had soon realised she was no longer welcome in her own home. Even at Christmas Eloise had usually organised a ski-ing holiday for her husband and herself.
‘Darling,’ she’d said coaxingly when the first one was mooted. ‘Cressida doesn’t want to spend her vacations with a couple of old fogies. She has her own friends. Her own life.’ Her steely gaze had fixed her stepdaughter. ‘Isn’t that right?’
It had been easier to swallow her hurt and bewilderment and agree. She had had friends she could go to, and Uncle Robert and Aunt Barbara had always been there for her, their comfortable, untidy house a second home.
For a long time Cressida had convinced herself that the scales would eventually fall from her father’s eyes and that he’d see Eloise’s greed and self-absorption. But it had never happened. He’d been carried away by his passion for her—a passion that she had been careful to feed.
As for Eloise herself, Cressida was sure she’d looked at James Fielding and seen only a successful businessman, with a settled background and an attractive Georgian house not too far from London.
What she hadn’t understood was that James’s company had struggled to recover from the big recession of the eighties, or that James himself had faltered more than once as chairman, and was being encouraged to take early retirement.
Eloise had been too busy entertaining, enjoying weekend parties with amusing people, and being seen in all the right places.
Even after James’s actual retirement she’d seen no need to scale down their style of living or their expenditure.
Alec Caravas had been a younger man with a foolproof scheme for making them both instantly wealthy. Cressida could see how easily Eloise would have been seduced.
After all, she thought, I was planning to give up my job, my lifestyle, my independence. I shouldn’t judge anyone else.
Her own meetings with her father over the past two years had been mainly confined to lunches in London, with the conversation constrained.
Perhaps I should have made more of an effort, Cressida thought as she drank her coffee. Perhaps I should have played the hypocrite and pretended to like her. Even looked for her good points. Told myself that, whatever my personal feelings, she loved Dad and was making him happy.
Only, I never believed that. I just didn’t want to be proved right quite so comprehensively.
She sighed, and turned resolutely to the computer screen. It was little use rehashing the past, she told herself forcibly. She had to try and salvage something from the present to ensure her father had a future.
She worked steadily for a couple of hours, but found little to comfort her.
Her father’s company pension was indeed all that was left. All his other assets had been liquidised to make him a major shareholder in Paradise Grove. And he’d borrowed heavily too.
If he recovered from his heart attack, it would be to find himself insolvent, she realised unhappily.
His whole way of life would have to be downsized. She’d have to rent a larger flat, she thought, or even a house. Make a home for him—and Berry, who’d be needed more than ever. But how could she afford it?
I won’t worry about that now, she told herself, glancing at her watch.
It was time she took a shower and dressed, and got over to the hospital again.
As she pushed back her chair, she noticed for the first time the small icon at the bottom of the screen indicating there was an e-mail message for her.
Someone else believes in an early start, Cressida thought wryly, as she clicked on to the little envelope and watched the message scroll down.
I am waiting for you.
The words were brief, almost laconic, but they had the power to make her stiffen in shock and disbelief.
She twisted suddenly in her chair, staring over her shoulder with frightened eyes.
The room was empty. And yet she felt Draco’s presence as surely as if he was standing behind her, his hand touching her shoulder.
She said, ‘No,’ and again, more fiercely, ‘No. It’s not true. It can’t be…’
And heard the raw panic that shook her voice.
CHAPTER TWO
THERE was a rational explanation. There had to be.
Someone, somewhere, must be playing a trick on her, and had accidentally scored a bullseye.
All the way to the hospital Cressy kept telling herself feverishly that this was the way it had to be. That it must be one of her colleagues…
Except that they were all under the impression that she was still sunning herself on an island in the Aegean. She hadn’t told anyone from work that she was back.
And, anyway, the message was too pointed—too personal to have come from anyone else but Draco. Wasn’t it?
But how the hell did a Greek fisherman with one small, shabby boat and a half-built house manage to gain access to a computer, let alone have the technical know-how to send electronic mail halfway across Europe?
It made no sense.
Besides, he only knew my first name, she reminded herself with bewilderment. He can’t possibly have traced me with that alone.
Her mind was still going round in ever decreasing circles as she went up in the lift to the Intensive Care Unit. But she steadied herself when the sister in charge met her with the good news that her father’s condition had greatly improved.
‘He’s asleep at the moment, but you may sit with him.’ Calm eyes looked squarely into Cressida’s. ‘You can be relied on not to make emotional scenes, Miss Fielding? He really doesn’t need that kind of disturbance.’
‘Of course not.’ Cressy said steadily. ‘I just want him to get better.’
She fetched some coffee from the machine in the corridor, then quietly took up her vigil, forcing herself to composure. She couldn’t afford to send out any negative vibrations.
And she hadn’t time to worry about mysterious e-mail messages or who might have generated them. Her father was her priority now, and nothing else could be allowed to matter.
That worrying grey tinge seemed to have gone from James Fielding’s face. He looked more his old self again, she thought, surreptitiously crossing her fingers.
If he continued to make good progress he could soon be moved to a private room, she told herself. The premiums on his private health insurance had been allowed to lapse, but she would pay.
She said under her breath. ‘I’ll look after you, Daddy—whatever it takes. I’ll make sure you’re all right.’
He woke up once, gave her a faint smile, and fell asleep again. But it was enough.
Apart from the hum of the various machines, the unit was quite
