The Society Wife by India Grey

ring glinting heavily on his little finger.
    â€˜Please, Luisa, it is not your fault. My son has yet to learn some manners.’ Settling his face into a smooth smile, he turned his cold gaze on Tristan as the secretary retreated with obvious relief. ‘Perhaps you would like to explain what is so important that you neglect the most basic courtesy to my staff?’
    Tristan’s face was set into a rigid mask of barely controlled anger. When he spoke it was through gritted teeth, his lips hardly moving.
    â€˜You authorised a further loan to the Khazakismiri army. Last week. Another four million euros. Do you know who these people are? They’re terrorists , guerillas, who are responsible for mass genocide.’
    Juan Carlos gave a minute shrug of his elegant shoulders. ‘Their generals are also very likely to form a large part of the cabinet of the next Khazakismiri government. This is business, Tristan. We cannot afford to be emotional.’
    The word hit Tristan like an unexpected blow, reminding him so suddenly of Lily that he felt the air being knocked from his lungs.
    I think you already are in touch with your emotions, she hadsaid. And I think the emotion you’re most in touch with at the moment is fear.
    She was wrong, he thought bitterly as he stared unflinchingly into the brutally handsome face of his father; the face that his own echoed so clearly. He knew fear. Fear was the element in which he had lived for the first eight years of his life, until boarding school had delivered him from it. Fear had coloured every day, so that he knew all its shades of blackness. Fear was being small, powerless, not in control, and he had made sure that he was as far removed from all those things as it was possible to be.
    â€˜I’m not talking about emotion ,’ he said icily. ‘I’m talking about ethics .’
    â€˜Tristan, this is Spain’s oldest and most venerated bank, not some ramshackle, politically correct charity,’ Juan Carlos said silkily, and not for the first time Tristan wondered just how much his father knew about his double life. ‘Khazakismir is going through a turbulent time in its history at the moment, but it is an area that is potentially rich in natural gas and oil, and when things are more settled our investment will be richly rewarded. I have a duty to provide the best return for our investors.’
    Tristan swore with quiet disgust. ‘And you think they would agree with that if they knew exactly what kind of atrocities their money was funding?’
    â€˜We don’t have to burden them with moral dilemmas or complicated political issues. I think of myself as a father figure to our customers,’ Juan Carlos continued complacently. ‘I make decisions with their best interests at heart. It’s not always an easy role, or a comfortable one, but it is my duty. Just as your duty is to the family.’
    Just the word ‘father’ coming from Juan Carlos’s lips made Tristan’s hands bunch into fists and adrenaline pulse through him. His eyes were drawn, as they always were whenever he had any cause to penetrate Juan Carlos’s private citadel, to the large silver-framed photograph that stood on the desk. To the casual observer it showed the Romero de Losada Montalvofamily posing happily together on the steps of El Paraiso, but Tristan always suspected it was placed there, not so much to impress visitors, but to remind Tristan of the real nature and extent of his ‘duty’.
    â€˜As if I could forget,’ said Tristan tonelessly, still looking at the picture.
    The casual observer probably wouldn’t notice the person, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tristan, who had been cropped out of the picture. They would be far more likely to look at Nico, Juan Carlos’s youngest son, standing at the front, and remark on the openness of his expression, the infectious charm of his smile.
    They would, of course, never