Page 84 of A Scottish Highland Surprise

Saffy’s wry smile told me the answer. “Not our Jake. Too slippery for that. He made sure his copies stayed just on the right side of legal. He incorporated tweaks here and there to keep him out of trouble. The other issue was that the artist he was ripping off had been some poor, struggling individual in the 1930s who nobody had heard of.”

Saffy’s red slicked lips curled at the corner. “I bet if he had been ripping off someone high-profile, it would have been a different story.”

“So, what happened?”

Saffy toyed with one of her ornate dress rings as she spoke. “Well, rumours soon got around the art world about what Jake AKA James Deighton had been up to. It can be pretty incestuous; everyone knows everyone else.” She paused before continuing again. “And though nothing could be proved outright, the Deighton brand became tainted. Nobody wanted anything to do with him. It affected his sales too.”

I conjured up an image of Jake sitting across from me in my flat, all smarmy charm, feeding me poison about Xander. My stomach tightened at the memory.

“Anyway,” carried on Saffy, “it soon got back to Jake about Xander’s involvement in investigating what he had been up to. The fact that Xander was also a respected art critic made Jake furious and lose all sense of perspective.”

I was beginning realise where this was leading. My cheeks burnt with shame. I had believed all Jake’s crap. I had thought badly of Xander and all the time… Talk about gullible.

I let out a long, low breath. “And then?”

“Then Jake decided to get his revenge on Xander. He discovered the one thing that mattered to Xander more than anything.”

I experienced an unsettling chill as I anticipated the answer. “You mean Nadia?”

Saffy cast her eyes around the shop before glancing to her left at the rain-drizzled window. “Yep.”

Her mouth twisted into a firm line. “I’d heard stories about her being materialistic and having a thing for bad boys, but Xander adored her, so it came as no surprise when Jake lured her away with designer handbags and luxurious weekends away.” Saffy gave the briefest shake of her head, as if still struggling to comprehend what Nadia did to Xander. “I think she got off on draping herself off the arm of art’s biggest bad boy, if you know what I mean.”

My heart plummeted to the floor for Xander. How the hell could she do that to him? I rubbed at my face. Worse than that, I had believed all the crap Jake told me. It had been poor Xander who had been hurting all that time. He was the one who had been doing the right thing. He was the one who had stopped Jake ripping off unsuspecting art buyers and, in an act of twisted revenge, Jake had taken Xander’s girlfriend away from him.

My jaw clenched. I felt so gullible. So stupid. I dragged both hands down my face. “What a bastard! Did they stay together? Nadia and Jake, I mean?”

Saffy’s mouth curled. “No. It only lasted a matter of months and once the novelty of winding up Xander wore off, Jake dropped her.” She made a snorting noise. “Do you know that woman had the bare-faced cheek to then try and reconcile with Xander? Needless to say, he told her to forget it. Xander is a very proud man.”

The softening of her mouth as she talked about Xander. The way her eyes glowed when she spoke his name. The uncompromising way she had looked at me the first time we met in her studio… I scanned her cinnamon-freckled face. It was even clearer to me now than it had been before. Saffy was in love with Xander herself.

A myriad emotions surged through me.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. If Saffy noticed, she didn’t comment on it. She simply carried on with her explanation, burying any hurt she might be harbouring, so that I could understand.

“Xander was so cut up over Nadia, I did wonder a few times if he would ever allow himself to open his heart to anyone ever again.”

“But it isn’t – it wasn’t – what you or Xander think,” I said. “Jake lied to me from the start. He told me that Xander’s girlfriend fell for him and when Xander found out, that was when he started a vendetta against him and his artwork. He was so plausible…” Now it was my turn for my voice to vanish. “I don’t even know why I went out to dinner with Jake. I was flattered, I suppose, but that was as far as it went.”

I recalled Jake stealing that kiss and his smirk of triumph at Xander. My stomach lurched in embarrassment and anger. It was important for me to stress to Saffy what really happened. She had chosen to come to the shop and talk to me and I felt I owed her an explanation; she had come here to defend Xander, to make sure I knew the truth. It was important to her. I understood that.

“What you saw and what Xander saw… I wasn’t kissing him back. He reached across the table to kiss me when he saw you and Xander enter the restaurant. It was all engineered on his part.”

I felt a movement to my left. An elderly couple had paused outside the shop window, sheltering under their giant umbrella. I returned to my explanation of what happened. “I got up and walked out on Jake moments after you and Xander left, but not before giving him a right mouthful.”

A flicker of a satisfied smile toyed at Saffy’s mouth.

“That’s why Jake was so preoccupied at the table. He was too busy checking the car park every five minutes, to see if you and Xander had arrived.” I let out a sigh of exasperation. “He was late picking me up too. He fed me some lies about an urgent call, but he must have been onto someone, finding out Xander’s movements for that evening.”

“No doubt Xander’s PA,” supplied Saffy with a knowing look. “Lorna is a lovey girl, but she can’t hold her own water, let alone manage Xander’s diary with discretion.”

Saffy drank in my expression. “I believe you,” she said after a pause. “I do.”

An image of smug, blond Jake sitting across from me, spouting lies, wavered in front of my eyes again. “But his art career,” I asked. “How did he manage to resurrect that?”

“He hasn’t,” confided Saffy. “I know his website is an all-singing, all-dancing affair, but it’s all show and no substance. As soon as he realised Xander was onto him, Jake dropped his James Deighton persona and fled to the States for several months. He hid out there until it became yesterday’s news. I hear he’s doing the odd bit of lecturing work now.”

I nodded. “It was the art student son of one of the tradesmen I know who recommended him.”