Читать книгу Mistress Bought and Paid For - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 5

ONLY when Cristiano broke the pounding silence could Lydia credit the reality of his appearance. Snatching in a startled breath, she blinked, her long brown lashes fluttering as she struggled to get a hold on the bone-deep shock gripping her. Even in that very first moment she knew that the flame of her hatred for him burned as bright as ever. Perspiration beaded her short upper lip and her legs felt wobbly. She stared fixedly at him, controlled by a heady mixture of fear and fascination, curiosity and loathing.

Predictably, Cristiano took advantage of her astonishment to move forward, and she automatically retreated. Although she was five foot eleven in her bare feet, he still towered over her by a comfortable six inches. A snaking little frisson of awareness curled somewhere low in her belly, and she went rigid at the novelty of that almost forgotten sensation. All senses on hyper-alert, she could feel the tender tips of her breasts tingle and pinch.

Hot colour flared through her pallor as shame and confusion filled her, and suddenly she found her voice. ‘What do you want?’

Cristiano closed the front door with a casual, lean brown hand. He was feeling his power and enjoying it. ‘Don’t you know?’

Painfully embarrassed by the way her treacherous body had reacted to him, Lydia tilted her chin in a defiant manner that would have surprised any one of her relatives. She felt trapped and angry and raw. Deep down inside her lurked the wounding recollection of just how much she had once cared for Cristiano Andreotti and how savagely he had hurt her. It didn’t show on the surface, but he had changed her—and not for the better. ‘How could I know why you’re here?’

‘I thought some sixth sense survival instinct might kick in…’ Cristiano surveyed her with liquid dark eyes full of mockery. ‘Might spell out a simple message.’

‘Obviously not.’ She folded her arms in a defensive gesture and tried to still the trembling aftershock that was threatening to take her over.

‘I’m here because I want to see you…obviously,’ Cristiano traded, his sexy accent wrapping round the syllables in the most extraordinarily melodic way.

Without having realised what she was doing, Lydia found she was staring up at him, at those brilliant, beautiful dark eyes that had haunted her dreams. Eyes that betrayed only the most superficial emotion and her own reflection. He gave nothing away. He was famous for a detachment that veered on indifference, even icy coldness. She had felt ten feet tall when she’d made him laugh or smile.

Fighting that tide of memory, she shook her head as though to clear it. She strove feverishly to blank him out, remembering fearfully how it had been for her for a crazy couple of months when he had been all she could think about, when his mere presence had been enough to ensure that she was blind to everybody and everything but him.

‘I don’t want you here…’ Even as she spoke, she knew that the remedy of asking him to leave was in her hands, but that for reasons she was afraid to examine she could not yet bring herself to actually tell him to go.

Cristiano angled his sleek dark head to one side and studied her with maddening cool. ‘Don’t you?’

Her tummy seemed to somersault, as if he had punched a panic button. For a crazy moment she worried that he knew her better than she knew herself, and she rushed to fill the silence. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I obtained some privileged information…’

She turned pale as milk. So he knew about the missing money. Of course he knew, an inner voice censured. She wanted to cringe, and a pronounced reluctance to look him in the face afflicted her.

Cristiano Andreotti took advantage of that moment of weakness and stepped past her. He knew her fortunes had been in a steady decline since their last meeting, but it was only now when he saw the shabby, sparsely furnished sitting room, that he appreciated how steep that descent had been. Nothing could more adequately illustrate the vast gulf between their lives, and the reality that she had only ever been a visitor in his world.

‘What happened to the window?’

‘It got broken,’ she mumbled.

‘Have you called a glazier?’

‘Not yet. It only happened late last night.’

His incisive gaze alighted on the crudely lettered and crumpled note on the mantelpiece and he reached for it. The stone was sitting on the hearth, and he guessed what had happened. A frown drew his sleek dark brows together for a split second. ‘You’ve been threatened? Have you reported this?’

In an abrupt movement she snatched the abusive note from his shapely brown fingers. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ she gasped, more mortified than ever.

‘The police should be told. The brute mentality behind that sort of intimidation is liable to get more physical. You cannot stay here alone—’

‘And where do you suggest I move to?’ she broke in tautly, deeper anxiety assailing her—for if anything the incident last night had made her even more reluctant to take advantage of her cousin’s offer of shelter. Gwenna, and her father and brother, lived in an isolated farmhouse, and she would not risk bringing trouble to their door.

‘I may be able to provide a solution,’ Cristiano murmured without the slightest change in his level of intonation.

Lydia realised that she was trembling. Looking away from him, she struggled for mastery over conflicting promptings of fear, bewilderment and discomfiture. In doing so, she registered for the first time since his arrival that she was standing in front of him wearing an old dressing gown and with messy hair. She almost died of chagrin.

‘Look, I need to get dressed…I’m not going to hang around arguing with you.’ What solution? she wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t let herself. She hadn’t even told him to get out. Didn’t she have any pride? How much lower could she sink?

Watching her climb the stairs, Cristiano caught a flash of a pale, slender silk-smooth thigh, and an instant shaft of heat travelled to his groin. He ground his even white teeth together. The sexual buzz in the atmosphere was sending his male hormones on a primal rampage. That ferocious attraction had been there from the first time he saw her. But he was convinced that once he slept with her, he would no longer want her. She was scared. If he offered her the money without further ado she would probably let him have her here and now. So what if it was sleazy? So what if he had never paid for the privilege of bedding a woman before? Dio mio, she wanted him too. Her eyes and her edginess around him were unmistakably revealing to a male of his experience. Yet she still seemed to be in denial of that truth—always backing off, primly avoiding visual contact. A guy with some class would wait and prolong the finale, he told himself grimly.

A gardening book lay open on the small dining table and he studied it with a questioning frown. Restive as a hungry panther on the prowl, he paced. It was a challenge, for the room was tiny, the hall non-existent and the kitchen not much larger. There, however, he came to a sudden halt, a black brow rising in astonishment. In defiance of the grim urban outlook, the small back yard had been transformed into a glorious green patio jungle of containerised flowers and foliage.

Employing his mobile phone, he told one of his staff to organise a glazier to replace the broken window. He said the job had to be done immediately.

Upstairs, Lydia darted into the bathroom and ran a brush violently through her tousled hair, while at the same time trying to clumsily clean her teeth. She was all fingers and thumbs as she shed her nightwear and yanked a pair of jeans and a vest top from a drawer. How could she be calm and controlled? Downstairs was the guy who had won her trust and made her love him. Downstairs was the smooth, slick operator who knew how to fake romance and act as if he was serious. But it had all been a con. She had been the victim of his cruel, demeaning charade! A dupe, a joke for macho males who got in touch with their crude masculine selves by comparing the number of notches on their bedposts. She zipped up her jeans with a trembling hand. Unfortunately, she had been so hurt and angered by that betrayal she had made herself a victim all over again. She had fallen for the stupid suggestion that she might take revenge and at least emerge with her pride intact. The consequences of that final foolish impulse had pretty much destroyed her modelling career.

So what was Cristiano Andreotti doing in Wales? Why had he come to see her? A solution? She couldn’t see why he would wish to help her in any way. When she’d left his Georgian mansion with Mort she had struck a blow at Cristiano’s ego. There had been nothing else to take aim at, she acknowledged painfully. Cristiano Andreotti did not have a heart or a conscience. Had he come to gloat over more of her unending misfortunes?

Slowly, Lydia descended the stairs. ‘What do you want with me?’ she asked defensively.

‘What do most guys want?’ Cristiano traded, smooth as glass, while he scanned the silvery pale waves tumbling round her oval face, her luminous blue eyes and her sultry lips, which were slightly parted to show the moist inner pink. He wasn’t really listening; he was rejoicing in her visual allure.

Hot colour flooded her cheeks. The direction of his gaze was not lost on her, and she shot him a look of loathing. ‘At least you’re not pretending to be a nice guy any more!’

Dark eyes flaring to gold, Cristiano inclined his arrogant dark head in acknowledgement. ‘You’d take advantage of a nice guy. I’m much more your style.’

‘In your dreams!’ Lydia slung back at him.

‘How often does Mort Stevens figure in yours now?’ Cristiano riposted without skipping a beat.

That merciless retort made her blench, and she semi-turned away, presenting him with a view of her delicate profile. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

Sideways on, her slender build made her look disturbingly fragile. Without hesitation he reached out and closed his hands over hers.

In surprise, she gasped, ‘What the heck—?’

‘Just checking…’ Having scanned her arms for any suspicious marks that might have indicated drug abuse, and satisfied himself that that was not her problem, Cristiano released her again.

‘I do not do drugs…I never have and I never will!’ she protested furiously.

‘Glad to hear it.’ But she needed to eat more, Cristiano reflected as his attention skimmed from her narrow white shoulders to the pert outline of her small breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He tensed, infuriated by his own thoughts and behaviour. What was he? A schoolboy again? Since when had the female form entertained the slightest mystery for him?

‘Did you only come here to insult me?’

‘No, there is always purpose in what I do. You’re facing a prison sentence.’

Taken aback by that unequivocal assurance, Lydia snatched in a sharp breath. ‘You don’t know that…how could you? You know nothing about it—’

‘Crimes that entail cash and deception and female offenders always attract a more severe punishment,’ Cristiano murmured silkily. ‘Defrauding a charity was not a good idea—particularly one engaged in raising funds for disadvantaged children.’

Her skin felt cold and clammy. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Were you in debt? Were you being pursued for payment? You stole a very large amount of money, but I don’t see much evidence of ill-gotten gains.’

That Cristiano had no doubt of her culpability cut across Lydia’s tender skin like a whiplash. A painful tide of colour lit her face. On the strength of rumour, he had decided that she was guilty as charged.

‘Why should you care either way?’ she queried, throwing back her pale head, her chin at a truculent angle.

Cristiano surveyed her with eyes as cool and hard as tempered steel. ‘I don’t. But I can keep you out of prison…’

She stiffened, eyes widening, while a crazy little leap of hope surfaced somewhere inside her. ‘And how could you possibly do that?’

‘By repaying the money you took with the addition of a handsome donation to oil the wheels of charitable forgiveness,’ Cristiano explained softly.

‘It wouldn’t be that simple—’

‘Don’t be foolish. I never talk about what I can’t do.’ His wide, sensual mouth curled. ‘A discreet approach has already been made to the director of the Happy Holidays fund, and the response to that particular suggestion has been a very positive one.’

Her restive fingers clenched in on themselves with fierce tension. ‘But why would you offer to replace the missing cash?’

‘Obviously because I want something in return,’ Cristiano delivered, soft and low, his dark drawl as erotic as velvet trailing over silk.

Her heart jumped behind her breastbone. She met bold, dark golden eyes shaded by luxuriant black lashes. Breathing normally became a distinct challenge. His lean dark features were wholly intent on her. Something that felt like a tiny hot wire was pulling taut in her pelvis. It was a sensation that fell somewhere between pleasure and pain, and the surge of heat that followed made her tremble.

His sizzling, sexy smile slashed his beautiful mouth. ‘And I do believe you will enjoy giving it to me, cara mia.’

Lydia was finding it impossible to concentrate. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand—’

‘Don’t you? I’m offering a pretty basic deal. I want you in my bed—’

Shock roared through her, leaving her light-headed. ‘I don’t believe you—’

‘Of course you would have to throw yourself heart and soul into the role of being my mistress—’

‘This doesn’t make sense—’

His brilliant eyes were ice-cold. ‘It makes perfect sense. Watching you endeavour to meet my every wish and need will provide me with considerable entertainment. I’m not an easy guy to please.’

Lydia had turned bone-white. ‘You can’t despise me and want me like that at the same time.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s immoral!’ she gasped.

‘When did I say I was moral?’

‘I can’t believe your nerve. I can’t believe you can approach me with such a proposition!’ Lydia lanced back at him, burning with furious mortification. ‘Maybe you don’t have any standards, but I do—’

‘I don’t steal,’ Cristiano proclaimed, in a super-soft undertone.

‘Maybe I don’t either. But you’re only interested in trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m in trouble, and I think that is disgusting!’

‘I’ve made a fortune from opportunism, cara mia.’

‘Well, you lucked out when you met me—because I’d sooner go to prison than sink to the level of being your mistress!’

Shimmering dark golden eyes connected with hers. ‘I don’t think so.’

The force field of energy he projected was all around her, like an invisible web of silent intimidation. Unable to break the hold of his compelling scrutiny, she felt his anger, and it somehow soothed the ache deep down inside her.

‘I know so.’

As she stepped past him, he curved a light hand to her spine and stilled her. He bent his handsome dark head and the cool, irresistible power of his sensual mouth claimed hers. It was everything she had secretly feared, everything she had ever craved. With the utmost gentleness he let his tongue steal between her parted lips and explore the moist interior. He delved deeper. She moaned low in her throat, heard her own plaintive cry of surrender and acceptance, and wanted to die of shame. But still she couldn’t break free of the fierce physical excitement that controlled her. That inner conflict made her quiver, as though she was in the eye of a storm.

Cristiano stepped back. He had not held her. He had not given her that much excuse to succumb. ‘Answer the phone…’

Only when she was separated from him did the world crowd back in on her again, and she heard the phone’s insistent shrill. She surged in a feverish rush to answer it. Fighting to rescue her smashed composure, but nowhere near strong enough to meet Cristiano’s appraisal, Lydia snapped a damp palm round the receiver. It was her solicitor. She stiffened in dismay when she learned that the police had requested a meeting today, rather than in four days’ time, as had been previously arranged.

‘It’s your choice. You don’t have to go to the station. But evidently they have some new information, and I feel it would be in your best interests to agree to make yourself available today,’ her legal adviser informed her.

Lydia breathed in deep. ‘Right…yes, I’ll go.’

Her lips were tingling and her knees were weak. Perhaps an extra trip to the police station was her punishment for making such a fool of herself with Cristiano Andreotti, she thought crazily. How could he still live and breathe when she hated him with such venom? Or did she hate herself even more? How could she have sacrificed her pride for one kiss? Had stress deranged her wits? What vindictive fate had brought Cristiano back to her door when she was at her weakest?

In one harried step she reached the front door and yanked it wide. ‘I have a pressing invitation to have another chat with the police, so you’ll have to leave.’

‘I’ve arranged for a glazier to replace the window,’ Cristiano informed her.

Her teeth gritted. ‘And why the heck would you have done that?’

‘Isn’t it fortunate that I did, when you have to go out again?’ In a fluid gesture, Cristiano cast a business card down on the shelf to one side of her. ‘My number…for when you come to your senses and accept the inevitable.’

‘You are not an inevitable event in my life.’

Cristiano looked down at her from the vantage point of his superior height, his slumberous golden eyes glittering down towards hers in a collision course as keen as an arrow thudding into a target. ‘Conversation is a much overrated pursuit between men and women. The kiss told me all I needed to know.’

Inwardly she shrank from that humiliating reminder. Her body had responded to him in blatant disregard of her entrenched dislike and defiance. But then how much would Cristiano Andreotti care about that? As he had just admitted, without an ounce of shame, he was more into the physical than the cerebral where women were concerned. She could not help but remember how she’d used to chatter on the phone to him. Had he been bored witless by the way she had rattled on?

While she wondered, Cristiano inclined his handsome dark head, strolled out, and swung into the limousine waiting for him. The long, opulent vehicle purred away from the kerb and disappeared from her view as if it and its owner had never been there.

Five minutes later a glazier arrived to replace the broken windowpane. All smiles, he told her that for what he was being paid he had been more than happy to give her job priority.

As she made her way to the police station that afternoon, Lydia was consumed by a helpless need to rerun Cristiano’s visit in her mind over and over again. In a nutshell, he had offered to recompense the Happy Holidays charity in return for her sexual favours. Had he been acquainted with her abysmal lack of experience in that department, however, he might have been rather less keen, she thought ruefully. Yet she could not forget that eighteen months ago she had been so besotted with Cristiano that she had been on the very brink of being whatever he wanted her to be…

She was not proud of that weakness. But then she blamed her susceptibility on the fact that she had first seen Cristiano Andreotti in a glossy magazine spread when she was only fourteen years old. He had been twenty-two. Convinced that he was the most breathtakingly gorgeous guy she had ever seen, she had torn out his picture and kept it. She had not just stuck him in a drawer—no, she had ironed his paper image and put him in a photo frame, and spent seemingly infinite, essentially adolescent moments devouring his picture with wistful contentment. She had much preferred those dreams to the often crude reality of the young men she’d encountered.

In fact more than six years were to pass before she actually met Cristiano—years during which her popularity as a model had gradually brought her to the point where she had an occasional entry ticket into his rarefied world of wealth and privilege. Once she’d had the thrill of seeing him across a nightclub, lounging back like royalty and looking bored, while a bevy of women fought for his attention. He hadn’t seen her or noticed her.

A frightening experience when she was only thirteen had made Lydia wary of men. After that she’d found it hard to flirt, and was careful not to bare too much flesh in mixed company. That she was still a virgin was a secret she’d kept very much to herself, for she had moved in circles where casual sex was considered the norm. She had also been endlessly hunted by rapacious men eager to bed her just so that they could add her to a macho tally of conquests. When she’d finally realised that she was being labelled frigid by the men she refused, she had been deeply hurt and embarrassed. It had seemed easier not to date at all. It had not occurred to her that her very unavailability might make her an even more tempting target for a predatory male.

The day she’d peered through the curtains at a Paris fashion show and seen Cristiano Andreotti seated in the very front row, she had been overwhelmed. The teenager who had once cherished his photo as a pin-up had surfaced inside her again. Edgy as a beginner on the runway, she had been afraid even to glance in his direction. In fact when he’d asked to be introduced to her, she’d been so sick with nerves that she hadn’t dared to look directly at him. He had asked her for her phone number and she had told him that her mobile had been stolen. A moment later she had had to race off to do a private showing for a VIP. Later Cristiano had had a new phone delivered to her hotel, and his had been the first call, his rich dark drawl coiling round her like melting honey.

He had wanted to see her that night, but she’d had a booking back in London early the following day.

‘I’ll be in Sydney next week. Phone and say you’re ill so that you can stay on in Paris,’ he’d urged.

‘I can’t do that.’

‘You can if you want to see me.’

‘And if you want to see me you can wait,’ she’d heard herself reply.

‘Are you always this difficult?’

That had been her first—and not her last—taste of dealing with a very rich and powerful guy, accustomed to the instant gratification of his every expressed wish. Anything less than immediate acceptance or agreement was perceived as a negative response.

Even so, Cristiano had still flown her back to Paris the following evening to dine with him, and they had got on so well that they had still been talking in the early hours. Perfect white roses had awaited her when she returned to London, and he had called her every day for a week afterwards. She had felt cherished and appreciated. Every step of their relationship had struck her as being the very essence of romance. Plenty of people had warned her that Cristiano had a reputation for being notoriously cold-blooded when it came to her sex, but she’d paid no heed. She had ridden the crest of the wave of phone calls and all-too-brief meetings while secretly dreaming, as women had from time immemorial, of love and happily-ever-after. At no stage had it crossed her mind that she might simply be an object to be used and abused in a game being played by a super-rich, egotistical man.

Now, the pain of that final recollection did nothing to ease Lydia’s tension as she found herself back in a police interview room.

The inspector gave her a surprisingly genial smile. ‘Tell me about your mother’s house in France,’ he invited.

‘France?’ Lydia’s astonishment was unhidden. ‘But my mother doesn’t have a house in France.’

‘We believe that she does, and according to our source it’s quite a luxurious second home. Five bedrooms and a pool, no less. At least, that is what she told a friend last year. That kind of set-up doesn’t come cheap in the south of France.’

Lydia shook her head in urgent disagreement. ‘The supposed friend is talking nonsense.’

‘I don’t think so…’

‘Of course it’s nonsense. If my mother owned another house, I’d have known about it. There’s been a misunderstanding.’ Of that fact Lydia had no doubt. After all, had there been a second property it would have been sold to ease her parent’s cash-flow problems, and Virginia would never have made the appalling mistake of spending money that did not belong to her.

‘We may not have established the location of that house yet, but we are well on our way to doing so. I think we’ll have more answers when your mother is in a position to assist us with our enquiries.’

Lydia had lost colour. She was dismayed by the fact that the investigation now seemed to be changing course to place new emphasis on her mother’s role. ‘But I’ve told you before that she has nothing to do with this.’

‘I believe that your mother has everything to do with this. You were unable to tell me what you had spent the missing money on.’ The inspector settled a clutch of plastic evidence bags on the table between them. ‘I have a series of cheques that were drawn on the charity account and signed by both you and your mother. One is made out for almost fifty thousand pounds and was used to purchase a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The salesman remembers the buyer well. Where is that vehicle now, Miss Powell?’

Lydia was aghast at the question. Virginia had changed her car before she disappeared? And for a larger, more expensive model? She was disconcerted by the information, but steady in her determination to protect the older woman from the consequences of her crime. ‘I don’t know…’

‘All of the cheques we have retrieved so far relate solely to purchases made by Virginia Carlton, or payments made by her to settle personal debts. When did you sign those cheques?’ the inspector queried, but did not wait for her to respond. ‘It must’ve been difficult for you to deal with the day-to-day expenses of the charity fashion show when you and your mother lived so far apart. I gather the financial arrangements were left in her hands as she was on the spot. Did you pre-sign cheques for her convenience?’

‘No—she did that for me,’ Lydia insisted, a tad desperately.

The older man sighed. ‘If you persist with this stance you will in all likelihood be charged with aiding and abetting your mother to defraud the Happy Holidays charity. All the current evidence, up to and including her careful disappearance, suggests that she was the prime instigator of the theft.’

‘No—no, she wasn’t!’ Lydia exclaimed, her hands twisting together on her lap.

‘And telling silly tales is unlikely to convince me, or any judge, to the contrary,’ he spelt out impatiently. ‘Stop wasting our time, Miss Powell. In due course your mother will be found and prosecuted. There is nothing you can do to alter that. I suggest that you go home now and think over your position very carefully.’

Lydia was on the brink of tears of frustration and fear when she left the police station. How could she have made such a mess of things? She had failed to convince the police that she was the culprit, and her mother was about to be hunted down to her hideaway—wherever that was—and dragged off to court regardless. Of only one thing was Lydia certain, and that was that her frightened parent could not possibly be hiding out in some palace with a pool on the French Riviera!

Although Lydia had been shattered when she’d realised what her mother had done, she had understood how desperate Virgina must have been. In the spring, Lydia had reluctantly agreed to lend her name to the charity fashion show that Virginia had set her heart on staging, and had contacted several other models. It had been around that time too that Dennis had cornered Lydia to ask her for money.

Lydia had been astonished, because her stepfather was well aware that the failure of the nightclub had left her penniless.

‘But you know I don’t have anything left.’

‘Oh, come on. I wasn’t born yesterday.’ His heavy face had been taut with fake joviality. ‘You must have at least one secret account—a cash reserve you keep quiet. Tell me about it—I won’t let on to the tax man!’

Lydia raised a brow at such wishful thinking. ‘If only…’

‘I don’t believe you…you’ve got to be holding out on me. I’ve been offered a terrific opportunity but I’m short of capital.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t help.’

Angry resentment flashed in his pale blue eyes. ‘Not even for your mother’s sake?’

Lydia winced. ‘I can’t give you what I don’t have.’

‘Then isn’t it about time you stopped playing at being a garden labourer and got back to the catwalk, where you belong?’ Dennis demanded accusingly. ‘You could cover the losses we made on the club in a couple of months!’

It had worried her that her stepfather should still be expecting her to provide him with cash when he should have been capable of earning his own healthy crust. It had not occurred to her, though, that anything could be seriously amiss. But, amidst conflicting stories from the Happy Holidays charity director about payments that hadn’t arrived and a cheque that had bounced, and her mother’s differing explanations for those same issues, Lydia had finally travelled to Cheltenham to visit. There she had been amazed to discover that Virginia had already sold the home that her daughter had purchased for her and moved into a hotel.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ Lydia had asked, when her pretty blonde mother had opened the door of her hotel room. ‘Why have you sold the house?’

The older woman treated her to an embittered appraisal. ‘I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask. After all, you’re the one responsible for wrecking my marriage!’

Lydia gasped. ‘How? What have I done?’

‘You put my husband out of work. Now, not surprisingly—because we’ve had dreadful financial worries and I had to sell the house—Dennis has left me for another woman! Do you have any idea how I feel?’

Lydia experienced such a fierce jolt of sympathy for her deserted mother that she attempted to hug her.

‘For goodness’ sake, Lydia…Oh, all right.’ Stiffly, Virginia submitted to being comforted.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ Lydia whispered with pained sincerity.

‘Well, it’s too late for sorry now, isn’t it? If you’d gone back to modelling when we asked you, I’d still have a husband and a house I could afford to live in!’

Lydia felt horribly guilty—because she had put herself first when she’d refused to abandon her garden design course. Her heart ached for her mother, who adored her second husband. Having accepted Virginia’s love and trust, Dennis had hurt and humiliated her. Lydia understood exactly how that felt, because it was barely eighteen months since she’d suffered the agony of a similar rejection at the hands of Cristiano. Fortunately for her, passionate love had turned to energising hate while she tormented herself for her own gullibility.

‘What am I going to do?’ Virginia suddenly sobbed. ‘I’m so scared!’

For an instant Lydia was taken aback by the unfamiliar sight of her mother crying, but she was quick to offer reassurance. ‘It’s going to be all right. Whatever happens, I’m here, and together we can get through this.’

‘But I’m in so much trouble,’ the older woman had confided tremulously, glancing up with a sidewise flicker of her eyes at her daughter. ‘You have no idea how much…’

Her anxious thoughts sinking back to the present, Lydia walked home from the police station through the park. The steady rain would serve to conceal the tears on her cheeks, she thought wretchedly. She felt such a failure. She could not help Virginia if the police refused to believe her story. Why was it that she always ended up letting her mother down? And how many times had she already cost Virginia the man she loved? Had there been some curse put on her at birth?

First there had been Lydia’s father, who would never have gone sailing in that wretched little boat had it not been for the pleas of his more adventurous daughter. It was true that it had been a terrible accident which nobody could have foreseen, but that did not alter the appalling consequences.

Then there had been Rick, Virginia’s boyfriend when Lydia was a teenager. Lydia shuddered when she recalled the ugly ending of that relationship, and the bitter recriminations that had come her way. Whether she liked it or not, she had been the cause of that break-up too, and once again her mother had ended up heartbroken and alone.

With such a history behind them, Lydia had been delighted when Virginia had met Dennis Carlton and found happiness again. Although Lydia had disliked her stepfather, she had been content to pretend otherwise for her mother’s sake. If only her mother had foreseen that in her desperation to keep her husband, and lessen the strain on their marriage, she would feel that her only option was to steal to pay the bills.

When Virginia had tearfully confessed the whole sorry tale, Lydia had immediately promised to protect her. Virginia had been terrified, and so grateful. Recalling the rare warmth that her mother had shown her that day, Lydia felt her eyes overflow afresh. Virginia would never be able to cope with the shame of a legal trial or the rigours of prison life.

Overnight, however, it seemed that the balance of power had changed. Lydia’s readiness to take the blame for the stolen cash was no longer enough to save her mother’s skin. The police were intent on finding Virginia, and there was now only one way that Lydia could keep her pledge to get the older woman off the hook.

Soaked to the skin and numb with cold, Lydia leant back against the worn front door of her home and closed it behind her. She lifted Cristiano’s business card. If he repaid the missing money, the charges would be dropped and her mother would be able to come home again. Virginia would be safe—and wasn’t that all that truly mattered?

She chose to text rather than phone Cristiano, because she could not bear to make a surrender speech.

You’ve got me if you want me.