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The envelope, when it arrived, had seemed so unassuming. Margot opened it at her husband’s desk while he went over e-mail. After she pulled the pages inside free, it took long moments before she could actually believe what she was looking at. That the lurid, pornographic images actually included her daughter.
Her child.
Had it been pictures of merely one lover, perhaps Margot’s heart wouldn’t have stopped beating for a moment. Maybe the all-consuming rage that filled her could have been held back.
“Margot?” Davis asked, concerned, moments later.
How had he known the shock racing through her? The pain and fear that sliced through a lifetime of icy control.
She stared at the pictures, shock, outrage, fury racing through her at the sight of her daughter, her child. Alyssa was no more than a child, only eighteen and so very sheltered. Who would do this to her?
Two men. Two men with her child? Taking her as though she were some whore to be used without concern or care?
She was shaking. She could feel her hands shaking, her fingers curling in fury as Davis took one of the pictures.
“Oh my God!” He threw the only one he had taken. Threw it from him as though the paper itself were evil. “What the fuck is this?”
Margot stared at the letter accompanying it, handed it to him, then stared down at the second picture. Not at what those vile creatures were doing to her child, but at her child’s expression. And if Margot were the sort to weep, she would have wept for Al
yssa.
Love.
Love transformed Alyssa’s features, softened them further, and emphasized the innocence and pleasure that filled her face and eyes.
She couldn’t look at the others.
The pictures were no more than proof; the letter said it all.
Having been informed of this degrading affair by the two young men involved, it is my greatest regret to include these pictures as proof of your daughter’s attempts to coerce my grandsons into a relationship they find both distasteful and humiliating. It is their wish that Miss Hampstead have no further contact with them. She is not to call them, seek them out, or approach them if circumstances should find them in the same place at the same time. Should she do so, the enclosed pictures will be released to all media in America and Europe and Internet sites pertaining to such matters. I would hope you would ask your daughter, in light of these intentions, to ensure she does not cling to the hope they wish to have any further contact with her. Such perversions and degrading carnal activities they have found abhorrent, and though they would be greatly distressed to see their own identities revealed along with hers, they are still determined that all pictures will be released should she not follow their wishes. You may contact me at the below number as their chosen emissary in this matter.
“I knew not to allow this trip,” Margot whispered, taking the blame herself because she had known better. She remembered clearly the many times she’d attempted to convince Alyssa to vacation in the states for her first trip alone.
But Summer was in Madrid and the Bennett girl was in the apartment building with Alyssa. Each time Margot had talked to Giana’s parents they had mentioned how Alyssa and Gia were having such a wonderful time together.
Each time Margot had spoken to Alyssa, though, she’d sensed something more than what her daughter was telling her. She’d be regaled with tales of all the tourist sites, how crowded the beaches were, how wonderful Landra Collier’s apartment was. Friends she’d made, the beauty of the city. Everything but a potential summer lover, let alone two lovers.
Two lovers. Not young men, either. These were men, nearly mature, clearly ages more experienced than her child.
“My God!” Davis repeated, reading the letter again before looking up at Margot. “Alyssa would never initiate such a relationship.”
No, Alyssa would not. Margot might not know the two men involved, but she would before much longer.
“She’s due home in several hours.” Rage was vibrating through her. “I’ll know what happened and I’ll know who they are before the morning’s over.”
To even suggest that Alyssa would initiate such a thing was preposterous. She doubted her daughter knew what a ménage was, let alone how to begin such an affair. But she would make damned certain her daughter understood that there would never be any contact with them again. Even better, once Margo learned their identities she’d make certain they felt her wrath.
*
The flight from Spain was uneventful. She hadn’t slept on the flight. Each time she closed her eyes she’d seen Shane and Sebastian the day they’d given her the necklace with the sapphire hanging between two beautiful diamonds. She hadn’t taken it off since they’d given it to her and made the promise that they were bound to her.
They had broken that bond. Everything had been taken. All their possessions, their numbers from her phone and the text messages, and somehow, they’d taken the chain with its three gems from around her neck. In stealing the necklace, in stealing every memory she had of them, they had broken the promises they’d made.
Stepping into the house as her father’s butler took care of getting her luggage from the car, she moved to his office, where he’d directed her.
She just wanted to go to bed and go to sleep. She felt ravaged inside, broken in so many pieces that she had no idea how to deal with life now.
