CHAPTER FOUR
FOR someone who’d wanted to talk, Nikos showed precious little inclination to do so once they were in his car—predictably a low-slung luxurious sports car. In Katie’s present mood she’d have criticised his driving had the opportunity arisen, but it didn’t. He proved to be competent but not dangerously erratic as many men were when placed behind the wheel of a powerful car.
Other than ask directions as they’d left the hotel he had said nothing at all.
She cleared her dry throat, and swallowed; it seemed it was up to her to break the ice. She wondered what to say.
‘Why are you here?’
It wasn’t exactly slick, but you had to start somewhere.
‘When we spoke on the phone Tom could not stop talking about the woman of his dreams. I was naturally curious to see this paragon.’
Sarcastic beast. She eyed him with dislike. ‘And that was it?’ She gave a sceptical snort. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘Neither did I until I opened my mail immediately after speaking to Tom. When I read Harvey’s letter relaying your request for a speedy dissolution of our union I realised why the name Katie Forsythe seemed so familiar. Katie…Katerina…I thought I’d check it out. I dropped in on Harvey on my way here and tried to get your address. Being an exemplary example of the legal profession and impervious to bribery, he refused…’
‘You didn’t try and bribe Harvey!’ Katie exclaimed in a scandalised tone.
Nikos spared her a fleeting glance that made her feel ridiculously gauche before he returned his attention to the narrow, ill-lit road. ‘It was much simpler and more rewarding to take a look at his laptop when he was called from the office.’
This offhand attitude to such sneaky actions confirmed Katie’s first impressions of his character—the man was totally without scruples. Something she would do well to keep in mind in her dealings with him.
‘It might interest you to know that Harvey told me he’d personally guarantee your integrity,’ she choked, regarding his perfect profile with disgust mingled with unwilling appreciation. There was a lot to appreciate: his jaw was firm without being chunky and, even though it was probably due to generations of inbreeding amongst the ruling classes, a lot of men might have sacrificed a sense of humour—you couldn’t count warped—for strong features of such staggeringly perfect dimensions.
If that doesn’t shame him, nothing will.
It seemed he was shameless.
‘That would explain why he didn’t take the most elementary security measures.’ Katie looked at him blankly. ‘He left the thing turned on when he left the room.’
‘God knows where Harvey got the idea that you were some sort of paragon of virtue.’
‘I think he received his information on my exemplary character from a prejudiced source.’
‘And that would be?’
Nikos’s mobile lips twitched at the corners. ‘Caitlin.’
A woman, that figured, Katie thought darkly. ‘What exactly did you find out when you illegally accessed Harvey’s computer?’ she interrupted uneasily.
The idea of Nikos Lakis knowing chapter and verse the intimate details of her history was not a comfortable thought.
Harvey was the only one other than herself who knew the entire story of Peter’s death; the rest of the world thought, as she had until the letter written in that familiar hand had dropped on her doormat the day after his funeral, that her twin’s death had been a tragic accident—a young man fond of speed who took a bend too fast on his motor cycle.
For a long time she’d just held the letter, afraid to open it and read words that seemed to come from the grave.
‘Sorry, Katie,’ she’d read, ‘but I just can’t bear the guilt.’
Katie had read on in denial, unable to think of her brother so young, so filled with life, being in such despair that he had taken his own life. It’s not possible…I would have known…I should have known…!
‘I thought I’d killed the guy, I should have stopped but I panicked and rode away. The guy lived but he’s going to be paralysed for life.’
Katie had cried; she’d cried for a long time. She’d cried for her brother and she’d cried for the man whose life his recklessness had ruined.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ she’d yelled at the happy, laughing face beside her own in the framed photo. ‘You always come to me!’ It was true the twins had always turned to one another for support in times of crisis; they’d always presented a united front against the world.
Very much later Katie had discreetly gone about finding out what she could about the man Peter had left for dead at the roadside. She’d discovered Ian Graham had been a thirty-year-old electrician. He had married his childhood sweetheart and they’d had a ten-month-old baby.
Listening in to conversations at the corner shop in the village where they’d lived had told her he had not come to terms with his disability and his young wife had been at her wits’ end. Financially, the gossips had said, they’d been in a bad way; rumours had abounded that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with mortgage repayments for much longer.
Katie had vowed that she’d do something to help them, even if it took her the rest of her life, which sounded very grand but the Grahams needed help now, not in twenty years’ time.
It was only when she’d remembered the legacies she and Peter had been left by their Greek grandfather on condition they marry that she’d seen a way out. The shocked twins had concluded that this generosity from a grandfather they’d never even received a Christmas card from was the old man’s way of controlling the grandchildren he didn’t know. She and Peter had joked that they would never marry just to spite the man who through their childhood had always featured as the current villain in their games.
It was amazing really that such a strange series of circumstances had led her to exchange solemn vows with the man beside her.
‘Relax, your secrets are safe, there was just your address, which revealed you shared a postcode with Tom. It therefore seemed safe to assume that my wife and Tom’s angel were one and the same person.’
Katie released a gusty sigh of relief; he might be scarily perceptive but he wasn’t clairvoyant. Fortunately his ability to read her thoughts—or was it her body language?—had its limitations.
‘But it didn’t occur to you to let me know you were coming.’
‘Only momentarily,’ he admitted frankly. ‘But I quickly realised that your reactions might be less guarded if you had no warning.’
In other words he wanted to see me squirm and I obliged. ‘Tell me,’ she choked, ‘did you deprive many flies of their wings when you were a little boy?’
He seemed unmoved by her withering contempt. ‘Tom is my friend; I would not like to see him make an unwise marriage.’
‘And marriage to me would be unwise?’ Her voice rose a couple of outraged octaves, which made Nikos wince. ‘You didn’t seem to think so once!’
‘I arrived here with an open mind.’
Katie let out a mocking howl. ‘Like hell you did! What is it with you? Can’t you stand to see people happy?’
‘It’s only natural that you would be concerned, I am going to be uncooperative about the divorce.’
Katie’s eyes widened in alarm as she took an abrupt tumble from her moral high ground. ‘You’re not, are you?’
He didn’t reply to her dismayed