by Lynne Graham
The expectant silence that stretched was like an icy hand trailing down her taut spine, but she defied that intimidation. Her apple-green eyes alight with resolve, she tilted her chin. ‘But not like this. Not with me making a fake confession and a fake apology for something I didn’t do. I served my full sentence because I wouldn’t lie and express remorse for someone else’s crime.’
Sergio surveyed her with cold, hard censure in his challenging gaze. The trauma of that moment made her stop breathing. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room. Pulling in a jagged breath, she collapsed down on a seat and stared into space. What if this costs me my marriage? What if I lose him? Her mind was awash and adrift on terrified thoughts and fears.
It didn’t help that she could see his point. He had decided she was guilty at a very early stage of their relationship when he hardly knew her, and he was as stubborn as a mule. He had even got as far as explaining her criminal behaviour to his own satisfaction—youthful mistake, no family backup. In trying circumstances, he had not voiced a single word of blame or complaint. And now he was engaging in what he had called damage limitation in an effort to protect what little remained of her reputation. Determined to keep her safe from the paparazzi, he had marooned her on his yacht. He was doing what came most naturally to him: taking charge, making decisive moves to handle the crisis and trying to protect her, as well. But instead of being grateful for his advice, she was being unreasonable and refusing it. She dashed the tears from her eyes with a trembling hand.
An evening meal was served in the dining room. Although the table was set for two and she waited and the steward hovered in readiness, Sergio didn’t appear. She ate hardly anything and at her request was shown to a huge stateroom. Desperate to fill the time, she ran a bath in the amazing splendour of the marble bathroom. She had only lowered herself into the warm scented water when the door she had forgotten to shut opened wider to disclose Sergio.
A dark shadow of stubble roughening his hard jaw line, black hair tousled, his shirt hanging loose from his jeans, he had so much raw bad-boy appeal he made her heart bounce like a ball inside her chest. As she sat up in haste, hugging her knees to her breasts, he regarded her in nerve-racking silence.
‘I’m sorry…’ he said grittily.
Those two words were like the blade of a knife slicing between her ribs, as she didn’t know what was coming next. Even worse where he was concerned, she was in negative mode and expecting bad news. What was he sorry for? An inability to live with a woman publicly branded a thief?
Sergio shrugged a broad shoulder. His gorgeous tawny eyes were strained. ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
Kathy was frozen there in the bath like an ice statue, the gooseflesh of fear breaking out on her skin and a clammy sensation in her tummy.
‘You see it was your fatal flaw,’ he added incomprehensibly.
‘What was?’
‘I’ve always had this theory that everyone has a fatal flaw. Yours was a criminal record,’ he shared. ‘It all connected, it made sense—’
‘What made sense?’ Kathy was hanging on his every word and wishing they would connect in an understandable way.
‘You were beautiful, clever and sexy, but you were working in a menial position for low pay. Why? You had a criminal record.’ Sergio flattened his strong, sensual mouth. ‘I’m a cynic. I always look on the dark side. It never occurred to me to doubt that you were a thief.’
‘I know,’ she agreed heavily.
‘And for months I didn’t think about it because when I thought about it I got annoyed,’ he breathed almost roughly. ‘When I found you again and Ella was born, I let that knowledge go—I buried it.’
Her green eyes only accentuated her pallor. Her supposed guilt had been buried like a body because that was the only way he could live with it and her.
Sergio shifted an eloquent brown hand to signify his regret and then said something that disconcerted her entirely. ‘But although a jury found you guilty and you went to prison you are not a thief.’
Her smooth brow indented. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I believe you. You’ve convinced me, dolcezza mia.’
Kathy continued to stare at him in wordless disorientation, for that change of heart and opinion knocked her sideways.
‘You’re innocent. You’ve got to be. It doesn’t make sense any other way. I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen.’
‘I don’t understand why you’re willing to listen now,’ she admitted unevenly.
‘I weighed up the crime with everything I know about you and all of a sudden it was clear to me that you had to be telling me the truth.’
‘Have you been talking to Renzo, by any chance?’
‘No. Why?’
Sergio had no idea that his security chief had been looking into her case, acquainting himself with the facts and chasing up every possible lead. When Kathy explained, his lean powerful face shadowed. ‘So, even Renzo believed you when I didn’t.’
‘I imagine Bridget wouldn’t have given him any choice in the matter.’ The relief of knowing that Sergio finally had faith in her brought a tidal wave of tears to the back of her eyes. She studied the water fixedly and blinked like mad. ‘Let me finish my bath. I’ll be out in five minutes.’
Sergio frowned. ‘Are you going to cry?’
Kathy raised a delicate brow, her eyes bright as jewels. ‘What do you think?’
‘I need to know what happened to you four years ago. Your arrest, the whole story.’
‘It’s not likely to make you feel any better.’
‘Do you think I deserve to feel better?’
‘No,’ she said honestly.
Kathy didn’t cry. He had given her good news. At last he believed that she wasn’t a thief. It had only taken him the guts of a year to reach that happy conclusion but, hey, later was better than never. She put on a crisp blue cotton robe and went into the bedroom to join him.
‘I was hired to act as Mrs Taplow’s companion and provide her with basic meals by her nieces, Janet and Sylvia. I hardly ever saw Sylvia because she worked. They lived in the village about a mile away,’ Kathy told him, curling up on the giant bed. ‘Mrs Taplow lived in a big old house. On my first day Janet explained that her aunt was suffering from the early stages of dementia and that I should pay no heed to her stories about her things disappearing.’
Sergio elevated an ebony brow and sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Didn’t that make you suspicious?’
‘No. I was too glad of the job and somewhere to live. The old lady did seem a little confused sometimes but she was very nice,’ Kathy confided ruefully. ‘Janet asked me to clean the silver, which was kept in a cupboard, and she told me that it was very old and valuable. There was a lot of it and, to be honest, I barely looked at the stuff as I cleaned it.’
‘But no doubt you put your fingerprints all over it.’
‘A few weeks later Mrs Taplow got very upset and claimed that two pieces of silver had gone missing. I couldn’t have said either way, but I mentioned it to Janet and she said her aunt was either imagining things or that she had removed them herself and hidden them somewhere. She insisted that Mrs Taplow had done that before. Mrs Taplow wanted to call the police, but I dissuaded her,’ Kathy recalled unhappily.
Sergio closed a reassuring hand over hers. ‘What happened next?’
‘The same thing again—but I noticed the pieces that had gone missing and I searched all over the house for them without any luck. I started feeling uncomfortable, but Janet told me not to be silly and that the items would turn up eventually. I had no reason to doubt her. I had a day off. I was supposed to be meeting Gareth and I was getting dressed when the police arrived,’ Kathy whispered, sick at the memory of the moment when her world had begun to come crashing down around her. ‘They searched my room and the Georgian jug was found in my handbag. I was charged with theft. I thought maybe the old lady had put it in there, but then I was told that she
didn’t suffer from dementia.’
‘Madonna diavolo…you were hired and set up, so that her niece could steal from her and ensure that you got the blame.’ His dark eyes were grim.
‘But there was no way of proving it when Janet denied it. It was my word against hers and she was a church warden. There was a large amount of money involved in the silver that had gone missing.’
‘But the evidence was circumstantial.’
‘Three different solicitors dealt with my case, but I was still convinced that I’d be proved innocent. I didn’t really understand how much trouble I was in,’ Kathy admitted shakily. ‘I was in shock for days after the guilty verdict and it was too late then. There was nobody on the outside to fight my corner.’
Sergio tried to retain a hold on her hand but she trailed her fingers free and turned her head away. He sprang upright and moved back into her field of vision. ‘It must have been a terrifying ordeal.’
Kathy lifted a narrow shoulder in a jerky shrug.
Tall, dark and impossibly handsome, Sergio hovered at the foot of the bed. ‘I had no idea, amata mia. I feel like a total bastard.’
‘Don’t. Let it go. I don’t blame you for thinking the worst. Plenty of other people have reacted the same way,’ she told him ruefully. ‘But it consumed too many years of my life and I don’t want to waste any more time on regret.’
‘However long it takes I will clear your name. I swear it,’ Sergio intoned in a raw undertone.
‘Is it that important to you?’
Sergio dealt her a questioning look. ‘Of course it is. You’re my wife.’
It was the early hours before Sergio came to bed that night and she noticed that he didn’t reach for her the way he usually did. In fact, it was the very first night they had ever spent together when they slept so far apart that they might as well have been in separate beds. The next morning he was gone when she awakened and she thought unhappily that that might be for the best.
While Kathy had no desire to read what the newspapers made of her criminal conviction, she had the sinking suspicion that Sergio would read every word and feel the humiliating sting of it to the primal depths of his macho soul. As a result she had no appetite for breakfast and she passed most of the day with Ella, worrying about the future of their marriage. After all, while he might accept that she had been wrongfully convicted, he still had to live in a world where everybody else would most assuredly believe his wife was guilty as charged. He wasn’t in love with her, so there was no safety net to strengthen them when things went wrong; there was no reservoir of forgiving love and tolerance to draw on.
Late afternoon, Sergio strode in, dressed in a black business suit teamed with a gold tie. He looked extraordinarily handsome and unusually tense and pale. Black lashed dark eyes inspected her. ‘I’ve been flat out all day but you usually walk in and out of my office when I’m working, bella mia. Where were you?’
In the strained atmosphere, Kathy veiled her troubled gaze. She had lost the confidence to assume that she would be welcome. In addition, his personal staff had flown in early that morning and would presumably have read all about their employer’s jailbird wife. On a day when she really just wanted to hide herself away a brave smile of indifference had proved too much of a challenge. She had also feared that her presence would embarrass him. ‘With Ella…I forgot you were going to London tonight.’
‘Twenty-four hours max and I’ll be back. I don’t like leaving you.’
‘I’m fine,’ Kathy hastened to protest, for a woman who needed looking after like a child could hardly be an attractive prospect to a male as independent as he was.
‘By the way, that newspaper article? It was nothing.’ Sergio shrugged but failed to meet her gaze. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
But she did; she couldn’t help it. Guilty or otherwise, she had become a source of embarrassment. His reserved manner warned her that events had hit him hard. Both Tilda and Maribel rang her that evening and proved their worth as loyal friends. Tilda invited her and Sergio to spend a weekend in Bakhar and Maribel offered to stay on the yacht with Kathy for a few days. Kathy thanked her and gently refused. The next day, Sergio phoned and told her that he would be away longer than he had expected.
Forty-eight hours after that, Kathy flicked on the television in the bedroom and up came the Italian news channel that Sergio always watched. Before she could change station, her husband’s picture appeared on screen and her hand stilled on the remote control. That was swiftly followed by film of Grazia emerging from a hotel and Sergio emerging from what looked like the same building. Her grasp of Italian wasn’t good enough to translate the accompanying commentary. She had to use the internet to check the report out and, although there was very little information available, what she found out shattered her.
The night before, Sergio had spent a couple of hours in the same London hotel as Grazia, both of them leaving by separate entrances in an evident effort to avoid detection. There was talk of a reanimated affair with reference made to Grazia’s divorce and Sergio’s marriage described as being ‘in turmoil’ after unsavoury revelations about his wife’s past.
The phone rang.
The instant Kathy heard Sergio’s deep pitched drawl she interrupted, ‘What were you doing in a hotel with Grazia?’
‘Malicious gossip travels faster than an avalanche,’ he murmured smooth as glass. ‘I’ll be with you in an hour.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I have company, cara mia.’
At her end of the phone, she reddened fierily in receipt of that clarification. Time had never seemed to move more slowly than in the minutes that followed. She left the bedroom and waited in the entertainment-sized lounge, where she paced the floor. Eventually she walked out onto the deck where the blue sky was beginning to shade with warm hints of peach as the sun began to go down.
She could not imagine life without Sergio, but she was wondering if, at the end of the day, that might also be how Sergio felt about Grazia. A fatal attraction that he despised, but ultimately couldn’t resist. Would that explain why was he was so reluctant to talk about his former fiancée? He had still to ask what Grazia had said to his bride the night before their wedding. Kathy could only feel threatened by that reality.
Her heart started beating very fast when the helicopter came in low to land. Lean, powerful face serious, Sergio emerged.
‘For once, I have good news,’ he informed her levelly. ‘Janet Taplow was arrested this afternoon.’
That being the last topic she had expected him to open the conversation with, Kathy simply stared back at him. ‘Are you serious?’
‘The police got a search warrant and found the old lady’s missing silver in her house. Mrs Taplow died last year. Janet only began selling off the silver a few months ago when she thought it would be safe to do so. But as you’re already aware, Renzo was able to identify a piece of it and the trail led straight back to her.’
‘My word…’ Her legs hollow with shock, Kathy weakly sat down on the arm of a designer sofa. ‘After all this time, the truth is coming out—’
‘An antique dealer has made a positive identification of Janet, and her cousin is also willing to give evidence against her because she’s furious at being robbed of a large part of what should have been a shared inheritance. I’ve got my best lawyers working on this. It’ll take time but they are certain that you will eventually be able to prove your innocence.’
Kathy pressed cooling hands to her shaken face. ‘I can’t believe it. I don’t know how to thank you—’
‘This is all thanks to Renzo’s efforts. He’s the hero here. But for your intervention, he would no longer be on my staff. I’ve done nothing,’ Sergio declared. ‘The tabloids are already onto this development. A wrongful conviction is more newsworthy than the original story. You’ll probably be inundated with requests for interviews about your experiences in prison.’
Kathy pulled a face at the idea. ‘No, th
anks.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Shocked.’ Kathy hesitated. ‘What about Grazia?’
Sergio raked long fingers through his cropped black hair. ‘I had no choice but to do a deal with her face to face. But I should’ve guessed she would have the paparazzi standing by to capture those photos at the hotel. Grazia never misses out on free publicity.’
Kathy frowned. ‘What sort of a deal?’
‘Abramo was in London because he’s been receiving treatment for leukaemia. He’s not well at all,’ Sergio told her heavily.
‘Oh, my goodness, you finally got in touch with your brother!’ Her lovely face sobered as she registered what he had said. ‘Leukaemia?’
Sergio grimaced. ‘His chances are roughly fifty-fifty. He doesn’t need the stress of a contested divorce right now, so I bought her off.’
‘That’s what you mean by a deal? You gave Grazia money?’
‘In return for certain undertakings all legally signed, sealed and delivered.’ Sergio withdrew a document from his jacket and unfolded it. ‘Our hotel rendezvous was supported by a team of lawyers. They did well. I would have paid twice as much.’
Kathy was nodding like a puppet in rapid succession. ‘What undertakings?’
‘Grazia has agreed to return the family jewels in her possession and give Abramo a quiet divorce. She has also promised not to approach you again.’
Her green eyes widened in surprise. ‘You mean you were annoyed when she cornered me at that club?’
‘Of course!’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so then?’
Sergio regarded her with bleak dark-as-night eyes. A faint veil of colour accentuated his hard cheekbones. ‘I felt very guilty about what happened and guilt made me lash out. She upset you before our wedding and almost ruined the day—’
‘How did she even find me that night?’
‘The nightclub manager tipped her off.’
‘She knew about Ella.’
‘But not from me,’ Sergio countered, letting her know that he understood her concerns.
‘Grazia said you told her to divorce Abramo.’