‘That’s understandable,’ said Carla, feeling sick at the realisation of how thoughtless and self-absorbed she’d been and how badly she’d let her friends down.
‘Maybe he just needs more time.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘And what else can we do but wait and see if he gets back in touch at some point?’ said Georgie with a helpless shrug that cut Carla to the quick. ‘It’s not as if he left any contact details. All we can do is give Alex what we have and let her get on with it.’
Yes, they could indeed do that. With a new name to add to the mix, no doubt Alex Osborne of Osborne Investigations, hired by Finn to track down his biological family, would be able to unearth no end of information. But she’d only be able to find the facts. Carla could probably do better than that.
Because Georgie was wrong.
Rico had left his number.
He’d handed her his card, which she’d intended to toss into the bin where it belonged but had put in her bag instead.
Why, she had no idea, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had a way of contacting him, which was excellent because she wasn’t having any of this. She wasn’t having Finn and, by extension, Georgie devastated by anyone. Georgie’s pain was her pain, and her best friend meant far too much to her to let it lie. She owed Georgie quite possibly her life.
Carla had been only fifteen when she’d fallen into the clutches of a man twice her age, who’d spotted an opportunity to prey on a naïve, vulnerable teenager and taken it. Starved of attention and affection by her parents, desperate to have proof that her love for them was returned and not getting it, she’d willingly been swallowed up by his flattering interest and the close emotional bond he’d deliberately and maliciously created. She hadn’t questioned his requests to send him increasingly explicit pictures. She hadn’t noticed she was becoming more and more isolated. When he’d finally persuaded her to run away with him she’d thought herself so sophisticated, so mature, so in love. She’d been so excited and such a fool. If it hadn’t been for Georgie, who hadn’t given up on her even when she’d been truly horrible, who’d eventually managed to come to her rescue, things could have turned out very differently.
Carla still didn’t trust compliments and emotional intimacy. She still found it hard not to instinctively question men’s interest in her and her ability to judge what was healthy when it came to relationships and what wasn’t, which was why she tended to steer well clear of them, opting for short, casual flings instead. But at least, thanks to her best friend, she’d regained her self-confidence and self-esteem. At least she knew that what had happened hadn’t been her fault and believed it.
Her abuser’s previous victim hadn’t been so fortunate. After the trial that saw him locked away for five years it had been revealed that Carla wasn’t the only girl he’d preyed on. His first victim had been groomed in the same way, only she hadn’t escaped. When she’d become too old for him and he’d left her, she’d been so messed up she’d taken an overdose and died.
Without Georgie, that could easily have been Carla’s fate, so there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her. They might not share any DNA, but they were sisters in every way that counted. In fact, they were closer than many of the pairs of actual siblings she knew.
So, whatever her personal feelings about Rico Rossi, Carla could help. She wanted to. And not only that. She needed to fix the mistakes she’d made today. Rico had invited her out for dinner and she’d accept. She’d use the occasion to try and change his mind about meeting his brother. Failing that, she’d mine him for information that she could then pass back to Finn in the hope it might give him at least some comfort. It wasn’t a brilliant plan, but it was a start.
She could ignore the effect he had on her, she told herself, determination setting her jaw as it all came together in her head. Now she’d had some breathing space she could see that she’d overreacted earlier. He posed no threat. He was just a man. A devastatingly attractive one, sure, but she was immune to that. She had no interest in the hypnotic blue of his eyes and the way they seemed to look right into her, and she’d certainly soon forget how well his body filled out his clothes and the easy confidence with which he moved.
She was no longer an innocent teenager yearning for adventure and love, wild, gullible and ripe for the picking. She was older, savvier, stronger, and well able to withstand any attempt at seduction Rico might be foolish enough to make, especially if she reinforced the control she wielded over her emotions so that it was unbreakable. She was tenacious and focused when it came to a goal and, at the end of the day, it was only dinner.
‘I might have an idea,’ she said to Georgie, the need to put things right for the people she cared so much about now burning like a living flame inside her. ‘Leave it with me.’
CHAPTER THREE
HIS PLANE HAVING just taken off from the small private airfield that was located conveniently close to Finn’s house, Rico was travelling at a speed of three hundred kilometres per hour, staring out of the window, a glass of neat whisky in his hand, his relief at having made a lucky escape soaring with every metre they climbed.
Carla had called his aborted meeting with Finn life-changing, but he didn’t need his life changed, he told himself grimly, knocking back half his drink and welcoming the heat of the alcohol that hit his stomach. He was perfectly happy with it the way it was. Or at least, the way it had been before the accident that had not only broken his body but also, he could recognise now, short-circuited his brain.
What on earth had he been doing these last few weeks? Yes, he’d had time on his hands and little to occupy his brain, given that he’d spent much of it dosed up on morphine and therefore in no fit state to work the markets, but to cede all control to an intuition he didn’t even understand? He had to have been nuts.
He should have got a firmer grip on the curiosity that had burgeoned inside him on coming across that photo. He should have forgotten he’d seen it in the first place. He should certainly never have allowed any of it to dominate his thoughts to such an extent that it sent him off on a course of action that he barely understood.
Well, it all stopped now. He needed to return to being the man he’d been for the last fifteen years, who lived life on the edge and to whom nothing and no one had mattered since the moment he’d escaped the gang he’d joined, his dreams destroyed and his soul stolen, and he’d realised he was better off on his own. He needed that familiarity, that certainty, that definition of who he was. He didn’t like the confusion and the doubt that had been crippling him lately.
His lingering preoccupation with Carla, with whom he’d irrefutably crashed and burned, had to stop too. Despite handing her his card, he wasn’t expecting to hear from her, so he had no reason whatsoever to dwell on what might have happened had she accepted his invitation. No reason to continue contemplating her stunning green eyes and lush, kissable mouth. She wasn’t the first woman he’d wanted, and she certainly wouldn’t be the last. She was hardly irreplaceable. In fact, when he got home he’d set about doing precisely that.
The beep of his phone cut through his turbulent thoughts, and he switched his attention from the wide expanse of cloudless azure sky to the device on the table in front of him. He didn’t recognise the UK number and on any other occasion would have let it go to voicemail, but today, now, he was more than happy to be disturbed.
With any luck, it would be someone from the London-based brokerage firm he used with something business-related. Details of a unique and complex opportunity in an emerging market, perhaps. A forex swaption recommendation. An unexpected profit warning. As long as it was something that made him money and required significant focus, he wasn’t fussy.
‘Pronto.’
‘Rico? Hi. It’s Carla Blake. We met earlier.’
At the sound of the voice in his ear—very much not the head of research at the London-based brokerage firm—every inch of him tensed and his pulse gave a great kick. Her words slid through him like silk, winding round his insides and igniting the sparks of the desire he hadn’t managed to fully extinguish. He could visualise her mouth and feel her hair tickling
his skin. It was as if she were actually there, beside him, leaning in close and making his groin tighten and ache, and all his efforts to put her from his mind evaporated.