19

LOUISA WAS SITTING between Jake’s legs on the blue cushioned pads of the Valhalla’s steering station, the binnacle nestled comfortably between her knees, her hands under Jake’s on the helm, her head resting back on his shoulder.

‘Tell me what you see,’ he said, his breath warm on her ear as he turned to whisper.

‘I see,’ she began, looking at the horizon, ‘the most beautiful sunset ever. I see land. Corsica?’ she said, turning to look up at his strong, dusk-shadowed face.

He nodded.

‘And I see yachts in the bay. And I see the moon, very pale and silvery. And I see the sea turning scarlet. And I see … What else do I see?’

He pointed towards a rock jutting out of the side of the bay like a giant paw.

‘I see a rock,’ she said.

‘And on the rock?’

‘I see a house.’

He laughed. ‘A hotel. It’s where we’re heading. You and I.’

‘Oh,’ Louisa said, a ripple of desire coasting warmly through her.

He tilted her mouth to his and kissed her softly, but with an intimacy that held no regard for the crew, and as the warmth eddied and rushed inside her she felt herself melting against him.

‘Are you happy?’ he murmured, gazing down into her eyes.

‘Mmm,’ she nodded. ‘Very.’

He smiled, stroking his fingers down the side of her face and over her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I should have called you sooner, but …’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, putting her fingers over his lips. He kissed them, drew them into his mouth and lightly bit them. Then hearing the breath catch in her throat and seeing the way her beautiful, velvety eyes darkened, he took her fingers away and pressed his mouth hard over hers.

‘We have to talk first, you know that,’ he said gruffly.

‘I know,’ she murmured, her lips touching his as she spoke. ‘But I want you so much that whatever you tell me isn’t going to make a difference. So why do we have to wait?’

‘Oh, Louisa,’ he moaned as she pressed herself back against his hardness. ‘Don’t do this, please.’

‘Then don’t make me wait,’ she whispered.

‘You won’t thank me if I don’t.’

‘I told you nothing you say is going to make a difference,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘I want you inside me, Jake. I want to feel you close, pushing all the way into me.’

‘Oh Jesus,’ he groaned and then his lips were crushing hers, his tongue pushing deep into her mouth as he pulled her fiercely against him.

‘If you two lovebirds are gonna continue like that then you’d best let me take her in,’ Bob said gruffly.

Laughing, Jake let Louisa go. ‘It’s OK, I’ll do it,’ he told Bob, grinning at Louisa’s narrow-eyed scowl as she very astutely realized that he was using the docking of the Valhalla as an excuse to put a little distance between them for a while and therefore get himself back under control.

Wandering towards the bowsprit to sit down and watch the approach into the small, picturesque bay, which was at that moment ablaze in the sunset, Louisa curled her legs under her and listened to Jake’s commands as the sails were brought down and all the many preparations for coming into shore were made. She barely understood what he was saying, for sailing jargon was totally unfamiliar to her, but in this instance it was the sound of his voice that she loved, not what he was saying.

It had been the most wonderful, memorable day so far, which had started early that morning when Marianne had come for her. She almost laughed to herself now as she recalled the way she’d tried to put up a fight, of how she’d told Marianne to tell him that she wasn’t available. It hadn’t taken much persuading on Marianne’s part to get her to change her mind however, and neither had it taken her very long to pack the overnight bag Marianne had told her she would need. In fact, she’d done it in such haste that she’d forgotten to leave Sarah a note. But it wasn’t important, Sarah would be sure to guess where she was – if, indeed, Sarah actually went back to the villa today.

During the hour’s drive over to St Tropez, where the Valhalla was moored, Louisa had played out in her mind all she was going to say to Jake when she arrived. It started out with a heated and serious objection to the way he always expected her to drop everything when it suited him and a demand to know why he hadn’t called since he got back, and ended up with an apology for the way they had fought before he’d gone. Somewhere in between was something to do with what Morandi had told Sarah, but Louisa couldn’t quite remember what now, and in any event, as it turned out she hadn’t actually got around to saying any of it. Not because she’d lost courage, or melted like some tragic heroine into his arms the moment she saw him, but because when she and Marianne had arrived at the Valhalla he hadn’t actually been there. And when he had turned up, a few minutes later, he’d been so busy giving instructions to set sail and had been surrounded at all times by the crew that the opportunity hadn’t arisen until they were out at sea, by which time he’d taken the sting out of her indignation by saying, ‘Stop frightening me, looking at me that way. I know I’m in the shit, but could you please just smile a moment ’cos you’re scaring the crew.’

That had made not only Louisa laugh, but everyone else in earshot, and deciding that the very fact that she was there on board was evidence enough that she forgave him, she let her umbrage go. What was the point in going over what had happened the last time, or the reasons why he hadn’t called, when all that really mattered was that they should enjoy every minute of what time they had together?

After that, as the Valhalla rose and dipped gently through the waves with a glorious sea breeze filling her vast, white sails, Jake had handed the wheel over to Bob and shown her round. It was during their brief excursion below deck to the astonishingly luxurious cabins and state-of-the-art galley, that he had given her her first kiss of the day.

‘Do you have any idea how much I love kissing you?’ he’d smiled, running his fingers through her soft, caramel hair and gazing ironically into the depths of her huge, brown eyes.

‘I think I might be getting the drift,’ she’d laughed as he’d lowered his head to kiss her again.

They hadn’t stayed long below since one of the crew was still working on a fault in the air-conditioning and without it the cabins were suffocatingly hot. By contrast, however, the spacious aft-deck, where they whiled away most of the afternoon, was blissfully shaded by an awning and wonderfully aired by the steady summer breeze coming in from the east.

Louisa had watched Jake come alive during those hours in a way she’d never seen before. It wasn’t really anything that he said, or anything that he did, it went much deeper than that. And that was when she realized what it was that was making him look the way he did – it was his great and consuming love of the sea. He was so attuned to it it was as though he breathed with it. He seemed to know its every nuance, its every vagary and vice, was so receptive to its inconstancy and bewitched by its sorcery, it was as though the strength and contentment within him were a part of the power and serenity of this great expanse of blue.

For a while she had almost felt jealous that the sea and all its magic had the power to move him so deeply, but as he spoke to her about it, pulling her into his arms and making her watch it with him, she had realized that for him to share this intensely personal side of himself was the greatest, most poignant gift he could give her.

At last the Valhalla was docked and with the sun now having disappeared altogether and night shrouding the small pockets of light that illuminated the pathway leading up to the hotel. Louisa felt Jake’s hand slip into hers and hold it tightly. It had only been a few minutes since they’d left the Valhalla, but already she could sense the change in him, as though an ill-wind had suddenly tossed him into a storm. She glanced up at his face and saw how pinched it had become and knew that it was because he was preparing to tell her what she was now almost afraid to hear. Her fear wasn’t that it would change her feelings for him, she knew nothing could do that now, it was because she just didn’t want anything to spoil today. But the spectre of his past, of all that he was involved in with Morandi and Consuela and Erik, was already stalking them as though it too had sailed with them from St Tropez, lurking in the shadows, and was now creeping behind them ready to pounce.

But she wasn’t going to let it take away the precious moments that lay ahead. She didn’t want it there, open and sore and bleeding between them, as they made love. She wanted, when he held her, to think of him and only him. She knew it wouldn’t be easy to persuade him, but she had to make him see that as soon as he let his secret go there would be no taking it back. There would no longer be what there was between them now, an unsullied, unspoken bond that had tied him to her because of her innocence of it all.

But as it turned out he didn’t need any persuading, for the moment he closed the door of their room behind him and saw the way she was standing there with fear and courage and a desperate need for him burning in her eyes he pulled her into his arms.

‘Hold me, Louisa,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Just hold me.’

And as she clung to him, pressing herself to him and willing him with all her might not to push her away now, she felt the power of his desire spreading through him. She moved against his hardness, looking up into his face, tracing his mouth with her eyes then gazing boldly, pleadingly into his eyes.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ he groaned as he lifted her in his arms. ‘Are you sure?’ he whispered as he laid her down on the bed.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said, and then she was kissing him with a passion and a desire she had never known in herself. The smell of him, the feel of him, the taste of him was consuming her as his hands and his mouth moved over her. Taking the hem of her flimsy blouse she pulled it over her head and lay back on the bed, feeling the caress of his eyes on her breasts that were crying out for his touch. And then his mouth was on them and his hand moved to her waist, unfastening her belt and pushing inside her shorts. His lips were on hers now, his tongue probing deeply and wonderfully. She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and pushing her hand away he undid them himself, stripping the shirt away then standing up to remove his jeans. His eyes remained on hers as she too removed her shorts.

He started to speak then stopped himself, closing his eyes as though to cover the pain.

‘It’s all right,’ she whispered.

He laughed and looked at her again, his eyes shining with love.

And then he was naked and as Louisa’s eyes drank in the sheer beauty of his uncompromising masculinity, the hard muscles of his thighs, the firm dark skin of his abdomen and the solid, straining, enormity of his erection she could feel the power of her desire as though it and only it was controlling her body. She lifted herself up and took him gently in both hands, then lowering her head she drew him deep into her mouth.

‘Oh God,’ he murmured as her teeth sank softly into him and her tongue and her lips pulled at him. His hands moved into her hair and his head fell back as with her small, slender fingers she lightly caressed his balls and his thighs and his buttocks. ‘Louisa,’ he choked, ‘Louisa,’ and pulling her away he pushed her back onto the bed and lay down with her.

‘Tell me what you want,’ he whispered, sliding his hand down over her belly and pushing his fingers gently inside her. ‘Tell me how I can make you feel the way you’re making me feel.’

‘I already feel it,’ she said, her words echoing in his mouth as removing his fingers and running them back across the moist, hard bud he rolled onto her, kissing her and pressing himself to her.

Then at last it was as though the guilt of not holding onto his promise left him as the storm of his need broke and pushing his legs between hers, he began to lower his mouth down over her body, sucking hard on her nipples, biting them, pulling them right into his mouth, then kissing them, licking them and soothing them. With one hand he pushed her legs wider while with the other he held her tightly. Then his lips were descending to her navel, into the neat, dark thatch of hair between her legs and again he was kissing her, stroking her with his tongue, drawing the silky, tender flesh between his lips and she knew ecstasy then as though her entire self were dissolving into it.

‘Jake, please,’ she sobbed, writhing beneath him as she felt the first stirrings of climax.

His mouth came back to hers, warm and sweet and tasting of her as he kissed her. She circled his waist with her legs, using them to pull him to her. Then raising himself up on one arm he looked long and hard into her eyes as he lowered his hand and guided himself to her. She could feel the tip of him entering her as he pulled his hand away, and with their eyes still locked she felt him slowly, very slowly, start to penetrate her.

‘Oh my God,’ she murmured as she felt the moist, narrow depths of her yielding to his hardness.

He pulled back, pushed into her again, deeper, yet still careful not to hurt her. ‘Are you OK?’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, then suddenly cried out as he thrust himself hard into her.

‘Ssh, ssh, it’s all right,’ he said, kissing the corner of her mouth.

‘I know,’ she breathed, tightening her arms and legs around him. ‘Oh Jake, I want you so much.’

‘I’m right here, right inside you now. Do you want that I stop for a moment?’

‘No! No!’ she cried. ‘I want you to make love to me. I want to feel you do that again and again.’

Raising his hips he began to move gently in and out of her. ‘Is this OK?’ he said, feeling the blood pulsing wildly through him and knowing that he wasn’t going to hold out much longer.

‘Harder, Jake,’ she gasped. ‘I want you to do it harder,’ and then he was hammering into her, throwing the force of his powerful body behind it, while searching for her mouth and tightening the grip on her hands.

She lifted her legs higher, arching her back and cried out again as he suddenly changed motion so that he was rubbing himself against her clitoris as he pounded into her.

Then he was wrapping her in his arms, holding her as close as he could as he felt the soaring pulse of her climax begin.

‘Jesus Holy Christ,’ he seethed, pounding her and crushing her and grinding his hips savagely as it kept on coming.

‘Jake,’ she said, all the strength in her now clenching fervently around him. ‘Jake,’ she whispered again.

He sucked her lips between his, holding her spine to stop her falling against the bed. He was as far inside her as it was possible to get now and he held her there, circling his hips and feeling her climax reaching its peak, pulling at him, grasping him in long, shuddering convulsions before starting slowly to subside.

At last he let her back go and fell breathlessly over her, keeping himself buried inside her. They were hot and sticky and their sweat was mingling like the heat of their uneven breath. But gradually their hearts slowed to a normal, steady pace and the aftermath of tension slowly released their limbs.

‘Mmm,’ Louisa moaned contentedly and luxuriously as her legs slid from his back. She opened her eyes and turned to find him gazing into her face.

‘That was amazing,’ he said softly.

Her eyes started to dance.

‘It was …’

‘Oh please don’t give me marks out of ten,’ she groaned, making him laugh.

‘You’re off the scale,’ he said, kissing her. ‘But I knew you would be.’

‘But it was you who took me there,’ she smiled. ‘I think somebody’s got it wrong about quantity and quality, or maybe it’s just that you have both,’ she added making him laugh again.

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ she complained as he started to withdraw. ‘It feels so cosy like this.’

‘You’re incredible,’ he chuckled. ‘I just want to know why you happened to me, because I sure as hell don’t deserve you.’

‘But you’ve got me anyway and I dare you to do that all over again,’ she grinned.

But it was no good, she couldn’t stave off the spectre any longer and as he gently withdrew himself and kissed her briefly on the mouth, she sent a silent plea to God that she was going to be able to deal with whatever he told her now.

‘Are you hungry?’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching for his shorts.

‘No. Are you?’

He shook his head then turned to look at her. His eyes were submerged in an emotion she didn’t at first recognize, then realizing with a sharp pang in her heart that it was guilt she lifted his hand and kissed it.

‘I told you, nothing’s going to make a difference,’ she whispered.

His face remained grim and lowering his hand to her breast she held it there. He ran his thumb back and forth over the hard nipple, but she could see his mind was elsewhere and when she took her hand away so too did he.

She watched him pull his shorts on, staring at his back, his broad, muscular shoulders, the tapering of his waist and wanted to touch him.

‘Did you bring something to cover yourself?’ he said, unravelling his jeans.

‘Do we have to get dressed?’

‘Trust me, you’ll want something by the time I’ve finished.’

Pulling herself up Louisa walked over to the door where he had put her overnight bag and took out a knee-length cotton wrap. As she turned to put it on she could see how his eyes were avoiding her nudity and suddenly she wanted to scream. This was so unfair, why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t they just be together and make love the way everyone else did without any ghosts coming to spoil it? But she merely slipped into the wrap, belted it and returned to the bed, sitting cross-legged on the edge.

It was a small room, but carefully, almost lovingly furnished with subtle, expensive fabrics, two enclosed casement windows that looked out over the sea and french doors that opened onto a white filigree balcony. Jake walked over to the mini-bar, his thin white shirt still unbuttoned and hanging loosely down over his hips, as he helped himself to a beer.

‘Would you like something?’ he asked Louisa, twisting off the top of the bottle.

She shook her head and watched him as he picked up an armless easy chair and carried it over to the bed to sit in front of her.

‘Oh God, I feel so nervous all of a sudden,’ she laughed shakily, pushing her fingers into her hair. ‘Do I really need to know?’

‘Do you want to know?’ he asked, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his thighs.

She nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. But maybe I should tell you I already know about the bathhouse. Morandi told Sarah.’

Jake chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip for a moment, then looked down at the beer he was holding in both hands. ‘I don’t know what Morandi told Sarah,’ he said, ‘but he doesn’t have the full picture. Only Erik has that. And Consuela, of course.’

‘But are those women being blackmailed?’

‘Sure, some of them are,’ he answered. ‘Those I don’t manage to get to first. But there aren’t so many of them these days, not since I got Consuela to cut me in on it.’

‘But why did you do that?’

He stared at her for some time, but she could tell that he wasn’t seeing her as in his mind he mulled over the best way to answer that. Then his eyes moved past her and he said, ‘I had to know what she was doing. I had to be in a position to get something over her so’s I could find out the truth of what happened to my wife.’

Louisa’s heart dipped horribly, but she remained silent in the face of the anger that was now darkening his eyes and clenching his jaw. But his voice was still gentle as he spoke.

‘Martina,’ he said, ‘my wife, is Consuela’s daughter. We were married for three years before she died in a boating accident off Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ Louisa murmured.

His answering smile was grim. ‘But it wasn’t an accident,’ he said, ‘she was murdered, at least I think she was, but I still don’t know for sure. The other boat came out of nowhere, they were on the Moonshine, our boat, before I knew what was happening and I was knocked unconscious. When I came round they were gone, and so was Martina. I stank of alcohol, which they must have poured all over me as well as down my throat and the Moonshine was drifting way out at sea with no other vessels in sight. So I took her in, went to report what had happened and two days later I found myself under arrest for the murder of my own wife.’

He paused for a moment as the pain and disbelief he must have felt at the time seemed to come back and steal threads from his voice.

‘There was no body,’ he said roughly, his breathing ragged with suppressed emotion, ‘and the search that followed didn’t turn one up either. So in the end, after my father had pulled a few strings, I was released from a hell-hole of a Mexican jail. I flew straight to Buenos Aires to find Consuela. I just knew she had to be behind it, and she was there, waiting for me.’ A note of savagery had crept into his voice now and his hands were tight on the bottle he was still holding. ‘And do you know what she told me?’ he said, with a bitter, incredulous laugh. ‘She told me that her people had found Martina’s body and taken it to where she – Consuela – was staying and that Martina had been certified dead by a doctor right there in Buenos Aires. Death caused by severe blows to the face and head that had crushed her skull before she’d been thrown into the sea.’

For a moment Louisa thought he was going to break down, but after swallowing hard he continued. ‘By then Consuela, the woman who had paid for the murder of her own daughter, had had Martina buried. She’d kept it all hushed up for my sake, she told me. She didn’t want to see me go to jail for the rest of my life, or face a death penalty, or even bear the stigma of what I had done. Shit, the way she carried on she nearly had me convinced I’d done it. But I knew she had and I knew why. Carmelo, Martina’s father, left everything to Martina when he died. He was worth millions and not one penny of it, with the exception of the villa on the Cap d’Antibes, went to Consuela. He’d never warned us he was going to do that, but he did, and his reasons for doing it have died with him. But piecing things together since, listening to those who knew Consuela and Carmelo when he was alive, it seems she had a pretty rough time in her marriage. He used to beat her, kept her locked up for months on end, shit, I don’t know what he did to her, all I know is she never wanted Martina to know what her father was really like. It’s the only decent thing I’ve ever known Consuela to do.

‘Anyway, after Carmelo died and we found out about the will Consuela went to pieces. Martina spent as much time with her as she could, but we hadn’t long been married and she didn’t like to be parted from me for long. So Consuela came to the States to stay with us. Martina and I talked endlessly with lawyers to see if there was a way she could give her mother the money, but one of the conditions of the will was that nothing other than what was stipulated should go to Consuela. Martina could do whatever else she wanted with her inheritance, but she couldn’t give it to her mother. So we paid a great deal of it over to various charities in Argentina, saying it came from Consuela so that no one would know that her husband had done what he had and therefore salvaging her dignity.

‘It was while she was staying with us that I made what I knew even at the time was a mistake, but I never dreamt it would turn out to be the greatest mistake of my life, nor how much I was going to have to pay for it. I slept with the woman. Don’t ask me why, I barely know the reasons myself, except I felt sorry for her and what started out as comfort somehow turned into something else. Afterwards I couldn’t look at her without hating her, but I guess it was myself I hated for being so goddamned weak to have let things get out of hand that way. I told her she had to go, to pack her bags and be on the next flight back to Buenos Aires and that was when it all really started. She said if I pushed her out, sent her back to where she no longer even had a home, she’d tell Martina what had happened. I tried to persuade her to go to France where she did have a home, I even offered her the money to keep it running, but she wouldn’t go. She wanted to stay right there in San Diego, with us, where she got the most comfort in her bereavement, she said. So I had no choice. I had to let her stay because I just couldn’t stand the thought of Martina finding out that both her husband and her mother had betrayed her.

‘It was a living hell,’ he went on quietly. ‘Every time we were left alone in the house together she was at me, pestering me to go to bed with her again. She said if I didn’t she’d tell Martina we were sleeping together anyway. It got so that I was nearly at the point of telling Martina myself just to get the goddamned woman out of my life. Martina must have sensed the friction between us because in the end she was the one to tell her mother she had to leave. The two of them hadn’t been getting along so well either. Consuela was disrupting our lives in every possible way even to the point of coming into our bedroom at night and sitting there, crying, saying she didn’t want to be alone.

‘So Martina asked her to go and I don’t ever want to have to live through another scene like that again in my life. Of course Consuela told her she and I had been sleeping together and I made the mistake of denying it. So Consuela proceeded to describe me in the minutest detail, my technique, the way I kissed, everything. Obviously Martina had to believe it then, but it was her mother she turned on, not me. The only good thing to come out of it was that Consuela had blown it. She couldn’t stay now and she had nowhere else to go, except France. I offered again to give her money to keep the villa running, but Martina wouldn’t let me. She said her mother could sell the villa and live off that, but we weren’t going to give her a penny. When Consuela had gone I explained to Martina what had happened. She said she forgave me and we never talked about it again.’

His face was grey and haggard in the glow of the room, his beer still untouched. Louisa’s eyes were steadily watching him, but in some strange, inexplicable way it was like looking at a shell. He was no longer there in that room, he was back in San Diego, reliving the nightmare.

‘The sickest part of it then,’ he continued, ‘was that I had kept it all from my father so that when we threw Consuela out it was to him she went and it was he who gave her the money that, as we found out later, went into creating the bathhouse. The money was legally documented, more fool my father, and the first we found out about the bathhouse was when Consuela contacted me threatening to reveal where her funds had come from, thereby insinuating that my father was behind the blackmail she had gotten into, unless I gave her a sum equivalent to Martina’s inheritance. I went to my father, we consulted lawyers and between us we decided to ignore her. That was the gravest mistake of all, but we didn’t realize just how grave until a couple of months down the line when, to punish me, or to let me know that she still had power over me, or God only knows why, she paid to have Martina, her own daughter, her own flesh and blood, killed. You might ask yourself how any sane person, how any mother, could do that to her own child just to get back at me, but we’re not talking about a sane person here, because she’s totally insane and that’s what makes her so damned dangerous. She doesn’t look insane, most of the time she doesn’t act insane, but take it from me that woman is as close to being a psychopath … What am I saying here? She is a psychopath. That’s why I told you to stay away from her. I don’t want her finding out about you because if she does I don’t even want to think what she might do. And that’s why I say that Danny’s not doing herself any favours going around telling people she’s sleeping with me, particularly when she’s not. My eye,’ he said, touching the loose flesh of the disfiguring scar, ‘Consuela did that. More accurately, she paid someone to do it about six months after Martina died. At the time of Martina’s death Consuela told me, as brazenly as you like, that she’d keep the murder covered up if, after a respectable amount of time mark you, I’d marry her. That way she’d have me, the Mallory fortune and Santini’s fortune too. I told her to go straight to hell and six months later someone broke into my house with instructions to cut out my eyes, both of them, so that I’d never be able to look at another woman again. Consuela got someone to call me up on the phone while I was still in the hospital to tell me that.

‘We, my father and I, knew then that we had to do something to stop her doing any more damage, not only to our family, but to her so-called friends, the one’s she was bleeding a fortune from. We already knew how she’d started giving the evidence of what these women were doing in the bathhouse to their husbands just to see those women end up with nothing, the way she had, worse than she had. We had lawyers in the States, in Argentina, Mexico and in France, working on building up a case against her. It wasn’t hard, she’d hurt a lot of people by then who were more than willing to talk, but Consuela is no fool, she’d covered her tracks much better than we’d realized. Then she got wind of what we were doing and the next thing we knew my father received an anonymous call telling him that Martina was still alive and that if we didn’t back off she really would be killed.

‘At first we didn’t believe it, but since neither of us had ever seen the body I wasn’t prepared to take the chance that she might be lying. So we called the lawyers off and set our own investigation in motion. My father greased the right palms in Buenos Aires and we had the body exhumed. And that was when we found out that there was no body. Oh, there was a grave all right, and a coffin, but inside the coffin was just a pile of ash. So someone had died, but whoever it was had been cremated and there was no way of telling whether or not it was Martina.

‘Then the people working for us started to come back with reports that Martina had been seen. It was a goddamned nightmare. I didn’t know which way to turn, I was driven half out my mind. Then my father came up with the idea that I should go to France and tell Consuela that unless she came up with the truth about Martina we were going to put the whole thing into the hands of the FBI. It was a bluff because neither of us was prepared to contact the Bureau when there was a possibility Martina was alive. Then one of the lawyers came up with another idea, that I should try to get myself in on Consuela’s operation. If I managed it and it then came to a point of law obviously I’d be as guilty as she was, but that was the point. She had to think that I was prepared to commit the crime too otherwise she’d never let me in. The only problem was why would I do it, when it was common knowledge that I didn’t need the money. But that was easily overcome by getting her to think that she was coercing me into doing it to find out what I could about Martina.

‘So I sailed the Valhalla over to France – taking the boat made my stay seem a bit more permanent than if I’d flown in – and what I found when I got there turned my stomach. There she was surrounded by young kids, all boys, getting them slaving for her, innocently screwing her friends and looking for all the world like Miss Benevolence herself. The boys didn’t have a clue what they were into, though a couple of them did get to find out and as far as I know she paid them off and sent them on their way. But when I got involved she wanted me to give them the Hobson’s choice I expect Morandi told Sarah about.’

Louisa nodded then cleared her throat. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Well, the hell I was going to do anything like that. She had to be crazy if she thought I’d even entertain it, but I let her think I was going along with it, though my guess is she knows that I’m paying them off out of my own pocket – like all the rest of her goddamned spoils are coming out of my pocket, but I don’t think she’s wise to that. But she doesn’t really care what I do with those kids just so long as nothing disturbs her nice, cosy, little set-up and she manages to keep me on the run. Anyway, like you must already know, Morandi’s brother was one of the kids who found out what was going on and when I met up with him here in Corsica – which I do with most of them, together with a lawyer, so’s to get out of them everything they know – somehow it came about that this kid had a brother who was making low-budget movies over in Britain. So the lawyer and I took the boy back ourselves so that I could try to get this brother to come work for me. I needed someone who could put those videos together and who could keep a record of everything and everyone involved. Morandi agreed, fortunately he spoke Italian and French, so we gave him a bogus identity through some dubious Sicilian contacts of the lawyer’s. Being Italian helps when you’re setting up business in Nice. I’ve never been too comfortable about keeping Morandi out of the whole picture, but I was always afraid that if he did know everything he might just go and blow it.’

‘Sarah tells me that he doesn’t know which one of you to believe,’ Louisa said. ‘Apparently he’s considered going to the police, but he’s afraid to in case something happens to his family.’

‘Shit,’ Jake muttered under his breath. ‘Well, I guess it’s better that he stays afraid for the moment, because we’re pretty close now to finding out where Martina is.’

‘You mean she is alive?’

Jake nodded. ‘Yeah, I think so. It’s still hard to know whether or not Consuela is paying people to give me false information, but the last time I was in Mexico …’ He stopped, looked down at his hands, then getting up from the chair he walked over to the window. ‘The last time I was in Mexico,’ he said, staring blindly at the bobbing white lights of the yachts in the bay, ‘I heard that the woman they’re saying is Martina has got a child with her. Martina was seven months’ pregnant when she disappeared.’

‘Oh my God, Jake,’ Louisa murmured, wanting to go to him, but knowing that right at that moment he wouldn’t welcome it.

‘It’s a … It’s a girl,’ he said, his voice breaking up on the fear and emotion lodged in his throat. ‘I’m haunted night and day about what they might be going through,’ he went on gruffly, disguising his grief with anger. ‘But even now I still don’t know whether it’s some cruel, twisted trick on Consuela’s part to torment me, or whether there really is a woman and child. A woman and child who are mine, who I have to keep looking for until I know for sure.’

They were both silent for a long time then, until Louisa got quietly up from the bed, went to the bar and poured him a brandy. She handed it to him, wordlessly, taking the warm, stale beer away. She didn’t have to look at his face to know that he was crying, neither did she have to be told that he needed to be left alone for a while.

Dressed in her shorts and top she pulled the door quietly closed behind her and went downstairs to order some sandwiches. They took a while to be prepared by which time she knew it would be all right to go back.

She found him standing where she had left him, a dark profile in the moonlit window, his brandy finished, the tears gone.

He turned to her and smiled as she came into the room, then watched her as she laid out the sandwiches on a small, round table.

‘Come on,’ she said, holding out a hand towards him. ‘Try to eat something.’

He came towards her, took her hand, but instead of sitting down he put his glass on the table and pulled her into his arms. ‘I love her, Louisa,’ he said, his voice once again choked with emotion. ‘I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. She was my whole world. Nothing, just nothing, mattered more than her. We were so happy …’

‘It’s all right,’ Louisa whispered, tears of unbidden envy and loss and overwhelming pity burning her eyes. ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’ he said, pulling her back to look into her face.

She nodded, then biting her lip to try to stop the tears she turned away.

‘I don’t know why we had to meet when we did,’ he said, watching her walk over to the bed. ‘All I know is that being with you has been the best thing that’s happened to me since all this began.’

‘Then I’m glad I happened to you,’ she said, sitting down.

‘But you’re not glad that I happened to you.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘But I do know that I’m glad we made love before you told me.’

‘To be truthful, Louisa,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t intending for us to make love at all. I knew that once I told you you wouldn’t want to and then I’d have gone back to spend the night on the Valhalla.’

‘Then why did you bring me all this way?’ she asked, more hurt than she wanted to think about by what he’d said.

‘I brought you because I wanted to take you on the sea. I wanted to share something with you that was special to me, something that we could both hold in our memories and never forget.’

She smiled as her heart tripped on the pain and used her fingers to wipe away the tears. ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do if Consuela is lying?’ she said.

‘Yeah. I’ll go back to the States and pick up again. But that doesn’t mean there’s a future for us, Louisa. I can’t marry again now, not after all that’s happened.’

‘No,’ she said softly, wishing that this didn’t all sound so final.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you want that I leave now, come back for you in the morning?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I want you to hold me and tell me you’re a bloody fool who should have told me all this in the beginning.’

‘I would have,’ he said, pulling her into his arms, ‘except for one thing. I met you at Consuela’s. I didn’t know who you were, what she might have told you, what you might tell her. All I know is that I looked across the room and saw the most beautiful pair of eyes looking back at me and for the first time since Martina I allowed myself to think about what it might be like to hold a woman again.’

‘But you’d been with Danny the night before,’ she reminded him.

‘That doesn’t even begin to compare,’ he said. ‘That was nothing more than a release. With you I knew it would be different. But I couldn’t allow myself to make love to you when I knew something was happening between us and I couldn’t carry it through. I didn’t want to do that to you, but neither could I stop myself seeing you.’

‘But we have made love now,’ Louisa said shakily.

‘Yeah, we sure did that,’ he smiled. ‘But it’s not going to happen again.’

‘But why?’ Louisa protested. ‘You’re not going yet. It’s not all over yet. There’s still some time left for us.’

‘I know that, but I don’t want you falling in love with me.’

‘Oh God,’ she laughed through her tears, wanting to scream that it was already too late for that. But she didn’t, because she knew that even though she’d thought he was falling in love with her too, that in reality whatever he did feel paled by comparison with what she’d seen in his eyes and heard in his voice when he talked about Martina.

Letting him go she walked into the bathroom and turning on the tap she splashed handful after handful of cold water on her face. When finally she looked up again he was standing at the door watching her in the mirror and as she looked back her heart seemed to twist from its roots. Would she ever get over this? she asked herself. Would she ever find anyone else who would look at her that way, who could make her feel so happy and so goddamned miserable?

‘Are you OK?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m fine, but I want to talk to you.’ She turned to face him, knowing she was going to sound a good deal stronger than she felt. ‘I asked you once before not to make me beg,’ she said, ‘and now I’m asking you again. I don’t want this to be the end. I want to make love with you again, I want to take everything from this that I can so that when you’re gone I’ll have more than just memories, I’ll have the knowledge that I really did mean something to you.’

‘You’ve got to know that already,’ he said, picking up her hand and squeezing it.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t make me beg.’ Then she laughed. ‘I think I’m already doing it, aren’t I?’

‘Not quite,’ he smiled, lifting a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

‘If I promise not to fall in love with you, if I promise to take responsibility for myself …’

‘Sssh,’ he said, pulling her against him and kissing her forehead. ‘Like I told you before, I’d never let it go so far as making you beg. If you want that we carry on, then that’s what we’ll do. You know what you’re up against now, you know that I can’t love you …’

‘Don’t say any more,’ she interrupted. ‘All I need to know is that when it does all end you won’t just disappear without seeing me before you go.’

‘No, I won’t do that,’ he said.

For a long time then they stood together, holding each other and letting the comfort they got from each other wash over them.

‘So what do we do now?’ he said, when finally he let her go.

‘We go to bed and we see …’ She shrugged. ‘We see what happens, I suppose.’

‘I think I know what’s going to happen,’ he smiled.

An impish light pushed its way through the sadness in Louisa’s eyes and holding her close he turned and led her back into the bedroom.