Kimberley exhaled through her nose. She would not respond. Speaking ill of Marise now seemed uncharitable and purposeless. She’d survived a plane crash, spent terrifying hours in the water, only to pass away among strangers. No one deserved that, not even a woman who’d deserted her husband and child for weeks on end with scant excuse for her absences.
Not even a woman who might have done so as cover for an affair.
“I don’t know Marise as well as you seem to think, so I don’t know what she might or might not have done,” she said. “But I do know what my father is capable of.”
“You don’t think your stance on Howard is slightly jaundiced?”
A humourless laugh escaped Kimberley’s lips as she met his gaze. “You know it is. And you know why.”
“Ten years is a long time, Kim.”
Staring into his shadowed face, she wondered about that. So much hadn’t changed, including the way he sparked her temper and her body’s dormant hormones with equal ease. Just by standing a little too close. Just by looking into her eyes a little too long. Just by pressing his lips to her wrist and stirring insistent memories of other kisses, against other skin, far more intimate.
“Did he tell you about the last time I saw him?” she asked, regathering her concentration. “When he came to New Zealand to try and snare me back to Blackstone’s?”
“I’d like to hear your side.”
Oh, he was smooth. He wouldn’t give away how much Howard had shared about that horrendous meeting. He’d been the same inside, she realised belatedly. Assuming control of the discussion, asking the leading questions, drawing opinion from everyone else but never offering his own.
She could call him on that—later—but for now she wanted to share her side.
She wanted him to know exactly what Howard Blackstone was capable of.
“When I refused his job offer,” she said, getting straight to the point, “he sweetened the salary package. More than once. When I told him money wasn’t the issue, he asked what it would take. I said an apology.”
“I gather you didn’t get one?”
“Have you ever heard Howard Blackstone apologise? For anything?”
Something tightened in his expression, but he simply said, “Go on.”
“He rejected any notion that he’d done anything wrong, but then he accused Matt of stealing me from Blackstone’s. He called him a thief like his father, and brought up the whole sorry raft of accusations from Mum’s party.” Shaking her head, she blew out a heated breath. “That was thirty years ago. I can’t believe he still thinks Oliver Hammond stole the Blackstone Rose necklace that night.”
“You don’t think Oliver took the opportunity to reclaim what he believed should have been Hammond property?”
“No,” she replied with absolute conviction. “Oliver wouldn’t have taken that necklace if it was handed to him on a silver platter. He despised Howard for cutting up the Heart of the Outback stone and making it into such an ostentatious piece. He hated that he’d put the Blackstone name to the necklace, when it came from a diamond found by a Hammond. And he despised Howard for making such a blatant show of owning it, with all the magazine spreads and having Mum photographed wearing the necklace at every opportunity.”
“From what I understand, your grandfather gave the diamond to Ursula. It was her prerogative to do with it as she wished. Eventually it would have passed to her estate,” he said with emphasis. “If it hadn’t gone missing, the Blackstone Rose would be yours, Kim.”
She gave a strangled laugh and shook her head. “No, that was never going to happen. Howard was the sole beneficiary of my mother’s estate. And as of last month, I believe I am no longer named in his will.”
“He said he was striking you from his will?” Perrini whistled softly through his teeth. “That must have been some argument.”
“You might say that.”
His lips quirked at her dry comment but his brows were lowered in serious contemplation as he caught her gaze. “Surely you didn’t believe he’d go ahead with it once he cooled down?”
“Maybe not, but what about his other threat? He still doesn’t accept that I walked away from Blackstone’s—” and you “—because of his actions. He blames Matt for actively recruiting me. The last thing he said to me that day was ‘Hammond will pay for this.’”
The portentous statement hung for a beat in the still evening air while Perrini made the connection. His blue eyes narrowed. “You think he was sleeping with Marise out of vengeance?”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he wanted Matt to think.”
She watched him consider that, his expression guarded. “Did Hammond have any reason to think his wife would cheat on him?”
“Matt didn’t discuss his marriage with me.”
“But it’s possible?”
Kimberley ached to say no, their marriage was as solid as the Sydney sandstone beneath our feet. Marise valued her husband and her child too dearly to stray. But she couldn’t say it. She looked away, her silence answer enough.
They stood like that for what seemed a long time, side by side at the balustrade, considering the shocking implications. Whether there’d been a clandestine affair going on or not didn’t matter. If the tabloids ran with it, if Matt believed it, then Howard’s job was done. Whether he was here to enjoy the fruits of his malicious game didn’t matter. He’d won.
The thought chilled Kimberley to the bone. This was her father. The man she’d looked up to with adoration throughout her childhood; the person she’d set her sights on emulating when she’d focussed single-mindedly on a career in the precious gems industry.
Unconsciously she rubbed her arms. “How can I mourn such a man?” she asked bitterly. “How can anyone?”
Perrini didn’t answer, but she sensed a change in his posture, a stiffening, and felt the warning touch of his hand on her arm. She swung around and saw Sonya standing just outside the French doors.
Had she heard that last comment?
Kimberley felt sick. She would never set out to hurt her aunt, who for some inexplicable reason had always stood by Howard with the same steadfastness as she’d defended him earlier. Over the years there’d been much speculation about their relationship, but Kimberley believed Sonya when she said there’d never been anything sexual between them.
Of course not. He’s my brother-in-law, she’d said, sounding offended that Kim had asked.
But she still could have loved the bastard. Kimberley suspected she would mourn him more purely than anyone.
“I know neither of you have eaten all day,” Sonya said now, in her customary mothering role, “so I’m going to start dinner early. You will stay, Ric?”
“Thank you,” he said easily. “I will.”
“Good.” Sonya turned as if to leave, then paused. “Your room is made up, as always, so do consider staying over. We’d love the company tonight.”
Your room? As always?
Kimberley blinked in confusion at the allusion to regular sleepovers. Her gaze shifted from her aunt to the ex-husband who seemed to have slipped right into her family during her absence. No wonder he’d known where to locate her bedroom when he’d taken her luggage upstairs.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured Sonya with a smile, but when he turned his gaze on Kimberley the warmth of that smile didn’t reach his eyes. They darkened with a