LITMIR.BIZ

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had been astonished, because her stepfather was well aware that the failure of the nightclub had left her penniless.

      ‘But you know I don’t have anything left.’

      ‘Oh, come on. I wasn’t born yesterday.’ His heavy face had been taut with fake joviality. ‘You must have at least one secret account—a cash reserve you keep quiet. Tell me about it—I won’t let on to the tax man!’

      Lydia raised a brow at such wishful thinking. ‘If only…’

      ‘I don’t believe you…you’ve got to be holding out on me. I’ve been offered a terrific opportunity but I’m short of capital.’

      ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help.’

      Angry resentment flashed in his pale blue eyes. ‘Not even for your mother’s sake?’

      Lydia winced. ‘I can’t give you what I don’t have.’

      ‘Then isn’t it about time you stopped playing at being a garden labourer and got back to the catwalk, where you belong?’ Dennis demanded accusingly. ‘You could cover the losses we made on the club in a couple of months!’

      It had worried her that her stepfather should still be expecting her to provide him with cash when he should have been capable of earning his own healthy crust. It had not occurred to her, though, that anything could be seriously amiss. But, amidst conflicting stories from the Happy Holidays charity director about payments that hadn’t arrived and a cheque that had bounced, and her mother’s differing explanations for those same issues, Lydia had finally travelled to Cheltenham to visit. There she had been amazed to discover that Virginia had already sold the home that her daughter had purchased for her and moved into a hotel.

      ‘What on earth’s going on?’ Lydia had asked, when her pretty blonde mother had opened the door of her hotel room. ‘Why have you sold the house?’

      The older woman treated her to an embittered appraisal. ‘I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask. After all, you’re the one responsible for wrecking my marriage!’

      Lydia gasped. ‘How? What have I done?’

      ‘You put my husband out of work. Now, not surprisingly—because we’ve had dreadful financial worries and I had to sell the house—Dennis has left me for another woman! Do you have any idea how I feel?’

      Lydia experienced such a fierce jolt of sympathy for her deserted mother that she attempted to hug her.

      ‘For goodness’ sake, Lydia…Oh, all right.’ Stiffly, Virginia submitted to being comforted.

      ‘I’m so very sorry,’ Lydia whispered with pained sincerity.

      ‘Well, it’s too late for sorry now, isn’t it? If you’d gone back to modelling when we asked you, I’d still have a husband and a house I could afford to live in!’

      Lydia felt horribly guilty—because she had put herself first when she’d refused to abandon her garden design course. Her heart ached for her mother, who adored her second husband. Having accepted Virginia’s love and trust, Dennis had hurt and humiliated her. Lydia understood exactly how that felt, because it was barely eighteen months since she’d suffered the agony of a similar rejection at the hands of Cristiano. Fortunately for her, passionate love had turned to energising hate while she tormented herself for her own gullibility.

      ‘What am I going to do?’ Virginia suddenly sobbed. ‘I’m so scared!’

      For an instant Lydia was taken aback by the unfamiliar sight of her mother crying, but she was quick to offer reassurance. ‘It’s going to be all right. Whatever happens, I’m here, and together we can get through this.’

      ‘But I’m in so much trouble,’ the older woman had confided tremulously, glancing up with a sidewise flicker of her eyes at her daughter. ‘You have no idea how much…’

      Her anxious thoughts sinking back to the present, Lydia walked home from the police station through the park. The steady rain would serve to conceal the tears on her cheeks, she thought wretchedly. She felt such a failure. She could not help Virginia if the police refused to believe her story. Why was it that she always ended up letting her mother down? And how many times had she already cost Virginia the man she loved? Had there been some curse put on her at birth?

      First there had been Lydia’s father, who would never have gone sailing in that wretched little boat had it not been for the pleas of his more adventurous daughter. It was true that it had been a terrible accident which nobody could have foreseen, but that did not alter the appalling consequences.

      Then there had been Rick, Virginia’s boyfriend when Lydia was a teenager. Lydia shuddered when she recalled the ugly ending of that relationship, and the bitter recriminations that had come her way. Whether she liked it or not, she had been the cause of that break-up too, and once again her mother had ended up heartbroken and alone.

      With such a history behind them, Lydia had been delighted when Virginia had met Dennis Carlton and found happiness again. Although Lydia had disliked her stepfather, she had been content to pretend otherwise for her mother’s sake. If only her mother had foreseen that in her desperation to keep her husband, and lessen the strain on their marriage, she would feel that her only option was to steal to pay the bills.

      When Virginia had tearfully confessed the whole sorry tale, Lydia had immediately promised to protect her. Virginia had been terrified, and so grateful. Recalling the rare warmth that her mother had shown her that day, Lydia felt her eyes overflow afresh. Virginia would never be able to cope with the shame of a legal trial or the rigours of prison life.

      Overnight, however, it seemed that the balance of power had changed. Lydia’s readiness to take the blame for the stolen cash was no longer enough to save her mother’s skin. The police were intent on finding Virginia, and there was now only one way that Lydia could keep her pledge to get the older woman off the hook.

      Soaked to the skin and numb with cold, Lydia leant back against the worn front door of her home and closed it behind her. She lifted Cristiano’s business card. If he repaid the missing money, the charges would be dropped and her mother would be able to come home again. Virginia would be safe—and wasn’t that all that truly mattered?

      She chose to text rather than phone Cristiano, because she could not bear to make a surrender speech.

      You’ve got me if you want me.

      CHAPTER THREE

      WITHIN minutes, Lydia’s phone rang.

      ‘Lia…’ Cristiano murmured softly, sounding out and savouring every syllable.

      ‘It’s Lydia. Lia was the name the modelling agency insisted I use, and I never liked it,’ she told him flatly, while her heart beat very fast somewhere in the region of her throat. ‘I need you to pay back the money quickly, so that the charity will withdraw their charges. Can you do that?’

      ‘It’s not a problem. Are the police behind your sudden change of heart?’

      ‘Does it matter?’

      ‘No. Winning is all,’ Cristiano conceded without hesitation. ‘But we can’t reach agreement before we’ve ironed out the finer details.’

      Blinking back the hot tears of humiliation washing her eyes, Lydia clutched the phone as though she was hanging off the edge of a cliff. ‘That’s not what you said earlier today!’

      ‘You should have been more receptive. The necessary formalities can be dealt with tomorrow. You’ll have to come to London.’

      ‘What formalities? Now you’re making all sorts of conditions!’ she condemned, threading shaking fingers through the hair tumbling over her damp brow. What on earth did he mean by formalities?

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But it’s not necessary. You can trust me,’ she framed between clenched teeth, frightened that if he did not

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