by Lynne Graham
‘lt’s your choice. You don’t have to go to the station.
But evidently they have some new information, and 1 feel it would be in your best interests to agree to make yourself available today,’ her legal adviser informed her.
Lydia breathed in deep. allright…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.’
‘l’ve arranged for a glazier to replace the window,’ Cristiano informed her.
Her teeth gritted. Wnd why the heck would you have done that? ‘ ‘lsn’t it fortunate that 1 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 hadjust 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 blink 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 realized 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 aVIP. 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 difticult?|’
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.
“Defiance? ‘ Lydia’s astonishment was unbidden. ‘But my mother doesn’t have a house in France.’
‘Mydesk 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 se
cond 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. 1 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, 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.
‘lt 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. ‘lf 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, 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 be hiding out in some palace with a pool on the French Riviera!
Although Lydia had been shattered when she’d realized 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 1 don’t have anything left.’
‘Oh, come on. 1 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 1 won’t let on to the tax maul’ Lydia raised a brow at such wishful thinking. ‘lf only’.
‘I don’t believe you…you’ve got to be holding out on me. l’ve been offered a terrific opportunity but 1’ m short of capital.’
‘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 1 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. ‘I , how? What have l done’?’ You put my husband out of work. Now, not surprisingly because we’ve had dreadful financial worries and l had to sell the house Dennis has left me for another woman! Do you have any idea how l 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 am so very sorry,’ Lydia whispered with pained sincerity.
‘We11, it’s too late for sorry now, isn’t it’? lf you’d gone back to modelling when we asked you, l’d still have a husband and a house l 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 energizing hate while she tormented herself for her own gullibility.
‘What am l going to do?’ Virginia suddenly sobbed.
‘l’ 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 will be here, and together we can get through this.’
‘But l’m in so much trouble,’ the older woman had confided tremulously, glancing up with a sidewise thicker 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 conseqencies.
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 ca
use 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. lf 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.
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. lf 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 vigours 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. lf 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.