‘Sarah would never be unfaithful to you, Scott. That girl loves you to death!’
Yes, well, he’d always thought so too. But obviously, he was wrong. Cleo, as well.
Scott would have shown her the photos, if he still had them. But he’d given the phone in question to his head of security last Saturday afternoon to have the damned things investigated.
Showing Harvey the photos of his wife with another man had been mortifying to say the least, but he simply had to make sure the photos were genuine and discover who had sent them. Plus he wanted to find out everything he could about the man involved. Lord knew what he would do once he found out his identity.
The man in the photos was facially handsome but he wasn’t as tall or as well built as Scott, his frame on the lean side. Elegant, though. And a snazzy dresser. Scott hated him with a passion.
‘Harvey just rang to say he was on his way up,’ Cleo said, interrupting his jealous train of thought. ‘Do you want me to get you both some coffee?’
Scott had been waiting for Harvey to report back to him all morning, but now that the moment was here he wished he’d never started on this course of action. He should have made Sarah stay and talk to him; should have insisted on her explaining those photos. Though what explanation could there possibly be? She hadn’t denied their veracity. Her outrage that morning had been directed at him, and what he’d done the night before. Okay, so he should have shown her the photos as soon as he arrived home but he hadn’t. Naturally, he’d still been too angry with her the following morning to apologise for what she called his caveman mentality. Her attempts to put the blame on him had almost worked, too. After she’d stormed out of the apartment, he’d begun to think that maybe she was innocent.
Till he’d looked at the photos again.
Scott’s teeth clenched down hard in his jaw after which he glanced up at his patient PA. ‘No coffee right now, thank you, Cleo,’ he told her, doing his best to sound normal and not like a man about to face a firing squad. ‘Oh, and, Cleo...thanks for standing in for me last Friday. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
Cleo shrugged. ‘Afraid I didn’t do you much good. The investor made it obvious that he didn’t like dealing with a female, especially one who’s under thirty. Still, if you want my opinion, you’re better off without his money. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He had shifty eyes.’
Scott smiled a wry smile. Cleo had the habit of judging people by their eyes. And strangely, she was usually right. She’d prevented him making errors in judgment several times. And she had liked Sarah, had thought her the loveliest, nicest girl. He supposed no one could always be right.
‘I’ll scratch him off as a potential partner, then,’ he said.
‘That would be my advice. Still, you’ll need to find someone else quick smart, Scott, or you’ll have to shut down the nickel refinery. Maybe the mine as well. You can’t keep running both at a loss indefinitely.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ he bit out. ‘Look, do some research and see who might be open to investment. Someone from Australia maybe. Ah, Harvey’s here. Come in, Harvey.’
Cleo left them to it, Harvey’s poker face revealing absolutely nothing as he walked in. Harvey was in his mid-fifties, a big burly man and totally bald, with a craggily handsome face, an uncompromising mouth and cold blue eyes. He’d spent twenty years on the police force and another ten as a private detective before he’d become Scott’s head of security. His bouncer-like appearance made him an excellent bodyguard, a job he’d done for Scott on occasion. Being a successful mining magnate did have its hazards, especially when a mine had to be closed, even temporarily. Despite his blue-collar appearance—Harvey was wearing jeans and a black leather bomber jacket—Harvey was also an IT expert, an invaluable security tool in this day and age.
Scott shut his office door then waved Harvey to one of the two armchairs in front of his desk.
‘So what have you found out?’ he asked straight away, hiding his escalating tension behind a brusque tone.
Harvey’s eyes carried the closest thing to compassion that Scott had ever seen in them.
His heart sank, his stomach swirling with sudden nausea. Slumping into his office chair, he scooped in a deep breath then let it out slowly. ‘From the look on your face, I presume you haven’t any good news to tell me.’
‘No.’
A man of few words, was Harvey.
Scott gathered himself in readiness for the worst. ‘Okay, shoot,’ he said.
Harvey leant forward and placed Scott’s phone on the desktop before settling back into the chair.
‘First things first,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘The phone used to send you those photos was a throwaway. Couldn’t be traced.’
‘I suspected that,’ Scott said. ‘Were they real, though? The photos?’
‘Yes. They weren’t doctored in any way.’
Scott swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. ‘What about the dates and times they were taken?’
‘Also real. I was able to confirm everything by checking the hotel’s security vision. They have cameras set up everywhere.’
‘And what hotel was it?’
‘The Regency.’
Scott’s gut tightened. The Regency was a five-star hotel that was a stone’s throw from the building where Sarah worked. ‘What else have you found out?’ he asked, resigned to more bad news.
‘I spoke to a member of the bar staff who was working last Friday at lunchtime. He remembered Sarah.’
Of course he did, Scott thought grimly. Any man who wasn’t blind would remember Sarah. She was a stunning-looking girl with long creamy blonde hair, big blue eyes and a mouth that would tempt Saint Peter himself. Add to that a slender but shapely figure that was always housed in softly feminine clothes and you had a package that drew every man’s eye—and kept it.
Scott had never forgotten the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. It had been just on fifteen months ago. He’d been in the process of buying a clapped-out diamond mine he’d had a hunch about and had arrived early for an appointment at Goldstein & Evans, a Sydney legal firm he always used for signing business contracts. Sarah had been sent to greet him, acting more like an accomplished hostess rather than the newly graduated lawyer that he’d soon found out that she was. Scott had fallen madly in love at first sight. She’d confessed to him one week later on their third dinner date that she’d been similarly smitten with him.
And he’d believed her. Three months later she’d become his wife. One year later, it looked as if she was about to become his ex-wife.
Scott cleared his throat. ‘What else did the barman say?’
‘He said they looked pretty cosy together. Sat off in a very private corner. Didn’t drink much. Just talked. Then after about fifteen minutes, they upped and left.’
‘Right,’ Scott bit out. They both knew exactly where they’d gone. The photos had told the story. First, the man had gone to Reception and booked a room. Then they’d ridden up in the lift and gone into the room, not emerging till forty-five minutes later.
‘On the plus side, the barman did say he’d never seen her in there before,’ Harvey added.
Terrific. But there were other hotels in Sydney’s CBD. Heaps of them.
‘The guy looked familiar, though,’ Harvey went on. ‘Been there with some other woman on a few occasions. A brunette.’
‘Did you find out who he was?’