‘Sure?’
He swung on her furiously. ‘Yes, I am sure! And I would appreciate a bit of trust around here!’
‘If you shout at me once more I will walk,’ she threatened fiercely.
‘Then stop looking at me as if I am a snake; start using a bit of sense and believe me!’ Striding off, he recovered the photographs—yet again. Coming back, he set them down next to the computer screen.
‘Fakes, you say,’ she murmured.
‘Do your magic and prove me right or wrong.’
The outright challenge. Still without giving him the benefit of the doubt, she opened the lid on the flatbed scanner and prepared to work. Her mouth was tight, her eyes were cold, but with a few deft clicks of the mouse she began to carry out his instructions. If he was lying then he had to know she would find him out in a few minutes. If he was telling the truth then…
Her stomach began to churn. She was no longer sure which alternative she preferred. It was one thing believing that your estranged husband had been involved in an affair during your separation but it was something else entirely to know that someone was willing to go to such extremes to hurt other people.
‘Why is this happening?’ she questioned huskily. ‘Who do you think it is that took these? It needs a third party involved to take photographs like these, Leandros. Someone close enough to you to be in a position to catch you on film like this.’
He was standing to one side of her and she felt him stiffen; glancing up, she caught a glimpse of his bleak expression before he turned away. ‘Chloe, of course,’ he answered gruffly.
Chloe? ‘Oh, no.’ She didn’t want to believe that. Not Chloe, who adored her brother. ‘She has nothing to gain by hurting both you and her best friend!’
‘She gains what she’s always wanted,’ he countered tightly. ‘Work—work!’ he commanded as the first photograph appeared on the screen. Turning back, she clicked the mouse and the picture leapt to four times its original size. ‘All her childhood she fantasised about one of her brothers marrying her best friend,’ he continued darkly. ‘Nikos and I have ruined those fantasies, so now she is out for revenge.’
‘I don’t want to believe it.’
‘She has also been cleverer than I ever gave her credit for,’ he added cynically. ‘She damns me in your eyes. Damns both Diantha and me to Diantha’s father, who honoured me with his trust when he allowed her to stay on my yacht with me. I saw a man taking photographs of the yacht from the quay. This one,’ he flicked a finger at the screen, ‘Shows exactly how I was dressed that day.’
‘In nothing?’
‘I have a pair of shorts on, you sarcastic witch!’ He scowled. ‘He had to have been paid by someone. Scheming Chloe is the logical person. Her ultimate aim is to see you walking off with a divorce and me being forced into marrying Diantha to save her reputation!’
‘All of that is utterly nonsensical!’ Isobel protested. ‘No one goes to such drastic extremes on someone else’s behalf.’
‘Who else’s behalf?’ he challenged. ‘Diantha’s? She is being manipulated here just as ruthlessly as we are,’ he insisted. ‘Look at the evidence. Chloe sends Diantha in her stead to San Estéban. These photographs were taken there. I actually saw the guy taking this one!’
‘And the one in your bedroom?’ she prompted. ‘How did he get in there?’
He paused to frown at the question. Then the frown cleared. ‘He has to be a member of my crew,’ he decided. ‘He was too far away for me to recognise him.’
He thought he had an answer for everything. But Isobel was recalling a conversation with Eve Herakleides the night before, and suddenly she had a very different suspect to challenge Leandros’s claims.
Flattening her lips and concentrating her attention on the screen, she took only seconds to spot the first discrepancy. Within a few minutes she had circled many—a finger missing, a point on the yacht’s rail that di
d not quite fit. With the mouse flying busily, she copied then pasted each detail onto a separate frame, increased their size then sent them to print.
Through it all Leandros watched in silent fascination as the whole photograph was broken down and revealed for the fraud that it was. ‘Do you want me to do the same to the rest of them?’ she asked when she’d finished.
‘Not unless you need to assure yourself that they are all fakes,’ he responded coolly, gathering up his precious evidence.
It was a clean hit on her lack of trust. Isobel acknowledged it with a sigh. ‘I suppose you want me to eat humble pie now.’
‘Later,’ he replied. ‘Humble pie will not come cheap.’
But neither smiled as he said it. Fakes or not, the photographs had stolen something from them and Isobel had to ask herself if they were ever going to get it back again.
‘Leandros…’ He was striding for the door when she stopped him. ‘Chloe knows what I do for a living; remember that when you confront her.’
‘Meaning what?’ He glanced at her.