Rich As Sin

‘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—–’