It was so very true that there really was no ideal answer to give to that. Her mother-in-law seemed to realise it, and after another hesitation she walked back into the house.
Leandros appeared seconds later and Isobel had to wonder if he had been leaving them alone to talk. He searched her face. ‘OK?’ he asked huskily.
She nodded, then had to step up to him and, sliding her arms inside his jacket and around his back, she pressed herself against his solid strength. ‘Don’t ever let me go again,’ she told him.
‘I won’t.’ It was a promise.
They left the party soon after that, making the journey home without speaking much. The talking was left to Silvia, who chattered away about Theron and the plans he had to take her out tomorrow for the day.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Isobel said to Leandros as they prepared for bed. ‘My mother has caught the eye of the wealthiest man in Greece!’
‘His roving eye,’ Leandros extended lazily. ‘My uncle Theron is an established rake.’
‘But he’s got to be seventy years old! Surely he can’t be looking at my mother and seeing…’
Her voice trailed away in dismay as a dark eyebrow arched. ‘I share the same blood.’ He began to stalk her with a certain gleam in his eyes. She was wearing nothing but the family heirlooms. ‘Do you think you will be able to keep up with me when I reach seventy and you will be…?’
‘Don’t you dare tell me how old I will be!’ she protested.
But, as for the rest, well, she was more than able to keep up with him throughout the long, dark, silken night. This time it was different, like a renewal of vows they made to each other four distant years ago. There were no secrets left to hide, just love and trust and a desire to hold on to what they had found.
The morning brought more sunshine with it and breakfast laid out on the terrace for two. Silvia was taking breakfast in her room today before she got ready for her date. When it came time for Leandros to go and spend a few essential hours in his office, he left her with a reluctance that made her smile. Theron arrived. A big, silver-thatched, larger-than-life kind of man, he was polite to Isobel, flirtatious with her mother and somehow managed to convince Silvia that her wheelchair was required today, which earned him a grateful smile from Silvia’s daughter.
Left to her own devices, Isobel asked Allise for a second pot of tea, then sat back in her chair and tried to decide what she wanted to do with the few hours she had going spare while Leandros wasn’t here.
She was wearing the green combat trousers and a yellow T-shirt today. The sum total of the wardrobe she had brought with her from England had now been exhausted and she was considering going out to do a bit of shopping, when Allise arrived with the promised pot of tea and an envelope that she said had just been delivered by hand.
Maybe Isobel should have known before she even touched it that it could only mean trouble. Everything was just too wonderful, much too perfect to stay that way. But the envelope did not come with WARNING printed on it, just her name typed in its centre and the fizz of intrigue because she could think of only one person who would do this, and he had been gone only half an hour.
He was up to something—a surprise, she decided, and was smiling as she split the seal.
But what fell into her hands had her smile dying. What she found herself looking at had her fingers tossing the photographs away from her as if she were holding a poisonous snake and she lurched to her feet with enough violence to send crockery spilling to the ground. Her chair toppled over with a clatter against the hard tile flooring, her hand shot up to cover her shaking mouth. Her heart was pounding, eyes that had been shining were now dark with a horror that was curdling the blood.
She stepped back, banged her leg on the upturned chair. She was going to be sick, she realised—and ran.
CHAPTER NINE
ALLISE found Isobel sitting on the floor of the bathroom which lay just off the terrace, her cheek resting against the white porcelain toilet bowl. On a cry of dismay the housekeeper hurried forward. ‘Kyria, you are ill!’
It was a gross understatement. Isobel was dying inside and she didn’t think she was going to be able to stop it from happening.
‘I get the doctor—the kyrios.’
‘No!’ Isobel exploded on a thrust of frail energy. ‘No.’ She tried to calm her voice when Allise stood back and stared at her. ‘I’m all right,’ she insisted. ‘I just need to—lie down for a wh-while.’
Dragging herself to her feet, she had to steady herself at the washbasin before she could get her trembling legs to work. Stumbling out of the bathroom, she headed for the stairs, knew she would never make it up there and changed direction, making dizzily for the only sanctuary her instincts would offer up as an alternative—her mother’s room.
Back to the womb, she likened it starkly as she felt the housekeeper’s worried eyes watch her go. She was going to ring him; Isobel was sure of it. Allise would feel she had failed in her duty if she did not inform Leandros as to what she had seen.
But Leandros didn’t need informing. At about the time that Isobel received her envelope, he was receiving one himself. As he stared down at the all-too-damning photographs the phone began to ring. It was Diantha’s father; he had received an envelope too. Hot on that call came one from his mother, then an Athens newspaper with a hungry reputation for juicy gossip about the jet set. It did not take a genius to know what was unfolding here.
Leandros was on his way home even as Isobel paused at the table where the photographs lay amongst the scattered crockery. His mobile phone was ringing its cover off. With an act of bloody, blinding frustration he switched it off and tossed it onto the passenger seat with the envelope of photos. Whoever else had received copies could go to hell because if he was certain about anything, then it was that Isobel had to be looking at the same ugly evidence.
His car screeched to a halt in the driveway, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake. He left the engine running as he strode into the house. Watching him go, the gardener went to switch off the engine for him, his eyes filled with frowning puzzlement. Allise was standing in the hall with her ear to the telephone.
‘Where is my wife?’ he demanded and was already making for the stairs when the housekeeper stopped him.
‘Sh-she is in her mama’s rooms, kyrios.’
Changing direction, he headed down the hallway. He lost his jacket as he hit the terrace. His tie went and he was about to stride past the debacle that was the breakfast table and chairs, when he saw the envelope and scatter of photographs, felt sickness erupt in his stomach and anger follow it with a thunderous roar.
Pausing only long enough to gather up the evidence, he continued down the terrace and into the rooms allotted to his mother-in-law. He had not been in here since Silvia took up residence and was surprised how comfortable she had managed to make it, despite the clutter of Isobel’s photographic equipment still dotted around. Not that he cared about comfort right now, for across the room, lying curled on her mother’s bed like a foetus, was his target.
His heart tipped sideways on a moment of agony—then it grimly righted again. Snapping the top button of his shirt free with angry fingers, he approached the bed with a look upon his face that promised retribution for someone very soon.
‘Isobel.’ He called her name.
She gave no indication that she had even heard him. Was she waiting for him to go down on his knees to beg for understanding and forgiveness? Well, not this man, he thought angrily and tossed the photographs down beside her on the bed.
‘These are false,’ he announced. ‘And I expect you to believe it.’
It was a hard, tough, outright challenge. Still she did not even offer a deriding sob in response. It made him want to jump inside her skin so that she would know he could not have done this terrible thing.
‘Isobel!’ he rasped. ‘This is no time for dramatics. You are the trained photographer. I need you to tell me how they did it so I can strangle the culpri
t with their lies.’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled.
On a snap of impatience, he bent and caught hold of her by her waist, then lifted her bodily off the bed before firmly resettling her sitting on its edge. Going down on his haunches, he pushed the tumble of silken hair back from her face. She was as white as a sheet and her eyes looked as if someone had reached in and hollowed them out.
‘Now just listen,’ he insisted.
Her response was to launch an attack on him. He supposed she had the right, he acknowledged as he grimly held on to her until she had finally worn herself out. Eventually she sobbed out some terrible insult then tried scrambling backwards in an effort to get away. Her fingers made contact with the photographs. On a sob she picked them up.
‘You lied to me!’ she choked out thickly. ‘You said she meant nothing to you but—look—look!’ The photographs shook as she brandished them in his grim face. ‘You, standing on your yacht w-wearing nothing from what I can see, h-holding her in front of you while she’s just about covered by th-that excuse for a slip!’
‘It never—’
The photograph went lashing by his cheek, causing him to take avoiding action, and by the time he had recovered she was staring at the next one. ‘Look at you,’ she breathed in thick condemnation. ‘How can you lie there with her, sleeping like an innocent? I will never forgive you—’
She was about to send the images the way of the other when he snaked out a hand and took the rest from her. ‘You will believe me when I say these are not real!’ he insisted harshly.
Not real? Isobel stared at him through tear-glossed eyes and wondered how he dared say that when each picture was now branded on her brain!
‘I believed you when you said you hadn’t—’
‘Then continue to believe,’ he cut in. ‘And start thinking with your head instead of your heart.’
‘I don’t have a heart,’ she responded. ‘You ripped it out of my body and threw it away!’
‘Melodrama is not helping here, agape,’ he sighed, but she saw the hint of humour he was trying to keep from showing on his lips.
That humour was her complete undoing, and she began wriggling and squirming until he finally set her free to stand.
‘I’m leaving here,’ she told him as she swung to her feet.
‘Running again?’ he countered jeeringly. ‘Take care,’ he warned as he rose up also, ‘because I might just let you do it. For I will not live my life fearing the next time you are going to take to your feet and flee!’
Isobel stared at him, saw the sheer black fury darkening his face. ‘What are you angry with me for?’ she demanded bewilderedly.
‘I am not angry with you,’ he denied. ‘I am angry with—these.’ He waved a hand at the photographs. ‘You are not the only one to receive copies…’ Then he told her who else had. ‘This is serious, Isobel,’ he imparted grimly. ‘Someone is out to cause one hell of a scandal and I need your help here, not your contempt.’
With that he turned and began looking around the room with hard, impatient eyes. Spotting whatever it was he was searching for, he strode over to her old computer system and began checking that everything was plugged in. ‘You know how to do this better than I do,’ he said. ‘Show me what I need to do to bring this thing to life.’
‘It hasn’t been used for three years. It has probably died from lack of use.’
‘At least try!’ he rasped.
It was beginning to get through to her that he was deadly serious. Moving on trembling legs and with an attitude that told him she was not prepared to drop her guard, she went to stand beside him. With a flick of a couple of switches she then stood back to wait. It was quite a surprise to watch a whole array of neglected equipment burst into life.
‘Now what?’ she asked stiffly.
‘Scan those photographs into the relevant program,’ he instructed. ‘Blow them up—or whatever it is you do to them so we can study them in detail.’
‘A reason would be helpful.’
‘I have already told you once. They are fakes.’
‘Sure?’
He swung on her furiously. ‘Yes, I am sure! And I would appreciate a bit of trust around here!’
‘If you shout at me once more I will walk,’ she threatened fiercely.
‘Then stop looking at me as if I am a snake; start using a bit of sense and believe me!’ Striding off, he recovered the photographs—yet again. Coming back, he set them down next to the computer screen.
‘Fakes, you say,’ she murmured.
‘Do your magic and prove me right or wrong.’
The outright challenge. Still without giving him the benefit of the doubt, she opened the lid on the flatbed scanner and prepared to work. Her mouth was tight, her eyes were cold, but with a few deft clicks of the mouse she began to carry out his instructions. If he was lying then he had to know she would find him out in a few minutes. If he was telling the truth then…
Her stomach began to churn. She was no longer sure which alternative she preferred. It was one thing believing that your estranged husband had been involved in an affair during your separation but it was something else entirely to know that someone was willing to go to such extremes to hurt other people.
‘Why is this happening?’ she questioned huskily. ‘Who do you think it is that took these? It needs a third party involved to take photographs like these, Leandros. Someone close enough to you to be in a position to catch you on film like this.’
He was standing to one side of her and she felt him stiffen; glancing up, she caught a glimpse of his bleak expression before he turned away. ‘Chloe, of course,’ he answered gruffly.
Chloe? ‘Oh, no.’ She didn’t want to believe that. Not Chloe, who adored her brother. ‘She has nothing to gain by hurting both you and her best friend!’
‘She gains what she’s always wanted,’ he countered tightly. ‘Work—work!’ he commanded as the first photograph appeared on the screen. Turning back, she clicked the mouse and the picture leapt to four times its original size. ‘All her childhood she fantasised about one of her brothers marrying her best friend,’ he continued darkly. ‘Nikos and I have ruined those fantasies, so now she is out for revenge.’
‘I don’t want to believe it.’
‘She has also been cleverer than I ever gave her credit for,’ he added cynically. ‘She damns me in your eyes. Damns both Diantha and me to Diantha’s father, who honoured me with his trust when he allowed her to stay on my yacht with me. I saw a man taking photographs of the yacht from the quay. This one,’ he flicked a finger at the screen, ‘Shows exactly how I was dressed that day.’
‘In nothing?’
‘I have a pair of shorts on, you sarcastic witch!’ He scowled. ‘He had to have been paid by someone. Scheming Chloe is the logical person. Her ultimate aim is to see you walking off with a divorce and me being forced into marrying Diantha to save her reputation!’
‘All of that is utterly nonsensical!’ Isobel protested. ‘No one goes to such drastic extremes on someone else’s behalf.’
‘Who else’s behalf?’ he challenged. ‘Diantha’s? She is being manipulated here just as ruthlessly as we are,’ he insisted. ‘Look at the evidence. Chloe sends Diantha in her stead to San Estéban. These photographs were taken there. I actually saw the guy taking this one!’
‘And the one in your bedroom?’ she prompted. ‘How did he get in there?’
He paused to frown at the question. Then the frown cleared. ‘He has to be a member of my crew,’ he decided. ‘He was too far away for me to recognise him.’
He thought he had an answer for everything. But Isobel was recalling a conversation with Eve Herakleides the night before, and suddenly she had a very different suspect to challenge Leandros’s claims.
Flattening her lips and concentrating her attention on the screen, she took only seconds to spot the first discrepancy. Within a few minutes she had circled many—a finger missing, a point on the yacht’s rail that di
d not quite fit. With the mouse flying busily, she copied then pasted each detail onto a separate frame, increased their size then sent them to print.
Through it all Leandros watched in silent fascination as the whole photograph was broken down and revealed for the fraud that it was. ‘Do you want me to do the same to the rest of them?’ she asked when she’d finished.
‘Not unless you need to assure yourself that they are all fakes,’ he responded coolly, gathering up his precious evidence.
It was a clean hit on her lack of trust. Isobel acknowledged it with a sigh. ‘I suppose you want me to eat humble pie now.’
‘Later,’ he replied. ‘Humble pie will not come cheap.’
But neither smiled as he said it. Fakes or not, the photographs had stolen something from them and Isobel had to ask herself if they were ever going to get it back again.
‘Leandros…’ He was striding for the door when she stopped him. ‘Chloe knows what I do for a living; remember that when you confront her.’
‘Meaning what?’ He glanced at her.
Isobel shrugged. ‘Just go there with an open mind, that’s all,’ she advised. It wasn’t up to her to shatter his faultless image of Diantha. And, anyway, she wasn’t sure enough of her own suspicions to make an issue out of it.
But she was as determined as he was to find out.
He had been gone for less than two minutes before she was printing off her second lot of copies. His car was only just turning off the driveway when she was calling a taxi for herself. The Christophoros mansion was much the same as most of the houses up here on the hill. She was greeted by a maid who showed her into a small reception room, then hurried off to get the daughter of the house.
Diantha took her time. Needing something to do, Isobel reached into her bag to search out a hair-band and snapped her hair into a pony-tail. Leandros would see this as her donning her tough-lady persona, but she didn’t feel tough. Her nerves were beginning to fray, her stomach dipping and diving on lingering nausea. She didn’t know if she had done the right thing by coming here, wasn’t even sure how she was going to tackle this—all she did know with any certainty was that Diantha had to be faced, whether guilty or innocent.
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