‘For heaven’s sake. I thought I told you stay away. What are you doing here? And why are you not wearing one of these.’
‘Ivan asked me to come and why should I wear those ridiculous things. It’s not like I’ll be the one who’s going to do the deed.’
The mention of Ivan’s name hurt me more than I cared to admit.
‘Why did Ivan ask you to come’ Rosalind asked suspiciously.
‘I think he didn’t want to leave any loose lips and, figured correctly, I might add, that I might have loose lips. All who benefit must be implicated was what he said.’
Dorian strolled over and stood in front of me.
‘Why on earth is she covered in plastic?’
‘We didn’t want to leave tie marks on her wrists or ankles,’ Dr Spencer explained. It has to look like an accident.’
‘What kind of an accident?’ he asked almost childishly.
‘An accidental drowning in the lake. I’ve already prepared a large pail of lake water that her face will be submerged in until she drowns and then she will be put in the lake so it looks like she fell into the cold water and drowned.’
‘A pail of lake water?’
‘Yes, if she downs in the bathtub the type of water inside her will be different than the lake’s.’
‘Fan of CSI, are you?’ Dorian asked sarcastically.
‘No,’ Dr Spencer denied stiffly. ‘Unlike you I thought it out.’
I listened incredulously. They had thought of everything and I had been led here like a lamb to slaughter.
‘I’m far too squeamish for details like that.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Goodness is it kinky that all this plastic is giving me a hard on.’
‘Shut up,’ Bianca said nervously. ‘None of this is funny.’
Dorian ignored his sister and turned to Dr. Spencer. Can I fuck her very quickly?’
‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’ Rosalind fumed. ‘Just once you couldn’t come sober.’
‘Chill out, sis. I had half a glass of Merlot at lunch. It isn’t like I was going in bareback. I’ve got condoms.’ He comes closer to me. ‘I’ve always wanted to give her one. Ivan got to, I don’t see why not me too.’
‘God, you are such an idiot. Do you want to leave your calling card inside her,’ Rosalind sneered.
Dr Spencer cleared his throat. ‘Yes, you definitely don’t want to leave your DNA on her. Even the smallest particles can incriminate you.’ He lifted up his hands to show that he was wearing surgeon’s gloves.
Dorian shook his head regretfully at me. ‘All you had to do was fucking share.’
In his weak jaw I saw my chance. The weak link in the chain. I made a muffled sound and begged him with my eyes.
He stared at me for a moment as if considering my request then suddenly reached his hand out and viciously ripped the tape off my mouth. I gritted my teeth to stop myself from crying out with the pain.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ both Rosalind and Bianca screamed.
‘Relax, what’s she going to do? Scream and alert the neighbors. There’s nobody for miles in this godforsaken part of the world. Let her have a few last words. Besides I like hearing her talk. I like her lips.’ He leered as he said that.
‘I can give you money,’ I cried.
He sighed exaggeratedly in a pretend sad way, the way Mafia killers in movies do. He was really enjoying this. ‘I allow you to talk and this is what you say. Disappointing. Truly disappointing.’
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. I knew my last hope was my secret. I had vowed never to tell, but there was no point in keeping it any more. In fact, I no longer knew why Robert had put me through this whole charade. In the end I still ended up their prey. I wanted to live and I would do what it took to survive.
‘I’m not who you think I am,’ I cried out.
Dorian smiled, the sick twisted, smile of a nasty boy pulling the legs off insects just because he could. ‘Go on then. Who are you?’ he taunted. The others said nothing.
‘I’m not your stepmother. I’m your half-sister. I’m Robert’s daughter.’
Dorian’s eyes bulged with shock. ‘Bollocks’ he shouted.
‘No, it’s not. I can prove it. I have the results of the paternity test. It’s with my solicitor. We’re flesh and blood.’
Rosalind stalked towards me. ‘You’re telling me, you’re my sister?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And why are you telling us this now? Do you think that we will take pity on you because one microscopic sperm from my father, one that should have been flushed down the toilet, instead impregnated a whore’s egg and produced you?’
‘My mother was not a whore,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, she was.’
‘She wasn’t. She was a dancer.’
‘Oh well, here’s something you didn’t know. Your mother sold her body to pay for her treatments.’
I felt angry tears flood my eyes and start dribbling down my face. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I shouted angrily. My mother was the one pure thing in my life.
‘Believe what you want. As if I care either way. You’re not my sister. I hate you and I’ve always hated you. If anything this makes me even happier to get rid of you. How could Robert favor you over us? If we didn’t have to preserve your face, I would love to punch it in.’
‘Don’t even think about,’ Dr. Spencer interjected. ‘Keep the emotions out. Or we’ll all be rotting in prison.’
I concentrated all my attention on Rosalind. ‘The money was not for me. It is supposed to be used for the charity.’
She frowned. ‘That ridiculous turtle nonsense?’
‘Yes. It is not for me. I’m just supposed to administer it. Make sure the foundation carries on in the way Robert wanted.’ Then an idea occurred to me. ‘But I can sign it all over to you.’
She stiffened suddenly. ‘Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll just do it the old fashioned way. Murder.’
‘That’s just stupid. Why take such a big risk? Don’t you think the police would find it very suspicious that I came here for no reason at all and drowned in a shallow lake?’
‘Maybe, but if there is no proof of foul play… ’
‘Are you sure you covered all your tracks Rosalind. In this day and age there are many way to trip up a murderer? How did you get here? How many CCTV cameras caught your face, or Dorian’s, or Bianca’s?’
Then I saw a tiny glimpse of hope. A look crossed her face. Uncertainty.
I pressed home my point. ‘My marriage is not legal. You have the proof sitting in my solicitor’s safe. You can contest the will.’
‘You must think I was born yesterday. And while I’m doing all this, you’re not going to tell anyone that we kidnapped you and brought you here intending to kill you.’
‘Who would believe me?’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. I’ll take my chances with murder. It’s worked for millennia. It’s how all my ancestors got rid of their enemies.’
I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my blood. I could take her. Even bound up I could whoop her ass. She was not as clever as she thought. I stared at her fiercely. ‘You don’t get it. I’ve already transferred all my money into the trust. None, of you can touch it without me.’
Dorian and Bianca froze.
‘You’re lying,’ Rosalind shouted, but I could see that I had unsettled her for the first time. For the first time I had the upper-hand. I could do this.
‘How do you know?’ I challenged, my voice strong and sure.
‘Because you haven’t,’ Ivan’s voice reverberated around the room.
At the sound of his voice my body sagged. The betrayal was complete. He came into the room.
‘You made a phone call yesterday to his office and you have an appointment for tomorrow, but even so, without my say so you cannot make any such decision. So my darling, as it stands, the Maxwell fortune is still all in your name.’
He stood in front of me in
his black leather jacket, a total stranger. Did I dance goofily with this man in a sex club called The Dirty Aristocrat?
‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, his eyes quickly and impersonally pouring over my body. Where had all the passion gone?
I wanted to spit in his face. I knew there was no point in trying to ask him for mercy. He knew I was in love with him and he could do this to me. I glared at him with murderous hatred, and he smiled. ‘That’s my girl,’ he whispered softly and turned away.
‘Are we all agreed that we do this?’
Without the silence of hesitation every single person in the room spoke up and offered their agreement.’
‘Right. Let’s get on with it, but first there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very fucking long time. Faster than I could blink, he swung his fist out and crashed it slap bang into the middle of Dorian’s face. The thud was rather delightful. I thought I heard bone crunch.
‘Fuck,’ Dorian screamed in pain, clutching his nose with both his hands. Blood rushed out between his fingers like a bubbling brook. ‘What the fuck? You broke my fucking nose.’
Ivan grinned. ‘I did you a favor. Now you won’t be the prettiest bitch on your prison block.’
‘What?’ Rosalind screeched. ‘You asshole you.’ She went flying towards him in a fury.
‘We’re done,’ Ivan shouts and all of a sudden the place was crawling with policemen and other people. I was in such a state I couldn’t make sense of the scene before me. Men were grabbing Rosalind and she was screaming wild abuse at me and them. Bianca was sobbing and telling everyone that she was innocent. She had been forced to cooperate, and Dorian, with blood pouring down his face, looking stunned and stupid. Dr. Spencer was standing there looking at me with a gentle smile.
I turned to look at Ivan, my heart doing a crazy dance.
Chapter 35
Tawny Greystoke
A
s soon as our eyes locked, everyone else and everything else in the room melted away, my mouth opened and I started howling like some demented animal. I seemed to have no control over my actions. My whole body was shaking uncontrollably. In an instant he was there next to me. He wrapped his strong arms around me and held me like he had never done since Robert gave me to him.
‘You conspired with them,’ I sobbed loudly. ‘You made me hate you.’
He stroked my hair, his face pained. ‘I know. I know, darling. I’m so sorry, but there was no other way to do it.’
I looked at him with accusing eyes. ‘I was so frightened. I thought they were going to kill me, but what hurt even more was that you betrayed me.’
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I really am. Please try to understand. I had no choice,’ he murmured in my ear.
‘You could have told me,’ I whimpered.
‘You are the worst actress I’ve ever met in my life, Tawny Greystoke. You’d have given the game away straight away. It was too important. I couldn’t take the chance, my darling.’
‘They could have hurt me, and then what would you have done,’ I said.
His jaw hardened suddenly and his eyes were like chips of slate. ‘You were never in any danger. Not for one tiny second.’
I sniffed pitifully, and he took an army knife from his leather jacket and started to cut through the Clingfilm.
‘I was always there, sweet Tawny. I had to do it this way. I had to flush them out. I can’t be looking over my shoulder for the rest of our lives. That bunch of airheads would never give up, and they are stupid enough for me to actually fear them.’
As soon as I felt my limbs become free, the dam I had been holding back broke, I hid my face in his chest and sobbed my eyes out. He held me and let me stay there. He knew it was just pent up emotion and it was better out than in.
When the tears subsided and I raised my head, Dr. Spencer was standing in front of us. The whole world was upside down. Dr. Spencer who I’d always thought hated me was working behind the scenes to save me.
‘I’m sorry I frightened you,’ he said softly.
I shook my head to signify that it didn’t matter. ‘What about James?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Right,’ I said sadly. How blind I had been. Everyone had managed to fool me. ‘Does he have a sick wife?’
‘I believe he has a wife, but she is not sick.’
‘Well. Never mind.’
He leaned forward and gently patted my shoulder. ‘You’ll be all right, Lady Greystoke.’
‘Please call me Tawny.’
‘Then you must call me Harry,’ he said with a smile.
‘I will. I always wanted to be close to you because Robert loved you so much, but you were always so cold and horrible to me.’
‘I’m sorry. It was necessary.’ He put his hand into his jacket and held out an envelope.
‘For me?’ I whispered.
He nodded.
‘What is it?’ I asked looking at it.
‘It’s from Robert.’
‘Robert?’ I repeated with a frown.
‘Yes. He knew this day would come. He planned very carefully, Tawny. He loved you so much. You changed him. He said until you came into his life, he was a cold, unfeeling creature. He always thought of you as the golden child that changed Silas Marner’s life.’
I took the envelope in my hand. It had my name across the front in Robert’s scrawly handwriting. I looked up at Harry, confused and disturbed. ‘But he never left you anything in the will?’
‘No, if he had then Rosalind would not have trusted me.’
‘But you lost out,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Everything I wanted I already received while Robert was alive.’
‘No,’ I decided firmly. ‘I’m going to give you the inheritance you deserve. I’m going to see that you’re all right, Harry. I’m going to make you rich.’
He smiled sadly.
‘Why does that make you sad?’ I asked, surprised by his reaction.
‘I was just thinking of Robert. How well he knew us all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He told me that the day I gave you this envelope you would give me more than anything he would have. He used the exact words you used. “She’ll make you rich,” he said.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, I should be going.’
‘Goodbye Harry and thank you so much for everything you have done. You’ll be hearing from my solicitor very soon.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you.’
As he walked away Ivan turned to me. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you somewhere you can sit and read that letter.’
There were still some policemen loitering about but almost everybody was gone. Carefully, Ivan lifted me up and carried me as if I was a baby to Robert’s study. He took me to Robert’s favorite chair and lowered me on to the dustsheet. ‘Read your letter and we’ll talk when I come back. There is so much I want to tell you,’ he said.
I grabbed his hand. ‘No, we’ll read it together. No more secrets.’
He smiled. ‘No more secrets,’ he echoed. Hauling me out of the chair, he sat down and pulled me onto his lap.
I stroked the letter and suddenly felt like crying all over again.’
‘It’s OK, my darling,’ Ivan said. Circling my wrist, he brought my hand to his lips and kissed my fingertips.
With great care I opened the envelope and was shocked by the faint fragrance of Robert’s aftershave. I brought it to my nose and inhaled it before it was gone forever.
‘I wanted to call him Daddy,’ I told Ivan.
‘I know. I know you loved him.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I did.’
My throat closed over and my eyes were blurred with tears. I pulled the letter out. It was only a short letter. Just like Robert. Writing me a letter from the grave and keeping it short.
I cleared my throat and read it aloud. ‘My darling daughter, if you are reading this letter then everything has worked exactly as I planned. You have tipped your hat to the right angle and allowed
the right man to seduce you. He’s wonderful, my stepson, is he not? Have the wonderful life you so richly deserve, my sweet darling. I’ll see you before you see me. Kiss the baby turtles for me. Love, Daddy. xx’
Tears were pouring down my face.
How much I had underestimated Robert. After his death I allowed myself to become convinced that his illness had made him careless. I believed he had miscalculated and misjudged, but he had not. He had laid his plans very carefully. He saw things far into the future that neither Ivan, or I had. I folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. Then I lifted my head and looked into Ivan’s eyes.
‘I can sell this house and you can have the money from the sale.’
To my shock his eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh my darling,’ he breathed. ‘I don’t need your money.’
‘I know about the bank. I went into your drawer. I saw the letters,’ I confessed.
He smiled. ‘Oh, Tawny. I left them there for you to find. I knew you’d have to go looking. Those letters are not real.’
I frowned and shook my head. ‘But they had letterheads and everything on them.’
‘Yeah, you can have those made for nothing these days. I think Theresa still has about ten floating about somewhere.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because without motive you would never have believed I could be involved. If you had not found those letters would you have gone with James?’
‘Maybe not,’ I admitted truthfully.
‘When they made their move I needed you to be off balance and not the sharp little cookie you usually are. I needed you to follow them blindly because you were so confused. Even if you had called me to tell me where you were going it would have all fallen apart. I needed you to distrust me.’
So much thought had gone into his plan. My heart felt as if it was bursting with love for this man. I never truly understood him. There were still tears in my eyes, and he wiped them away tenderly.
‘Oh Ivan. I really believed you were with them.’
‘Shhh… I know. I wanted you to. It’s OK. All is fair in love and war. I knew you heard my phone call. Hell, I threw a phone book against the wall to make a noise loud enough to wake you up.’
‘But I suffered so. You don’t have a clue how much it hurt me.’
The Bad Boy Wants Me: A Bad Boy Romance Page 44
