How dare you? she seethed down the phone in outrage.
And as I recall it, you damned near left something far more intimate behind, Carlo breathed reflectively.
Scarlet to her hairline, Jessica slammed down the receiver before she could be further reminded of her own appalling, inexcusable weakness that day. No, the very last thing she wanted to think about right now was that day at the Deangate, six years ago.
No more, she wanted to scream, no more. But of course, she wouldnt. Jessica didnt scream. Jessica hated to lose control. She had grown up sobbing silently behind closed doors, covering her ears from the sound of her mother screaming at her poor father. And she had sworn then that she would be different and that her own fiery temper would be subdued by every means within her power. She would be strong without passion. And if she stayed away from the passion, she would not be hurt.
The worst thing of all now had to be looking back, seeing how she had broken her own rules and how she had suffered accordingly. Struggling to escape those frightening echoes from the past, Jessica returned to her father.
Grey with strain, he glanced up and began talking again, not even acknowledging that she had been out of the room, so cocooned in his own problems that he might as well have been on another planet.
I had to hand over all my keys ... even my car keys. I wasnt allowed to enter my own office again, Gerald Amory relived painfully. Then I was escorted out of the building by two security guards... it was a nightmare!
Those must have been Carlos instructions. Hadnt her father deserved just a little bit more consideration? Couldnt he have been allowed to retain even a tiny sliver of dignity?
*Dad... Her voice suspended by choking tears, Jessica darted across the room to offer comfort but her father pulled away from her.
I would have treated a thief the same way The admission was stark.
Youre not a thief!
But Gerald Amory made no response.
Every which way Jessica looked, she felt responsible. She should have been there for her father, should have seen that he was in trouble. A week after Carlo had bought Amory Engineering, Jessicas mother had walked out and started a divorce. The amount of cash from the sale had proved too severe a temptation for Carole Amory. Bad as the marriage had been, Gerald Amory had been utterly devastated. Her father had adored her mother. He had been terrifyingly loyal and forgiving through her every extra-marital affair. He would have done anything to keep her ... he had crawled, begged, pleaded. The only person relieved by Caroles departure had been her daughter.
But she should have seen the immense vacuum that had opened up in her fathers life. She had watched him turn into a workaholic, living and breathing business and profit because that was all he had left. Why hadnt it occurred to her that, as the firm thrived and made all the money her greedy mother could ever have wanted, her father must have bitterly resented the fact that the firm was no longer his and that those healthy profits had come too late to sustain his shaky marriage?
But gambling ... ?
It was somewhere to go, something to do, he proffered while she stared back at him aghast. And then I started losing and I thought I couldnt go on losing forever...
The silence went on and on and then abruptly and without any warning, Gerald Amory rose heavily from his seat and moved with the shambling gait of a much older man towards the front door.
Where are you going? Jessica demanded, her violet eyes almost purple with the strength of her distress.
Home ... I need to be on my own, Jess ... please understand that.
In despair, she hurried down the path after him, Dad, we can cope better with this together! Please stay, she pleaded.
Im sorry. Not now, Jess, he breathed tightly, unable to look at her.
Cope with the shame, the publicity, the court case? With the loss of his home, his job, his self-respect? Would he be able to cope? It was a tall order, she registered dully, especially for a man of his age. But what alternative was there? You coped, you survived. If Jessica had learnt anything in recent years, it was that truth. Yet struggle as she did she could no longer keep her mind fully focused on her fathers problems. The past was surging back to her, the past she had buried six years ago...
The day she had met Carlo Saracini she had been in London, shopping for her trousseau in the company of a friend. It had been less than two months before her wedding to Simon. She hadnt been wearing her engagement ring. One of the stones had worked loose and it had been in the jewellers for repair.
She had been standing chatting to Leah at a busy intersection, waiting on the lights changing so they could cross. Somebody behind her in the crowd had pushed her and she had fallen into the road, practically beneath the wheels of Carlos chauffeur-driven limousine.
She didnt remember falling. She had knocked herself out. What she did remember was coming dizzily back to consciousness before the ambulance arrived and focusing on the most extraordinary golden eyes above hers. She had been suffering from concussion. As a child she had had a story-book about a tiger with eyes that were pools of brilliant gold. So, naturally she had stared. She had never before seen eyes that shade.