The Half Truth(51)

‘I know …’

She cut him off. ‘Don’t you dare tell me you know. You have absolutely no idea.’ The anger was simmering inside her. ‘I thought you were dead. My heart broke. I was broken. I have never known pain like it. I didn’t think I could come back from it. I was free-falling into an abyss of pain and desolation that knew no end. Do you understand what you did to me? Do you?’

Tina was aware her voice had risen an octave as the anger turned into a rolling boil. She shrugged his hands from her and thumped his shoulder. She didn’t care. She punched his chest with her other hand. Then both together. She pummelled him.

For a while he stood still and allowed the blows to batter him. Then he held her wrists, saying her name over and over again. He pulled her into a bear hug.

‘I hate you,’ she sobbed. At that moment she really meant it. She hated him and yet she loved him. She cried for a long time, vaguely aware that Sasha had led her over to their bench. Eventually she calmed down and began to regain her composure, whilst reassuring a concerned passer-by that she was okay.

Tina disentangled herself from Sasha. She needed a physical distance. She looked out across the English Channel, desperately suppressing the thoughts and memories of that time long ago when they had sat there. When they had been so happy.

‘You do not hate me,’ said Sasha. ‘You just hate what I have done.’

‘Isn’t that the same thing?’

‘It is not the same.’ His voice was soft but firm.

‘Convince me.’ Tina threw the challenge down to him.

Sasha looked around. Tina watched his eyes scan the faces in the crowd. He shuffled uncomfortably on the bench, turning slightly to face her.

‘It is not what you think,’ he said.

Tina gave a derisory laugh. ‘I was told, by your own brother, that you were dead. That you had been killed in a car accident. I believed him.’ Her voice was ragged as the feeling of utter misery came storming right back to her, like it was only yesterday. The taste of the salty air settled in the back of her throat. ‘I thought you were dead. My soul partner, the father of my unborn child, the love of my life, the man who I loved more than anyone else in the world, had been taken from me. Never had I known pain like that. Before or since.’

‘I want to explain,’ he said.

‘You have exactly ten minutes to explain, otherwise I’m walking away and going back to my life as a widow.’





Chapter 26


‘It is very complicated,’ said Sasha.

‘I’m hoping so,’ said Tina, not able to keep the sarcasm from her voice. ‘I wouldn’t want it to be a straightforward, easy reason, like you didn’t love me. No, I definitely want it to be a long, complicated reason.’

He didn’t say anything for a moment, waiting for the spike of anger to dull. He wet his lips before speaking.

‘When we lived in London and had the deli, I always told you that the money to set it up had been a bank loan,’ he began. ‘Well, that was not the truth.’

‘So, you lied to me from the very start?’ Her heart began to sink. The betrayal had begun from the moment they met.

‘It was from my grandfather,’ said Sasha, choosing not to answer her question. ‘He made me promise not to say where it had come from. The money was not supposed to come out of Russia.’

‘Why?’

‘Please, Tina. My grandfather, he had a hard life, he had to make his own way in the world. He came from a very deprived background. His family were very poor and they had to do many things that would not be accepted in the Western world – just to put food on the table.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that he got the money through criminal activity?’

‘Yes.’ He held her gaze, his own was challenging. ‘He became a very successful businessman, but he could not keep all the money in Russia. He expanded into Europe.’

Tina couldn’t help the laugh that freed itself. ‘Oh, my God, Sasha, you make it sound like something from a gangster movie. Your grandfather was involved with organised crime in Russia and he smuggled money into the UK.’ Sasha wasn’t laughing. He sat silently, his eyes answering her questions. Then she realised what Sasha was telling her. The laugh died. ‘Money-laundering,’ she said. ‘Your grandfather was money-laundering through the deli business.’

Sasha shrugged. His indifference firing the outrage within her. ‘You knew and you didn’t say anything. You let me become involved. You let me become party to a big international criminal ring.’ It was beyond belief and, yet, it was totally believable given what else she had learned in the last few weeks. ‘You bastard.’ She hissed the words at him. She gripped her hands so tightly together that her nails dug into her palms. When she opened them, she had drawn blood. It didn’t hurt. The pain of what Sasha had done was far too great. It swamped every other feeling in her body and soul.