Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 1 of 2(258)

Finally he could look at her properly.

What he saw made his heart wrench and his stomach dip.

She looked dreadful—really dreadful. Her skin was pale, her eyes red-raw, her hair even wilder than usual. She wore a deep-red jersey dress and thick black tights, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist as if for warmth or protection.

‘I’m sorry for having to break back in,’ she said, speaking tentatively.

‘Evidently not sorry enough or you wouldn’t have pulled the same stunt twice,’ he said icily.

She blanched. ‘I needed to see you. I didn’t want this conversation over the phone. Cathy let me know you’d come in. She said you weren’t accepting visitors so I waited until she went on her lunch break before sneaking in.’

‘You know Cathy?’

She nodded.

And, just like that, everything fell into place: Cathy was the mole. His own executive secretary had given Emily his schedule and the code for the floor.

And, as all the pieces of the jigsaw slotted together, Emily’s face crumpled as she realised what she’d given away.

‘Oh, please, please don’t punish her. Please. She did it for my family. She’s worked here as long as my dad has—years ago, she was his secretary. She was my mum’s best friend and used to babysit me and James. Please don’t sack her. It’s my fault. She didn’t want to tell me anything but I used emotional blackmail to get your movements and the code out of her.’

Pascha held up a hand to stop the torrent of words spilling from her lips.

He had too much to think about as it was; his brain was overloaded. ‘I will think about Cathy later. Tell me why you’re here.’

A fat tear rolled down her cheek. She let it fall all the way to her chin.

He would not react to it. He would not react to her.

She reached into her large handbag and pulled out an envelope which she handed to him.

Wordlessly, he opened it. Inside was a cheque made out to him for the sum of a quarter of a million pounds.

‘What is this?’

Emily’s chin wobbled, her lips trembling, her eyes filling. ‘It’s the money I blackmailed you into paying my father. His bank account was credited late last week. I couldn’t figure how to return it. Pascha, I... My...’

He waited while she tried valiantly to compose herself, hating that he had to fist his hands to stop them reaching out to her.

‘You...were right all along,’ she finally dragged out, her words stark. ‘My father stole the money.’

Emily was still having trouble digesting it. For the past few days she’d thought of little else. She’d been so certain her father was innocent—one-hundred per cent positive. Doubt had never entered her head.

It wasn’t just her father’s actions she was trying to comprehend, though. The magnitude of what she’d done had hit her too.

She’d broken the law. She’d wilfully broken into Pascha’s office with the sole purpose of stealing his files...had been prepared to use blackmail to get what she wanted...and for what? Because she’d wanted to fix her father.

Because she wanted him to love her when he was in the darkness as well as the light.

She couldn’t fix what was in his head any more than she could fix him if he broke his leg. It was time to accept that.

‘I already knew your father had taken the money.’

That shook her. ‘You did?’

‘It took Zlatan five minutes to learn that the money trail led straight to an account held by Malcolm Richardson.’ Something that looked like sympathy flickered in his cold eyes before he cast his gaze back down to the sheaths of paper spread out before him.

Why was he being so cold?

Why wouldn’t he look at her?

‘He gave the money to the hospice Mum spent her last days in.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘Zlatan told me an hour before the beach party.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she whispered. ‘Why did you transfer all that money into his account when you knew he was guilty?’

‘Your father is ill. I do not want the money back and I will not be pressing charges.’ To compound his point, he picked up the cheque and ripped it into little pieces. ‘Keep this money. Use it to pay for full-time nursing care until he’s well enough to care for himself.’

‘It’s too much,’ she whispered.

‘As far as I’m concerned, this is the end of the subject.’ He indicated the door. ‘Go home and tell your father he has nothing to fear from me. I wish him nothing but the best.’

What was wrong with him?

There was something...unkempt about him. A barely contained anger she hadn’t picked up on initially because she’d been too full of the need to purge herself of her guilt.