by Penny Jordan
Slipping it on his own watch, Luke locked the drawer and left the room…
‘Look, Suzy, watch me dive!’ Charlie shouted as he jumped into the swimming pool, sending up a splash of water.
‘That isn’t a dive,’ Lucy told him scornfully when he got out. ‘You just jumped in.’
‘Yes, it was. It was a dive,’ Charlie argued.
‘No, it wasn’t—was it, Suzy?’ Lucy appealed.
‘Yes, it was,’ Charlie continued to insist.
Ruefully Suzy got up and went over to them. She had a bit of a headache—a legacy from not being able to sleep properly last night, she suspected.
She had gone to bed before Luke, all too relieved to be able to shower and quickly jump into bed whilst he was still in the suite’s sitting room. But, much as she had longed to fall asleep before he joined her in the large bed, her guilty conscience had refused to let her.
Eventually she had dropped off, only to wake up to discover that she had turned over and was now lying facing Luke, one hand outstretched, as though she was trying to reach out to him in her sleep. Afraid of waking him up if she moved, she had lain there motionless, worrying about Jerry and what he was doing so close to the villa.
She had still been awake when Luke had suddenly slid out of the bed to pad naked into the suite’s sitting room.
The large bed had felt empty and lonely without him, and she had found herself moving over to where he had been lying so that she could breathe in the scent of him from the warm sheets and pillows.
He had been up and dressed when she had woken this morning, and she had been under no illusion as to why he had waited in the sitting room for her whilst she showered and dressed.
In grim silence he had accompanied her downstairs for breakfast, and then later out here, to the swimming pool.
And she still hadn’t told him about Jerry! Because there hadn’t been any opportunity to do so, she tried to reassure herself.
‘Luke’s here.’
Lucy’s pleased announcement broke into her thoughts and brought a swift surge of colour to her skin.
Hoping that he wouldn’t see it, and guess at its cause, Suzy pretended not to have heard Lucy’s statement and kept her head down, moving only when Charlie suddenly jumped into the pool and she was showered with water.
‘See—that isn’t a dive, it’s a jump,’ Lucy pronounced as Suzy shook the water off her face and stood up. ‘Tell him, Luke,’ she begged. ‘Tell him that he can’t dive.’
Smiling at the little girl, Luke surveyed the protected area around the pool. Suzy had left her wrap by her lounger, and when Luke turned his head to look at her an intensely strong physical reaction kicked at her stomach. She could feel her nipples peaking and thrusting provocatively against the fabric of her swimsuit, and she knew from the downward sweep of Luke’s eyelashes that he was looking at their wanton flaunting.
She took a deep breath and fought off the desire to wrap her arms tightly around her body.
Luke cursed himself under his breath as he fought to drag his gaze away from Suzy’s body. Already the evidence of her swollen nipples was affecting him—arousing him. All it would take was one step forward and then he could tug those thin swimsuit straps down her shoulders and expose the full creaminess of her breasts to his hands and his lips. He could take each of those nipples into his mouth in turn and show them what they were inciting when they tormented his senses until his self-control was at breaking point.
‘Luke, Luke—tell her that I can dive.’
Charlie’s high-pitched voice broke through the heated pressure of his thoughts, and quickly he turned away from Suzy. Her watch was lying on a small table, along with her sunglasses and some suntan cream. Luke walked towards it.
‘Watch this, then!’
There was the sound of a noisy splash, followed almost immediately by an angry scream. Suzy swung round to see Lucy standing beside the pool, dripping wet from Charlie’s ‘dive’.
His small task completed, Luke strolled over to help calm the commotion.
From now on, until he removed the small device, every sound Suzy made, even down to her heartbeat, would be transmitted to the receiver locked in his desk. There wouldn’t be a single word she spoke, a single breath she took whilst she was with her ‘friend’ that he would not know about!
As she towelled Charlie dry Suzy looked over his head to where Luke was standing. She could tell him now, her conscience prodded her. All she needed to do was open her mouth and just say the words.
But what if he doesn’t believe me? What if he thinks that I’m lying, that I’m part of whatever it is that’s going on?
What if he did? her conscience demanded sternly. Were her own personal feelings really more important than something that was obviously very serious?
Suzy took a deep breath.
‘Luke?’
She stopped speaking when his mobile started to ring, and watched in heavy-hearted disappointment as he answered it and began to walk away.
She could always tell him later, she comforted herself as she reached for her wrap and informed the children it was time to go inside. Perhaps this evening, whilst they were alone and getting ready for dinner.
Her heart did a back somersault that caused just as much devastation inside her chest as Charlie’s ‘dives’ had done around the pool!
‘He’s back—refuses to give any name, but he’s biting on the bait we’ve floated. He’s offered the two guards a fistful of euros to let him in. The guards are making sure he has to work hard to persuade them, and I’ve told them to say they’ll let him in through that side gate in the perimeter wall.’
‘The one closest to the lake and the grotto?’ Luke questioned sharply.
‘Yes, that’s the one—is that okay?’
‘Yes, that’s fine. What’s he going to do when he gets in, though? I don’t want him wandering freely anywhere.’
‘That’s okay. Nico is going to ask him if he wants a message sent to Ms Roberts, arranging to meet her.’
‘Okay, let me know when he’s taken the bait, Hugh.’
Suzy had just showered and changed when she heard a knock on the door of the suite.
Going to open it, she was surprised to see a young Italian standing there.
‘I have a message for you, miss,’ he announced, before Suzy could speak. ‘There is a man—a friend of yours. He wishes you to meet him beside the grotto.’
Suzy stared at him, her heart hammering with apprehension.
‘What man? Who is this man?’ she began to demand, but the Italian was already walking quickly away from her.
It was Jerry—it had to be. Although how on earth he had got into the grounds and past Luke’s guards Suzy could not imagine.
Anxiously she rushed down the stairs and out into the garden, glancing at her watch as she did so. The lake and the grotto were quite a long walk away from the villa, and she kept looking anxiously around herself as she hurried towards them.
She skirted the lake using the footpath, hurrying past the sign that warned against anyone entering the grotto because it was unsafe. A padlocked iron gate guarded the entrance, and Suzy frowned to see that there was a key in the lock. She must mention it at the villa, just in case the children should stray down this way!
Once she reached the other side of the grotto she paused, looking around uncertainly and then tensing when Jerry suddenly stepped out of the shadow of the trees and shrubs where he had been waiting for her.
‘Jerry! What are you doing? How did you get in here?’ she demanded apprehensively.
‘Never mind that.’ He stopped her curtly. ‘I want to know what’s going on here. Come on, Suzy, spill the beans. What a piece of luck, finding you here. We got a tip-off that there was something important going on.’
‘There’s nothing going on,’ Suzy lied determinedly. Jerry’s comments had confirmed her worst fears. She was certainly not going to tell him anything! But perhaps if she found out what Jerry was up t
o the information might actually be useful to Luke—as well as help to prove her own innocence.
‘Oh, come off it! If that’s true what’s Soames doing here? And how did you get hooked up with him anyway?’
‘We’re here on holiday, that’s all—and as to how Luke and I met, that’s not really any of your business,’ Suzy told him coolly.
In his office Luke frowned as he listened in on their conversation. Had Suzy somehow realised that they were on to her?
“‘Luke and I”?’ Jerry mimicked sneeringly. ‘Typical that you’d go for someone like Soames—he’s as bloody moralistic as you are! Met those kids of his yet, have you?’
Suzy’s heart somersaulted. Kids? Luke had children? And children meant a mother, a woman he loved. No, that couldn’t be true.
‘Just as well he’s wealthy. I’ve heard that their medical bills will run into thousands. Risking his own life to save some refugee brats! I’d have left ’em, myself. Got shot for his pains, didn’t he?’
Refugee brats? As she rcoiled from Jerry’s unpleasantness Suzy felt the tight band of pain around her heart slacken a little. There was no woman Luke loved enough to give her his children. But this was no time to think about her own feelings.
‘You’ve got to leave, Jerry,’ she insisted shakily.
‘There’s nothing happening here of any interest to you or the magazine.’
‘You’re lying,’ Jerry accused her, putting his face so close to Suzy’s that she stepped back. ‘The boss has had a tip-off. That’s why I’m here. Knew I’d got lucky when I saw you with the Verey kids.’
‘They’re here on holiday with their father.’
‘They may be on holiday, but Verey’s here for something more than that—and that’s why Soames is here as well. They’ve got guards on the gate, for goodness’ sake.’
‘The owner of the villa employs the guards,’ Suzy fibbed inventively. ‘And, as I have just told you, Luke and I are here on holiday. Sir Peter is a friend of Luke’s and he invited us to stay.’
‘Sleeping with Soames, are you?’
Luke heard the small indrawn breath Suzy took before she told him firmly, ‘Yes, of course I am.’
‘Well, that’s turn-up, isn’t it? Little Miss Don’t-Touch-Me-I’m-Only-Just-This-Side-of-Being-a-Virgin crawling into bed with Soames. The boss wasn’t too pleased with you for leaving like that, you know. He’d got a pretty heavy bet set up that he’d be the one to teach you a thing or two about sex.’
Jerry was leering at her and Suzy had to fight down her furious disgust.
‘Good, is he? Soames? I reckon you owe the boss one for depriving him of his pleasure. Come on, Suzy, tell me what’s going on—for old times’ sake.’
Suzy had had enough.
‘For old times’ sake?’ she snapped, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘You and the rest of those disgusting men at the magazine made my life a misery. And if you think for one moment that if there was anything to tell—which there isn’t—I would betray national secrets to someone like you…Well, if you want my advice, Jerry, you should leave here right now—before—’
‘Before what?’ Jerry stopped her, an ugly look on his face. ‘Before you go running to Luke to give the game away?’
A chilly little breeze seemed to have sprung up, and Suzy shivered. Suddenly she felt not just cold but frightened as well.
‘Jerry, I don’t know what you want,’ she began, but Jerry stopped her.
‘You know damned well what I want,’ he told her viciously. ‘I want to know what’s going on here, and one way or another I intend to find out.’
As he spoke he reached out and grabbed Suzy’s arm, looking past her at the grotto.
‘Jerry—what are you doing? Jerry, let me go!’ Suzy started to protest, trying to resist as he dragged her towards the grotto and unlocked the iron gate.
‘Let’s see if you feel a bit more like talking after a few hours in here,’ he told Suzy, panting heavily as he released her and gave her a savage push.
Suzy cried out as she lost her balance.
‘Jerry, it isn’t safe in here,’ she protested anxiously as she struggled to get to her feet. But Jerry wasn’t listening to her. Instead he was locking her inside the grotto and walking away with the key.
Luke cursed as he got to his feet, rapping out a message to Hugh Phillips to apprehend Jerry. Giving a cursory glance through the office window, he started to hurry out of the villa.
He had been wrong about Suzy! Utterly and completely wrong. And beneath his surprise at the discovery, and his concern for the danger she was in, he could feel a swift, deep tide of joy running through him.
Locked in the grotto, Suzy tried not to give in to her fear. Someone was bound to come past and rescue her, surely? One of the gardeners, or one of Luke’s men.
She tensed as she heard a low, threatening rumble. Stones and debris were falling all around her. Panicking, she ran to the back of the grotto, to avoid being hit by the growing avalanche of boulders, and then gave a terrified scream as the ground suddenly gave way beneath her.
She was falling down some kind of tunnel, Suzy recognised, with twigs and soil raining down all around her in the darkness. And then suddenly her fall came to an end, and the air jolted out of her lungs as she hit the cold dampness of a hard earth floor.
Somewhere in the distance she could still hear rumbling, but as she strained her ears to listen to it abruptly it ceased and there was silence.
Silence and darkness.
Her body hurt, but her fear was much greater than her physical pain. She was trapped somewhere underground beneath the grotto. Dust filled the air above and around her, making her cough and gag. How long would it be before someone found her—if they found her at all?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUKE had once run for his school—and, alerted by the sound of falling rocks, he reached the grotto just as it started to collapse in on itself. White-faced he looked at the pile of rubble beneath which Suzy was now buried.
Whilst his mind was coolly and mechanically planning what had to be done his heart was racing, thudding, swelling with emotions he couldn’t afford to allow to torment him.
‘Get on to the emergency services!’ he shouted over his shoulder to Hugh, who had followed him. ‘And then get the men down here!’
Suzy! Anguish, guilt, despair—he could feel all of them. Why had he waited so long? Why hadn’t he come for her the moment he had realised she had not lied to him? Why had he allowed her to be placed in danger in the first place?
Suzy, Suzy, Suzy. He could feel her name ringing inside his head, inside his heart.
The guards had arrived and quickly he began to instruct them, telling them what to do as he began to move heavy boulders.
As he worked, grimly Luke tried to blot out images of another place and another time. Another pile of debris oozing dust and silence. That one under the heat of the sun, with the taste of smoke and anger in his mouth, the shocked wailing of the bereaved rising from the throats of women as he had looked in bitter fury at the house so unnecessarily destroyed, people killed and maimed by their own. A young woman dead, her children buried beneath the rubble of their home.
‘Luke, if they are in there they’ll be dead,’ one of his comrades had muttered to him, but Luke had ignored him.
They had found the baby first, perfectly still, and then the older child. Luke knew he hadn’t been the only one who had wept.
Those images were inside his head now, those images and those desperate feelings. He had hurt then, for those children, but if he had feared for them then that was nothing to what he was feeling right now.
And, what was more, Luke knew that it would not have made one iota of difference to him right now if Suzy had been colluding with the magazine, if she had been about to betray a hundred security secrets—he loved her, and his love for her was the strongest and most powerful emotion he had ever felt. It was so strong, in fact, that he had been afraid of it—afraid of acknowle
dging its power over him, afraid of admitting it to himself.
Suzy! He had loved her, he suspected, from the minute he had felt the brush of her soft lips against his own.
‘Luke! Take it easy!’
It was only when he felt Hugh’s restraining hand on his arm that he realised that he was tearing at the fallen boulders, his throat blocked with the pain of crying her name.
They worked late into the evening, under searchlights which had been rigged up and with the teams of experts Luke had called in.
Several times Luke was told to take a break and allow others to continue with the task that their expertise equipped them for, but he refused to listen. What he wouldn’t give for a team of trained sappers here right now, he thought bitterly, as he watched the painfully slow progress, grim-faced.
If Suzy died it would be his fault. He would have killed her, killed the woman he loved, the woman he should have cherished and protected above everyone and anyone else, even above and beyond his duty. That was how he felt about her. How he would always feel about her. Admitting his love for her had been like taking a bung out of a dyke. The pressure of his denied feelings was pouring through him, drowning out everything else.
Why hadn’t he listened to his emotions? Why had he persisted in disbelieving her and them?
He knew the answer to that, Luke acknowledged, his gaze never wavering from the harsh beam of light directed on to the fallen rocks. He had been afraid of admitting the truth.
He had decided a long time ago not to marry. He had seen too many Army marriages fall apart under the strain it imposed on them and he had thought he could prevent himself from falling in love, from wanting to spend the rest of his life with that one special person. Until Suzy had come into his life.
Into his life! And out of it?
The harsh lights bleached the colour from his face, leaving it leached of blood, his eyes two dark, burning sockets of pain fixed on the spot beneath which Suzy lay.