and give it back. It didn’t matter that touching a jewel that Tiffany had worn somehow brought comfort. She was going to have to find her comfort in other ways.
It was time to do the right thing.
Time to return the jewel.
‘Are you all right? I wanted to check on you.’ Helen Knightly hovered in the doorway and Angie looked up from her computer and adjusted her glasses.
Two days had passed and she’d heard nothing from Nikos Kyriacou but, oddly enough, his silence was more disturbing than his presence. She didn’t trust him. ‘I’m fine, thank you. Honestly.’
‘I’m sorry about the other day.’ Her boss was clutching a newspaper. ‘When he arrived in my office demanding to see you, I tried to suggest that he make an appointment but he didn’t take no for an answer.’
Angie gave a wan smile. ‘No. He doesn’t appear to be very good at hearing that word.’
‘I suppose it was nice that he wanted to come and apologise in person.’
Under the cover of her desk, Angie’s toes curled in her shoes. ‘Absolutely.’ She had no intention of revealing that the purpose of Nikos Kyriacou’s visit had had little to do with contrition and everything to do with greed.
‘It must have been hard for him too, losing a girlfriend.’ Helen Knightly sighed and held out the newspaper she was holding. ‘I think you ought to see this before anyone else shows you. It’s a little upsetting, I suppose, but you have to remember that he’s obviously trying to get on with his life just as you are, which has to be a good thing. How’s your mother?’
‘She’s fine,’ Angie said absently, taking the paper with a flicker of disquiet. A little upsetting? What exactly would be in a newspaper that she would find upsetting? ‘What do you mean, “he’s obviously trying to get on with his life”?’
‘Page two story: “Greek tycoon seeks consolation after villa tragedy.”’
Her mouth dry and her heart pounding, Angie opened the paper with shaking hands and found herself faced with a large picture of Nikos Kyriacou emerging from a nightclub in close contact with a tall willowy blonde.
Angie stared down at the paper, a dangerous cocktail of emotions mingling inside her. Shock, pain and anger tangled together and she dropped the paper on to the desk and sucked in a deep breath to try and calm herself.
Was that why he was so desperate to repossess the jewel? So that he could give it to another woman?
Helen made an apologetic sound. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have shown you—’
‘You were right to show me.’ As if in a trance, Angie stood up, trying to clear her thoughts and control herself. Feeling slightly dazed, she looked at Helen, her expression bewildered. ‘Have you ever thought you knew yourself really well, only to discover that you’re not the person you thought you were?’
Helen’s expression was puzzled. ‘Well, no, I don’t suppose I have, but you’ve suffered a severe shock, my dear, had a terrible loss to cope with. It’s natural that you should be feeling strange and a little unsettled, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘I don’t feel strange or unsettled.’ She felt—furious. Bitterly angry that Nikos Kyriacou could be allowed to brush off the matter of her sister’s death as nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Absolutely boiling mad that he would happily date another woman in full view of the press without so much as a flicker of conscience or the slightest concession to decency. Had he given any thought at all to what such a picture would do to her already grieving mother?
The desire to seriously hurt him grew and grew inside her and she curled her fists into her palms and understood for the first time in her life what it was like to want revenge. For the first time she had some understanding of what had driven her mother to urge her to seek justice. She was so blisteringly angry with him, so insulted and hurt by his careless, arrogant behaviour that she wanted to make him suffer.
She sank down on to the chair, still holding the newspaper as she tried to calm herself down. Tried to remember who she was. She was a respected archaeologist. She was an educated woman—a pacifist who believed totally in the use of negotiation as a means of solving disputes. She didn’t believe in ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. She didn’t believe in vengeance.
So why did she suddenly want to find a way of hurting Nikos Kyriacou the way he’d hurt her sister?
‘Go home.’ Helen stepped forward and prised the newspaper from her numb fingers. ‘Really, I think you need a few days off. You can’t expect to get over this in a hurry and I’m sure that seeing Mr Kyriacou has made everything seem very raw.’
‘Yes. Yes, it has.’ Still slightly dazed by the onslaught of emotions that battered her brain, Angie switched off her computer and rose to her feet with a distracted nod of her head. ‘I need some fresh air. I don’t feel like me any more. But I want to keep that newspaper. Can I have it, please?’
Reluctantly Helen handed it to her and urged her towards the door. ‘Go and see the doctor. Take a sedative or something. Don’t come back until you’re ready.’
Hardly aware of what she was doing, Angie pushed the newspaper into her bag and walked up the stone steps. She elbowed her way through crowds of the public admiring the dinosaur exhibition at the front of the museum and pushed through the revolving doors into the street.
Oblivious to the curious glances of passers-by, she walked in a state of blind misery, her thoughts on her sister. Tiffany had been so young and naïve. Being given the necklace must have meant so much to her. Whereas to him it had meant nothing at all
Without even realising what she was doing, Angie lifted a hand to the jewel that was safely hidden under her roll-neck top. Wearing it gave her a comfort that she couldn’t explain, even to herself. Just knowing that she was wearing something that Tiffany had worn made her feel better.
It started to rain, but Angie didn’t notice. How had Tiffany felt when she’d realised that Nikos Kyriacou had no intention of marrying her? How had she felt when she’d discovered that the relationship had meant nothing? Had Nikos Kyriacou been seeing other women when he was with her sister?
Tears started to fall but her face was so wet from the rain that no one even noticed. They were too busy trying to escape from the weather to notice her distress.
She walked home on automatic pilot and slotted her key into the front door with a shaking hand.
The first thing she saw as she walked into the house was a half full glass of whisky on the kitchen table. Scraping her soaking wet hair away from her face, she lifted the offending glass and stared at it in despair. Her mother had been drinking again. She was going to pour it away, along with all the alcohol in the house.
The doorbell rang and Angie glanced towards the sink and then gave an impatient sigh and turned towards the front door instead, the glass still in her hand. It would be the neighbours, checking on her mother and she didn’t want them to worry.
Wondering how her life had deteriorated to this level, she yanked open the front door.
Nikos Kyriacou stood on the doorstep, an expression of simmering impatience on his cold, handsome face.
