photographs. Do you still have them?’
Slight colour touched his cheekbones. ‘I don’t understand what purpose it would serve—’
‘Show me!’
After only the briefest hesitation he reached into his desk and withdrew a large envelope, thoroughly discomfited by the fact that he still had the photographs to hand. It raised questions that he’d never wanted to address before.
But Katy didn’t ask questions. She didn’t even seem to find it strange that he had the photographs in his desk eleven years later.
She just ripped at the envelope with shaking hands and emptied the contents onto the desk.
As the glossy prints emerged from the envelope, Jago felt the tension rise in his body. His lean hands fisted and he felt the same sickness he’d felt when he’d first seen them. ‘I warn you—they’re very revealing.’
She gave an uneven laugh. ‘I’m sure they are.’ She lifted the photographs, suddenly in possession of an icy control that he’d never seen before.
He frowned slightly, puzzled by her reaction. She certainly wasn’t behaving like a woman with a guilty conscience.
As her eyes dropped to the first photograph he averted his eyes. He still wasn’t able to look at pictures of her entwined so intimately with another man without wanting to commit grievous bodily harm. Why the hell had he kept them? He should have burned them years ago.
She flicked steadily through the pictures, her beautiful face blank.
Then finally she dropped the last one on the pile and lifted her eyes to his. ‘I always wondered what made you leave.’ Her tone was flat and suddenly all his senses were on alert. Alarm bells were ringing but he didn’t know why. She lifted her chin, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘You didn’t think to ask me about them?’
He was watching her warily now, totally confused by her reaction. Instead of guilt and apology, her blue eyes were full of hurt and accusation.
And disappointment.
Was he missing something here?
‘They appear to speak for themselves,’ he observed, and she nodded slowly.
‘But not when you look at all the facts together.’ She turned away from him and walked over to the window, staring out across the courtyard. ‘I always wondered what my father said to make you walk away. I knew it had to have been him that ended our relationship. Nothing else made sense.’
Jago was suddenly very still. ‘Your father had nothing to do with it. It was my choice to walk away—’
‘Yes. You were to blame too, for believing him.’ She turned to face him and her eyes were sad. ‘He played you like a master, Jago. He did what he does with everyone. He looked for your weakness and then he moved in for the kill.’
Disconcerted and not used to the feeling, Jago stiffened. ‘And what was my weakness?’
‘Your pride,’ she said simply. ‘You are, by nature, proud and possessive and my father knew that the one thing that would drive you away from me was finding me with another man. So he made it happen.’
There was an uncomfortable silence while Jago digested her words. ‘You’re saying that he somehow manufactured these photographs?’ He waved a lean brown hand across his desk. ‘That they aren’t really you?’
‘Oh, yes, they’re me.’ Katy walked back to the desk and picked up the photograph at the top of the pack. ‘Good, aren’t they? They were taken in a studio in North London when I was modelling. One of the teenage mags wanted some shots to illustrate an article they were doing on safe sex. Aiden and I were supposed to look as though we were in love. Funnily enough, I was more relaxed than I would normally have been because I was in love.’ Her eyes lifted to his and there was more than a hint of accusation in her clear blue gaze. ‘I was in love with you, Jago.’
Modelling photographs?
Jago was struggling hard to get a grip on the facts. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the photos could have been part of her modelling life.
No. They couldn’t be.
Shielding his emotions from her, he glanced at the one on the top of the pile, noticing for the first time all the hallmarks of a professional photographer.
Feeling as though he’d just taken a cold shower, he suppressed a groan. How had he managed to miss that possibility? But he knew the answer, of course. He’d been so furiously angry at what he’d seen as her betrayal that he’d reacted with raw, naked emotion. Had he employed some of the intellect in his possession he might have reached a different conclusion.
But Katy’s father had been completely correct in his reading of his character. He’d gambled on the fact that Jago’s Spanish pride would prevent him from wanting to contact her again. And the gamble had paid off. He’d walked into the sunset and left her.
He stilled, unable to grasp the fact that he could have made such a colossal misjudgement. ‘You never slept with him?’
‘No. He’s also gay.’
Her tone was flat and Jago tensed, struggling with the appalling reality of having been thoroughly manipulated. ‘I thought—’
‘I can see what you thought. Please, don’t spell it out any further. I find your suppositions totally offensive.’ She gathered up the photographs and he reached out and grabbed her wrist, preventing her from leaving.
‘Wait.’ His fingers tightened. ‘If you suspected that your father was responsible, why didn’t you come after me?’
She looked at him sadly. ‘Because I believed in you. I never knew what made you leave, but I guessed that my father was behind it and for months I held onto this childish dream that our love would prove stronger than my father had anticipated and that you’d come back and at least talk to me. But you never did.’
He flinched at that but his fingers tightened on her wrists. He needed answers. ‘Why would your father do that to you? To us?’
‘Surely that’s obvious. He didn’t want us together.’ She lifted her eyes to his. ‘He found out and he wanted to end it so he bided his time until he found the most effective way. I warned you that we should keep our relationship a secret, but you insisted that you wouldn’t creep around.’
Jago’s broad shoulders tensed. ‘I wasn’t afraid of your father.’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘But I was. And I was the one left to deal with him after you walked off, Jago. My father didn’t know that you had no intention of committing to anyone. For some unfathomable reason he thought you were serious about me and that was the last thing he wanted.’
Jago almost groaned aloud. He had been serious.
And he’d made the fatal mistake of telling her father.
Understanding just what had caused her father to take such dramatic steps, Jago ran a hand over his face, lost for words for the first time in his life.
Katy
