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“Milk, no sugar, please.”

He assembled sandwiches, poured the boiling water into a large teapot, and let it sit. The overlong silence told Niall she was struggling to find the words she wanted. He slowed his movements to give her time to marshal her arguments. While he brought the kettle back to the boil, he drained the water from the pot into two waiting cups. Covering the full teapot with a cosy, he emptied the now warm cups and carried everything to the table, including two plates and the jar of pickles. “I’ll let you fix your own.”

“I didn’t ask for that.” She made a face at the oversized sandwich he’d set in front of her.

“It’s lunchtime.” Niall took the chair opposite her.

Her guilty glance at her smartwatch told him she’d lost track of time, while her unfashionably baggy clothes told him eating was a faint memory. Loss of appetite was another by-product of heartache.

He’d been there too. “I hate to eat alone.”

“I thought you lived alone.” She cut one half of her sandwich in half and added pickles. Eating his food was another nod to politeness. Referring to his living arrangements was her opening salvo in hostilities.

“What else did your granda tell you?” Niall waited for her to swallow her first mouthful, then took a bite of his own, setting himself the task of keeping her in his kitchen long enough to finish her sandwich. Food was his currency for sympathy, although Lucy McTavish’s unannounced arrival declared she wasn’t here for comfort.

“Months ago, Grandpa talked about meeting a furniture restorer at an antiques auction.”

“I’ve done the odd bit of restoration.” Niall was pretty positive Cam had offered those pieces as a sop to Niall’s dignity. While the profit from their sale had covered the rent, over time, Niall worked out Cam had become his patron rather than his landlord.

And wasn’t that a feckin’ indictment. At thirty-four, he needed an old man’s patronage because his passion for making bespoke furniture had yet to deliver a decent living.

“Three pieces.” She placed her left hand on his table as if drawing strength from the age and beauty of the timber. “Three pieces of furniture were delivered to McTavish’s Antiques five months ago.”

“Cam said they earned a good profit.” Niall wrapped both hands around his Blue Italian Spode cup, watching as she raised the Flora Danica, Royal Copenhagen to her mouth; a distraction while she framed her answer. Like most of his cups, the matching saucers were lost in the mists of time.

“They did.” Her chin jut signalled a full stop on McTavish profits.

“Cam said he told you about our arrangement.” Niall’s doubts were growing. Furniture restorer was a half-arsed description of him.

“He told me he offered you accommodation in return for restoring furniture. Three pieces of furniture over eight months gives you a higher hourly rate than a top-class hooker.” The insult rolled off her tongue, the barb sinking deeper than she could have known. Unaware, she popped the last morsel of the second quarter of sandwich into her luscious, bow-shaped mouth.

“Cam was an astute businessman.” After a tussle, which had included consultation with his lawyer brother, Niall was at peace with his conscience. “He controlled how much restoration he wanted.”

“From his sick bed?” She licked a pickle off her thumb, her tongue sexily practical as it brushed along her knuckle to collect the smear of sauce. The lapse in table manners gave a hint of the warm-hearted woman Cam had talked about. Today’s disciplined façade was a slap at Niall.

“While I delivered the last piece five months ago, Cam spent a lot of happy hours here. Until these last two months.” And when Niall had visited Cam’s hospital-in-the-home, Cam had demanded updates on progress with Niall’s upcoming exhibition.

Cam’s favourite design was for the Huon table his granddaughter was currently stroking. Sorrow pressed on Niall’s chest. A few months ago, Cam would have been in the workshop with him on a Sunday afternoon, sharing his large pot of tea and a sandwich.

“He didn’t invite me to be his tenant just for my restoration.”

“Why did he invite you?” She focused her irritation on sawing the second half-sandwich into two quarters. She was eating, which he counted as a win.

“Are you asking as Cam’s granddaughter or as my new landlord?” Niall got that anger was better than fear or sadness for dealing with her despair. Rage gave her a purpose, a reason to get up every day. Directing it at him was disrespecting her granda’s right to make his own decisions.

“You knew he was dying!” Her voice deepened into loathing, as if Niall had killed Cam.

“Not soon enough.” Niall’s obsession with work had fed his ignorance. Although Cam had deliberately downplayed the cancer stealing his life. “He was a kindred spirit, who talked about wood and design and what made a piece of furniture prized. More tea?” He played host, tilting the enormous teapot in her direction.

“Thank you.” She was either innately polite or trained to it—another interesting discovery. He guessed politeness was the only constraint on the passion boiling below her surface.

“He told me his doctor wanted him to slow down.” Niall topped off his own cup. “Cam said he’d earned the right to indulge himself.”

“By letting you stay in a large inner-Sydney property rent free.”

“You don’t know the history to our agreement,” Niall concluded, a sense of foreboding kneecapping him. Or she knew a bit, and in her distress had extrapolated from it being a mutually beneficial arrangement to something less savoury.

Why hadn’t Cam kept his promise?