'Every reception-room and every corridor in my father's houses are protected by twenty-four-hour sur-
veil lance equipment. Only the bedrooms and the bathrooms are off limits,' Carlo informed her. 'You can see the date and the exact time displayed at the foot of the picture."
'Yes,' she quavered.
'And now you can watch me fall asleep.. .really riv
eting stuff. Sunny makes her entrance in about half an
hour '
'Sunny,' she echoed weakly.
‘I could have had the tapes cut to speed this up but I didn't want to spare you a single second of the entertainment.'
Swallowing hard, Jessica dutifully watched Carlo falling asleep, the most awful suspicion beginning to assail her. 'You can fast forward if you like,' she mumbled in a small voice.
'Are you sure?'
'Quite sure.'
With a sinking heart, Jessica watched Sunny creep in and stand gazing down at Carlo. A little while later, she curled up beside him and put her arms round him. A long while after that, Carlo shifted in his sleep and curved an arm round Sunny.
‘I don't want to see any more,’ Jessica told him, unable to meet his eyes.
‘I insist,' Carlo said harshly. "The sole highlight is entry of the betrayed wife.'
Her legs wouldn't hold her up any longer. She collapsed down on to the settee.
'We're on to the second tape before I wake up and chuck her out.'
(I don't need to watch it.’
He didn't switch it off. Through her straining fingers, Jessica caught a glimpse of her own entrance and it looked almost comic on camera, only the memory of how she had felt still cut into her painfully. Carlo had
simply fallen asleep and Sunny had wrapped herself round him.
'I was exhausted that night. I slept like the dead.' Carlo uttered a sardonic laugh, his dark features tautening.
'How could I know that it was innocent?’ Jessica whispered. 'I thought that you wanted her. She was so sure that you did—'
'My father's leavings?' Carlo breathed with distaste.
Jessica lifted her silvery head in disbelief. His re
vulsion at the idea was unconcealed. 'But...but you said
she was stunningly eye-catching '
'So she is, but I have never found her sexually at
tractive. She reminded me of Bella. Vain, self-centred,
thick as a brick apart from a certain greedy streak of
native cunning when it comes to feathering her own
nest ‘