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Certainly not Jem. He would be so angry—so appalled and horrified.
Thank God he was away at the moment. Last night she’d nearly cracked in front of him, and it had taken more strength than she could bear to use to hold it together until he had gone. But now at least she had a couple of days without him. Not that the knowledge of where he was did anything to cheer her. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Even now he was probably walking around Pycott with the builder, realising just how daunting the task of making it even partially habitable would be without the money they had been expecting.
Despair crushed her. If only she could go to Aristides! He would give her the money, she knew he would—he was kind and generous, and his heart would be moved by what she and Jem were attempting to do. But she could never go to him. Not now Theo had told him just why their marriage had come to its abrupt premature end.
She was trapped—trapped on all sides. There was nowhere she could go, no one she could turn to.
If only she could go to her mother and Geoff! They couldn’t help financially, she knew that, but just to see them again—just to get out of here, flee somewhere as far away as Australia! She was good at fleeing…
But sometimes…Her stomach hollowed with cruel self-knowledge. Sometimes when she fled from the unbearable, what happened thereafter was even worse.
Like when she had fled the island…
She pressed her lips together. No, leaving the island had been essential. And Jem had been there for her—a wonderful, life-saving surprise she had clung to. But she still could not tell him what she had done. She could not. Shame flushed through her.
And if she did run away again this time it would be even worse! Her mother would ask questions, want answers. Would want to know how it was that she had done what she had…
No, she was trapped. Trapped here, in the prison of her enforced silence.
I can’t tell anyone—I can’t tell anyone what I’ve gone and done…
Numbly, rubbing a hand across her weary forehead, she called up the master file of the report she’d compiled, and slowly and laboriously started to retype the corrections.
They took a long, long time to do.
Around her heart a cold, tight shell of despair was forming.
Theo crossed to the drinks cabinet in the corner of his study. He normally never went near it unless he had a visitor. But the visitor on his way into the house now would not be offered a drink.
With controlled, economic movements he opened a single malt, poured a shot into a glass, and knocked it back. It was doing grave disservice to a fine malt, but he didn’t care. Right now he cared about nothing—except the visitor who was about to walk into his house.
Was he mad to let him in? No man would let such a visitor into his domain.
And yet he had.
But then, he had his reasons.
He wanted to look into the man’s eyes. See him face to face.
Tell him just what he thought of him. He might…He felt his left hand fist. He might just do more than that…
But not in anger. He would remain, as it was imperative to do, in total and absolute control. That was essential.
With total, absolute control, he set back the empty glass and closed the cabinet. Crossed back to his desk. Pulling back his chair, he sat down, and with total, absolute control he waited for the study door to open.
He could hear the visitor arrive. Hear the front door open and two voices speak, but both were inaudible. Then his door opened. The man walked in.
Theo looked at him. Looked at the man whose face he had last seen looking out at him from the photogra
phs that scum of a paparazzo had placed in front of him in this very room, on this very desk, standing back, waiting—waiting for Theo to take his fill of what they meant, to reach for his chequebook. To pay him the money he required to ensure the photos never saw the light of day.
His eyes rested on him. Expressionless and implacable, dark and impenetrable. The other man’s eyes were blue, and they were filled, like the rest of his face, with one expression only.
Anger.
Theo leant back. The movement was again controlled. Then he opened his mouth to speak. To enunciate his views on the man who stood on the other side of his desk.
But the other man spoke first, anger sparking electrically from his eyes, his voice vehement.
