The Blackmailed Bride. Kim Lawrence

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      Early on in his career he had displayed a remarkable ability for spotting untapped niches in the markets. This talent had been recognised and exploited, but he wasn’t just an ideas man; when a project was beset by difficulties, be it labour disputes or legal wranglings, Javier was the person who could be relied upon to get things running.

      The information that had brought him hot-foot to the island hardened the naturally severe cast of Javier’s staggeringly handsome features as he knocked on the heavy oak-studded door of Serge’s office.

      Though of average height, due to his massively broad shoulders and deep barrel chest, the swarthy-skinned man behind the desk gave the impression of being much taller.

      ‘Javier!’ Serge rose to his feet with a welcoming smile and the two men clasped hands and hugged. ‘It’s been too long.’

      ‘It has.’ Javier responded with the sort of smile that would have shocked rigid those members of the press who had dubbed him Mr Deep Freeze. ‘How are little Raul and…Sarah?’ Nobody seeing him smile would have guessed that he experienced any difficulty saying this name. ‘Where is she? I saw the car…’

      ‘It broke down the last time she was here,’ his friend admitted ruefully. ‘You can laugh, Javier, but it isn’t you that ends up pushing the cursed thing. Other than a stubborn, irrational affection for that old tin can on wheels, Sarah is fine—though your godson is keeping us both up nights.’

      ‘Then I expect you could have done without me asking you to do some discreet digging for me…?’

      Serge shook his head. ‘Anything I can do, any time—you know this, Javier. I know you don’t like me saying this, but if we live to be a hundred there still won’t be enough time to pay you back what we owe you.’

      ‘You owe me nothing, Serge.’ Abruptly Javier changed the subject. ‘About the other thing…’ His dark angled eyebrows lifted and his eyes, startling blue in a face that was an even, deep gold, narrowed. ‘You’re sure about this, Serge?’

      Serge sighed and looked grim. ‘I’m afraid so. The reports you heard were right.’

      ‘And you know who it is?’

      ‘A waiter working at the resort, a Luis Gonzalez, youngish…about twenty five. He came to work there at the start of the season…’

      Javier didn’t make a note of the name but Serge knew that he would not forget the name or forgive the guilty party for the crime he had foolishly committed. Javier made a friend in a million but he was an implacable enemy.

      ‘References?’ Javier enquired, controlling his impatience; control was one of the things Javier prided himself on.

      ‘Impeccable forgeries.’

      ‘Nobody else is involved, nobody higher…?’

      Serge Simeone shook his head.

      Javier shrugged and squinted against the midday sun through the window, his expression inscrutable. ‘Well, that’s something.’

      When it had come to his attention that a member of staff in the large resort hotel they owned down on the coast was using his position to deal drugs to guests, Javier, unsure as to how deep the rot was, had not risked involving any of the staff there; instead, he had gone to someone whose integrity he trusted totally.

      ‘You haven’t contacted the police yet?’

      ‘You asked me to wait. What are you going to do, Javier?’ His friend turned and for a moment Serge experienced a spasm of pity for the culprit. Javier’s long, angular, aristocratic face had the texture of cold marble; his deep set eyes were equally chilling. Serge knew that Javier had precious little sympathy with recreational drug use and even less with those who peddled the stuff, after his younger sister had nearly lost her life to addiction.

      ‘We’re going to pay Luis a visit.’

      Kate Anderson tried not to show her shock as she flicked through the pile of grainy, slightly out-of-focus photos her younger sister had silently handed her after she’d asked, ‘Surely they can’t be that bad…?’ Now she knew they weren’t talking a couple of topless shots on the beach which even their conservative parents could have laughed off.

      ‘It could be anyone…?’ she croaked, trying desperately to put a positive slant on a very negative situation as she handed them back to her sister, who tore the incriminating images into shreds and let them drop to the floor.

      While the negatives were not in their possession, both sisters knew this defiance was just an empty gesture.

      ‘It’s not anyone, it’s me! You’ve got to help me, Kate! You have to do something,’ Susie added, her expression an accurate reflection of her total faith in her sister’s ability to extract her from this present dilemma. After all, she’d been doing it successfully for the past twenty years. ‘You can’t let mum and dad find out…I’d die…’

      Kate thought it was much more likely she’d have her generous allowance cut off, but then as far as Susie was concerned that probably amounted to much the same thing!

      ‘That would be…awkward,’ Kate admitted thinking of her parents’ faces if confronted by semi-nude photos of their younger daughter. She didn’t want to think about the consequences if they actually got into the hands of the press. She could think of several tabloids that would love to print compromising shots of a high court judge’s daughter.

      ‘What if he sends those photos to Chris…? He’ll never believe I wasn’t sleeping with Luis.’

      ‘You weren’t?’

      Susie’s wails got louder. ‘See? Even you thought I was. Luis was someone to hang around with and go clubbing, he was fun… You don’t believe me,’ she accused. ‘I can tell…’

      ‘I believe you. Now hush, Susie, I’m thinking…’ Kate pleaded as she concentrated on the problem facing them.

      The frown line between her feathery brows, which like her lashes were dark in dramatic contrast to the silver-blonde hair colour both sisters had inherited from their mother, deepened as she caught her lower lip between her even white teeth.

      Unlike her sister, Kate’s features weren’t strictly symmetrical; her mouth was too wide and full and her aquiline nose had never inspired men to poetry. Her almond-shaped brown eyes, without a doubt her best feature, were unfortunately more often than not concealed behind the round lenses of her wire-framed spectacles.

      With or without specs, the first impression people received of Kate Anderson was that she was a young woman with a lively intelligence, sharp wit, and boundless reserves of energy.

      ‘Susie got my looks; Kate’s the sensible one.’ Kate had lost count of the number of times she’d heard her mother explain away her supposed deficiencies to people.

      ‘What she lacks in looks she makes up for in personality,’ was her father’s kinder assessment.

      Kate knew these were essentially accurate assessments, and she hadn’t done so badly out of the deal. Sensible had given her a lifestyle she enjoyed; but just occasionally, especially when she saw the way men reacted when Susie entered a room, she СКАЧАТЬ