bolted down the stairs as if the devil and all his maniacal minions were on her heels.
NATALIE got back to her hotel and leant against the closed door of her suite with her chest still heaving like a pair of bellows. The ringing of her phone made her jump, and she almost dropped it when she tried to press the answer button with fingers that felt like cotton wool.
‘H-hello?’
‘Natalie, it’s me … Lachlan.’
She pushed herself away from the door and scraped a hand through her sticky hair as she paced the floor in agitation. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for the last twenty-four hours!’ she said. ‘Where are you? What’s going on? Why did you do it? For God’s sake, Lachlan, are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m only allowed one call. I’ll have to make it quick.’
Natalie scrunched her eyes closed, not wanting to picture the ghastly cell he would be locked in, with vicious-looking prison guards watching his every move. ‘Tell me what to do,’ she said, opening her eyes again to look at the view of the River Thames and the London Eye. ‘Tell me what you need. I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
‘Just do what Angelo tells you to do,’ Lachlan said. ‘He’s got it all under control. He can make this go away.’
She swung away from the window. ‘Are you nuts?’ she said.
He released a sigh. ‘He’ll do the right thing by you, Nat,’ he said. ‘Just do whatever he says.’
She started pacing again—faster this time. ‘He wants to marry me,’ she said. ‘Did he happen to mention that little detail to you?’
‘You could do a whole lot worse.’
Her mouth dropped open. ‘Lachlan, you’re surely not serious? He hates me.’
‘He’s my only chance,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve stuffed up. I don’t want to go to prison. Angelo’s given me a choice. I have to take it.’
She gave a disgusted snort. ‘He’s given me a choice, not you,’ she said. ‘My freedom in exchange for yours.’
‘It doesn’t have to be for ever,’ he said. ‘You can divorce him after a few months. He can’t force you to stay with him indefinitely.’
Natalie seriously wondered about that. Rich, powerful men were particularly adept at getting and keeping what they wanted. Look at their father, for instance. He had kept their mother chained to his side in spite of years of his infidelities and emotional cruelty. She could not bear to end up in the same situation as her mother. A trophy wife, a pretty adornment, a plaything that could be picked up and put down at will. With no power of her own other than a beauty that would one day fade, leaving her with nothing but diamonds, designer clothes and drink to compensate for her loneliness.
‘Why did you do it?’ she asked. ‘Why his hotel?’
‘Remember the last time we caught up?’ Lachlan said.
Natalie remembered all too well. It had been a weekend in Paris a couple of months ago, when she had been attending a fabric show. Lachlan had been at a friend’s eighteenth birthday party just outside of the city. He had been ignominiously tossed out of his friend’s parents’ château after disgracing himself after a heavy night of drinking.
‘Yes,’ she said in stern reproach. ‘It took me weeks to get the smell of alcohol and vomit out of my coat.’
‘Yeah, well, I saw that gossip magazine open on the passenger seat,’ he said. ‘There was an article about Angelo and his latest lover. That twenty-one-year-old heiress from Texas?’
She tried to ignore the dagger of jealousy that spiked her when she recalled the article, and the stunningly gorgeous young woman who had been draped on Angelo’s arm at some highbrow function.
‘So,’ she said. ‘What of it? It wasn’t the first time he’d squired some brainless little big-boobed bimbo to an event.’
‘No,’ Lachlan said. ‘But it was the first time I’d seen you visibly upset by it.’
‘I wasn’t upset,’ she countered quickly. ‘I was disgusted.’
‘Same difference.’
Natalie blew out a breath and started pacing again. ‘So you took it upon yourself to get back at him by trashing one of the most luxurious hotel rooms in the whole of Europe just because you thought I was a little peeved?’
‘I know, I know, I know,’ Lachlan said. ‘It sounds so stupid now. I’m not sure why I did it. I guess I was just angry that he seemed to have it all together and you didn’t.’
Natalie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘I’m running a successful business all by myself. I’m paying for my own home. I’m happy with my life.’
‘Are you, Nat?’ he asked. ‘Are you really?’
The silence was condemning.
‘You work ridiculous hours,’ Lachlan went on. ‘You never take holidays.’
‘I hate flying, that’s why.’
‘You could do a desensitising programme for that,’ he said.
‘I don’t have time.’
‘It’s because of what happened to Liam, isn’t it?’ Lachlan said. ‘You haven’t been on a plane since he drowned in Spain all those years ago.’
Natalie felt the claws of guilt clutch her by the throat. She still remembered the tiny white coffin with her baby brother’s body in it being loaded on the tarmac. She had seen it from her window seat. She had sat there staring at it, with an empty, aching, hollow feeling in her chest.
It had been her fault he had been found floating face-down in that pool.
‘I have to go,’ Lachlan said. ‘I’m being transferred.’
Her attention snapped back to Lachlan’s dire situation. ‘Transferred where?’ she asked.
‘Just do what Angelo says, please?’ he said. ‘Nat, I need you to do what he wants. He’s promised to keep this out of the press. I have to accept his help. My life is over if I don’t. Please?’
Natalie pinched the bridge of her nose until her eyes smarted with bitter angry tears. The cage of her conscience came down with a snap.
She was trapped.
* * *
Angelo was finalising some details on a project in Malaysia when his receptionist announced he had a visitor. ‘It’s Natalie Armitage,’ Fiona said.
He
