‘These are false,’ he announced. ‘And I expect you to believe it.’
It was a hard, tough, outright challenge. Still she did not even offer a deriding sob in response. It made him want to jump inside her skin so that she would know he could not have done this terrible thing.
‘Isobel!’ he rasped. ‘This is no time for dramatics. You are the trained photographer. I need you to tell me how they did it so I can strangle the culpri
t with their lies.’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled.
On a snap of impatience, he bent and caught hold of her by her waist, then lifted her bodily off the bed before firmly resettling her sitting on its edge. Going down on his haunches, he pushed the tumble of silken hair back from her face. She was as white as a sheet and her eyes looked as if someone had reached in and hollowed them out.
‘Now just listen,’ he insisted.
Her response was to launch an attack on him. He supposed she had the right, he acknowledged as he grimly held on to her until she had finally worn herself out. Eventually she sobbed out some terrible insult then tried scrambling backwards in an effort to get away. Her fingers made contact with the photographs. On a sob she picked them up.
‘You lied to me!’ she choked out thickly. ‘You said she meant nothing to you but—look—look!’ The photographs shook as she brandished them in his grim face. ‘You, standing on your yacht w-wearing nothing from what I can see, h-holding her in front of you while she’s just about covered by th-that excuse for a slip!’
‘It never—’
The photograph went lashing by his cheek, causing him to take avoiding action, and by the time he had recovered she was staring at the next one. ‘Look at you,’ she breathed in thick condemnation. ‘How can you lie there with her, sleeping like an innocent? I will never forgive you—’
She was about to send the images the way of the other when he snaked out a hand and took the rest from her. ‘You will believe me when I say these are not real!’ he insisted harshly.
Not real? Isobel stared at him through tear-glossed eyes and wondered how he dared say that when each picture was now branded on her brain!
‘I believed you when you said you hadn’t—’
‘Then continue to believe,’ he cut in. ‘And start thinking with your head instead of your heart.’
‘I don’t have a heart,’ she responded. ‘You ripped it out of my body and threw it away!’
‘Melodrama is not helping here, agape,’ he sighed, but she saw the hint of humour he was trying to keep from showing on his lips.
That humour was her complete undoing, and she began wriggling and squirming until he finally set her free to stand.
‘I’m leaving here,’ she told him as she swung to her feet.
‘Running again?’ he countered jeeringly. ‘Take care,’ he warned as he rose up also, ‘because I might just let you do it. For I will not live my life fearing the next time you are going to take to your feet and flee!’
Isobel stared at him, saw the sheer black fury darkening his face. ‘What are you angry with me for?’ she demanded bewilderedly.
‘I am not angry with you,’ he denied. ‘I am angry with—these.’ He waved a hand at the photographs. ‘You are not the only one to receive copies…’ Then he told her who else had. ‘This is serious, Isobel,’ he imparted grimly. ‘Someone is out to cause one hell of a scandal and I need your help here, not your contempt.’
With that he turned and began looking around the room with hard, impatient eyes. Spotting whatever it was he was searching for, he strode over to her old computer system and began checking that everything was plugged in. ‘You know how to do this better than I do,’ he said. ‘Show me what I need to do to bring this thing to life.’
‘It hasn’t been used for three years. It has probably died from lack of use.’
‘At least try!’ he rasped.
It was beginning to get through to her that he was deadly serious. Moving on trembling legs and with an attitude that told him she was not prepared to drop her guard, she went to stand beside him. With a flick of a couple of switches she then stood back to wait. It was quite a surprise to watch a whole array of neglected equipment burst into life.
‘Now what?’ she asked stiffly.
‘Scan those photographs into the relevant program,’ he instructed. ‘Blow them up—or whatever it is you do to them so we can study them in detail.’
‘A reason would be helpful.’
‘I have already told you once. They are fakes.’