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Pansy’s new barrister.
As the euphoria following the verdict began to evaporate, Marnie’s buzzing mind started focussing on Walker Lapthorne, who had made a dramatic, eleventh-hour appearance at the beginning of the trial. A handsome and sophisticated lawyer who didn’t come cheap. Marnie had looked up his rates soon after his unexpected appearance at the start of the case and had stared at them in disbelieving horror. Who on earth could afford to employ someone of his calibre? She remembered the panic which had flooded through her. What if Pansy had done something completely dumb—like taking out a bank loan to hire one of the country’s best barristers to defend her? And why was she now batting her eyelashes at the russet-haired attorney as if she were completely smitten? Marnie had tried to get her sister alone ever since they’d sat down in the pub, but had met with a deliberate stonewalling by her twin, and a refusal to budge from Walker’s side.
Well, there was nothing else for it but to ask the question out loud.
Marnie cleared her throat. ‘Mr Lapthorne?’
‘Walker, please.’
‘Walker. Firstly, a great big thank you for helping my sister get the justice she deserves.’
The lawyer smiled. ‘My pleasure.’
Marnie lowered her voice. ‘I’m assuming you weren’t appointed to be Pansy’s lawyer through legal aid?’
He nodded, his expression growing slightly veiled. ‘Your assumption is correct.’
‘And I know she couldn’t possibly afford to pay your fees.’ Marnie fixed her twin with a questioning look. ‘You didn’t pay them, did you, Pan?’
‘Of course I didn’t,’ spluttered her twin. ‘How could I?’
Her innocence sounded genuine and Marnie found herself despairing at the way her sister had always operated. She had always closed her mind off to the unpleasant things in life if she suspected they might compromise her in some way. It was presumably why she had agreed to carry a bag which wasn’t hers for a smooth-talking boyfriend. And if a mysterious lawyer had appeared out of the blue and informed her he was going to be her saviour, Pansy would simply have smiled and said yes, please.
But if Pansy hadn’t paid for the services of Walker Lapthorne, then who had?
Briefly, Marnie closed her eyes as an unwanted image swam into her mind. Of a man with blue eyes which blazed like sapphires and a naked body bathed silver by the light of the stars.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Not when she had expressly told him not to.
She forced herself to continue. ‘So, who did employ you to take on this job, Mr Lapthorne?’
The lawyer’s voice acquired a little edge. ‘I’m really not at liberty to say, Miss Porter.’
Marnie nodded. She wanted to ask him more but acknowledged the finality in his tone. And anyway—if her suspicions were correct—how on earth could she explain away such a random and generous action on the part of the Greek tycoon? Would she honestly want Pansy to know the reason why Leon had done it—or Walker, if he hadn’t already guessed?
Repeating her congratulations, she rose to her feet, kissed her sister goodbye and let herself out of the pub, stepping into a flurry of leaves, their dark swirl controlled by an autumn wind which had suddenly grown biting. Although she had the rest of the day off, she was reluctant to go home just yet—not with all these unanswered questions swirling around in her head. She bought herself a takeaway coffee, carried it to one of the nearby garden squares and sat down on an iron bench.
It had to be Leon.
But Leon lived in Greece.
A wave of confusion washed over her. He hadn’t actually told her that, had he? In fact, he had told her remarkably little about himself—something she could strongly identify with, but not in these particular circumstances.
Putting her coffee down, she took out her phone and tapped his name into the search engine and there it was. Thousands of entries about the Kanonidou empire, less so about the man himself. But several things became instantly apparent. That Leon had a home and a branch of his company in central London—and he had flown into the capital just the week before!
So it could have been him.
Who else would have done it?
Marnie’s throat dried and her heart began to race. She needed to find out for sure and then to...to what? To thank him? Of
course she was grateful—hugely grateful—but she couldn’t quite shake off her air of suspicion. She’d never met anyone who did something for nothing—which made her wonder just why he had done it.
But these thoughts were nothing but self-indulgence. If her hunch was correct then Leon had been unbelievably generous towards her sister and she needed to tell him that. What was she so afraid of? But she knew that, too. She was scared of the way he made her feel. Scared of the things he made her want. She’d been thinking of little other than him since she’d flown back from Greece and touched down at a rainy Stansted airport. Hadn’t she returned to work at the salon unable to stop fixating on him, causing a couple of her colleagues to remark that she had been unusually quiet and preoccupied? And they had been right.
