of that weakness. But then she blamed her susceptibility on the fact that she had first seen Cristiano Andreotti in a glossy magazine spread when she was only fourteen years old. He had been twenty-two. Convinced that he was the most breathtakingly gorgeous guy she had ever seen, she had torn out his picture and kept it. She had not just stuck him in a drawer—no, she had ironed his paper image and put him in a photo frame, and spent seemingly infinite, essentially adolescent moments devouring his picture with wistful contentment. She had much preferred those dreams to the often crude reality of the young men she’d encountered.
In fact more than six years were to pass before she actually met Cristiano—years during which her popularity as a model had gradually brought her to the point where she had an occasional entry ticket into his rarefied world of wealth and privilege. Once she’d had the thrill of seeing him across a nightclub, lounging back like royalty and looking bored, while a bevy of women fought for his attention. He hadn’t seen her or noticed her.
A frightening experience when she was only thirteen had made Lydia wary of men. After that she’d found it hard to flirt, and was careful not to bare too much flesh in mixed company. That she was still a virgin was a secret she’d kept very much to herself, for she had moved in circles where casual sex was considered the norm. She had also been endlessly hunted by rapacious men eager to bed her just so that they could add her to a macho tally of conquests. When she’d finally realised that she was being labelled frigid by the men she refused, she had been deeply hurt and embarrassed. It had seemed easier not to date at all. It had not occurred to her that her very unavailability might make her an even more tempting target for a predatory male.
The day she’d peered through the curtains at a Paris fashion show and seen Cristiano Andreotti seated in the very front row, she had been overwhelmed. The teenager who had once cherished his photo as a pin-up had surfaced inside her again. Edgy as a beginner on the runway, she had been afraid even to glance in his direction. In fact when he’d asked to be introduced to her, she’d been so sick with nerves that she hadn’t dared to look directly at him. He had asked her for her phone number and she had told him that her mobile had been stolen. A moment later she had had to race off to do a private showing for a VIP. Later Cristiano had had a new phone delivered to her hotel, and his had been the first call, his rich dark drawl coiling round her like melting honey.
He had wanted to see her that night, but she’d had a booking back in London early the following day.
‘I’ll be in Sydney next week. Phone and say you’re ill so that you can stay on in Paris,’ he’d urged.
‘I can’t do that.’
‘You can if you want to see me.’
‘And if you want to see me you can wait,’ she’d heard herself reply.
‘Are you always this difficult?’
That had been her first—and not her last—taste of dealing with a very rich and powerful guy, accustomed to the instant gratification of his every expressed wish. Anything less than immediate acceptance or agreement was perceived as a negative response.
Even so, Cristiano had still flown her back to Paris the following evening to dine with him, and they had got on so well that they had still been talking in the early hours. Perfect white roses had awaited her when she returned to London, and he had called her every day for a week afterwards. She had felt cherished and appreciated. Every step of their relationship had struck her as being the very essence of romance. Plenty of people had warned her that Cristiano had a reputation for being notoriously cold-blooded when it came to her sex, but she’d paid no heed. She had ridden the crest of the wave of phone calls and all-too-brief meetings while secretly dreaming, as women had from time immemorial, of love and happily-ever-after. At no stage had it crossed her mind that she might simply be an object to be used and abused in a game being played by a super-rich, egotistical man.
Now, the pain of that final recollection did nothing to ease Lydia’s tension as she found herself back in a police interview room.
The inspector gave her a surprisingly genial smile. ‘Tell me about your mother’s house in France,’ he invited.
‘France?’ Lydia’s astonishment was unhidden. ‘But my mother doesn’t have a house in France.’
‘We believe that she does, and according to our source it’s quite a luxurious second home. Five bedrooms and a pool, no less. At least, that is what she told a friend last year. That kind of set-up doesn’t come cheap in the south of France.’
Lydia shook her head in urgent disagreement. ‘The supposed friend is talking nonsense.’
‘I don’t think so…’
‘Of course it’s nonsense. If my mother owned another house, I’d have known about it. There’s been a misunderstanding.’ Of that fact Lydia had no doubt. After all, had there been a second property it would have been sold to ease her parent’s cash-flow problems, and Virginia would never have made the appalling mistake of spending money that did not belong to her.
‘We may not have established the location of that house yet, but we are well on our way to doing so. I think we’ll have more answers when your mother is in a position to assist us with our enquiries.’
Lydia had lost colour. She was dismayed by the fact that the investigation now seemed to be changing course to place new emphasis on her mother’s role. ‘But I’ve told you before that she has nothing to do with this.’
‘I believe that your mother has everything to do with this. You were unable to tell me what you had spent the missing money on.’ The inspector settled a clutch of plastic evidence bags on the table between them. ‘I have a series of cheques that were drawn on the charity account and signed by both you and your mother. One is made out for almost fifty thousand pounds and was used to purchase a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The salesman remembers the buyer well. Where is that vehicle now, Miss Powell?’
Lydia was aghast at the question. Virginia had changed her car before she disappeared? And for a larger, more expensive model? She was disconcerted by the information, but steady in her determination to protect the older woman from the consequences of her crime. ‘I don’t know…’
‘All of the cheques we have retrieved so far relate solely to purchases made by Virginia Carlton, or payments made by her to settle personal debts. When did you sign those cheques?’ the inspector queried, but did not wait for her to respond. ‘It must’ve been difficult for you to deal with the day-to-day expenses of the charity fashion show when you and your mother lived so far apart. I gather the financial arrangements were left in her hands as she was on the spot. Did you pre-sign cheques for her convenience?’
‘No—she did that for me,’ Lydia insisted, a tad desperately.
The older man sighed. ‘If you persist with this stance you will in all likelihood be charged with aiding and abetting your mother to defraud the Happy Holidays charity. All the current evidence, up to and including her careful disappearance, suggests that she was the prime instigator of the theft.’
‘No—no, she wasn’t!’ Lydia exclaimed, her hands twisting together on her lap.
‘And telling silly tales is unlikely to convince me, or any judge, to the contrary,’ he spelt out impatiently. ‘Stop wasting our time, Miss Powell. In due course your mother will be found and prosecuted. There is nothing you can do to alter that. I suggest that you go home now and think over your position very carefully.’
Lydia was on the brink of tears of frustration and fear when she left the police station. How could she have made such a mess of things? She had failed to convince the police that she was the culprit, and her mother was about to be hunted down to her hideaway—wherever that was—and dragged off to court regardless. Of only one thing was Lydia certain, and that was that her frightened parent could not possibly be hiding out in some palace with a pool on the French Riviera!
Although Lydia had been shattered when she’d realised what her mother had done, she had understood how desperate Virgina must have been. In the spring, Lydia had reluctantly