Temptation Island (54 page)

He presented champagne to a cluster of women dripping in diamonds. Just one of those rocks would have been enough to feed his poor dead mother for a year.

Several times, he caught a flash of her hair—maybe, once, the shimmer of her gold-black eyes. He had to keep his distance. Though he looked different now, he could not risk her recognising him. It wasn’t hard to defy temptation. After all, she had taught him well.

Lori
.

He glimpsed the bronze of her skin not ten feet away, the curve of her shoulder, the body he had been denied. As her male companion slid a possessive arm round her waist, Enrique’s resolve hardened, as cold and absolute as stone.

Lori abided Maximo’s touch because as far as the rest of the world was concerned, they were together. They had a child. They were passionately in love.

‘How’s your son?’ enquired Stevie. ‘He’s gorgeous, such blue eyes.’

Lori’s smile faltered. ‘He’s an angel,’ she replied. Out of the saloon’s wraparound windows she could see the retreating line of golden sand and the contours of the island they were leaving behind. ‘Do you and Xander want to have kids?’

Stevie was cut short by the appearance of her husband at her side.

‘Lori, Maximo, have you met Xander Jakobson?’

‘A pleasure.’ Xander extended his hand and Maximo shook it enthusiastically.

‘I was just telling Stevie how much I enjoyed your joint venture,’ Lori told him.

‘It was certainly the start of something special,’ he said. Stevie kissed his cheek.

Lori wished life were as simple for her. Love, marriage, a family. Stevie and Xander were so happy. How had she herself wound up embroiled in this web of unthinkable deceit?

Her gaze travelled fleetingly across the room, searching but not finding: blind to every face but the man’s who could save her.

On the shores of Cacatra, Margaret Jensen watched as the gargantuan yacht peeled silently off into the wide, blue ocean. Her brief commission to present her son at Mr V’s side was over.

She turned back to the house. Despite the balmy warmth of the evening, she shivered.

‘Are you cold?’ Ralph lifted his face to her, cute as a button in his custom-made suit.

‘No, darling,’ she lied. ‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’

Ralph clambered ahead up the white stone steps. Margaret hung back, glancing across the water at the doomed boat as it set sail on its final, gruesome voyage.

Damn Reuben!

If he hadn’t been such a selfish, neglectful user, she would never have had to resort to such desperate methods.
To have a son who knew her only as a housekeeper, a whole life hidden from the public eye because she wasn’t good enough for Mr V’s billions of dollars and with that kind of money he could—and did—buy anyone he wanted.

She had been left with no choice. Mr V deserved to die.
And those people …

She gulped. Those people were the reason he did what he did. They were just as corrupt, taking advantage of young women the world over. Judgement Day had been a long time coming.

Margaret entered the ghostly hall, like the house of someone who died. Ralph was shouting for her to join him upstairs, where he wanted to watch the boat from the roof because he could see it better from there.

Xander knew he was drinking too fast. Being in proximity to JB Moreau had the familiar effect. He was running hot and cold, his heart skipping. Would JB be pleased he had come? Would he greet him like an old friend? After all it had been Xander’s decision to keep his distance. JB wasn’t good for him. JB wasn’t good for anyone.

He pretended to be interested as Maximo Diaz blathered on.

‘I’d love to collaborate,’ Maximo plugged. ‘How about working something out?’

Xander knew how it went. He slugged back the last of his glass.

‘I’ll have my people call your people.’

Always better that way around.

Whoever had failed to update the guest list would be fired unceremoniously at dawn. Reuben had assumed that
none
of the Nash family would be present and that suited him just fine. So why had no one informed him Aurora Nash was coming?

I’m one of them
.

The message haunted him. Through the smiles and laughter and autopilot salutations, Reuben was sweating like a twelve-year-old in a brothel.

If Aurora had written it, he knew his very worst fears were confirmed.

A senator’s wife air-kissed him on both cheeks. He grimaced through it.

Someone must have informed her. It was the only explanation.

As soon as Reuben found out who that was, he swore it would be murder.

Enrique Marquez deposited his tray in the galley and waited stoically while the chefs, frantically moving and yelling at one another to keep up, loaded the platters. Steam and sweat obscured their faces. Their pace was astounding and Enrique mused on the sheer futility of what he was witnessing. In less than three hours, these people would all be dead. The painstakingly prepared food would be blown to trillions of pieces, the lobster sundae and squid-ink nests returned to the depths from which they’d come. Nothing left. Carnage.

The canapés were arriving, teeny-tiny creations that had taken hours to craft but would vanish in a greedy half-second down the gullets of the wealthy and privileged. Enrique was presented with a board of smoked salmon, each paper-thin sliver arranged like a rose with a nub of slick caviar at its centre. Lifting it, he departed the bustle of
the kitchen and made his way back up the narrow staircase and into the saloon.

Lori was nowhere. Enrique cursed himself for daring to look. Supposing she saw him? He had to stay low or it was game over. Fixing his eyes to the floor, he focused his mind.

The plan was perfect.

He knew this kind of vessel like the back of his hand. Van der Meyde’s yacht boasted six dinghies attached to its stern, each lowered to the water via a system of pulleys. At midnight, while van der Meyde received his gift in front of the crowd—a two-hundred-year-old bottle of brandy shipwrecked on its way to a king, today the most expensive drink in the world—Enrique would slip to the rear, where he’d descend the aft platform. There, he would board one of the boats, drop to the churning swell and, under thirty minutes later, as he approached the shore …

Click.

Boom
.

Even if his escape were witnessed, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.
Carnage. Perfection
.

The two things weren’t so different, after all.

58

The girl in the cake was predictable. Reuben grinned through it: she was pretty enough, young, eager to please and entirely fuckable, but his attention was elsewhere.

‘Happy birthday to you,’
she sang husky-Marilyn-style, dressed in a corseted playsuit, the nipped-in waist an extreme contrast to the generous spill of near-escaping cleavage. These days they called it Burlesque. As far as Reuben was concerned, a stripper was a stripper.

She concluded by sending him a kiss. On an ordinary night he’d have her waiting in his cabin for their journey back to shore: a quick blow job between engagements.

People were clapping him on the back and congratulating him, glasses raised and toasted as the night moved into gear and celebrations formally kicked off. Reuben charmed his way across the saloon and towards the stage, mingling with ease as he introduced unfamiliar faces and reacquainted old ones. The consummate host was both a king and a man of the people.

Once the welcome was done, he’d find Aurora. And when he found her, he could end it.

So where was she?

Stevie was sickened by the show. It was the twenty-first century and yet performances like this still got put on. Reuben van der Meyde had smirked lecherously for the duration, crocodile eyes raking the woman’s body. Stevie sensed the dancer would likely drop her knickers soon as the birthday boy decided on an added perk. That’s what wealth could achieve. When had the world become such a sinister playground?

Dirk Michaels appeared in her vision. He was at the opposite end of the saloon, standing next to his miserable-looking wife and chewing enthusiastically with his mouth open. Stevie deposited her glass on a passing tray and moved off.

‘Wait.’ Xander stopped her. ‘What are you doing?’

A couple in front shot them a look to be quiet. Reuben had taken to the mic, was tapping it for sound as he prepared to welcome the assembly on board.

‘… to see so many of you here,’ he began, ‘so many faces from over the years …’

Stevie’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘The sooner this is over,’ she told her husband, ‘the sooner we can leave.’

‘We’re on a boat,’ Xander reminded her. ‘We can’t just
leave
.’

‘Don’t be facetious. You know what I mean.’

The woman turned again.
‘Shh!’

‘I’m speaking to Moreau first.’

‘Why? There’s no point.’

But Xander held on to her tightly. Maybe he was right.
She had to be patient. They weren’t here to start a revolution; they were here to help Bibi.

Reuben was perspiring in his suit. ‘When I acquired Cacatra,’ he was saying, ‘I had no idea how important it would become. Not only to me but to everyone here …’

I’ll bet
, Stevie thought bitterly.

‘Tonight is as much about the island we love as it is about me.’

‘Fine,’ she muttered to her husband. ‘But when this is over, you’re tracking him down.’

Lori visited the bathroom on the upper deck. It was quiet, just a few straggling guests returning from a brief exploration, disappointed to have missed Reuben’s address.

The bathroom was decked in gold and mahogany. Mood music piped through invisible speakers and classic leather armchairs adorned the marble floor.

Lori met her reflection. She wondered how many women had stared themselves down in these waters. How many hopeful mothers had visited Cacatra and heard of van der Meyde’s solution and looked so deep into themselves and their conscience that it hurt.

JB’s involvement was atrocious. How could he consent to such a thing? The treachery, the dishonesty, the brutal deceit … And yet it accounted for so much. For how he had come for her that day, for how he had seemed to know her in a way no one else did, for how he’d been forced to retreat when she’d arrived at La Lumière. And once Lori had overcome the impact of Rebecca Stuttgart’s revelation, it became clear that this was Reuben’s business and his alone. Involvement was not the same as initiation. It made sense
that JB would seek refuge with the man who had been his parents’ ally. Could she punish him for that?

When JB had stepped into
Tres Hermanas
all those moons ago he
had
been there to save her—and not just from Diego Marquez. Women sourced were paid and protected for life. If JB had approached her with the offer, helping immeasurably her father, Rico and, yes, herself, could she honestly promise that, hand on heart, she would have refused?

He became obsessed by you
, Rebecca had said.
You were too special to let go
.

It clouded Lori’s mind, intoxicating her with sweet promise.

She thought of Omar and his beautiful blue eyes.

The family they could be.

Aurora drank in the fresh air like a desert wanderer stumbling across water. The sheltered aft deck was host to a handful of guests, smoke from their cigarettes snatched by the breeze as they talked animatedly beneath heat-lamps. She made her way up to the bow. It was empty.

The sun was slipping away. A canopy of tentative stars winked overhead.

Aurora leaned on the bow, one foot on the bottom tread. One move would be all it took, just one, a leap of faith. What would it feel like? Cold and salty and going down for miles. She pictured the endless fathoms, the mammoth great white sharks that prowled these waters.

Cacatra was far behind them now. Amid open sky and open sea, halved by the horizon, the earth revealed its curvature.

Down in the cabin, Reuben had finished speaking. She
had not felt able to be part of his audience, grovelling over his phony magnificence. It was the last audience van der Meyde would ever have, the last speech he would ever make. He had entered the last hour of his life and he hadn’t got a clue. For once, the man who knew everything knew nothing.

Aurora set her jaw. She stared ahead, the power of the vessel in line with her intentions, driving her forward and confirming her fate.

She fingered the knife, adjusted its position so the tough handle was ready to grasp.

Like killing a deer, a clean quick slice to the throat.

Almost too easy. Almost unfair. He would not have a chance to beg for his life.

Lori exited the bathroom and ran straight into Maximo Diaz.

‘I’ve been looking for you.’

She backed against the wall, fending him off. Every time he came close she was swamped by dread.

‘We should go back,’ she said tightly.

‘Should we?’ Maximo attempted to kiss her but she dodged his lips. ‘Relax, Lori, it’s a beautiful night. We’ll be married soon …’

A fashion editor in L’Wren Scott passed, smiled awkwardly and disappeared into the restroom. Lori managed to dilute her look of reluctance before it was noted. Maximo ran a thumb across her chin. ‘I
am
going to ask you, you know.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘It’s what everybody wants.’

‘Except me.’

‘Hey,’ he teased menacingly, ‘I know you don’t like to rush things, Lori. I mean, you walk out of my life one day and ask me to be a father to your child the next…’

‘Keep your voice down, please.’

‘There’s no one here.’

‘We’ve talked this through a thousand times. You said you understood—’

‘I know, I know.’ He held his hands up like he’d only been kidding, but Lori was noticing he referred to the pact more and more. It was as if the longer she held out on Maximo physically, the greater risks he was prepared to take with their discretion.

The beauty editor re-emerged and he took the opportunity to kiss Lori full on the lips, knowing she wouldn’t be able to pull away. She let him, even tolerated his tongue in her mouth. When she was sure the woman had gone she shoved him off.