For Revenge...Or Pleasure? Page 9

  Maybe she was the one with the problem.

  Maybe she was the one who was mad.

  His eyes trapped hers and flared, as if he knew what she’d been thinking, what she’d been trying to forget, and knew that she didn’t have a chance.

  She willed her mouth to speak, to form the words that would indicate her silence had been more productive than merely used for a close inspection of his body.

  ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your fiancée—’

  He snorted his disbelief.

  ‘Hear me out!’ she insisted, holding up her hand to stall his protest. ‘I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but if you expect me to believe you, you’d better start making some sense. How is Grace supposed to have carried out this so-called “murder”?’

  For a few moments he said nothing, continuing to stare across at her with such potent force that she could almost feel the power of his hurt. Could it be true? Could Grace have done something so terribly wrong that a patient had died? She didn’t want to believe it, but at the back of her mind the increased frequency of legal action against her, the numerous settlements, all niggled at her certainty.

  No. It couldn’t be true.

  ‘Well?’ she pressed. ‘You’re making serious accusations against the most famous cosmetic surgeon in the country. Surely you don’t expect me to believe you simply because you’ve managed to engineer me into your bed? You need to give me something concrete. What is it you think happened? What makes you so sure that Grace killed Zoë?’

  His eyes glinted as they narrowed, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Then he jammed his fingers into his jeans pockets and turned towards the window, gazing out over the sea. It was some seconds more before he spoke, and when he did his voice was as flat and calm as the moonlit ocean beyond.

  ‘It was four years ago. We were due to get married in three months. Zoë had never been overweight, but she’d started dieting for the wedding. Everyone—her family and I—thought it was just normal dieting, that she was just trying to look good for the wedding pictures. We didn’t realise how thin she’d become. And still she kept on exercising for hours every day, hardly eating a thing.

  ‘We were worried she was becoming anorexic. I told her that I couldn’t marry her as she was; she was too fragile and she needed to get help. When she told me she’d booked into a clinic, I thought it was to get treatment for her condition.’

  He sighed, pushing back his shoulders and stretching his neck. ‘But instead she’d booked in for liposuction. And your wondrous Dr Della-Bosca made sure she’d never have a weight problem again.’

  Chills crawled down her spine. ‘Something went wrong?’

  ‘You could say that. She was released after the surgery, and she checked herself into a hotel because she couldn’t go home as she was. Progressively, she felt worse and worse. She rang the clinic twice, only to be told each time that the pain was normal. The third time she rang it was Della-Bosca herself who told her to stop wasting her time.’

  Breath hissed through Jade’s teeth. Surely Grace would never say such a thing to a client in pain?

  ‘In desperation,’ Loukas continued, ‘she called her mother. She was out of it for much of the time, but she told her everything. By the time her mother and the paramedics found her, she was dead.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Jade whispered. ‘And you believe that if she’d received attention earlier she might have lived?’

  ‘I know she would have lived. And I know that it was Della-Bosca who killed her. The liposuction needle apparently pierced her abdominal cavity. It might have been peritonitis on the death certificate, but it was Della-Bosca who was holding that needle. It was Della-Bosca who murdered my Zoë.’

  ‘It was an accident. A horrible accident.’

  He wheeled around. ‘No! It was no accident. She operated on a woman so wasted she could hardly stand up by herself. And instead of helping her, like she should have done, she fed Zoë’s self-doubts and insecurities. She should have turned her away, but there was no way she would turn away Zoë’s money.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Grace isn’t like that. You make out like she’s some kind of mercenary. And she would never have operated if she hadn’t thought it was necessary.’ Yet even as Jade said the words she remembered another girl, another batch of operations scheduled, and the twinge in the back of her mind that something wasn’t quite right. What had Grace said? Satisfy her now and you’ll have a client for life. Had that been her reasoning with Zoë? So that even if she’d been anorexic Grace would have agreed to her request for surgery?

  She shivered. It was too ghastly, too far-fetched. Grace wasn’t like that, not normally. And it had been Grace herself who had saved Jade from a life not worth living. She’d been the one person who’d made her life possible when everyone else had given up trying.

  ‘Loukas, I know you’re hurting, but you have to remember the good work Grace does—look at the foundation, and the countless children’s lives that will be improved. Just think of those children—no more will they have to hide their features in shadow; no more will they have to look at the ground so they avoid the looks from passers-by. Do you have any idea how that feels? To see the shock, then the horror and, finally, worst of all, the pity.

  ‘It’s Grace who gives those children a reason to wake up in the morning, to feel good about themselves and to hold their heads up high. So she might not be perfect—who is?—but I can’t believe this picture you paint of her.’

  She shook her head, this time with more authority. ‘I can’t believe it. Besides, there must have been an inquest. That would have cleared everything up.’

  He snorted his disapproval. ‘Zoë was dead. Della-Bosca’s lawyers made the most of her slinking off to a hotel—said that she’d brought about her own death.’

  ‘And the phone calls?’

  ‘The hotel records supported the three calls to the clinic, but her mother’s evidence wasn’t accepted. They claimed Zoë would have been too close to death by the time she was found to have been coherent. And the clinic gave a totally different account of those calls, as you’d expect. In the end nobody was found responsible. No charges were laid.’

  After the turbulence of their earlier argument, the air now seemed strangely still around them. Loukas stood there, watching her, his eyes almost empty, and in spite of the way he’d treated her, in spite of the way he’d used her to get to Grace, Jade’s heart still wanted to go out to him.

  It was no wonder he felt so strongly. He’d been cheated of his bride three months from their wedding—cheated of their future together. But nothing he could do would bring her back—least of all attacking Grace. He had to be made to see that.

  She moved across the room to him, laying her hand on his arm.

  ‘You went through a dreadful experience. It’s not surprising that you have trouble accepting the findings, but you have to. You have to move on. Zoë would have wanted that.’

  He shrugged off her hand as if it was some annoying insect and moved past her, picking up a shirt and hauling it on.

  ‘I don’t have to accept the findings. I know Grace killed Zoë and I’m going to make sure she doesn’t touch my sister—with or without your help.’

  ‘This is crazy, Loukas. Grace is nothing like you’re making out. You don’t know her like I do. She’s a good woman.’

  ‘If she’s such a good woman,’ he said, his words assured as he surveyed her, his eyes as polished and hard as the sheet of glass in the window behind him, ‘then why the hell did she attempt Zoë’s operation while she was stoned?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE reeled from this latest accusation, fury turning molten inside her. Enough of trying to placate the man. This was going too far!

  ‘That’s an outright lie!’

  ‘Is it? Were you there?’

  ‘Were you?’ she snapped back.

  He smiled. ‘Nice try. No, but I have proof. I tracked down the theatre nurse who was there that ni
ght. She confronted Della-Bosca over her drug use after that operation and found herself unemployed and on the receiving end of a considerable amount of cash to ensure she took a very long holiday and kept her mouth shut.’

  ‘If this is true, why didn’t she go to the police?’

  ‘She was too scared—of Della-Bosca and the police. I tracked her down, only to have her die in an interstate collision the day before I was to meet with her and take her to the police.’

  ‘And that, I take it,’ she said, unable to resist the opportunity to show his case up for the fanciful supposition it was, ‘was down to Grace as well?’

  His eyes told her he half believed it.

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s no proof.’

  ‘And likewise you have no proof that Grace is guilty.’

  ‘I believe what the theatre nurse told me.’

  ‘You’d rather believe someone who wasn’t honest enough to go to the police in the first place? Doesn’t that tell you something about her from the start? I don’t believe what she said for a minute. Grace doesn’t do drugs. Don’t you’d think I’d know if she did? How can it be that I’ve never heard any of these stories?’

  ‘Because your charming doctor friend has paid to hush them up, same as she’s done every time. Paid to hush up the woman rendered blind after a failed eyelid lift. Paid to hush up the girl who caught her snorting a line of coke in her office. Paid—’

  ‘Stop it!’ Jade yelled, her hand clutching the air. ‘I don’t believe it—any of it.’

  He had her arms in his hands. He’d crossed the room so fast she hadn’t realised. ‘You don’t believe it? Or you just don’t like to think your cosy partner has been found out? It must be some team effort, covering up for all her mistakes. Is that why you had to invent the foundation—to provide more funds for her drug use, to provide more hush money to cover up her mistakes?’

  She was thrashing in his arms, trying to get free. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this. Let me go!’

  His fingers squeezed tighter on her arms. ‘And as for not knowing—I think you know a lot more about your good doctor than you let on.’

  He dropped his grip on her, almost thrusting her away from him. She turned away, rubbing where his fingers had bitten down deep into her flesh.

  ‘And if I did, why the hell would I tell you now? None of this makes sense, and I’m not going to contribute anything to this sick vendetta of yours.’

  ‘Don’t you understand anything?’ he said, lurching forwards again. ‘This is much more important than some mere vendetta!’

  She recoiled momentarily and then, when she realised he wasn’t reaching out to hold her again, she sighed, a long ragged sigh, shaking her head.

  ‘You couldn’t save Zoë so you’re desperate to save a sister who doesn’t want to be rescued. And you’ll pull down anyone who gets in your way. What are you trying to prove, Loukas? Zoë died in obviously tragic circumstances, but she’s gone. Hunting down Grace and ruining her career isn’t going to bring her back for you. Can’t you see that? If I wasn’t so angry about what you’re trying to do, I think I’d feel sorry for you.’

  ‘I don’t want your pity!’

  She spun back to face him. ‘Then what do you want? Do you expect me to help you on this crazy quest of yours? Is that what these last three nights were about? Did you think that once you’d got me into bed I’d only too readily spill everything I know about Grace’s seedy underside? Is that what you thought? Well, okay, you being such a red-hot lover, I’ll fall for it. I’ll give you the goods. I’ll tell you everything I know. Are you ready for this? Nothing. Zip. Nada. Do you understand? There is nothing to tell.’

  Cold fire marked his features, the veins of his neck corded and pumping fury.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I understand. I thought you were different. Over these last few days I’ve thought there was just a chance you weren’t like her. But I was wrong. You’re two of a kind. You belong together in your black magic world, turning out your plastic clients and your Barbie doll lookalikes, living off people’s insecurities and spreading fakery and artifice like a disease, like a weeping sore. And you’re the biggest fake,’ he continued with barely a pause. ‘Because you pretend not to know or to see what’s right in front of you.’

  ‘I can’t see what isn’t there!’

  ‘Still pretending,’ he snorted. ‘You’re so fake you can’t see straight. Or is that what happens when you’ve been under the knife too many times—you can’t recognise the truth any more? Which bits of you are real, I wonder? And which are fake? That nose? Those breasts?’

  ‘What are you talking about now? None of me is fake!’

  He laughed. ‘Sure. You’ve even dispensed with your accent so that nobody can tell who you are or where you’re from. That’s not fake? Face it, Jade, you have the services of the goddess of the cosmetic surgery world at your disposal. Don’t expect me to believe you’ve never taken advantage of a slight nip and tuck.’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, turning to recover her clothes from where they’d been scattered over the floor, ‘I’m past caring what you believe.’

  ‘So deny it, then. Deny you’ve ever had a cosmetic procedure.’

  She’d turned back, her mouth ready to snap back a retort in the negative, when she stopped herself short. Of course she’d had cosmetic procedures. First the botched attempts to remove the birthmark from her torso, and then the skilled hand of Grace finally ridding her of the mark from her face and neck.

  So instead of answering she turned away with the bundle of clothes in her arms, heading for the en suite bathroom.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother seeing me out. I’ll call a cab.’

  Mayor Goldfinch’s limo was parked in the driveway when Jade finally arrived home. She cursed silently under her breath. Even without all that had happened tonight the thought of seeing the Mayor made her feel sick to the stomach. His repulsive behaviour that night at the Gala was unforgivable—his betrayal of Grace a black mark that could never be removed.

  And yet Mayor Goldfinch was only here tonight because she hadn’t yet told Grace what she’d stumbled upon in the library. So wasn’t her own silence just as damning? Why hadn’t she had the guts to tell Grace what she’d seen? Why hadn’t she at least warned the woman who was supposed to mean more to her than anyone that the man she was involved with wasn’t to be taken at face value?

  Damn the man, and damn his presence!

  Now there would be no chance to warn Grace tonight about Loukas’s bizarre claims against her. And she had to talk to her. She needed to talk to her. Because on the long ride home Loukas’s evil claims had started to work on her psyche, had started to worm their way into her beliefs, and there were some things that might almost make sense—would almost make sense if you were as grief-crazed with loss as Loukas.

  There had been a large number of negligence cases against the clinic settled out of court in the last few years. It might simply be a reflection of the US being a litigious society, as she’d so long assumed, but what if she was wrong? Was it really a sign of something more sinister? What if there really was another reason for the uncomfortable number of cases that had ended in settlements?

  Grace’s unexpected cynicism about operating on Pia still irritated her sensibilities. Was the pursuit of money really that important to her?

  But Grace could put her mind to rest on all of these issues. And she would.

  Because the alternative was just too hard to think about, too impossible to be true.

  At least she could be certain of one thing. Grace didn’t do drugs. She knew Grace wouldn’t be so crazy as to risk her whole career. But still she needed to talk to her. And the Mayor’s presence meant that she wouldn’t get a chance tonight.

  Quietly she crossed the entrance foyer, heading for the stairs.

  ‘Jade!’ Grace’s voice trailed out from one of the rooms, stopping her in her track
s. ‘Come in. It’s so good you’re here. I have something to tell you.’

  Jade suppressed a curse, taking a deep breath and tucking the stray strands of her hair behind her ears as she tried not to think about the last time she’d seen Mayor Goldfinch—tried not to think about what he’d been doing and with whom. She plastered what she hoped would pass for a smile on her face, and entered the room.

  Mayor Goldfinch beamed at her and pulled a bottle of Cristal champagne from a silver ice bucket, pouring into an empty flute. Uneasy prickles started climbing up her spine. Why the hell would they be drinking champagne? Unless…

  ‘You’re the first to know,’ the Mayor said, pressing the flute into her hand with a beefy smile that turned her stomach almost as much as his words filled her with apprehension. She looked to Grace, hoping she was wrong, hoping she’d misinterpreted what this private little party was all about. But Grace smiled on, her eyes starry, her face radiant.

  ‘The first to know what?’ she asked, trying to garner the appropriate amount of enthusiasm for the game as they eked out the details.

  ‘The first to hear our wonderful news,’ Grace explained, beaming. ‘We’re going to be married.’

  Oh, God, poor Grace. Not only did Grace have Loukas Demakis breathing down her neck, but now she was marrying this sleazebag of a man. She had no idea what she was letting herself in for.

  And what made it worse was that Jade was going to have to be the one who told her. There was no way she could avoid telling her now. Grace would have to be told what she had seen that night in the library.

  Rapidly losing the battle to grip onto her smile, Jade managed a brief, ‘Congratulations,’ before taking a sip from her flute. Anything to save her from saying something she might regret later. She wished mightily that the superb champagne was a better contest for the bitter taste in her mouth right now.