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In the year before the expulsion it had been rare for Violet to be at home without Natalia. Had that been why Carrie had failed to see how badly off the rails Violet was falling, because Natalia’s cheerfulness and sweet nature had masked it?
But hadn’t Carrie herself noticed the sunniness in her demeanour wilting those last few months before Violet’s expulsion? A strain in both girls’ eyes she had put down to teenage hormones.
Natalia had been so comfortable in their home. She would make herself drinks if she was thirsty, help herself to cereal if hungry…
Natalia would never have dropped Violet like a stone if something major hadn’t occurred. If she’d wanted to keep seeing Violet she would have done; not even a strict uncle could have kept her from making contact if that had been what she wanted.
But she hadn’t wanted to contact Violet because Andreas had been speaking the truth.
Violet had tried to seduce him, had punched Natalia in the face and blamed Andreas for her expulsion in revenge and, Carrie deduced, her mind ticking frantically, ice plunging into her veins, because she hadn’t wanted to admit to the one person in the world who loved her that she had bought the drugs herself, and admit what she was becoming. An addict.
Violet had lied to save face and for misplaced revenge against the man who’d rejected her advances. Her vengeance was misplaced because the man she’d truly wanted to get back at, namely the vile specimen who had taken her virginity on her sixteenth birthday, had become unreachable. In Violet’s mind at that moment, Andreas had been interchangeable with James; two rich, handsome men of a similar age. The expulsion, her desperate, wanton behaviour in the months leading to her expulsion…
Caught in her reckless heartache, Violet had managed to discredit herself without even trying. No one in their right mind would believe her story about the fabulously rich, media-friendly James Thomas grooming and seducing her. No one other than her big sister.
The ice in her veins had moved like freezing sludge to her brain.
Carrie had never followed a story without some initial proof. Violet had produced plenty of proof against James; blurry photos on her phone taken slyly when he hadn’t been looking and screenshot messages—he’d been clever enough to insist on using apps where messages deleted themselves after being read but not clever enough to guess a lovestruck teenager would still find a way to save them.
There had been no proof against Andreas. Not a shred.
Carrie had gone after him on nothing but her damaged sister’s word and that word had been a lie.
‘Carrie?’
She blinked and looked into the eyes of the man she had tried to ruin.
‘Are you okay? You are very pale.’
How could he even bear to look at her, never mind with concern?
She could still feel his touch on her skin, his kisses on her lips. He had made love to her as if she were the only woman in the world.
He should hate her.
He probably did hate her.
She hated herself.
What she had done…
Her chest had tightened so much it hurt to draw breath.
She needed to speak to Violet, she thought, as fresh panic clawed at her chest. There was still the chance Carrie might be wrong. She couldn’t condemn her sister without giving her the chance to defend herself.
‘I’m fine,’ she managed to say. ‘I was just thinking of Natalia.’
And I was thinking that you are not the monster I’ve been telling myself you are for the past three years.
This conversation they were having…
Andreas had started it to calm her down.
He knew she’d been a virgin. He’d known it the moment he entered her. He could have chosen to embarrass her about it and demand to know why she, a seemingly confident twenty-six-year-old woman, had spent her adult life as a singleton.
Instead he had given her a way to face being with him without making her burn with humiliation.
‘Did you move to London for her?’ she added.
He gave her another narrow-eyed unconvinced look before nodding. ‘My sister used to read all those wizarding books to her. Natalia thought all boarding schools were like that and asked if she could go.’ He smiled though his eyes saddened at the memory. ‘I could afford it so I offered to pay the fees for any school my sister thought suitable. They chose London. I bought Tanya and Georgios a house close to the school so Natalia could spend weekends with them. When they died I moved to London and kept Natalia at her school. I couldn’t put her through any more disruption.’
So he had uprooted his own life instead and moved to a city he didn’t particularly like with a climate he hated.
‘Is that what you meant when you said you’d spent fifteen years waiting for your freedom and that another six months wouldn’t make any difference? Because you’d had to make your parents your priority and then your niece?’
