A Case For Trust (22 page)

He didn't even glance at them.

‘We're excited to be selling your property for you, Ms …' he had to look at the contract to prompt his recollection of her name, ‘Ms Lloyd. As I mentioned to you the other day—yesterday? Was it only yesterday?—the market's been quite flat for some months now, but still, my agency's had some good success in moving properties in this area. Now, if I can just ask you to sign here, and here—'

‘How much?' Pippa almost choked on the question. ‘How much do you think you can get for it?'

His shift in posture told her he didn't like to be hurried, but Pippa didn't care. She wanted this done, needed to know what she had to work with. The tears would come later; right now, she just wanted answers. She waited impatiently, and didn't bother to hide her impatience, while he hummed and hahed and prevaricated. Finally:

‘I'd like to say I could do better, but in this market, and with the age and condition of the house, I'd be lying if I said I could get you much more than you paid for it.'

Pippa let out half an anxious breath. ‘Could you get me what I paid for it?'

‘Oh, I think so. Yes, I certainly think so. If you were prepared to wait for the market to lift a little—'

‘No. I can't wait.'

‘Well, then. If you were prepared to do a little work—'

‘I'll do the work. Just tell me what needs doing most urgently, what will make the most difference for buyers.'

He bristled again at her curt responses, but in the end, they came up with a plan to list the house immediately, with the first inspection the following Saturday. They were in the bathroom, discussing whether retiling it would recoup the investment, when Pippa heard the distinctive, familiar tread, first on the verandah stairs and then down the hallway of her house.

She should have known he'd turn up eventually.

Matt paused at the bathroom door, his inexorable dark eyes weighing up and discarding the real estate agent before turning upon Pippa. ‘Can I speak to you for a few moments, please?'

‘I was just leaving.' The agent had astutely assessed the hostility directed at him, and without another glance at Pippa, closed his folder and hurried out of the house.

‘Chicken,' Pippa muttered under her breath, as she left the bathroom to put the relative safety of the kitchen counter between her and Matt. But she couldn't blame the agent. Matt Mason glowering was an intimidating sight, as she'd ignored to her own cost. He'd followed her into the kitchen, taken up a position by the back door. She lifted her head and met his challenging glare.

‘I've been trying to call you.' His voice was low, placating, as if he was testing her mood.

‘My phone's been off.'

‘So I gathered. Why are you selling your house?'

Pippa exploded. ‘Are you seriously going to pretend you don't know? Have you come to gloat? Feel free—only I'm quite busy, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't entertain you while you do so.'

He had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘Marissa called me. Philippa, I'm sorry. I had no idea—'

‘I saw your name on the letter to the bank. I had plenty of time to look at it, while the bank manager told me all the ways I'd broken the law and would pay for my actions.'

‘I didn't—'

‘I. Saw. The letter. With your.
Your
. Name on it.'

‘It's a formality.' He tried to explain. ‘Any correspondence from my firm has my name on it; mine or one of the other partners. Depending on the client. Depending on the case. I don't always see the letters that go out under my name.'

‘Well, your “formality” has cost me my living. Congratulations. You said you'd ruin me, and you did. Now, would you please get out of my house. It is still my house, for now.'

‘Philippa, you can't honestly believe I meant for this to happen.'

Pippa's eyes welled, rage and pain and betrayal overruling sarcasm. ‘Can't I?
Can't
I? If you didn't authorise the letter, who did? Who else in your firm knew about my father and his alcoholism? Because I sure as hell didn't tell anybody. You're the first person I've told, the only person I've
ever
told. You, with your high and mighty delusions of integrity. You, who accused me of being unethical just because I stopped your brother marrying a woman he would have made miserable. Where the hell are
your
ethics, Matthew E Mason?'

Pippa spun away from him to dash away the revealing tears before they scored her cheeks. She was not weak! She was
not
crying out of weakness. And she was damned if he'd see her cry over anything he'd done to her, now or ever. She felt his warmth at her back and froze. Damn him.
Damn him.
Why couldn't he leave her alone?

‘You're right.' His voice was so quiet she had to strain above her own rasping breathing to hear it. ‘You're right. You gave me that information in confidence, and I shared it with someone in my firm, my clerk. It was before I knew you properly, Philippa, before I knew who you were. Who you are.'

She ducked away from the warmth, putting the counter back between them before she faced him again.

‘Why did you tell your clerk? What business was it of his?'

‘He was under instructions to monitor your business. To … report on what you were doing.'

‘Report to whom?'

‘To me.'

‘Right. So he was under
your
instructions. What was he supposed to be looking for?'

Matt sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. Philippa kept her eyes on his jaw; she didn't need to see that adorable, irascible hair flopping into his eyes. ‘He was looking for anything that would give me leverage over you.'

‘Why?'

‘You know why.'

‘To ruin me.'

‘Yes. But Philippa, that was before—'

‘Before you knew who I was. Yes, I heard you the first time. It doesn't make any more sense the second time round.'

‘Then let me explain—'

‘No, thank you. I don't need any explanations from you. You made it very clear the first time you met me what you thought of me, what you intended to do to me. I can't pretend you didn't give me fair warning, and plenty of it. My fault for assuming that letting you into my bed somehow gave me a little latitude. I should have known better. All I did was confirm your perceptions of me, didn't I. You called me a slut, and I suppose I have been. Though I've precious little to show for it. I guess that just means I wasn't a very good one. So if it's all the same to you, I'll give up that career as well. There must be something left I can actually get paid to do.'

Matt had remained silent throughout her tirade, and even after she'd finished, running out of rage as well as breath, he simply stood there, pallid, staring at her. Pippa was all out of anger, all out of words. Exhausted. Defeated. ‘Just get the hell out of my house, Matt. You've won. You've destroyed me, just as you wanted. Now get the hell out. I've got things to do.'

That stirred him. ‘Wait. Listen to me. I want to help …'

‘I don't need your bloody help, thanks all the same. You've “helped” me quite enough. Get out.' And when he didn't move, she screamed. ‘Get out!'

He shut the front door with a gentle click that she heard even at the back of the house. It was almost as loud as the silence he left behind.

Chapter 15

Friday night. Date night. Matt found himself in the bar on the ground floor of his apartment block. He'd never graced its doors before, but still, the waitress seemed to know him. Or knew Justin, it transpired, and had recognised Matt as some close relation because of the family looks. He was used to smoothing life's little obstacles for Justin; it was a novelty to have his brother's reputation smoothing the way for him.

She left her number on the coaster under his fourth scotch, just before she clocked off, and the sultry, over-the-shoulder come-on she gave him as she collected her bag and jacket almost had him following. Almost. He came close enough; got up from his stool, staggered a little until his legs obeyed his commands again, and then the chilling night air slapped his cheeks and cooled his lust, and he turned away from the hips swaying up the footpath and headed towards the river instead.

There was a timber bench seat on the path overlooking the river just opposite the Point, with a couple sitting on it, cuddling and giggling. He decided to walk past, but they suddenly rose and ran down to the terminal below to meet the ferry that was ploughing up the glassy obsidian surface. He took their place and fixed his eyes on the view he so seldom saw, living as he did in his lofty eyrie high above the hoi polloi.

He winced at his own description. He'd never yearned, as his youngest brother Garrett had, to escape the luxuries that embellished life as one of the Mason scions. But for the second time in a week, he was envying a couple of lovers who he presumed had none of his advantages; who courted and cavorted on public benches and travelled on public transport. He thought of the waitress again, happy enough to pick up a stranger for a night of casual fun, with no concern for tomorrow. There were a half-million men in the city right now who would probably have taken her up on her offer. But not Matt Mason. Not the fastidious, punctilious, well-bred Matthew E Mason of the Brookfield Masons. He punched his fist into the timber plank of the seat beside him; punched again, and again, until the splintered crack of his knuckles let him know he was awake, aware.

What the hell had happened to him? So determined to protect and guide his family—whether they wanted his protection and guidance or not—he'd allowed his own immutable sense of right and wrong to slip, to slide, to sidle over the edge of integrity into hypocrisy. He disgusted himself. What happened to Philippa wasn't Simon's fault. It was his fault. His. He didn't recognise the person who'd given Simon those instructions. His father, for sure, wouldn't have recognised the firm as his own, which had a clerk blindly following such instructions. The fault was his. The descent into amoral, uncharitable malevolence started with him. He was a cynical bastard. Cynical, untrusting, savage, brutal, controlling. And his company had become the same. He knew it. He could stop it. He could reverse it. He could re-establish Mason & Mason as the law firm his father and his grandfather before him had intended.

The one thing he couldn't do, couldn't ever do, was ask Philippa to forgive him. He couldn't forgive himself, so there was no way he'd ever ask it of her. There was still a chance of him becoming a decent human being, and it was due to her; she'd shown him how he should be. There was still a chance, too, of him remediating the damage his firm had inflicted on her. It would take some fancy footwork—after all, she
had
fudged her application, so it was going to be difficult to argue it was in his client's best interests to take on her risk—and she wouldn't thank him for it. She didn't want help from him, she'd made that more than clear. Her anguished eyes, fixed on his as she screamed at him to get out, would haunt his nights for a good while, he knew.

She didn't want his help, but that didn't mean she wouldn't get it. He could still do the right thing, even if there was no reward apart from the intrinsic value of doing it. The very definition of integrity, he noted wryly. But as he pulled the black ring case out of his pocket for perhaps the hundredth time that day, he felt a little better about his options.

He would still protect his client's interests; he'd sworn an oath to do so. But his money, his contacts, his influence could protect Philippa's. And damned if it wasn't time for Marissa to show just how much of the Mason family legal genius she'd inherited.

***

‘Are you sure you want to do this? It's a pretty drastic step, Matt.'

He'd already thought through all the implications. Financially it would hurt, but he wouldn't be left homeless as Philippa had. Professionally it would hurt, too, and that was only fair. He'd dealt Philippa's career a pretty serious blow, and she had none of his family name and connections and favours owed to help her recover. And personally, it was really going to hurt. He didn't fancy being the object of gossip and amusement among his colleagues. They'd all assume a negligence suit was cover for a love affair turned nasty. Well, they wouldn't be too far wrong, at that.

‘She won't thank you, you know. She was pretty clear this morning; she doesn't want to fight it.' His sister's insistent probing held a concern even the muffled mobile phone line couldn't obscure.

‘I know, Marissa. Call her anyway.'

‘Legal Aid won't cover it.'

‘
I'll
cover it. I told you. Just call her.'

‘And what am I supposed to tell my boss? I only started a month ago, and now I'm going to take a few weeks off to fight a private case for my big brother, Matt?'

‘Tell him he can ring me, if he has to.'

Marissa snorted. ‘Fabulous. He already thinks I'm a rich brat, that I bought my way into a job using family connections. Oh look, there goes my career credibility up in smoke, all in the name of saving your arse.'

‘And Philippa's.' Matt forced patience into his voice, and an uncommon wheedling. ‘Don't forget—you like Philippa.'

‘I do like Philippa. Enough to tell her to stay the hell away from my brothers.'

‘So long as you finalise her suit before you tell her. Will you do it?'

‘Oh, so now you're asking me? Like I have a choice?'

‘Please, Marissa.'

His sister sighed down the phone line. ‘I'm already on it. Justin and I have been working on a strategy half the afternoon.'

Matt's patience evaporated. ‘Then what the hell are we arguing about?'

‘I needed to make sure you were serious. I'm not kidding when I say this could cause a whole world of trouble, for me as well as you. Justin says you love her.'