by Fiona Harper
She stood up and backed away from the safe, shaking her head. ‘My wallet! Where’s my wallet?’ And she didn’t mean the little one she kept in her beach bag, containing just a handful of dollars and a prepaid money card. She meant the cardboard one she’d got from the bank when she’d got both East Caribbean dollars and US dollars. Hundreds of them.
‘I need to call security,’ she said, heading for the phone. ‘They came back!’
Marco caught her hand and led her to the sofas. ‘Call them in a minute, if you want,’ he said. ‘First I need to show you something. Sit down.’
When she’d done as he’d asked, he came and sat opposite her, perching on the edge of an armchair, and then he reached inside his trouser pocket, pulled something out and placed it carefully in the centre of the glass and wicker coffee table.
A cardboard wallet, full of money, with the name of her bank printed on it. She stared at it for a few seconds, unable to process what this meant, and then things got even weirder as he carefully laid her grandmother’s engagement ring on top of it.
Her gaze flicked up at him, back down to the money and back to him again. ‘Why...? What have...? What are you doing with those?’
A tiny, illogical part of her brain wanted him to tell her the police had returned them, but somehow she knew that wasn’t what he was going to say.
Marco stared back at her, his expression grim. ‘This is what I do, Juliet. This is who I am. Do you still think my family should welcome me back with open arms?’
She shook her head, and kept shaking it, because she didn’t know what else to do.
‘This is my wonderful job and why my father despises me so.’
Juliet was starting to get a headache. ‘Your job?’
He nodded. ‘I travel from country to country, resort to resort, and I look for single women—usually in their thirties or forties—who are looking for a little company and I...befriend them.’
Juliet’s mouth dropped open and she made a croaking noise.
Marco’s face pulled into a sneer, but he wasn’t looking at her—he was looking at his own reflection in the coffee table. ‘I find rich, bored women who are ready to let me fulfil their fantasies. And I work very hard to be good at what I do.’ He nodded at the wallet on the table. ‘Surely that entitles me to a little compensation?’
Juliet wanted to stand up. She wanted to run away. But she couldn’t seem to make her legs work.
He’d done that to her, hadn’t he? She’d fallen for all of it, all the stupid things he’d told her—that she was wonderful and beautiful and unusual and exciting. He’d known just what to say to reel her in.
She gasped as the enormity of the deception began to sink in, bit by sickening bit. No wonder his kisses had seemed so perfect, his romantic timing so immaculate. Hadn’t she felt at times that everything was too rehearsed? And the way he hadn’t come on strong, but had coaxed her in slowly.
Oh, God. She felt like such a fool.
‘I thought you were the most generous man I’d ever met,’ she said in a hoarse whisper, ‘but of course you were, because you weren’t even real. The only reason you gave me anything was because you were planning to take it all away from me.’
More than the money. Much more than the money. Her pride. Her self-confidence. The new-found freedom she’d thought he’d given her. Suddenly she felt rather sick.
She knew she had to look at him, even though she didn’t want to. She knew she had to look him in the eyes and tell him what a disgusting creature he was. It wouldn’t accomplish much, but maybe it would claw back just a little of her dignity.
‘I was going to give you everything—even my body,’ she added with a little hiccup, because the truth of that statement was like a knife in her chest. ‘And all you wanted was to steal from me. What kind of man does that make you?’
Finally, she met his gaze, but instead of triumph and arrogance all she saw was shame and defeat. ‘Not a very good one.’
Pretty words, but they didn’t change anything, and now the shock was starting to wear off Juliet’s blood was starting to pump and her fingers were starting to tingle with the warmth. ‘You’re disgusting. You were going to sleep with me to get my money?’
Marco stared back down at the coffee table and shook his head.
That just made Juliet angrier. She shot to her feet and stared at him, commanding him to look at her by the sheer force of her will. She was good at making things happen by the sheer force of her will. ‘Don’t lie to me! That’s all part of your job, isn’t it? And you know what that makes you?’
His shoulders sagged and he turned his head away. ‘No, not usually. I am all the things you accuse me of, but I’m not that.’
More lies. She gestured towards the ceiling with her right arm. ‘Then what was the other night about? You carried me upstairs and threw me down on my bed!’ A slimy coldness washed through her as her own words rang in her ears. She’d been so sure that a bit of steamy holiday sex would have been the answer to all her problems. How wrong could she have been? How blind?
‘I don’t sleep with the women I target,’ he said, still refusing to look at her, ‘but that night I... I got carried away. I usually find ways to avoid it. It’s easier than you think.’
Another wave of shame and humiliation hit her. She bet it was. She’d bet he was good at getting women to do what he wanted them to do. He’d certainly had her dangling on a piece of string. ‘Then why was I so different? Why were you going to change your personal code of honour...’ she had to stop and snort at the phrase ‘—in my case? Was I really that much of a pushover?’
He gave that little half-shrug she’d always found so appealing, but now she’d really like to smack his shoulder so hard it dislocated from its socket. ‘I just...wanted to.’
She couldn’t speak, stunned into silence by the sheer selfishness of his admission.
Finally, he glanced up and looked at her. ‘It was because you were different. I liked you.’ He shook his head gently. ‘Usually I can maintain a distance, keep my emotions out of it...’
She began to laugh, but it was a horrible dry sound. ‘You’re still doing it! Heaping on the flattery to get yourself out of trouble! I don’t believe a word you’re saying!’
The rolling feeling that had started in her stomach a few minutes earlier intensified and she found herself half-running, half-stumbling towards the open door. She needed to get out of here. She needed air.
She burst onto the terrace and kept going until she met the railings at the far edge. She pushed against it, breathing hard, her eyes taking nothing of the beautiful sunny morning. This holiday was supposed to have been her chance of renewal, at salvation. Instead it just confirmed everything that was wrong with her life. She felt like a carcass that had been stripped clean by Greg, her family, even the crazy demands she put on herself, and now Marco had just picked the bones until there was nothing left.
She heard a noise behind her, but she didn’t turn round. Couldn’t.
She heard him walk until he came to stand maybe six feet away from her on the balcony railing. Why me? she wanted to ask. Out of all women at Pelican’s Reach, why did you pick me? But she feared she knew. Predators like him knew how to spot the vulnerable, the weak, and she’d had ‘sucker’ stamped on her forehead since she’d been old enough to spell it.
‘The ring... I understand how easy it was for you to take that, but how did you get the money? It was in the...’
Ah. Of course.
How stupid of her not to realise until now. He’d suggested she take the ring off in the first place, hadn’t he? Then he’d insisted that she check the safe when it had gone missing. And he’d stood behind her as she’d punched the code in. Very clever.
‘Did you get everything you wanted?’ She raised her eyebrows and turned her head to look at hi
m.
He shook his head. ‘There wasn’t as much in there as I thought there would be. I should have known then...’
She didn’t care what he thought. There was one thing that was puzzling her, though. ‘You already have what you wanted. I presume you stole those things from me some time in the last twenty-four hours, so why are you still hanging around? Why aren’t you long gone?’
‘I am leaving tomorrow, and if I stopped spending time with you before then it would look suspicious.’
Juliet felt numb. All the time he’d been kissing her, he’d been planning and plotting this inside his head; all the time he’d been talking to her, getting her to reveal things about herself that she never told anyone else... Of course! That’s why he was such a good listener. It was all fuel for his fire. The more he knew about a woman, the more he could tailor the fantasy to suit her and work his magic on her. And she’d made it so easy for him. She wanted to hate him, but she found she didn’t have any energy left.
She stopped leaning on the railing and walked towards him, waited for him to look her in the eye. ‘Why are you telling me all this now? Why did you give everything back?’ That was the one thing she still didn’t get. He could have got away scot-free. The deception had been complete.
She studied him while he searched for an answer. He didn’t look like a man in the process of constructing a lie, but then he never had. ‘I want to stop doing this. It’s changing me into something I don’t like. But I told myself just a few more jobs and then I’d have enough. Usually the women I meet are hard. Game players, like me. I take and they take and we both come out even.’
Juliet wanted to laugh. Did he really believe that?
‘When I first met you, you seemed that way too. There was a...distance...that I’ve learned to recognise. And then you started bragging about your job and the movie stars you’d met, and I thought you were fair game.’
She swallowed. Part of her was enjoying this brutal honesty, but another part was crumbling underneath it. ‘What changed?’
‘You did,’ he said simply. ‘Right before my eyes. You’re nice, Juliet. You smile at the waiters and remember their names. Nobody else here does that. Look at how you helped that girl at the zip lining... And you wanted to help me, too, even though it meant you weren’t going to get what you wanted from me. I disgust you?’ He shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘I disgust myself.’
Good, thought Juliet. She had no pity for him; she was saving it all for herself. Being selfish. Why not? Everyone else was.
‘And what is so damn important that you have to go around stealing from people to get it?’
Marco turned round and rested against the railing, looking back towards the villa. ‘I want to go back to Lake Garda and prove to my family I can be successful without them. I wanted to buy a boat and offer sailing lessons and charters. I just needed a couple of thousand more euros...’
‘Then why don’t you work for it, like normal people do!’ Juliet shouted. ‘Why do this?’
He looked down at the terracotta tiles beneath their feet. ‘Because I can,’ he said quietly.
Because it was easy for him, Juliet realised. He was one of those people who always took the path of least resistance. She looked at him, really properly looked at him, as he stood hunched, staring at his shoes, and thought that maybe, for the very first time, she was seeing him for who he really was. A young man, not a god. And not evil—even though she’d like to believe that of him—just weak. Lazy. Selfish.
She’d thought he was like Gemma, but Gemma was nothing like this.
Suddenly she’d had enough of him. She walked round the plunge pool and back towards her sitting room.
‘Just go,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want to see you again.’
‘Are you...?’
Juliet turned at the threshold. ‘Am I what?’
He looked even more ashamed of himself. ‘Are you going to call security?’
She hadn’t thought about that yet. She realised she’d quite like to, but nothing of hers was actually missing. He’d given it all back. No, Marco hadn’t taken her belongings. The damage he’d done had gone much deeper.
She shook her head and then turned to go inside. ‘Goodbye, Marco.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JULIET KEPT TO THE busy parts of the resort for the rest of the day and booked a trip to Pigeon Island for the following morning, just so she could be sure she wouldn’t have to see Marco again. But as she was waiting out the front of the main reception building for the minibus to take her on her excursion, she spotted him coming through the crowd towards her. Immediately she turned and headed off in the opposite direction, through reception, out the other side into the pool area. He didn’t catch up with her until she was descending the short flight of steps that led to the beach.
‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she said loudly, without turning round.
‘Please?’ Marco said from behind her. She could feel his closeness now, sense him only inches away. ‘I need to explain.’
Juliet kept walking. She didn’t care about what he needed. Not any more.
‘And I want to do what you said—make peace with my family... Do things the right way from now on.’
She made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder. He looked so much younger now she knew him for what he was, and the look on his face reminded her of the twins when they knew they’d overstepped the line. She must have slowed a little because he fell into step beside her.
She tried to ignore him, just kept walking, but she found all the frustration that had been building since she’d seen him last just wouldn’t let her make things that easy.
‘You could do anything with your life,’ she told him, still focusing on the little waxy tree on the end of the beach. ‘Why choose this?’
She heard him take a heavy breath. ‘I didn’t choose it so much as it chose me.’
Juliet turned to look at him. ‘Don’t give me any crap, Marco. I’m really not in the mood for it.’
He held her gaze for a moment then nodded. ‘I got involved with an older woman who had a villa on the outskirts of our town. She came into the family restaurant when I was working as a waiter and flirted with me.’
Juliet snorted.
‘I was young, and she was French and incredibly sexy. I know you might not believe it, but Charlotte was my first serious relationship. I fell completely in love with her, and I thought she felt the same. I left the family business, much to my father’s disapproval, and moved in with her. She liked being with young men, liked buying them things, telling them how to better themselves by dressing right, listening to the right music and eating the right food. She liked being in control, I suppose.’
He fell silent and Juliet stole a glance in his direction. The centre of his forehead was bunched, as if he was reliving a painful memory. It could all be an act, of course, but she didn’t really see what he had to gain from acting now.
‘What happened?’ she asked, curious in spite of herself.
‘She found a new plaything,’ he said bitterly. ‘When I told her she was a heartless bitch, she said I was right, but that I’d been amply compensated, and she was even generous enough...’ he sneered as he said the word generous ‘—to send me on a trip to Sicily to prove her point.’
Juliet’s eyes widened. ‘Did you go?’
He nodded sadly. ‘I did. A month away from Riva, knowing I wouldn’t run into her every day with her newer, younger lover, seemed like a gift. And I was angry. I knew it wouldn’t hurt her to pay, but somehow I saw taking the trip as revenge.’
Juliet turned her attention back to the little tree. It was closer now, and the crowds and sunloungers around them were thinning out. She knew what that felt like—to feel replaced, surpassed. She just hadn’t expected that someone like Marco
would ever feel the same way.
He sighed. ‘And while I was in Taormina, I met another woman like her, and she wanted me, so I thought, Why not? But this time I will walk in with my eyes open and I will make her pay. So I did.’ When he looked at her, he didn’t look very triumphant. Instead he looked bleak and empty.
‘Did it make you feel better?’
He nodded. ‘For a while. And I just kept going. It kept me away from my family and when I went home I had money, I seemed a success. I could look my father in the face before he found out the truth. I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong—that it was a business transaction.’
They reached the tree and Juliet walked under its branches and turned to face him. ‘Why are you here, Marco? What do you want from me?’
‘To tell you I am sorry.’
Juliet looked at him. He had all that charm, like her sister, and he was clever—she never would have guessed what he’d done until it was too late, if he hadn’t stepped in and told her. While Gemma used her talents to get herself a high-profile job, Marco wasted his. He could do so much more.
She didn’t know if he was telling the truth about changing his ways, but she wished he was. While some of the time he’d been cynically playing her, she couldn’t help but feel that occasionally she’d got a glimpse of the real Marco—a few times when he’d talked about his family, that night when he’d seemed less polished, less in control. Maybe he’d been honest about that after all.
‘You could run a good sailing business if you wanted to,’ she told him. ‘People like you, and you know a lot about boats. You could make it work.’
Marco went grey, as if he was about to vomit. ‘You really think so?’
Juliet tried to stop her heart going out to him, and failed. He looked totally taken aback by her reluctant belief in him. She nodded.