Forgotten Sins

by Robyn Donald

  ‘Thank you.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘It’s too late, Aline; we can’t go back. I know what happens to you in my arms. We have to deal with the fact that we want each other beyond reason.’

  ‘So?’ Her crisp tone hid the desolation inside. He’d spoken of hunger, of need, of wanting—never of loving.

  ‘So what did it mean for you?’

  ‘Great sex.’ Ironic that she had the perfect weapon to end this agony of indecision. Men in the market for affairs didn’t want embarrassing protestations of undying love; if he knew she loved him he might well decide the whole situation was too much trouble. All she had to do was say, By the way, I love you.

  She couldn’t do it.

  Because she loved him, she’d give him whatever he wanted from her for as long as he wanted it. This time, she vowed, she’d not expect it to last a lifetime. When he got tired of her she’d accept her fate with dignity and control—no clinging, no obligations, no tears.

  At least, not in public.

  Abruptly and without finesse, she changed the subject. ‘Did you keep yesterday’s newspaper?’

  He looked at her with watchful eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want to reread that article.’ The mug trembled in her hand. Still stunned by the hugeness of the decision she’d just made, she drank quickly.

  Jake indicated a coffee table in front of the largest sofa. ‘It’s over there.’

  ‘I’d like to see today’s papers too, if you’ve got them.’

  His brows drew together over the blade of his nose. ‘Why?’

  ‘That implication that someone’s stolen money from the Connor Trust needs looking into,’ she returned curtly.

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ Jake asked, pinning her down with his unwinking scrutiny. ‘You don’t have anything to do with the Trust’s financial affairs.’

  ‘No, although I have signing authority.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Have you ever used it?’

  She nodded. ‘Whenever Tony’s away.’

  Idly Jake asked, ‘How many others have signing authority?’

  Silently she denied him the right to ask that question, holding his probing gaze as her will clashed with his, but eventually she said reluctantly, ‘Just Tony Hudson and Peter.’

  ‘Tell me about Peter Bournside,’ he invited.

  ‘He used to be Michael’s manager and agent, and when the trust was set up Michael put him in charge of it.’ Made uneasy by something she didn’t understand in his attitude, she said, ‘If there’s any question of irregularity in the accounts I want to know.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked again.

  Pride laced her words. ‘Because Michael’s name is at stake. Whatever else he was—or wasn’t—he was never a thief. Also, if I’m implicated in anything even slightly dodgy I won’t have a future as a banker,’ she said bluntly.

  It was typical of Jake that he didn’t attempt to deny her assumption. Instead he said, ‘Keir wouldn’t sack you.’

  She retorted with irony, ‘You know better than that. Mud sticks. Keir’s a loyal employer, but he’s not going to risk his bank. Not that he’ll have to, because I’ll resign sooner than put him in that position.’ Her eyes returned to the newspaper and her oval chin jutted at a dangerous angle.

  The stubborn note in her voice kick-started Jake’s temper. She managed to keep him continually off-balance. Half an hour ago she’d been writhing in his arms, so lost to everything but the sensations he’d roused in her that her precious control had been shattered.

  Obviously it had meant little; once again she was retreating, erecting a wall brick by brick, still obsessing about her husband and intent on protecting her reputation in the cut-throat world she’d made her own. Jake fought a sense of something fragile and evanescent slipping through his fingers.

  Hiding his frustration with ruthless practicality, he asked, ‘Why did your husband give you co-signing authority if he didn’t expect you to take an active part in Trust financial affairs?’

  Aline walked over to the sofa, seating herself with the precise grace that was as much a part of her as her waterfall of midnight hair. She put the coffee onto the table and picked up the newspaper, carefully unfolding it and pretending to scan it. Jake noted the soft rustle of the pages. So she wasn’t as confident as she’d have liked him to think. He wasn’t surprised when she dropped the paper beside her and fixed him with a cool gaze.

  ‘Michael respected my business skills. The signing authority was just a precaution because of course he didn’t intend to die. But he’d have expected me to keep an eye on things.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Jake asked coolly.

  Picking up her coffee mug, she drank from it, her blue eyes shadowed by secrets. ‘After he died I lost myself in work; I couldn’t bear to deal with anything that had his name. Then I spent a year in Hong Kong, and when I came back I was busy.’ Busy negotiating a deal with Jake, and becoming so obsessed by him that she hadn’t thought of much else. ‘I signed a few cheques whenever Tony was away, but nothing else. Until…’

  Words she didn’t say hung on the air. Jake said shrewdly, ‘Until recently?’

  Aline shot him a chagrined glance. ‘I signed some last week, as it happens. I’d gone to see Peter because Tony told me that no money has been disbursed yet from the Trust. I asked Peter why.’

  ‘And he said…?’

  ‘That he’d been building the Trust fund so there’d be more to distribute once they started.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ Jake said neutrally.

  She flashed him an indignant glance. ‘To a certain degree, but he wasn’t building an asset base! He started to boast about his success and my blood ran cold—he’s been taking the most outrageous risks, gambling with the Trust money. But what really made me furious—and scared me—was that I could see he was hooked on the adrenalin rush. He didn’t even try to hide it.’ Remembered anger iced her voice.

  ‘So what did you do?’ Jake asked, watching her with eyes the cold, tawny clarity of an eagle’s.

  ‘I told him I was going to contact the trustees and find out why they were allowing this, and he laughed, and told me that I was a proper banker—too conventional, too rigid. He said he’d understood Michael much better than I had because they were both swashbucklers.’ She paused, fighting for control before resuming more temperately, ‘When I told him that Michael had had a conscience, he laughed.’ Colour flaked her skin. ‘I suppose he knew about Lauren too. Anyway, as I went to go he asked me to sign some cheques. Which I did, but I was so strung up I can’t even remember looking at them.’

  Jake shrugged as if that meant nothing. ‘And when you contacted the trustees, what did they say?’

  ‘Most of them were delighted at the figures he’d given them.’ She grimaced. ‘Understandably—he’d just about doubled the original donations.’

  ‘Did you tell them how risky this was?’ Incredibly, Jake found he was holding his breath. If she’d told them she was in the clear.

  She paused, then said steadily, ‘No. I didn’t want to make assertions like that without concrete proof, and I knew I’d have to walk carefully—I’m not a trustee, so I have no legal status to change policy. I decided to track Peter’s wheeling and dealing so I could show the trustees how insanely reckless he’d been. He rang me after a couple of days and accused me of trying to undermine his position. Actually, he scared me all over again.’

  ‘He threatened you?’ Jake asked in a harsh monotone.

  She gave him an astonished look. ‘No—oh, no! But from the way he was talking I think he’d convinced himself that he couldn’t make a mistake, that he was a magician with a golden touch that would never fail.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  She gave another wry grimace. ‘We had another blazing row.’ When Jake’s eyebrows shot up she said, ‘He shouted and I was polite.’

  ‘But implacable,’ Jake said smoothly, sitting down in the chair opposite her.

  ‘He w
as putting Michael’s dream at risk,’ she returned, indignation hardening her voice. ‘He’s an addict, wheeling and dealing for the excitement. So far it appears to have paid off, but he’s going to take a fall some day, and lose the Trust huge amounts of money. Michael would never have countenanced rashness like that.’

  Stretching his long legs out, Jake asked, ‘How well do you know Bournside?’

  Restlessly she got to her feet. ‘I thought I knew him very well indeed. He was always at our house; after Michael died he was a tower of strength. I like—liked—him very much. I like his wife.’

  Jake leaned back, watching her with hooded eyes, his face impassive. Deliberately he said, ‘So what do you plan to do?’

  ‘First I want to find out exactly how much the Trust’s assets are worth,’ she said, with a grim glance at the newspaper. ‘The real figures, not the ones he’s fed to the trustees.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ she admitted ‘Now Peter knows I’m gunning for him there’s not a chance he’ll co-operate.’

  Getting to his feet, Jake said thoughtfully, ‘I might be able to do something about it. I’ll get in touch with a couple of contacts—’

  Her hands knotted in her lap. She blurted, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get caught up in this, Jake.’

  ‘You have no choice,’ he told her calmly, pacing noiselessly across the room. ‘I can trace money with the best of them, and I can call on people in my own organisation to help if we need them.’

  Baffled, she stared at him. ‘I can’t let you—’

  ‘Lady,’ he said with cool authority, ‘you can’t stop me.’ As she seethed he smiled mockingly. ‘Wherever you go, you’ll find me ahead of you or half a step behind.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked in her turn, wondering what she’d say if he told her that he wanted to help her because he loved her—and knowing he wouldn’t.

  His broad shoulders moved slightly. ‘Call me public-spirited. I contributed to the Connor Trust, and so did a lot of people I know. I’ll get all the other newspapers sent up and a copy of that book. The writer might have sources we can tap.’

  ‘The book’s not being published until Friday,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I can get a copy.’ He spoke with such formidable determination that Aline was swept along by it.

  She said thoughtfully, ‘We still don’t know whether any money has actually gone missing. The only information we’ve got is what the newspaper’s lawyers decided it was safe to print. The media have been wrong before.’

  ‘I’d say there has to be something more to the accusation than mere smoke and rumours.’ Jake looked down at the headline. ‘Although that’s sensational, the newspaper itself is pretty reliable.’

  Aline frowned. ‘But missing money could mean anything—from a loss on the share market to embezzlement on a grand scale.’

  ‘Between us, I’m sure we can find out what this is.’

  The strength of his will focused onto her as though she’d been caught naked in a spotlight. ‘If it’s not just a storm in a teacup,’ she muttered. ‘According to the figures Peter gave me the Trust is in a sound financial position at the moment.’

  ‘Possibly. I’ll set things in motion,’ he said.

  After he left the room Aline sank back into the sofa, feeling as though she’d been blasted by a hurricane and was now lost in the dangerous serenity of its eye. She picked up the newspaper and stared blindly at the print, wondering what on earth she was going to do. Michael’s photograph smiled at her, boyish, charming, determined…

  She thought of Lauren’s desperate, anguished face, and thought painfully, Oh, Michael, how could you do that to her?

  She didn’t hear Jake come back in, didn’t sense his presence until he asked quietly, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s like looking at a stranger,’ she admitted painfully. ‘How could I have been so blind?’

  ‘It happens,’ Jake said shortly.

  ‘I know. Adultery seems to occur in the happiest of marriages.’ And why should she be surprised that Michael should have wanted Lauren’s lush, warm femininity?

  ‘I doubt if happy marriages are much at risk from it,’ Jake said with such cool dispassion that she flushed.

  ‘I thought it was happy,’ she said evenly. She got to her feet. ‘Which makes me an utter idiot. Shall we start work?’

  Later in the day Aline glanced up from the computer. White-lipped, she said, ‘Where did you get this information?’

  ‘Contacts,’ Jake told her briefly. He got up from his laptop and came across, leaning so that he too could see her screen.

  Aline’s heart thudded as his faint, unmistakable scent teased her nostrils. Frowning fiercely, she said, ‘This has to come from someone working for the Trust in a position of authority. Who’s the mole? And why did he or she start copying all this information and sending it to you?’

  He straightened up and stood looking down at her, his brows drawn together, his eyes opaque. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Something like fear chilled her as she tried and failed to trace a niggling thread of memory back to its source. She chewed on her lip, then said curtly, ‘If these figures are correct—’

  ‘They are.’

  And he wasn’t going to tell her why he was so sure of their accuracy. Aline opened her mouth to demand answers, then closed it again. It could wait until this was over. She said sickly, ‘According to this, the Trust’s lost eight million dollars since the beginning of the year. Some of that’s bad investments. Peter took a hiding with a dot com firm—a fact he didn’t let the trustees know.’

  Jake said absently, ‘That could be what the journalist meant.’ His profile, sculpted in angles and straight lines, was boldly outlined against dusky sky beyond the window.

  ‘Possibly, but… There seem to be gaps in the record.’ Yawning, she focused on the screen again. ‘I’ll get some coffee,’ she mumbled.

  ‘No coffee,’ Jake said. ‘You drink too much of that stuff.’ He glanced at his watch and frowned. ‘We’ll give it a rest. Dinner should be arriving any minute and we could do with a drink beforehand.’

  Aline blinked. ‘I don’t want dinner,’ she protested. ‘I want to find out what the hell is going on here.’

  He touched the keyboard and his computer screen dissolved into a dazzle of starshells. ‘Not now,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You’re exhausted.’

  Aline noted with an odd detachment that the sun was almost setting over the western ranges that sheltered Auckland city from the wild Tasman Sea. ‘This is important to me,’ she said grittily.

  ‘You’re not going to get far when you can hardly see the figures on the screen.’

  Another yawn caught her unawares; she covered it, but Jake held out an imperative hand and said, ‘Come on.’

  His voice was perfectly steady, but she obeyed the authentic note of command, seething with annoyance at her weakness in the face of his stamina.

  For much of the afternoon he had been on the telephone and his computer, calling in favours. The results of those calls had arrived in all the ways modern electronics allow. Each scrap of information had had to be checked and double-checked, and slowly they were building a picture.

  ‘You’re cold,’ Jake said, closing his fingers around hers.

  Aline tried to ignore her body’s instant, incandescent response. The unfolding saga of the Connor Trust affected her, but intellectually rather than emotionally. Her love for Jake, unsought and unwelcome, pushed everything else from her mind and her heart. Her brain might tell her that unless she could prove she’d had nothing to do with the mess her career was down the tubes and her reputation possibly unsalvageable, but because of this man she no longer cared much.

  Until the day Jake told her he no longer wanted her she was going to forget everything and throw herself headlong into just being with him.

  She fixed her gaze on a superb picture on the wall. ‘I wonder who told the news
paper journo about possible irregularities in the trust accounts. The writer of that book didn’t know anything about them—or didn’t dare print anything. He concentrated on the sleaze factor. Poor Lauren.’ Jake’s silence prompted her to go on, ‘And I’d like to know where Peter Bournside is right now.’

  He pushed open the door into the sitting room. ‘Why did Connor choose those particular trustees?’

  ‘They had expertise and knowledge of young people—they’d worked in the field.’

  ‘And they all had an almost stupefying lack of financial acumen,’ Jake observed caustically.

  Aline kept her face averted. ‘I should have made sure this sort of thing couldn’t happen,’ she said in a muted voice. Astonished at how easily the sombre words came, she went on, ‘I’ve let Michael down, as well as all the people who donated money to the Trust.’

  Jake slid his fingers up to link around her wrist, setting her pulse racing. ‘How have you let them down?’

  ‘I should have kept a much closer watch on the Trust’s finances.’

  ‘Wallowing in guilt is futile,’ he said with cool bluntness. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘Lime and soda, please.’

  ‘Is that all you ever drink, apart from too much coffee and the very occasional glass of champagne?’

  ‘When I’m working, yes.’ During the long negotiations she’d only ever seen him drink once—he’d had a short glass of whisky with Keir after the deal had been signed. She added, ‘Like you, I prefer to be fully in control.’

  He acknowledged her taunt with an ironic inclination of his head, then dropped her wrist to go over to a tray that had appeared on a sideboard.

  ‘You have domestic fairies in the apartment?’ she asked delicately.

  He poured the drinks and handed hers over. ‘I got this ready an hour ago. You didn’t even see me leave the room.’

  The liquid slid down her throat, bubbly and refreshingly tart, just as she liked it. Prudence dictated a safe subject. She gazed around the big, beautiful room and said, ‘This is a lovely place.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it.’ He picked up his beer and turned to watch her, his face impassive. ‘Did you choose your townhouse?’