Istanbul Affair

by Joanna Mansell

  'When did all this happen?'

  'Just over a year ago.'

  'You were in love with the father?' he asked, just a little more sharply than seemed necessary.

  Amy shrugged. 'At the time, I certainly thought he was very special. I suppose it was because he was the first man I'd had a really serious relationship with.'

  Benedict briefly looked sceptical. 'That's hard to believe. You're what—in your early twenties? And you've only had one close relationship?'

  'That's because—' Amy began, a little defensively. Then she stopped.

  'Because of what?' he prompted.

  She gave a soft sigh. She knew that it had been a mistake to get involved in this conversation. She didn't even know how it had happened. A few minutes ago she had resolved not to tell him anything about her private life. And yet here she was, blurting out absolutely everything.

  'Because of what?' Benedict asked again. Those dark eyes of his looked at her directly, demanding an answer, and she found it impossible not to give it.

  'Because of Angeline,' she mumbled.

  His gaze sharpened. 'How does your cousin come into this?'

  'Angeline's always been very—competitive, where men are concerned,' she said after a long pause, choosing her words very carefully. 'It's like a game to her. And because I'm her cousin, she seemed to like playing the game even more when I was around.'

  Benedict looked as if he didn't much like what he was hearing. Amy couldn't help that, though. After all, he was the one who kept asking all the questions.

  'Whenever I found anyone I liked, Angeline would try to take him away,' she went on a little wearily. 'I don't think that she meant to be deliberately malicious—or perhaps she did. I've never been quite sure how Angeline's mind works. Anyway, she always succeeded. You've seen both of us, so you know what she's like. She's a little bit more of everything than I am. Prettier, sexier, a better body, more glitz and sparkle—'

  'Don't run yourself down like that,' Benedict cut in with unexpected sharpness.

  'I'm not.' Amy gave a resigned shrug. 'It's just the way things are. Anyway, when I met Giles, I made sure that I kept him away from Angeline.' She gave a slightly bitter smile. 'I wished afterwards that I hadn't. I'd have been better off if Angeline had taken him away from me.'

  'He wasn't pleased when you told him you thought you were pregnant?'

  Amy's eyes began to flare brightly. 'That's something of an understatement. At first, he kept on trying to insist that it couldn't possibly be his. I told him that it certainly was, and that was when he finally told me that he was married! He'd always spent a lot of time away, but I'd thought he was travelling abroad on business trips. That was what he told me, and I was stupid enough to believe him.' She ran her fingers through the pale strands of her hair. 'I was so trusting, so childish. He lied over and over, about absolutely everything, and I didn't once even consider that he might be lying. And he wasn't just married. He had four kids! Four. And he most certainly didn't want another one, especially if it were mine. He went a little crazy at the thought of my being pregnant. I'd never seen him like that before; he scared me half to death. He kept shouting that there was no way I was going to have that baby—that I'd have to have an abortion. He threatened to drag me to the clinic himself if I wouldn't go voluntarily.'

  Benedict's eyes had gone almost black. 'Did he hurt you physically?' he asked tightly.

  'He hit me a couple of times,' she admitted in a low voice. 'That really shook me. No one had ever raised a hand to me before.'

  He muttered something angrily under his breath. Then he raised his head. 'Bastards like that ought to be locked away.'

  'It certainly taught me a few things about men,' she said bitterly. 'And, of course, none of it need have happened. I wasn't pregnant at all; it was just a false alarm. I'm almost glad that it happened, though. At least I managed to get out of the relationship before any serious damage was done.'

  'It sounds to me as if he managed to cause quite a lot of damage,' Benedict said grimly.

  'In the short-term, things weren't too good,' Amy agreed. 'For a while, I really fell apart. It wasn't just the end of the relationship that got to me, it was all the lies, all the deceit. Then I inherited that money from my uncle, bought the shop, and slowly started to put things back together. And in the long run, perhaps it's been good for me. I'm tougher, not so naive, I can handle things better.' At least, she had thought she could, until she had met Benedict Kane.

  His face was still set into hard lines. 'You shouldn't have to be tough. You're not the type.' He paused, then said in a rather different tone, 'Do you still have any feelings for him?'

  'I don't think that I ever did love him—not properly, heart and soul, the way it's meant to be. The whole thing was a very immature sort of affair. Looking back, it's hard to understand how I ever got into it.'

  'It's always easy to be wise in retrospect.'

  Amy gave him a slightly sharp glance. 'That sounds like the voice of experience talking. Have you done things that you regret?'

  His dark eyebrows lifted expressively. 'Hasn't everyone?'

  She let out a small sigh. 'I suppose so. That's one of the things that helps to make it bearable: knowing that almost everyone makes a real mess of their life at some point.' Then she shot another look at him. 'Do you realise how little I know about you?' she said, with a frown. 'Here I am, telling you things that I always swore I'd never tell anyone, but you're really just a stranger.'

  Benedict shrugged. 'It's a well-known fact that it's usually easier to talk to someone that you don't know very well.'

  'Well, I think that it's time it worked both ways. How about telling me something about yourself? After all, it looks as if I'm going to have to play the part of your fiancée for at least another couple of days. It might help me to give a more convincing performance if I know more about you.'

  'I suppose that makes sense,' he agreed. 'What do you want to know?'

  Since she hadn't expected him to fall in with her suggestion so readily, she couldn't think what to ask him. 'Tell me what you do for a living,' she said at last, knowing that it was a rather feeble question, but not quite having the nerve yet to ask anything more personal.

  'I thought you knew. I run a handful of companies.'

  'A handful?' she repeated, with an expressive grimace. 'Can't you remember exactly how many?'

  'Seven,' he said with a faint smile.

  'What kind of companies?'

  'They're mostly connected with the retail trade, particularly fashion. And before you ask, no, I don't design any of the clothes,' he added, his dark eyes briefly gleaming. 'I simply market them as widely and as efficiently as possible.'

  'Is it a family business?'

  Benedict shook his head. 'I began with one small company that I bought with a windfall inheritance from my grandfather. Then I gradually expanded and bought up other companies as I became more successful.'

  'You must have worked very hard.'

  'It's easy to do that when you don't have a wife and family making demands on your time.'

  'Why aren't you married?' Amy asked curiously. Then she flushed slightly as she realised that that was a very personal question to ask.

  Benedict looked as if he wasn't going to answer her. A rather dark expression briefly crossed his face, and she guessed that he wasn't used to this sort of inquisition from anyone.

  Finally, though, his shoulders lifted in a small shrug. 'It's simply something that's never happened.'

  'But why?' she persisted.

  He gave a slightly impatient growl. 'Does there have to be a reason?'

  'There nearly always is.' Amy's nerve had almost run out, but she couldn't seem to let go of this until she had got an answer. 'Perhaps there was someone you never quite got over?' she suggested hesitantly. 'Someone you wanted, but could never have.'

  'No,' Benedict said flatly. His dark eyes fixed on her face. 'And that's why I'm not married. Because I've never m
et anyone like that. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of beds, but they were never the right bed. No woman's ever been the right woman.'

  Amy swallowed rather hard. 'I see,' she said, almost in a whisper. 'But you said—you thought that Angeline—' But she couldn't finish the sentence. For some reason, the thought of Angeline being the right woman for Benedict Kane was almost unbearable.

  'When I met Angeline, I thought that perhaps—' He abruptly stopped for a few moments, looked as if he didn't intend to say anything more, but then added in an even brusquer tone, 'I don't know, we didn't have enough time. Perhaps when she's free—'

  They both fell silent as they remembered the reason why they were here, in Istanbul.

  Amy was the first one to break the silence. 'Do your family know you're here?' she asked in a subdued voice. 'Do they know about your—involvement with my cousin?'

  Benedict shook his head. 'I like to keep my personal life private. I did ring my parents and tell them I'd be away for a few days, on a business trip. I travel abroad quite often, so they didn't have any reason to question it. There didn't seem any point in worrying them unnecessarily by telling them I might be involved in a possible kidnapping.'

  'Don't you have any brothers or sisters you can confide in?'

  'I had an older brother,' he said, after a short pause. 'He was killed in a smash-up on the motorway. He didn't cause the accident, but he was the one who died.'

  'That's a dreadful thing to happen,' Amy said softly.

  'Yes,' he said, in flat agreement. Then he made a rather obvious effort to push it out of his mind, as if it were something that he couldn't bear to think about for very long. 'This conversation is becoming distinctly morbid,' he said, getting quickly to his feet. 'If one of the kidnappers is watching us, they're going to get very suspicious if we sit around with gloomy faces, looking more and more depressed. We're meant to be engaged, remember? They'll expect us to be worried about Angeline, but they'll also expect us to look moderately happy when we're together. Engaged couples are meant to enjoy each other's company.'

  'I don't think I'm very good at being a fiancée— even a temporary one,' Amy said, with a grimace. 'Can't we just drop this pretence?'

  'And tell the kidnappers what? That we lied? That isn't going to help Angeline. The kidnappers have to trust us, they've got to believe that we're following their instructions and that we're exactly who we told them we are. So let's start putting some realism into the performance, or they're going to guess the truth.'

  He gripped hold of Amy's hand and hauled her to her feet. Instead of letting go of her, though, he pulled her even closer and then slid his hands around her waist, his fingers holding her so firmly that there was no chance to pull away.

  'What are you doing!' she yelped in alarm.

  'Stop squealing and start acting,' he instructed roughly. 'Engaged couples like to kiss, and that's exactly what we're going to do.'

  'We are not—' she began indignantly, then her protest was cut off by the hard pressure of his mouth.

  She supposed that he was kissing her so hard because he wanted to shut her up. Or perhaps he always kissed like this. Or maybe he was simply getting his own back for all the times when she had irritated him.

  Finally, he had to release that pressure just a fraction in order to breathe.

  Amy dragged a shuddering breath into her own constricted lungs; then she glared up at him.

  'Stop it!' she hissed at him.

  'Not yet,' Benedict said implacably. 'If you don't like it—and it's fairly obvious that you don't,' he added in a hard tone, 'then close your eyes and remember that you're doing this for Angeline.'

  Amy had already closed her eyes, though, because she needed to blot out the sight of his face so close to hers. And he had got it wrong about her not liking it. She liked it far too much! That was the reason why she was panicking inside. If he realised just how much she liked it, then all the advantages were going to be on his side in the future, and that was something she didn't want—couldn't allow—to happen.

  Another kiss followed, and a deep shudder ran right through her, seeming to penetrate right to the very depths of her soul. His mouth was warm and dry; his tongue didn't explore but she suddenly had the feeling that it wanted to.

  The sun burned down all around them, but didn't touch them as they stood under the shade of the tree. All the same, Amy felt scorched inside. This second kiss was killing her, and she didn't even understand why.

  When Benedict finally let go of her, it was hard to stand up unsupported. His dark eyes looked down at her, almost black and quite unreadable.

  'I think that's enough pretence for one day,' he said in an unexpectedly terse voice.

  Amy didn't answer him; couldn't answer him. Benedict turned round and strode off, and she stumbled along after him, feeling as if everything in her life had just changed forever.

  It was only a kiss, she told herself over and over, quite frantically. People kissed every day.

  But they didn't feel like this afterwards. They wouldn't be willing to give half of their life for just one more kiss exactly like it.

  You're going crazy! Amy muttered to herself in bewilderment. The sun, the heat, the strange, exotic surroundings—they're all getting to you.

  But she knew she was wrong. None of those things were responsible for the way she felt. It was Benedict Kane who was getting to her.

  And that was the craziest thing of all!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Amy seemed to go through the rest of the day in a state of shock. She talked to Benedict, ate lunch, walked and moved in an apparently normal manner, but part of her didn't seem to be there at all. The feeling of unreality was actually quite pleasant. It seemed to separate her from what had happened earlier.

  In the afternoon, they visited the Blue Mosque. She dutifully stared at the six slender, elegant minarets that flanked it, the two hundred and sixty windows that admitted a flood of light, the exquisitely patterned tiles that covered the walls, the pillars and the dome-most of them coloured blue and giving the mosque its name.

  When they finally left, it was time to return to the hotel. Despite the sense of unreality that still had her in its grip, Amy's heart began to thump faster at the prospect of spending another night sharing a room with Benedict. The prospect frightened her half to death, and yet gave her a curious kind of pleasure. And all the time there was a strong undertone of guilt because she knew that she shouldn't be thinking any of these things; she should be totally preoccupied with Angeline, and concentrating only on getting her cousin free again.

  As she and Benedict entered the hotel-room, the phone began to ring. Amy's heart began to pound for a very different reason. With an awkward, jerky movement, she snatched hold of the receiver.

  'Yes?' she said edgily.

  'Be at the Galata Tower tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock,' said the man's voice at the other end. Then he severed the connection.

  'Hello?' she said, jiggling the phone a little frantically. 'Please, don't go! I want to ask you—'

  It was too late. There was no one at the other end.

  'He wants us to be at the Galata Tower tomorrow, at eleven,' she repeated to Benedict dully.

  'That isn't too far from here,' he said. 'It's just on the other side of the Golden Horn. We can cross at the Galata Bridge, and from there it's just a few minutes' walk.'

  'But we still aren't getting anywhere!' she burst out in frustration. 'He hasn't even told us if Angeline is alive and well. Anything could have happened to her since they snatched her!'

  'Angeline is fine,' Benedict said at once. 'It wouldn't make sense for them to harm her—not if they want us to pay for her safe return.'

  'Don't treat me like a child,' Amy shot back angrily. All her nerve-ends were suddenly and vividly alive again. The comforting sense of unreality had gone, and she had the feeling that it wouldn't come back again. 'Kidnappings are always dangerous. And the victims aren't always returned safely. Don't pretend
that they are!'

  Benedict gripped her arms and shook her lightly, his own features changing and setting into a shadowed mask. 'Yes, there are risks,' he agreed tightly. 'But we can minimise those risks by using our heads, be-having sensibly, and following the kidnappers' instructions as closely as we can.'

  'We're giving in to them,' she muttered. 'I hate that!'

  His eyes suddenly blazed. 'And you think that I don't? But our own feelings don't matter right now. Getting Angeline back is the only thing that's important.'

  He seemed to realise that he was still holding on to her, and he abruptly let go, then turned away from her. Amy stared at him with dull eyes. He obviously didn't want to touch her or even be near her. She didn't have to worry about sharing this room with him. There wouldn't be any more kisses while they were alone here together. There didn't need to be any kisses. That had been just a performance that had to be put on in case any of the kidnappers were watching.

  With a jolt of shock, Amy realised that she was almost beginning to hate her cousin, because she was the only one that Benedict thought about. Everything he did was because of her. She was totally ashamed of feeling like that, but at the same time, she couldn't seem to stop.

  It ruined her appetite, and when they went down to dinner she could only pick at the pieces of tender lamb that had been rolled in flour, sautéed in butter, and then served in a broth of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices. For dessert, there were wafer-thin layers of sweet pastry stuffed with walnut, but Amy only managed to force down one mouthful, and then pushed the plate away.

  Benedict frowned at her. 'It isn't going to help if you stop eating.'

  'As far as I can see, nothing's going to help,' she said in a defeated tone.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  Suddenly scared that she might give something away, even by just looking at him, she looked down at her plate and the remains of her uneaten meal.

  'Nothing,' she said in a low voice. 'I'm tired, that's all. I need some sleep.'