of power didn’t interest Matthew; he saw no merit in controlling people’s lives for purely personal gain. And, because his father had left sufficient funds for him to be educated in England, at the same schools he himself had attended, where a spartan regime went hand in hand with a distinct need for self-preservation, he had acquired a cynical aversion towards wealth in all its forms. It was a constant bone of contention between Matthew and the other members of his family, and the fact that he had made his home in England was no small contribution to the continuing discord.

Which was why Matthew was not looking forward to this particular lunch with his mother. Ever since the split with Melissa she had been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade him to come back to Athens. Despite the fact that he had now formed his own company, specialising in computer software, and had no interest in taking his place on the board of the Apollonius Shipping Corporation, Caroline persisted in pursuing her goal.

The trouble was, Matthew was very much afraid that sooner or later she might succeed. He might be able to evade the issue so long as his grandfather was alive, but Apollo was over seventy years old. In ten years, twenty at the most, he was going to die, and then what excuse would he have for avoiding his responsibilities? Whether he liked it or not, hundreds—thousands—of people relied on the Apollonius Shipping Corporation for their livelihoods, and there was no way he could sit back and let his grandfather’s relatives jealously tear to shreds what he had achieved.

The head waiter recognised him as he climbed the steps into the brightly lit atrium. It might be a dismal early April day outside, but the Palm Court of the London Ritz was as cheerfully brilliant as ever.

‘Good morning, Mr Putnam,’ the man said, his eyes moving from Matthew to the elegantly dressed woman at a corner table. ‘Your mother is waiting for you.’

‘Yes, thanks.’ Matthew bestowed another brief smile, and started across the room. ‘Oh—bring me a Scotch and soda, will you? I see my mother’s already on the soft stuff.’

The waiter smiled, and moved away, and Matthew continued on to where his mother was seated on a striped couch. ‘Mama,’ he greeted her formally, bending to brush his lips against hers. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

Caroline Putnam viewed her son with reproof mingled with reluctant pride. Tall, like his father, and dark, like his maternal forebears, Matthew attracted attention wherever he went. Particularly female attention, Caroline admitted, somewhat irritably. Not surprisingly, he had the lean good looks that had attracted her to Joseph Putnam in the first place, but the weaknesses she had not initially recognised in his father had been more than compensated for by her own father’s genes. Matthew might not want to accept it, but he was far more like his grandfather than he would admit. He was arrogant, and stubborn, and absurdly independent. He made arbitrary decisions, and expected other people to abide by them. And, allied to that, he had the hooded eyes and muscled strength of a predator: an irresistible combination of sensuality and brute strength.

But he was letting himself go, thought Caroline tersely, viewing the slight thickening of his midriff that swelled above his belt. And jeans, and a leather jerkin! To have lunch with his mother! It was all that bitch Melissa’s fault. Announcing she had fallen in love with someone else! Probably because Matthew had been in no hurry to take her to the altar.

‘I should have thought you’d have had plenty of time to arrange your schedule so you wouldn’t be late,’ she remarked now, the attractive accent she still retained taking a little of the sharpness out of her tone. ‘I know you haven’t been into the office. I called earlier, and Robert told me you were not there.’

‘No.’ Matthew’s response was hardly satisfactory. ‘So—when did you arrive?’

‘Here—or in England?’ Caroline enquired in a clipped voice, jewelled fingers toying with the triple string of cultured pearls that encircled her slender throat, and Matthew’s mouth took on a lazy slant.

‘In England,’ he replied, humouring her. ‘I imagine you’re occupying your usual suite upstairs.’

‘Yes, and you might have taken the trouble to arrive in time to escort me down,’ retorted his mother, the dark eyes she had passed on to her son flashing angrily. ‘Honestly, Matt, I think you go out of your way to humiliate me! Leaving me sitting here alone! What if some undesirable lout had approached me?’

‘The Ritz doesn’t admit undesirable louts,’ remarked Matthew mildly, nodding his thanks as his Scotch and soda was delivered to the table. ‘You could sit here all day and no one would trouble you. But—I admit I should have phoned. As I said before, I’m sorry.’

Caroline sniffed, but her expression had softened somewhat, and although she observed the enthusiasm with which her son swallowed half his drink her reaction was more resigned than censorious.

‘Oh, well,’ she said, taking a sip of the iced spa water in her glass, ‘you’re here now, and that’s what really matters. For myself, I arrived last evening, and went straight off to that charity gala at the Albert Hall. Your Uncle Henry escorted me. Aunt Celia is still indisposed.’

Matthew nodded. His uncle’s wife had never enjoyed the best of health, although he privately believed that her many illnesses were self-induced. It was commonly known that Henry Putnam was inclined to enjoy the company of the opposite sex rather too well, and poor Aunt Celia had paid the price of being too trusting. Nevertheless, from his mother’s point of view, the situation could not have been more convenient. She had a ready escort, whenever she needed one, without the complications that an unfettered relationship might have created for someone in her position.

‘You, I imagine, were combing the less salubrious nightspots of the city,’ she added, as Matthew’s summoning of the waiter for a second drink reactivated her impatience. ‘Matt, don’t you think you’re behaving rather foolishly? For heaven’s sake, if you were so besotted with the girl, why didn’t you marry her, instead of just—sleeping with her?’

Matthew’s mouth flattened. ‘You know what I think about marriage,’ he answered, after issuing further instructions to the waiter. ‘Just leave it, will you, Mama? I’ll go to hell my own way, if you don’t mind. Now—tell me why you wanted to see me. Or was it just to voice your disapproval—yet again?’

‘Of course not.’

Caroline uncrossed her silk-clad legs and then re-crossed them again in the other direction. Watching her, Matthew had no difficulty in understanding why his father’s brother was so willing to squire her around. At forty-eight, Caroline looked ten years younger, and Matthew was quite prepared to believe that anyone here today who didn’t know them would automatically assume he was her lover, not her son.

‘You know it’s your grandfather’s birthday at the end of the month, don’t you?’ she went on now, and Matthew’s dark brow ascended in disbelief.

‘So it is,’ he agreed, after a moment’s thought. ‘I’d forgotten. How old is the old devil? Seventy-one?’

‘He’s seventy-two, actually,’ declared Caroline flatly. ‘If you remember, you couldn’t come to his seventy-first birthday because it clashed with—with Melissa’s parents’ anniversary ball or something. In any event,’ she hurried on, not wanting to linger over unwelcome memories, ‘we’d like you to join the family for the celebrations. Apollo’s inviting everyone, and it will look rather odd if you’re not there.’

Matthew regarded his mother tolerantly over the rim of his glass. ‘As it did last year, you mean?’

‘No.’ Caroline sighed. ‘Last year wasn’t so important to him!’ she exclaimed irritably. And then, as if regretting her candour, she added, ‘Never mind about last year. Will you come?’

Matthew frowned. ‘What’s so special about this year?’

‘Well—he’s a year older, for one thing …’

‘And?’

‘And—and—he’s not been well,’ admitted his mother reluctantly. ‘You know how he’s always had trouble with his chest. I think it’s been a little more troublesome than usual, and it’s made him aware of his own mortality.’

Matthew’s mouth turned down. ‘If he stopped smoking those damned cigars, he might give his respiration system a chance. How many does he get through in a day? Fifteen? Twenty?’

‘Oh, not as many as that, surely!’ Caroline looked appalled. ‘In any case, Apollo would say that if he couldn’t live his life the way he wanted to live it, there wouldn’t be much point in going on.’

‘Hmm.’ Matthew could see the subject upset her, and decided to desist. ‘Well, I don’t know about this birthday bash. You know family parties aren’t my style.’

Caroline snorted. ‘The way I hear it, social gatherings of any kind aren’t your style! You’ve become a hermit, Matt. A recluse. You don’t go anywhere—except into the office occasionally—you don’t see anyone—–’

‘And where’ve you got all this information from?’ enquired Matthew wearily. ‘No, don’t tell me. I can guess. The admirable Victor!’

‘I—may have had the few odd words with your major-domo when I called—–’

‘I’ll bet!’

‘—but you know Victor cares about you, too. He wouldn’t tell me anything if he didn’t think it was in your best interests.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ His mother gave a resigned sigh. ‘Matt, I don’t want to interfere—–’

‘Then don’t.’

‘—but I care about you as well. And—and I do wish you’d get this—this infatuation for Melissa Mainwaring out of your system.’

‘Right.’ Matthew lifted a hand to summon the waiter again. ‘Shall we look at the menu?’

Caroline opened her mouth to make a protest, and then closed it again. What was the use? she asked herself impotently, feeling all the pangs of frustrated mother-love as her son turned to speak to the restaurant manager. Matthew was such an attractive man; he had everything to live for. Yet he was allowing a spoilt little bitch, who hadn’t got an intelligent thought in her empty little head, to tear his life to pieces.

An hour later, as she was enjoying her second cup of coffee, Caroline risked broaching the subject again. As they ate—and she had noticed Matthew had only picked at his food—the conversation had ranged from the previous night’s gala to the preparations for the forthcoming birthday celebrations. It had been the kind of conversation she could have had with anyone. Certainly not the intimate těte-à-těte she had hoped to achieve. Which was why she decided to bring Melissa’s name back into the proceedings. Like a wound that was festering, her son’s infatuation with the woman wouldn’t heal until it had been thoroughly aired.

‘And—when are Melissa and her prince planning to get married?’ she enquired tensely. ‘They are going to get married, aren’t they? I’m sure I read something about it in last week’s tabloids.’

Matthew replaced the cup he had been holding back in its saucer. He should have known better than to imagine his mother would leave well alone. And, of course, she was right. There had been a report that Brigadier Alfred Mainwaring’s daughter was going to marry the prince of some unpronounceable Eastern European country. The nuptials were planned to take place in June, and no doubt Caroline knew that as well as he did.

‘Soon,’ he remarked now, meeting his mother’s innocent gaze with cool deliberation. ‘Why? Do you think you’ll get an invitation? How would they describe you? Oh, yes. The mother of the best man!’

Caroline’s lips tightened. ‘Joke if you like, but you are—or rather you would be, if you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself. I never thought a son of mine could behave so mindlessly! Perhaps you are your father’s son, after all.’

Matthew’s mouth twisted, and with an exclamation of disgust his mother thrust back her chair and got to her feet. ‘I’m going to my room,’ she declared angrily, and then, conscious of the stir she was creating, she put a steadying hand on the edge of the table. ‘Come and see me tomorrow,’ she added in an undertone, as if regretting her hasty announcement. ‘And think about your grandfather’s birthday. Needless to say, he expects you to be there.’

Matthew did think about what his mother had said, as he walked back to his apartment. The luxurious penthouse he had bought with his own money occupied the top floor of a tall block of apartments in Culver Mews in Knightsbridge, and although he knew Victor wouldn’t approve Matthew enjoyed the unaccustomed exercise. It reminded him it was too long since he had been to the gym, and that Victor’s obsession with his personal protection meant he had too few opportunities to walk anywhere. And, although it was a cold day, with a threat of rain in the air, the daffodils were out in the park, and the early cherry blossom was already appearing on the trees.

It reminded him of what Greece was like at this time of the year, and most particularly Delphus, the island where his grandfather had his home. The sprawling villa where he had spent the early years of his childhood did hold some happy memories for him, and it would be good to see Yannis again, and Nicos, and all the aunts and cousins he remembered from his youth.

But it wasn’t just the idea of obeying his finer instincts, and pleasing his mother for once, that occupied his thoughts as he strode past Hyde Park Corner. It was what his mother had said about Melissa that stuck in his mind. And, although thinking of her with Georgio Ivanov still tore his gut, he was unwillingly aware that she had a point. He should have married her when he had the chance. Goodness knew, she had been eager enough to take the plunge. It had been the one sour note in their relationship, that he had been so unwilling to make their association legal. A lack of commitment was how she had put it, on those increasingly frequent occasions when she had accused him of not loving her enough.

Matthew pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his leather jacket. Love! His lips twisted. He doubted Melissa knew the meaning of the word. No one who professed to love someone as much as she had always professed to love him could have fallen out of love so quickly. And he was cynically aware that Melissa’s ‘love’ was more probably available to the highest bidder. Oh, he might have been her first choice, both sexually and financially, but Ivanov was offering marriage, and that all-important ring on her finger.

For himself, he had never felt any urgency to seek that legitimising scrap of paper. What they had had—or rather, what he had thought they had had—was far more binding than a contract that could just as easily be broken. But he was becoming aware that what Melissa had wanted from him was more than his undying devotion. She had wanted security, the kind of security she could only get if he signed on the dotted line.

So, why should he be so surprised? he asked himself now. His parents’ marriage had fallen apart as much because his father was unambitious as through any character weakness on his part. He had long since learned how convenient his father’s sudden death had proved to be, for, although his mother might sometimes sentimentalise about his passing, she was not her father’s daughter for nothing. All his life, the great god Mammon had ruled his family’s actions. And he had been a fool to think that Melissa was any different from the rest.

Victor was waiting when the lift doors slid back at the twenty-second floor. As Matthew stepped on to the hushed luxury of the Chinese rug that virtually filled the panelled foyer, the man came to meet him in obvious disapproval.

‘You walked,’ he declared, brushing drops of rain from the soft fabric of the jacket his employer slung off, with an impatient finger.

‘I walked,’ agreed Matthew, heading for the inner hallway that led to his study. ‘Rob didn’t call, did he? He knew I was having lunch with my mother.’

‘Mr Prescott didn’t call, no,’ Victor assured him tersely, and then, with a change of tone, he added, ‘But you do have some mail. The lunchtime delivery came while you were out.’ He adopted an expectant expression. ‘Would you like to see it?’

Matthew paused, with his hand against the panels of his private sanctum. ‘Now, what’s that supposed to mean?’ he enquired shortly. ‘You know I always glance through the afternoon mail at dinnertime. It’s probably only bills, in any case.’ He hesitated. ‘Or do you know something I don’t?’

A trace of colour invaded Victor’s bullish features. ‘Now, how would I—–?’

‘Victor!’

The man sighed. ‘Well—there appears to be a letter from Miss Mainwaring,’ he admitted nervously. ‘I thought you might wish to see it. As—as—–’