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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.
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