LITMIR.BIZ

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desk to look up and lift the telephone. ‘And how did you get a camera in here? I’ll take that, you parasite.’

      The camera came flying out of the door and crashed against the wall next to Lexi with such force that it smashed the lens. To Lexi’s horror she saw the young man at reception reach into his pocket and pull out a digital camera and start to take photographs of what was happening inside the room from the safety of the corridor. Suddenly the stillness of the hushed hospital was filled with shouting, yelling, crashing furniture and medical equipment, flower vases smashing to the floor, nurses running and other patients coming out of their rooms to see what the noise was all about.

      Shock and fear overwhelmed her. Her legs simply refused to move.

      She was frozen. Immobile. Because, as if it was a horrible train wreck, she simply could not take her eyes away from that hospital room.

      The door had swung half closed, but she could see her father struggling with the man in the suit. They were fighting, pushing and shoving each other against the glass window of the room. And her heart broke for the poor woman who was lying so still on the bed, oblivious to the fight that had erupted around her.

      The door swung open and her father staggered backwards into the corridor, his left arm raised to protect himself. Lexi covered her mouth with both hands as the handsome stranger stretched back his right arm and punched her father in the face, knocking him sprawling onto the floor just in front of her feet.

      The stranger lunged again, pulling her father off the ground by his jacket and starting to shake him so vigorously that Lexi felt sick. She screamed out loud. ‘Stop it—please! That’s my dad!’

      Her father was hurled back to the ground with a thud. She dropped to the floor on her knees and put her hand on her father’s heaving chest as he pushed himself up on one elbow and rubbed his jaw. Only then did she look up into the face of the attacker. And what she saw there made Lexi recoil in horror and shock.

      The handsome face was twisted into a mask of rage and anger so distorted that it was barely recognisable.

      ‘Your dad? So that’s how it is. He used his own daughter as an accomplice. Nice.’

      He stepped back, shaking his head and trying to straighten his jacket as security guards swarmed around him and nurses ran into the patient’s room.

      ‘Congratulations,’ he added, ‘you got what you came for.’

      The penetrating gaze emanating from eyes of the darkest blue like a stormy sea bored deep into her own, as though they were trying to penetrate her skull. ‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ he added, twisting his lips into a snarl of disgust and contempt before looking away, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her and her father for a second longer.

      ‘I didn’t know!’ she called. ‘I didn’t know anything about this. Please believe me.’

      He almost turned, but instead shrugged his shoulders and returned to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving her kneeling on the cold hospital floor, nauseous with shock, fear and wretched humiliation.

      CHAPTER ONE

       Five Months Later

      GOATS!

      Lexi Sloane pushed her designer sandal hard onto the brake pedal as a pair of long-eared brown and white nanny goats tottered out in front of the car as she drove around a bend, and bleated at her in disgust.

      ‘Hey, give me a chance, girls. I’m new around here,’ Lexi sang out into the silent countryside, snorting inelegantly as the goats totally ignored her and sauntered off into the long grass under the olive trees on the other side of the road.

      ‘Which girls? Lexi? I thought you were working.’ Her mother laughed into her earpiece in such a clear voice that it was hard to imagine that she was calling from the basement of an historic London theatre hundreds of miles away. ‘Don’t tell me. You’ve changed your mind and taken off with your pals on holiday to Spain after all.’

      ‘Oh, please—don’t remind me! Nope. The agency made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and I am definitely on Paxos,’ Lexi replied into the headset, stretching her head forward like a turtle to scan the sunlit road for more stray wildlife. ‘You know how it goes. I am the official go-to girl when it comes to ghostwriting biographies. And it’s always at the last minute. I will say one thing—’ she grinned ‘—I stepped off the hydrofoil from Corfu an hour ago and those goats are the first local inhabitants I’ve met since I left the main road. Oh—and did I mention it is seriously hot?’

      ‘A Greek Island in June … I am so jealous.’ Her mother sighed. ‘It’s such a pity you have to work, but we’ll make up for it when you get back. That reminds me. I was talking to a charming young actor just this morning who would love to meet you, and I sort of invited him to my engagement party. I’m sure you’d like him.’

      ‘Oh, no. Mum, I adore you, and I know you mean well, but no more actors. Not after the disaster with Adam. In fact, please don’t set me up with any more boyfriends at all. I’ll be fine,’ Lexi insisted, trying desperately to keep the anxiety out of her voice and change the subject. ‘You have far more important things to sort out without worrying about finding me a boyfriend. Have you found a venue for this famous party yet? I’m expecting something remarkable.’

      ‘Oh, don’t talk to me about that. Patrick seems to acquire more relatives by the day. I thought that four daughters and three grandchildren were more than enough, but he wants the whole tribe there. He’s so terribly old-fashioned about these things. Do you know, he won’t even sleep with me until his grandmother’s ring is on my finger?’

      ‘Mum!’

      ‘I know, but what’s a girl to do? He’s gorgeous, and I’m crazy about him. Anyhow, must go—I’m being dragged out to look at gothic chapels. Don’t worry—I’ll tell you all about it when you get back.’

      ‘Gothic? You wouldn’t dare. Anyway, I look terrible in black,’ Lexi replied, peering through the windscreen and slowing the car at the entrance to the first driveway she’d seen so far. ‘Ah—wait. I think I’ve just arrived at my client’s house. Finally! Wish me luck?’

      ‘I will if you need it, but you don’t. Now, call me the minute you get back to London. I want to know everything about this mystery client you’re working with. And I mean everything. Don’t worry about me. You just try and enjoy yourself. Ciao, gorgeous.’

      And with that her mother hung up, leaving Lexi alone on the silent country lane.

      She glanced up at the letters carved into a stone nameplate, then double-checked the address she’d noted down over the phone while waiting for her luggage to come off the carousel at Corfu airport, some five hours earlier.

      Yup. This was it. Villa Ares. Wasn’t Ares the Greek god of war? Curious name for a house, but she was here and in one piece—which was quite a miracle.

      Checking quickly for more goats or other animal residents, Lexi shifted the hire car into gear and drove slowly up a rough gravel driveway which curved around a long, white two-storey house before coming to a shuddering halt.

      She lifted off her telephone headset and sat still for a few minutes to take in the stunning villa. She inhaled a long breath of hot, dry air through the open window, fragrant with the scent of orange blossom from the trees at the end of the drive. The only sound was birdsong from the olive groves and the gentle ripple of water from the swimming pool.

      No sign of life. And certainly no sign of the mystery celebrity who was supposed to have sent a minion to meet her at the hydrofoil terminal.

      ‘Welcome to Paxos,’ she whispered with a chuckle, and stepped out of the car into the heat and the crunch of rough stone beneath her feet.

      The words had no sooner slipped from Lexi’s lips than the slim stiletto heel of her favourite Italian sandal scraped down a large smooth cobblestone, her ankle twisted

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