Redeemed By Her Innocence (HQR Presents) Page 11

  ‘Did Barbara call?’ she asked suddenly. She should know what she was up against at least.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon,’ he said.

  ‘I see. And did she have anything interesting to say?’

  ‘I think she’s worried about you.’

  ‘I wish she would mind her own business,’ said Jacquelyn.

  Her father didn’t answer and the silent moment stretched by. She began to imagine the look on her mother’s face as she listened to the gossipy phone call. The worry that would have crept over her brow, how her father would have gathered closer to the phone to try to listen in. How they’d probably talked about it all day wondering what to do, whether to call, whether to leave her alone. And then finally they’d decided.

  ‘People only want the best, but it’s your company now. You have all the big decisions to make.’

  The first time he’d ever said those words the flush of excitement had made her feel high as a kite, flying in the air, weightless, exhilarated. Right now she felt worn down and weary, as if she were carrying rocks on her shoulders; every step was an effort.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Dad,’ she said, injecting the solid, serious note she saved for these conversations into her voice.

  She put the strange fruit back in the bowl and moved further to the side as someone came past to pour coffee. Some happy House International intern.

  ‘And where are you now?’

  She looked up. The Manhattan skyline could be seen through the panoramic windows. The industrious staff were all at work, here in their international headquarters. She felt like a goldfish in a bowl, staring at a world she could see but couldn’t properly touch.

  Her parents would never understand what she was hoping to achieve by being here. Every moment she was on the phone to them felt like air hissing from the punctured balloon of her ambitions. But there was no point in pretending.

  ‘I’m in New York.’

  She heard her mother’s, ‘Where did she say she was?’

  And then his repetition, ‘She says she’s in New York.’

  Her father was never angry with her. Never. She couldn’t bear it. Letting them down was almost like a physical pain. When Tim had jilted her she’d been as unhappy for them as she’d been for herself—knowing that they were having to face the town and pretend that everything was all right.

  It had crushed her, the shame. The guilt.

  ‘Is this a holiday? May we ask who you are with?’

  She stared down at her borrowed clothes, the pointed patent toes, at the pencil skirt and the exquisite blue silk shirt. What had seemed like a Cinderella nine-to-five wardrobe on the plane now felt silly and more than a little bit deluded.

  What was she thinking, coming here to New York?

  She held the phone to her ear as if she could muffle this world that she was standing in and keep it secret from her parents, keep them from knowing that she was here now because she had formed an unholy alliance with Nikos, an alliance that now involved this unwritten contract built on guilt and shame.

  ‘It’s not a holiday, no, but it’s complicated. I’m on a business trip.’

  She nodded, satisfied at that. It sounded feasible.

  ‘You didn’t say who you were with, Jacquelyn.’

  She bit her lip.

  ‘Is it Karellis?’

  She nodded, just as a coffee was placed in front of her, as an arm rested lightly on her shoulder, as heat and strength and courage wrapped round her like a warm wind, but then as quickly were blown away as he lifted his arm and walked off.

  ‘Yes. I’m at the House HQ, Dad,’ she said, glancing after Nikos. He’d taken off his jacket. The blue sheen of his shirt glowed in the subtle low lighting of the kitchen. Her heart stuck in her throat as she watched him. The perfect proportions of his body, his long legs and wide shoulders, the cuffs of his shirt turned back once, exposing the strong bones and dark hairs of his wrists.

  It was in every part of her—this feeling she felt for him. This was what happened when you slept with someone, she realised. This contract, this bond. He was her first and she would be linked to him for ever, even though he didn’t know it. He was walking about oblivious and she was going to carry his face in her heart for ever. She had waited so long, built this up so much, and then in a single night it was gifted to Nikos and she was left with only a memory, not the lifetime of love that she’d always imagined would follow.

  ‘What on earth are you doing there, Jacquelyn? If there wasn’t any mileage talking to him at Maybury Hall, why pursue it in New York?’

  A tear sprang up out of nowhere and she shook herself. The last thing she could afford to be right now was weak, in anyone’s eyes. This was business, pure and simple. She swallowed.

  ‘I’m going to meet some contacts that might be right for Ariana. House isn’t right, as I said, but there are other opportunities that I’m here to chase up.’

  Nikos had opened the fridge and stood illuminated in its blue light, as if he was searching for something, but she could tell he was listening. He took out a jug and poured a glass of carrot juice then reached for a muffin, moving with the graceful alertness of a panther.

  ‘You need to go all the way to New York to find opportunities? Seems an awfully long way.’

  ‘It’s too good to pass up, Dad. But I’m only going to give it a day or so—if it doesn’t feel right I’ll be straight back to work.’

  She wanted to glance at Nikos, to see how he reacted to those words, but she resisted, stared at her reflection in the glass instead.

  ‘This isn’t another wild goose chase, is it, Jacquelyn? Are you in a relationship with this man?’

  She heard her mother’s voice and then the phone was muffled, then passed over.

  ‘Jacquelyn, it’s me. Are you all right, love? Where are you? I’m worried about you.’

  She glanced at Nikos. He’d put down the glass and stood facing her, his arms folded, staring at her intently.

  ‘Mum, I’m twenty-five years old and I’m more than capable of looking after myself,’ she said.

  ‘But Barbara said you were with him, this Nikos. He’s not your type, Jacquelyn. He’s a ladykiller. He’ll hurt you. I don’t want to see you upset again, that’s all. And he might promise you the earth but...’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, please stop worrying. I’m not in a relationship with him or anything like it. Nothing could be further from the truth.’

  She turned to the glass and tried to say it quietly, throwing the words down to the carpet beside her shoes as if they might land there unheard. But when she looked up she knew that he’d heard them all right. The glass of carrot juice was sitting half-drunk at the counter, the muffin untouched and only the gleam of his shirt was visible as he walked back along the hallway. A shaft of light spilled out for a moment onto the carpet, and then was gone, as he disappeared inside a doorway, and closed it with a sharp click.

  CHAPTER TEN

  NIKOS DRUMMED HIS fingers on the table and looked up again at the inscrutable Mark.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘As I can be. The Inland Revenue still think you’re laundering money. I’ve spoken to my guy and told him that we’ve got evidence it was Maria who invested in ghost companies, and that those companies have folded, but they’re still sniffing. It’s not what you want to hear, I know.’

  ‘I want to hear whatever is going to get me out of this and let me get on with the rest of my life. I’d gift the whole damned lot to charity, every last cent of it—’

  ‘If you only knew what there was to gift. I know. I get it.’

  Nikos picked up the papers he had found in the safe again and looked at them, then tossed them down.

  ‘So these are worthless? There was no point in me going to Greece to find them after all?’

  ‘I wouldn�
��t say they were worthless, no. But I think that they’re probably only the tip of the iceberg. If you don’t mind me saying, Mrs Karellis was a complicated lady with a big past. There’s every chance she was involved in something like this.’

  ‘But I can’t believe I wouldn’t spot it,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘You’d need to have been on her case twenty-four hours a day to keep up with her.’

  ‘And I certainly wasn’t doing that,’ Nikos muttered to himself. ‘If I needed anything to prove to me that business and pleasure don’t mix...’

  ‘You get a lot of pleasure from business, my friend. It’s just certain types of pleasure that are better bedfellows with business than others.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  Nikos checked his watch and looked up again at the smoky glass front of the restaurant. Jacquelyn was late. Knowing that was just adding to this list of stuff he had to deal with. He felt responsible for her.

  He’d had a guard with her all day, and she was perfectly safe, but the nagging doubt at the back of his mind had got louder and louder, nearly drowning out all other thoughts.

  Vital thoughts, like trying to pull memories of Maria’s businesses, any possible ways she could have hidden money.

  When he’d first met her she had played a huge part in her first husband’s businesses, because his illness had left her no other option. And she hadn’t trusted anyone else.

  But she’d been vague. What he’d put down to a lack of interest was more likely to have been a smokescreen. Always suspicious, always looking over her shoulder, and with good reason, because she’d always been up to something.

  He racked his brains again. His first steps into business had been to cut through the mess that had been made with her first husband’s businesses. She’d reassured him that she’d known what she was doing with her own money and he’d left it at that. He hadn’t wanted to poke his nose in. He’d trusted her.

  Had he? Had he really trusted her? He’d never checked her phone, followed her, gone through her things. She’d done all of that to him, had been insanely jealous when he’d spoken to other women. The times he’d stood there, absorbing her anger, her fury, sometimes even her blows. Because a man never hit a woman. As long as he lived he would never raise his hand to a woman, he would never be the man his father was.

  That momentary flash of his mother’s face formed again, the smile. She was so pretty, so Greek.

  But it was those nights that he remembered most clearly. The roar of the motorbike engines in the distance, coming closer. Praying that it would go past the house but then hearing it stop; his father’s footsteps on the path, the wooden boards that creaked as he listened to him climb, heavy footed, to the porch; straining to hear them over the sound of his own heartbeat.

  The little prayers he would say over and over: ‘Please don’t make him angry...please keep Mum safe...please, God, take my pocket money and all my toys...’

  It always started hopefully, quietly. As if it might not actually happen, but then he’d hear voices, even muffled under his quilt, breathing in his own humid terrified air, he’d hear them, then the sound of her voice calling his name, letting him know she was all right, even as his father hit her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Nikos looked up.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m so late, but I got a bit held up.’

  Jacquelyn was standing right in front of him, a vision of blonde loveliness. He drank in the sight of her—the sunshine of her smile, the intense blue of her eyes, the roses on her cheeks shining with health and happiness. It was as if prison doors had opened into springtime.

  ‘Hey, no problem. Grab a seat.’

  He stood up and pulled out a chair, watching carefully as she slid herself down, pleased to see that she had chosen the blue silk dress that matched her eyes and showed off her slender arms and legs. And with a neckline that draped invitingly over her breasts, casting a shadow that his eye found pleasing. He felt an immediate stab of lust, and he did not, and would not, smother it.

  She sat down and tucked her bag and briefcase on the other seat and looked up expectantly.

  ‘Mark, this is Jacquelyn Jones. Mark is my accountant. We’ve just finished a meeting so you’re right on time.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you joining us for dinner?’ she said, shaking Mark’s hand. ‘I’m really happy to sit and go through my notes. I’ve learned loads today and have been given some homework to do so I wouldn’t be in your way.’

  ‘No, Mark’s leaving,’ cut in Nikos. The last thing he wanted was anyone hanging around. He’d been looking forward to seeing her since he’d left her at the juice bar on the phone, denying that she was having a relationship with him.

  It was interesting how hearing a few words could clarify a whole day’s worth of doubt. Until that moment he hadn’t known he really wanted a relationship with any woman but now he did. Even now when the timing was so off, especially now. And she had stood there denying him.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to stay, but my boss here has other plans for me.’

  ‘Put a team on this. Your best, most discreet people, but keep it in house.’

  ‘It’s lined up. I’ll let you know how we get on.’

  Nikos shook his hand. A hand he trusted.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ asked Jacquelyn, sipping on water but looking at him. ‘You looked shot when I came in. Was that bad news?’

  ‘It’s not great, but it’ll be dealt with. It has to be.’

  ‘Was it anything to do with the guys at the villa?’

  He sat back and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘You’re doing that thing again,’ she said. ‘When you check out who’s about. Like a secret agent. Not that I blame you.’

  ‘Do I do that?’

  ‘Since the day you picked me up to go to the airport.’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘A man like you, it’s only to be expected. I guess there are always people on the make all around you, even if they only want to get their photo taken with you.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, but not every man like me has invited so much trouble into his life.’

  ‘You can’t help where you were born, or brought up.’

  ‘No, but I can help who I choose or, rather, chose to marry.’

  He didn’t expect to feel the weight of those words as they landed but he did, and for a moment he was lost in a cloud of confusion. Marriage to Maria—had that really been him? It didn’t just feel like a different life, it felt like a different man. He was so far away from there now he couldn’t imagine making such a mistake again.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make a very good choice,’ she said quietly.

  She dipped her eyes then, that sweep of lashes, such lovely lines that he’d grown accustomed to seeing now, that pleased him, and when she looked up at him again, her gaze was steady and sure.

  ‘I can confidently say that I won’t be making a choice like that again. Not when I see the mess it’s got me into. Even five years after her death I’m having to pick up the pieces—if I can find the pieces.’

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘I’m talking in riddles, I know.’

  ‘It’s not my business.’

  ‘Well, no, but you already know a lot of it. I was in Greece trying to find papers from an investment I knew she had, but it turns out she had some more. And we’re not sure how she afforded some of the investments she made. Money has been going everywhere and the tax people want their share.’

  ‘It can’t be that hard to find. Somebody must know that there’s money coming in and nobody is claiming it?’

  ‘You’d think,’ he said, musing on that idea for a minute. Somebody must be happily processing dividends into some bank account somewhere. It wasn’t feasible that nobody knew what was going on.

 
‘Is that why the guys were there? Have they got something to do with it?’

  ‘That’s what’s worrying me. It isn’t just blackmail.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried? Don’t you think you should let the police know?’

  ‘Involving the police is no guarantee this will get fixed. It might even get worse.’

  ‘But you can’t possibly think you can deal with all this on your own?’

  Of course he was worried, of course he knew this was getting out of control. But letting the police know? It wasn’t as simple as that. Things could backfire spectacularly. He had his dying mother to think about, his staff, even Jacquelyn. Innocent people became casualties in these kinds of wars.

  The whole thing was so messed up.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, keen to change the subject. ‘How did you get on today? Tell me about your day.’

  He tried to keep the tone light, tried to keep upbeat and interested. He was determined that Jacquelyn would feel that the trip was worthwhile, but he must not, would not, in any way get involved in this business, no matter how tiny, no matter how tempting it might be to make that face light up.

  Because she was worth a lot of effort. He looked at her again and crushed down the urge to reach across the table for her, hold her hand and tug her towards him, and take a kiss from those lips.

  ‘So yes, I couldn’t believe it. The others were great but when I met Brody and he made me that offer, honestly I was blown away. I still am. I couldn’t wait to get here and tell you.’

  She was babbling with excitement, words pouring from her mouth, and he was just beginning to realise what she was saying.

  ‘So Brody made you an offer? My friend Brody from Cube? Cube the digital marketing agency?’

  He could feel something rise in his chest and he knew it was anger.

  ‘Yes.’

  She beamed. Her face was glowing and her eyes shining and it was some other guy who had done that. Brody—that creep from Cube.

  ‘Literally less than an hour ago. It’s—oh, my goodness—it is honestly the best. I couldn’t have dreamed it. We’d met earlier in the afternoon at the Wedding Expo. He looked me out. Lauren had already told him that I would be coming later and he took such trouble to come and find me and talk to me.’