But it was a futile quest. Way too late and way too little.
Worse, he had always relished the solitude of the villa, but now it seemed to echo with the ghosts of happier days and he felt so very alone. Isolated. His sister Cassie had been right.
Five months wasn’t long enough to put aside his grief. Nowhere near.
He sniffed, and was about to stand when a thin black cat appeared at his side and meowed loudly for lunch as she rubbed herself along the lounger.
‘Okay, Emmy. Sorry I’m late.’
He shuffled across the patio towards the stone barbecue in his bare feet, watching out for sharp pebbles. Reaching into a tall metal bin, he pulled out a box of cat biscuits and quickly loaded up a plastic plate, narrowly avoiding the claws and teeth of the feral cat as it attacked the food. Within seconds her two white kittens appeared and cautiously approached the plate, their pink ears and tongue a total contrast to their mum. Dad Oscar must be out in the olive groves.
‘It’s okay, guys. It’s all yours.’ Mark chuckled as he filled the water bowl from the tap and set it down. ‘Bon appétit.’
He ran his hands through his hair and sighed out loud as he strolled back towards the villa. This was not getting the work done.
He had stolen ten days away from Belmont Investments to try and make some sense of the suitcase full of manuscript pages, press clippings, personal notes, appointment diaries and letters he had scooped up from his late mother’s desk. So far he had failed miserably.
It certainly hadn’t been his idea to finish his mother’s biography. Far from it. He knew it would only bring more publicity knocking on his door. But his father was adamant. He was prepared to do press interviews and make his life public property if it helped put the ghosts to rest and celebrate her life in the way he wanted.
But of course that had been before the relapse.
And since when could Mark refuse his father anything? He’d put his own dreams and personal aspirations to one side for the family before, and would willingly do it again in a heartbeat.
But where to start? How to write the biography of the woman known worldwide as Crystal Leighton, beautiful international movie star, but known to him as the mother who’d taken him shopping for shoes and turned up at every school sports day?
The woman who had been willing to give up her movie career rather than allow her family to be subjected to the constant and repeated invasion of privacy that came with being a celebrity?
Mark paused under the shade of the awning outside the dining-room window and looked out over the gardens and swimming pool as a light breeze brought some relief from the unrelenting late-June heat.
He needed to find some new way of working through the mass of information that any celebrity, wife and mother accumulated in a lifetime and make some sense of it all.
And one thing was clear. He had to do it fast.
The publisher had wanted the manuscript on his desk in time for a major celebration of Crystal Leighton at a London film festival scheduled for the week before Easter. The deadline had been pushed back to April, and now he would be lucky to have anything before the end of August.
And every time the date slipped another unofficial biography appeared. Packed with the usual lies, speculation and innuendo about her private life and, of course, the horrific way it had been brought to an early end.
He had to do something—anything—to protect the reputation of his mother. He’d failed to protect her privacy when it mattered most, and he refused to fail her again. If anyone was going to create a biography it would be someone who cared about keeping her reputation and memory alive and revered.
No going back. No compromises. He would keep his promise and he was happy to do it—for her and for his family. And just maybe there was a slim chance that he would come to terms with his own crushing guilt at how much he had failed her. Maybe.
Mark turned back towards the house and frowned as he saw movement on the other side of the French doors separating the house from the patio.
Strange. His housekeeper was away and he wasn’t expecting visitors. Any visitors. He had made sure of that. His office had strict instructions not to reveal the location of the villa or give out his private contact details to anyone.
Mark blinked several times and found his glasses on the side table.
A woman he had never seen before was strolling around inside his living room, picking things up and putting them down again as if she owned the place.
His things! Things he had not intended anyone else to see. Documents that were personal and very private.
He inhaled slowly and forced himself to stay calm. Anger and resentment boiled up from deep inside his body. He had to fight the urge to rush inside and throw this woman out onto the lane, sending her back whence she came.
The last thing he wanted was yet another journalist or so-called filmmaker looking for some dirt amongst his parents’ personal letters.
This was the very reason he’d come to Paxos in the first place. To escape constant pressure from the world of journalists and the media. And now it seemed that the world had decided to invade his privacy. Without even having the decency to ring the doorbell and ask to be admitted.
This was unacceptable.
Mark rolled back his shoulders, his head thumping, his hands clenched and his attention totally focused on the back of the head of this woman who thought she had the right to inspect the contents of his living room.
The patio door was half-open, and Mark padded across the stone patio in his bare feet quietly, so that she wouldn’t hear him against the jazz piano music tinkling out from his favourite CD which he had left playing on Repeat.
He unfurled one fist so that his hand rested lightly on the doorframe. But as he moved the glass backwards his body froze, his hand flat against the doorjamb.
There was something vaguely familiar about this chestnut-haired woman who was so oblivious to his presence, her head tilted slightly to one side as she browsed the family collection of popular novels and business books that had accumulated here over the years.
She reminded him of someone he had met before, but her name and the circumstamces of that meeting drew an annoying blank. Perhaps it was due to the very odd combination of clothing she was wearing. Nobody on this island deliberately chose to wear floral grey and pink patterned leggings beneath a fuchsia dress and an expensive jacket. And she had to be wearing four or five long, trailing scarves in contrasting patterns and colours, which in this heat was not only madness but clearly designed to impress rather than be functional.
She must have been quite entertaining for the other passengers on the ferry or the hydrofoil to the island from Corfu that morning.
One thing was certain.
This girl was not a tourist. She was a city girl, wearing city clothes. And that meant she was here for one reason—and that reason was him. Probably some journalist who had asked him for an interview at some function or other and was under pressure from her editor to deliver. She might have come a long way to track him down, but that was her problem. Whoever she was, it was time to find out what she wanted and send her back to the city.
Then she picked up a silver-framed photograph, and his blood ran cold.
It was the only precious picture he had from the last Christmas they had celebrated together as a family. His mother’s happy face smiled out from the photograph, complete with the snowman earrings and reindeer headset she was wearing in honour of Cassie’s little boy. A snapshot of life at Belmont Manor as it used to be and never could be again.
And now it was in the hands of a stranger.
Max