Redeemed By Her Innocence (HQR Presents) Page 9

  She went to brush past the solid wall standing in her way, but he didn’t step back and she bounced back just as his hand reached out and grasped her arm.

  ‘Look, I apologise.’

  His voice was rough, his grip was strong but she jerked her arm away, hating the heat of his hands and the closeness of his body and the wide wall of his shoulders that obscured her view.

  ‘That really isn’t going to make any difference now,’ she said. ‘Your apology doesn’t count for very much and I’ve got too much to do today so, as I said, can you organise my transport?’

  And with that she walked out of the room. She didn’t know which way she was going, only that she was heading away from him—nowhere was far enough away. She’d damn well keep walking all the way to England if she had to.

  She turned around another corner and the tears were coming—she felt them burn and bubble up. Her eyes were glassy and sightless.

  ‘Jacquelyn, wait!’ he thundered.

  But she wasn’t going to wait for his storm. She was going home under her own steam.

  She stumbled along the corridors, the forest of doors, wrong turnings, like being lost in a maze of her own anger and shame.

  Thank God no one could see her. Thank God her mother and father were safe in Spain. What on earth was she going to tell them about this? She had to get out of here, away, home.

  She found the room. She found her bag, keys, phone, passport, purse.

  The sea was to her left, the road to her right. She put her head up and followed the shining marble hallways to the front of the house. No one tried to stop her. And just as well for them that they didn’t.

  There were the two huge wooden doors she’d come in through. She pulled and pulled at one of them until it finally groaned open.

  Heat and light hit her first. A car parked in the turning circle, the plants deep and exotic, a driveway, olive groves on either side, a dusty road, and that was where she walked now, her heels stupid and her toes crushed and her mind whirring with desperate scenarios of how she was going to get home...

  And then suddenly along the driveway, a car appeared, driving straight past her. She jumped into the side of the road. The window was lowered and a face with dark glasses peered at her. Then it stopped, reversed back, the door opened. A man got out, a bodyguard? Another one got out the other side.

  Instinctively she stopped. She could see her reflection in the window. She looked back at the house and then round to the two men. They didn’t move.

  This didn’t feel right. This didn’t feel right at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NIKOS STOOD, UNBELIEVING. As unable to move as the pillars propping up the roof of the million-dollar home beside him, watching this hideous scene unfold.

  Even from here he could make out the scar on the man’s face, the glowering brows, the busted left arm and the hunched shoulders.

  His father’s best friend, Bruno. Fifteen years older but still as menacing and standing right there in his driveway, still oozing venom, the menacing killing machine that terrorised even the dirtiest, darkest criminals in Sydney.

  ‘Jacquelyn, come back here,’ he heard himself bark out.

  He shifted his gaze from Bruno and stared at her, willing her back with the force of his gaze. She swung her head slowly round to look at him, and he saw fear sweep over her face, but she didn’t move.

  ‘Now,’ he growled.

  And he could see her waver, he could see her falter in her path. She couldn’t possibly go forward. No one could walk into that and not feel the danger. And he wouldn’t let her face that, in a million years.

  His feet started to move, his arms tensed and his hands bunched into fists, worthless he knew against whatever was in the pockets of the jackets they wore. These men didn’t fight with fists, they had bars, and knives and guns and anything else that got their message across. He’d seen them. He’d felt them. He’d screamed silently in nightmares remembering.

  Time seemed to have stopped. He was aware of his heart, his gut, the swirls of dust in the road. Jacquelyn swung her head again, her golden hair catching every sunbeam, but her eyes were filled with dark, cold fear. Her arms wrapped around her body and she turned to him with a questioning, terrified look on her face.

  And it was as if he saw his mother’s face, and remembered her fear and his fear, and he would not let this happen again.

  He was at her side, reaching for her, tugging her to him, spinning her round behind him.

  ‘Get off my land, Bruno!’ he roared. ‘Get out of here now and tell whoever sent you that there’s nothing here for him.’

  ‘You know who sent me,’ said Bruno. ‘He wants what he’s due.’

  He didn’t want any of this aired. He didn’t want anyone else touched by this evil.

  ‘Get back in the house,’ he hissed to her. ‘Please don’t argue.’

  But she didn’t move. She had melted against him. He felt the weight of his body shield her, and she let him be that shield, and he was more grateful for that than anything. The closeness was there, back around them, this strange physical intimacy that made him want to roar and beat his chest and kill anything that tried to harm the soft, trusting body that he held now under his arm.

  Every second that passed made him swell with anger that she was exposed to this. That this sewer had once more flooded the brilliant Grecian world, that somehow his past was here, now, facing him down.

  ‘He should be rotting in jail. That’s what he’s due.’

  ‘That’s never going to happen, Nikos. We both know that.’

  ‘One day.’

  Bruno shook his head.

  ‘You’re making a mistake, Nikos,’ he said as he tracked his steps back to the car and got in. ‘He’ll come and find you. And he won’t be as nice as me.’

  The doors closed. The engine started, and then slowly the car began to reverse down the driveway, as dust clouds spilled up from the ground and birds circled high overhead.

  Nikos and Jacquelyn stood there until it swung round and the blinking red brake lights disappeared. Neither of them spoke. Her body was still pressed close and his arm held her in place, safe. His heart thundered, and then slowed. The morning settled, and sparkled and righted itself again, as if nothing had ever happened.

  At the same moment they pulled apart.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to witness that.’

  ‘They had guns, didn’t they?’

  ‘Let’s talk about this inside.’

  He looked around, half expecting to see them coming back, but everything was quiet, just as it should be. Hot, bright and beautiful.

  He shook his head, hating every single thing that was happening. Hating that Bruno had polluted his world. Hating his father. But mostly hating his own fear. He should have faced up to him before now. He should have met him, somewhere, anywhere, sorted whatever needed to be done. But he was a coward when it came to his father. No matter how much he wanted to do it, he just couldn’t take the steps he needed to take.

  ‘My legs are like jelly,’ she said, and he scooped her up into his arms, holding her even more tightly than he needed, expecting her to push him away, but she didn’t move, didn’t push back, didn’t reject him in any way. And that made him even more furious with himself.

  No matter that she was barely an acquaintance, a never-to-be-repeated one-night stand, an out-of-her-depth businesswoman—she was his guest, on his land, at his invitation, and she should never, ever have been exposed to this.

  Two more strides to the front doors. He kicked them open, walked in and kicked them closed again. She was still buried against his chest.

  He stared around wondering where to go, what to do, how to make this better. Tea. She was English and the English had tea to solve everything.

  The kitchen was empty of staff, thank God; they had all gone
to Agios Stephanos, the little church on the hillside, to celebrate the saint’s day. Jacquelyn slipped out of his arms and into a chair, burying her hands in her hair, and he felt the loss of setting her down as if he’d removed a sheepskin coat in the harshest winter.

  ‘Who were they?’ she said, looking up at him, and the look on her face crushed him, squeezed his hard, iron heart.

  The only thing that would make this better was honesty.

  ‘They were—they are—criminals.’

  Jacquelyn didn’t look away from his hard, determined gaze, the one he was using to hold himself in check, to tell her that he wasn’t lying.

  ‘Gangsters. From Sydney.’

  ‘They’re why you ran away,’ she said, as if to herself. ‘You were mixed up with people like that and you ran away.’

  ‘Something like that,’ he conceded.

  ‘I think I deserve a better answer than that,’ she said, her voice slicing right through his self-pity.

  He swallowed hard. What part of his past could he share with someone like her? His mother’s bruises? Her brain haemorrhage? Maria’s last few months on this earth, her drinking and drug-taking, siphoning money from every asset she could get her hands on to pay for her habits. She had sold everything she could, all that was left was herself. He could still hear her pleading cries. He could still feel his disgust, his rejection, his father’s laughter. The sight of her car. There had been no hope.

  ‘You might not have the stomach for it.’

  ‘Give me some credit, Nikos. I’ve just come face to face with armed men. I think I can listen to the backstory.’

  He turned and looked at her sitting there, one elbow on the table, spine straight and face composed. The woman he’d held in his arms, the woman who had travelled hundreds of miles to save her business. The woman he’d dismissed without so much as a kind word and who’d kept her cool in front of those low-life scum.

  But confessing was tantamount to informing. It was drilled in him so deeply, even if he wanted to say it, he didn’t think he had the words.

  ‘He was,’ he began slowly, trying them out, ‘...is, my father’s lieutenant.’

  A frown crossed her brow, like a prompt for him to continue.

  ‘And my father is one of the most notorious gang leaders—drugs, counterfeit money, that sort of thing. He was selling drugs to Maria the night she died.’

  There. He’d said it. And she didn’t even flinch.

  ‘I see. So “he wants what he’s due” means payment for the drugs?’

  ‘He’s also saying that he gave her money to invest.’

  ‘Do you mean money laundering?’ she asked, her eyes widening.

  He nodded.

  ‘I think so. The Inland Revenue also want what they’re due—the whole thing is a mess and we, my accountant and I, can only find bits of the trail. I want to find the clues before they do—it’ll look a hell of a lot better. The last thing I want to be accused of is money laundering.’

  ‘No, it’s not a good look,’ she said, but without any trace of humour.

  ‘None of this is a good look. The whole thing is a mess until I can clear my dad completely out of my life. I’m going to risk this kind of thing happening again if I don’t. And I can’t have gangsters turning up in Agios Stephanos. I can’t bring this sort of trouble here.’

  ‘Well, short of going to the police I don’t see what else you can do.’

  He walked to the window, a wall of glass that offered the panorama of rocky cliffs and wide, deep blue sea. There was no place on earth like it.

  ‘I love this place so much, but even when I’m not here it’s not safe. There was a burglary six months back. I’m sure it was them.’

  ‘You have to go to the police,’ she said.

  He didn’t even answer that. People didn’t understand. The police wouldn’t solve anything; they’d only create more problems. Gangs had reach far beyond the law, more terrifying ways than a stretch in jail.

  ‘Well, what else can you do? Apart from sell it?’

  Sell the house he’d designed himself, hoping he could one day bring his mum back to it, so she could sit on the terrace and stare at the Aegean, hear the cicadas and taste the olives. That was never going to happen now anyway. One more infection and her body would shut down completely.

  ‘I built this place for myself, but it deserves a family,’ he said, looking around, suddenly seeing the answer in rooms full of children running, playing, laughing. ‘I’d like to give the local people real work to do, instead of looking after a museum.’

  He put the steaming cup in front of her. She nodded at it, muttered a thank you.

  ‘I can see it too,’ she said, gazing around, as if the ghosts of the future appeared for her too. She smiled and took a sip of the tea, making a slight face as she put it down.

  ‘The tea OK?’

  She smiled up at him then.

  ‘It’s hot and tastes vaguely of tea.’

  ‘Jacquelyn, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s perfectly palatable.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the tea.’

  ‘Oh. Well,’ she said, flicking her eyes at him. ‘I don’t hold you responsible. You didn’t look any more pleased to see them than I did.’

  ‘For everything. For dragging you here, for getting drunk last night. For taking advantage—’

  ‘I’ll stop you right there. You didn’t take advantage of me. I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. But your accusation was unforgivable.’

  She spoke quietly, shaking her head, and that simple fact twisted his gut even more.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I was angry with the world, with myself—and I took it out on you. You know I had a great night. An amazing night.’

  She looked up then, just a flash of those sky-blue eyes. The last time he’d seen that look he’d thought her coy, but not now—this time, there was no smile on her lips, no playful dip of her eyelashes.

  He waited for her to speak, to say the words he realised now he wanted to hear back—that she’d loved it too, that it was special for her, that it wasn’t just a little bit of action to pave the way for a sweeter deal.

  ‘I made my own bed, so to speak, and now I’ve got to lie in it.’

  ‘That’s an interesting choice of image, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  He looked again hoping for even a hint of a smile, but there was nothing other than the implacable composure he’d been presented with when he’d first met her. It was the glassy surface of a pond, the swan gliding, but there had to be something going on under there. It just wasn’t natural to be so composed. He’d liked it better when she’d let go, in the two times he’d seen her do it...last night in the bedroom, and this morning in the boardroom.

  He wasn’t the type to pussyfoot around a subject, and this was bothering him now. They had amazing chemistry. The best. It wasn’t the sexual World Championships but she was sweet and innocent and incredibly sexy—how many women had he ever met who made him feel the way he’d felt last night?

  It was as if the dirt and grime and muck of the past fifteen years had been rinsed off. As if he’d discovered making love all over again. And he assumed she’d felt exactly the same—dammit, at times she’d made him think she’d never made love before, her reactions were so raw, so visceral.

  ‘Are you regretting the fact that we had sex?’

  ‘Bitterly,’ she said, as if she had said, Pass me the milk.

  ‘OK,’ he said, absorbing that like a slap.

  She stood up. She walked to the cupboards, opening doors and looking inside, and without any invitation began to make herself another cup of tea.

  She looked at home. She looked very much at home, and it startled him out of his dark daydreams. He’d never let any woman have the run of
his house since Maria.

  ‘Would you like another tea?’ she asked, turning to stare over her shoulder. She was so beautiful, so feminine, so right?

  The word formed in his mind and something twisted inside him, something uncomfortable.

  ‘No, you go on right ahead yourself though. Mi casa es su casa, and all that.’

  In the act of pouring the water into the cup, she stopped. Cool, calm sky-blue eyes blinked at him.

  ‘Let’s not get carried away. You practically threw me out earlier, remember?’

  ‘Now, hang on, Jacquelyn. I didn’t throw you out. I was being honest with you. I might have been a bit brusque but there wasn’t any point in having you go through all the pain of a full-blown pitch for me to turn round and say no. My mind was already made up.’

  She put the kettle down with a thump and turned right round to face him.

  ‘What point, exactly, in this fantasy trip did you make your mind up? Before or after we had sex?’

  She might be feminine but she was fierce! She was indomitable. She was every bit the boardroom commander and she almost took his breath away. Nobody could hold a candle to her now, standing here like this.

  ‘Answer me,’ she said.

  ‘OK. Since you’re asking me a direct question, I’ll give you a direct answer. I knew before we had sex that I wasn’t going to offer you a business deal. I knew it before you got on the plane. I probably knew it before I agreed to the breakfast meeting.’

  A flush of roses on her cheeks was all that he could see but he could feel her anger. He wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss her, and it was getting harder and harder to stand with his arms folded across his chest and a cup of tea in his hand.

  ‘You took me all this way, knowing that you were wasting my time—just to have sex?’

  ‘No. I took you all this way, presuming I might be wasting your time, because I made a commitment to my former brother-in-law, who coerced me into meeting with you because he felt sorry for you, and I had no intention of having sex with you at the start of this. None. In fact, it’s pretty much the only intention that I have reneged on in the past year.’