Redeemed By Her Innocence / Sheikh's Royal Baby Revelation. Annie West

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      SO HE DIDN’T always make the right decisions, and extending a pity invitation to Jacquelyn Jones was definitely not one of his best. As soon as he’d taken the second call from Mark, he should have followed his first instincts and sent her a message.

      But when he’d found out that Ariana Bridal was only two miles from Maybury Hall he didn’t have the heart to drive by. And all he was going to do was offer her another place, another time, and, if he was completely honest, hopefully another agenda—one not related to business.

      With every passing minute he had regretted this gut reaction to those blue eyes. He owed her nothing but somehow he’d found himself agreeing to meeting her not once but twice. This was getting way out of hand.

      They’d had no time to talk on the flight—he could have predicted that—and the time of this pitch had dragged on now, to some post-lunch rendezvous, every minute heightening her optimism and dimming his.

      But in a way it had been a salvation having her chatting away and oohing and ah-ing about the scenery on this first journey back from the airstrip to the villa. He doubted she’d noticed him turn his head away when they neared the hairpin bend that dropped to the steep olive grove where Maria’s car had taken its tragic turn.

      The skid marks were still on the road, twin black lines, baked into the cement. On through the village of Agios Stephanos they drove—it was almost exactly as he remembered, the bakers, the store, the old men who stared, and dogs tied up in pockets of shade, barking at the cars as they passed.

      He pointed out the tiny old white church clinging to the side of the steep cliff, roughened with centuries of hot sun and windswept winters. His great-grandparents had been married there, and their parents and grandparents before them, but he kept those facts to himself.

      Further on, faded signs sent far-travelling tourists to sacred wells, and a stream trickled down to the level of the sea, where his private shingle beach presented itself to crystal-clear aquamarine waters, and where once upon a time he’d moored his boat.

      Once upon a time this had been the one place on earth he’d felt truly alive, and truly alone. It was in his DNA and it was a thousand miles from Sydney.

      Maria hadn’t particularly liked it here—too basic, too boring—and he’d seen no reason to try to change her mind. He’d kept it private and personal, loving his times alone here. Occasionally he’d entertained like-minded clients who’d turned into friends, but never, it had to be said, anyone who was still at the stage of pitching a proposal.

      He stood now in the library, sheaves of papers strewn all over the table. Beyond them, through the window, he looked out over the old familiar gardens and tennis courts, down to the pool house to where, with another apology, he’d sent word for her to wait for him.

      The hour he’d asked her to wait had become three, as he’d rummaged through Maria’s unfiled documents, with calls back and forth to Mark. He’d sent more apologies and the offer of anything his guest’s heart desired, including food and drink, spa treatments from his private masseuse and her choice of clothes from the vast wardrobes in the villa.

      Finally, he closed the door of the safe, clutching the bundle of papers that he’d been searching for. They were a mess but they showed Maria’s ownership of a company listed in Cayman. He connected by video phone to Mark and his lawyer and together they went through them word by word. It seemed that she’d bought a shadow company, but that it had ceased trading six months later.

      There was no sign of any money ever changing hands between her and his father. And there was no sign of any profits, which meant that neither his father nor Martin nor СКАЧАТЬ