Abby Green - The Brazilian's Blackmail Bargain

THAT evening Maggie prepared a light supper and woke her mother up. When they were sitting in the kitchen afterwards she finally asked the question Maggie had been dreading. ‘How did it go with Michael?’

She steeled herself. ‘Not great. I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

Her mother’s fingers clenched around the mug, her knuckles white. ‘What is it?’

Maggie could have wept at the familiar stoic look in her eyes. She drove down the lump. ‘Mum…someone took over Tom’s business…Just the day after he died it became apparent that he had lost everything. Effectively we’re bankrupt. It was…’ she quashed the potent image of Caleb from her mind’s eye ‘…someone who he had tried to take over.’

‘I always knew a lot of people had grievances against him…There was bound to be someone…So what does it mean?’ her mother asked.

‘Well…’ Maggie desperately fought against saying the house just yet ‘…it means that we don’t get anything; it’s all gone.’

Her mother gave much the same reaction as Maggie had earlier. ‘Well, that’s not the worst thing, is it? I mean, what have we ever had?’ She smiled a watery smile at her daughter and looked around the kitchen. ‘At least we have the house…Honestly, love, I don’t know what I’d do if we didn’t have this; it’s all I have left of your father and now I’ll be able to live here in peace.’ Maggie’s mother reached across the table and took her daughter’s hand, ‘Don’t look so worried, pet, everything will work out. I’ll get a job…you’ve got your painting; we’ll be okay.’

She hadn’t figured it out yet, Maggie knew with a sick horror. Somehow, her mother hadn’t equated signing over the house as collateral with Tom losing everything.

‘Mum…you don’t realise. We’ve lost everything…’

Her mother still looked at her blankly.

‘Mr Murphy said you signed the house over to Tom before we left London…’

‘Yes, love, but that was just…he just said it was…that it was only to…’ She stopped talking.

‘Oh, dear God, what did I do?’

Maggie held her hand. ‘It’s gone too. It was included in the rest of his assets.’

Her mother didn’t move for some time and then pulled her hand away slowly and got up to rinse out her cup. Maggie followed her, worried about her lack of reaction.

When her mother turned to face her she felt real fear, her eyes were dead, any sign of life or spark gone.

‘Mum…’

‘Margaret, I can’t…don’t make me think about this…I can’t bear it.’

She watched helplessly as the bowed woman walked out of the kitchen and knew that she was struggling with all of her might to keep herself together. That night she heard the muted sobs through her wall and knew that her proud mother would hate her to witness the awful grief. She couldn’t bear to hear her pain. What could she do? There had to be some way out…some solution.

The next morning, as the weak dawn light filtered through the curtains, Maggie lay with eyes wide open after a sleepless night. A night where demons had invaded every thought. Demons that had a familiar severely handsome face. She knew with a fatal certainty what she had to do. What the only option was.

When she walked into the kitchen a short while later any doubts in her head about her plan fled. Her mother was sitting there listlessly. She looked up briefly with shadowed eyes, her face a grey mask of disappointment and weariness. Maggie went and sat down beside her. ‘Mum, look at me.’ She waited until her mother brought her head around, slowly, as if it were a heavy weight.

‘I’m going to go into town for a while…I have something to do, but I’ll be back later or first thing in the morning.’

Hopefully with good news…

She didn’t want to say too much in case she got her mother’s hopes up, but right then and there Maggie vowed with everything in her heart that she would do whatever it took to get the house back in her mother’s name. She cooked a light breakfast and forced her mother to have some, relieved to see a slight bloom return to her cheeks before she left.

Once in her small, battered Mini, she stopped by Michael Murphy’s office in the main street to find out where Caleb’s offices were. He didn’t ask any questions, just said as he handed her the address, ‘He’s not going to be easy to see; everyone in Dublin is begging an audience…’

‘I know, but I’ll camp outside his door if I have to,’ Maggie replied grimly.

She hit the rush hour traffic on the way into town and the journey, which might normally take thirty minutes, took three times as long.

Finally she was in the city centre and parked near the building in the financial district where Caleb’s offices had been set up. She was dressed smartly in her one and only suit. She wanted to look as businesslike as possible. It was dark blue—a skirt and short jacket with a matching cream silk shirt. She wore sheer stockings and high heels and had tied her unruly hair back in a severe bun. She wanted to feel armoured against Caleb’s scathing looks and condemnation. Even if she was shaking like a leaf on the inside.

The spring air was deceptively mild, yet she shivered. At reception they directed her up to the top floor, which Caleb had taken over in its entirety for his sole use. Her stomach churned as she ascended in the lift, the thought of seeing him face to face again more daunting than she had thought possible.

Any illusion of ease in getting to see him was swiftly dashed on her arrival on to the opulently designed floor. A veritable bulldog of a secretary was guarding the main foyer and looked Maggie up and down when she requested to see Caleb.

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘Well…not exactly, but when he hears who it is he might have a couple of minutes to spare. I won’t take up much of his time.’

‘I’ll let him know, but he has meetings back to back all day. You might be waiting for some time.’

‘That’s fine.’ She’d wait until midnight if she had to. She made a quick call on her mobile to a friend of her mother’s in the village, asking her to look in and make sure she was okay. With that done, she settled in for the wait.

Some eight hours later Maggie had run the gamut of emotions: irritation, boredom, anger, despair, disbelief and now she was just exhausted. Her suit was crumpled, her shoes were off and her hair was unravelling. Any make-up that had been there had long slid off. She hadn’t left for anything except a crucial toilet visit in case she missed him. All day long men in suits had come and gone. She’d seen lunch being delivered and then taken away again, prompting her own stomach to rumble. The first secretary had been and gone and had been replaced by another similarly bad-tempered one.

Caleb’s door opened again and Maggie resigned herself to seeing yet more faceless suits departing and thought dimly that the man’s stamina was unbelievable. She didn’t register for a minute that it was Caleb himself walking out, his tall, powerful build unmistakable. When her sluggish brain finally clicked into gear, she jumped up, her body protesting at the sudden movement after sitting for so long. He was striding towards the lift, not looking left or right; he hadn’t even seen her as she was partially tucked away behind a plant.

‘Caleb…’ she cursed her impulse to call him by his first name ‘…Mr Cameron—wait!’

He had just pressed the button for the lift and turned around slowly, his brows snapping together when he saw her. Maggie forced herself to stand tall, only realising then that she was in stockinged feet, her shoes abandoned somewhere near the chair. She hitched up her chin.