The Blackmailed Bride (2 page)

‘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 wished that she'd been standing a bit closer to the front of the queue when they'd handed out the sex appeal factor.

A spasm of sulky annoyance passed over Susie's pretty face at this impatient dismissal; her tears in general evoked a more sympathetic response.

Kate dropped down into the wicker chair and pulled her knees up to her chin; her irritation bubbled to the surface. ‘What on earth possessed you to get involved with the man in the first place…? You're supposed to be engaged to Chris… Are things all right between you and him, or are you having second thoughts?'

‘Don't start on about me being too young to settle down again, Kate!' Susie scowled. ‘I'm not like you; I don't want
a career and being engaged doesn't mean you can't have any fun,' she announced with a toss of her blonde head.

Kate didn't swallow this hard-nosed attitude for one minute, Susie was wilful but she was a long way from being as callous as she liked to pretend.

‘
Fun!
Couldn't you have stuck to beach volley-ball?'

This evoked a watery smile. ‘Well, if you had arrived last week, like you were meant to, I wouldn't have been so bored…' Susie stretched one long sun-tanned leg in front of her. The complacent contemplation of the smooth expanse of shapely golden flesh made the sulky line of her lips lift attractively.

Only Susie, Kate decided, could turn this thing around so that her sister had the ultimate responsibility—Susie really was totally impossible, Kate reflected with rueful affection.

‘I had to work, you know that.'

‘Work?' Susie snorted in disgust. ‘It's all you ever think about. No wonder Seb dumped you.' She lifted her head, pushing a strand of long blonde hair from her eyes, and grimaced apologetically. ‘Sorry, that was a bitchy thing to say,' she admitted. ‘But,' she added swiftly in her own defence, ‘this was the holiday from hell, even before Luis turned out to be a low-life, what with Mum and Dad spending every day traipsing around boring churches and things, wanting me to come along.' Her horrified expression was an accurate indicator that these pastimes weren't Susie's idea of pleasure. ‘I always said a family holiday at our age was asking for trouble…'

‘I thought you decided it wouldn't be so bad when you realised Dad was footing the bill,' Kate couldn't resist observing.

‘I just thank God they didn't book that awful place in the mountains you fancied so much. There wasn't anything to do there but watch the grass grow.'

‘There also wasn't a Luis.'

‘Actually, Katie,' Susie began with an awkward rush, ‘the photos…I think he might have spiked my drink when we were by the pool. I mean, I'm not one hundred per cent positive,' she added hurriedly, ‘but I know a girl who had her drink spiked…'

Kate's horrified gasp went ignored as her sister, oblivious to the fact she'd said anything to send chills through Kate's blood, continued, ‘Oh, she was all right. Fortunately a gang of us arrived as the stuff was kicking in and the guy in question made a quick exit. She collapsed in the loos and we had an awful job getting her back home,' she recalled. ‘It's just B—
her
symptoms—' Susie corrected herself with a display of discretion that surprised Kate ‘—I felt a lot like that. I could hardly get back to my own room, I felt so woozy, and I'd only had a glass of white wine…'

‘What a total sleaze!' Kate exclaimed in disgust. ‘We should call the police.'

‘Get serious, Kate!' Susie responded scornfully. ‘I could kick myself. I'm normally really careful about things like that—I never leave my glass on a table, I carry it around with me. Of course, I
never
accept a drink from a man I don't know…'

‘Of course,' Kate responded faintly.

As she had listened to Susie casually outlining the list of precautions which were obviously second nature to her, Kate wondered if she was herself extraordinarily trusting or just plain reckless, because even though she'd heard of such things happening since the advent of the so-called date rape drugs, she had never dreamt of taking any of these measures… But then she had never dated a stranger; her boyfriends such as they were had always been friends of friends or work colleagues.

‘What really gets me, is that he didn't even
try
and touch
me… It was Dad's money he was interested in all along, not me!'

‘Well thank God for that!'

‘I just feel such a fool. I was wondering how I was going to let him down lightly; I thought he was potty about me. God, Katie!' she wailed. ‘What am I going to do…?'

Placing a comforting arm around the younger girl's shaking shoulders, Kate hugged her tight. She crossed her fingers. ‘Don't worry, Suse, it'll be all right.'
I hope!

‘Then you'll lend me the money to pay him off…?' Susie lifted her tear stained face eagerly.

‘We're not giving him a penny,' Kate responded, her tone outraged at the idea of giving into a blackmailer. ‘I'll get the photos and the negatives.'

‘But how?'

‘That,' admitted Kate frankly, ‘I haven't worked out yet.'

‘Listen, Kate, I don't think this is such a good idea. I mean, Luis isn't going to hand them over, is he? And once or twice I've seen him talking with some shifty-looking types. Actually, I think he could be quite mean himself…' She gave a shamefaced little grin. ‘I suppose, if I'm honest, that was half the attraction…the danger thing,' she sniffed. ‘You know what I mean…' She looked at her elder sister who pushed her specs up the bridge of her nose. ‘I don't suppose you do. I know you think I'm a selfish little cow but even I might lose an hour or two's sleep if you got hurt because of me.'

Kate pulled a tissue from the pocket of her shorts and dabbed her sister's pink nose. ‘Don't fret. I've no intention of getting hurt, Suse.'

 

Kate had waited an hour in the darkness watching the staff bungalow until she was satisfied there was nobody home. The wait had taken its toll, by the time she tentatively tried the door she felt physically sick with nerves and her heart
was pounding so loud, its frantic, echoey thud cut out all other sounds. She couldn't recall ever feeling this scared, not even the first time she'd made her court appearance as a newly qualified barrister.

She could hardly believe her luck when the door opened at the first try. Relieved she wouldn't have to put her admittedly hazy knowledge of lock picking—second hand, naturally—to the test, Kate slid the credit card she'd brought for the purpose into the back pocket of her dark jeans and adjusted the dark hood on her head so that it covered all her pale hair.

Shining her torch around the darkened room, she picked her way stealthily through the discarded garments littering the carpet. Her skin crawled and she stifled a scream as her foot got entangled in a shirt. This whole enterprise was making her feel grubby. After this is over I'll need a stiff drink and a bath, not necessarily in that order she thought as she carefully balanced the torch on top of the chest of drawers.

Her hands were shaking so much, it took her two goes to slide the top drawer open. Concentrate, Kate she told herself, taking a deep fortifying breath. It's my lucky day she decided as her fingers closed around an envelope—the shape of which felt very promising…

Her newly fortified wits fled gibbering in panic as the room was suddenly flooded with strong light from a powerful flashlight that dwarfed her own feeble beam. Before she even had a chance to turn around, a pair of strong arms snaked around her, pinning one arm to her chest as, arched backwards by the tight embrace, her feet were lifted off the ground.

Her rudimentary Spanish could not cope with the staccato burst of furious-sounding words which hissed like bullets in her ear. With Susie's warnings about this blackmailer and his shady friends ringing in her ears, she began to
struggle wildly. With her free arm she flailed backwards, trying to inflict as much damage as possible, enough at least to make her captor loosen his grip. A chair and several sundry items, including her glasses, were casualties of her frenzied efforts to free herself.

Only this captor wasn't letting her go, not even when she brought her trainer-shod heel—stilettos would have produced much more satisfactory results—down viciously onto his instep, the way they'd taught her in self-defence class. She took small comfort from the fact it must have hurt like hell because he cursed—at least it sounded like a curse.

Kate wasn't a short woman and, though slim, she wasn't delicate—she kept herself fit, she ran and enjoyed playing sports—but it soon became clear to her that she was vastly outclassed. It was obvious that restraining her was not overly exerting her captor, who wasn't even breathing heavily. A pragmatist, she quickly accepted she couldn't fight her way out of this situation—that left talking her way out, and she was good at that…

‘Please…let me go!' she panted, forcing her body to go limp.

‘English?'

The startled exclamation across the room was the first indication to her that she wasn't only outclassed but outnumbered too.

‘You're English?' The low, cultured voice close to her ear had only the faintest husky tinge of an attractive accent.