The lift doors opened and Jade stumbled in, waiting for what seemed like an eternity before the doors hissed closed and the lift began its grinding descent, gradually blocking out the sounds of the screaming woman, although the echoes of her words and the painful reminder of her early life continued to ring loudly in her ears long after she’d left the building.
There was a crowd gathered outside the gates of the mansion—almost as if there was a party and everyone had been asked to park outside. But the cars weren’t convertibles or coupés. These were trucks and vans with dishes and aerials on their roofs.
Uncertain, she asked the cab driver to pull up several houses away, where she stood on the kerb for a few seconds, wondering how she’d get into the house without being noticed.
‘You gonna pay me, lady?’
She blinked and paid the fare automatically in response, not thinking that she’d be better off getting right back in and finding somewhere else to stay. By the time she’d worked out that it was a crowd of reporters swarming around the entrance to the mansion the cab was already disappearing into the distance.
She looked around. The street was otherwise as it always was—quiet, serene, and a haven from downtown traffic. There was little chance of another cab passing.
Someone in the distance called out, ‘It’s her!’ and suddenly the pack was in motion, picking up cameras and other equipment, heading straight for her.
‘Dr Ferraro!’ they called. ‘Dr Ferraro!’
She knew instinctively she should run. She knew instinctively she should hide. But there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run—and, just as her mind felt frozen, her feet seemed welded to the spot. It was all she could do to watch the hungry pack draw closer.
Then, from somewhere close behind her, came the roar of an engine and a squeal of tyres, and a voice yelled out, ‘Get in!’
Loukas?
She looked around. The passenger door of the car hung open and he was waiting inside for her to join him. She tried to shake her head. None of this could be happening. Why would Loukas be here? Surely not to save her? Not after what he’d thought about her from the start. Not after all she’d done to stop him.
And all the while the pack drew closer still, the leaders now only seconds away
‘Come on! Get in,’ he urged. ‘They’ll tear you to pieces.’
And something in her mind clicked into place. After spending the best part of two days being interviewed by the police, the last thing she could face right now was reporters jamming their cameras into her face, wanting more of the same, wanting every last sordid detail of the scandal that was rocking Hollywood to its core.
Whatever fate Loukas had planned for her, at least he could save her from that.
She slid down into the seat alongside him with the first reporter only metres away. But she didn’t close the door. She didn’t have to. The car’s powerful acceleration took care of that, swinging the wide door closed as Loukas steered away from the kerb and past the ribbon of disgruntled reporters, cheated of their prey.
She took a deep breath and settled back into the luxurious leather seat, finding the familiar smell of his car much more to her liking than the stained cab she’d just exited. Until she realised what it was that she liked about it—it bore the imprint of Loukas’s own signature scent.
And suddenly she didn’t feel comfortable. She didn’t want to think about that side of Loukas. She didn’t want to be reminded of the times they’d spent in this car on their way to the beach house, anticipating what was to follow, their sexual excitement mounting as they drew closer to their destination, the hunger between them building.
Dammit! She couldn’t afford to think about those nights.
Because they were gone. Just the same as her strident defence of Grace—blown to smithereens by the truth, the real truth that Loukas had known all along and that she had fought so hard against the whole time.
She pushed her head back into the leather-upholstered headrest as the enormity of one simple fact worked its way clear from the fog of her mind. She’d been the one who was wrong.
It was Loukas who had been right all along.
Her throat tightened, her mouth ashen. How could she even start to admit it?