In answer, she placed her hands on his and slipped them down until they covered her breasts, and he gasped with a desire so intense it left him shaking.

She said, "My husband never touched me after the night we left Berlin." Then she turned in his arms and tilted her head until she could meet his eyes. "And this-this is whatever we make it, my love."

CHAPTER 16

Shadow had fallen in the courtyard at St. Barts by the time Gemma reached the main gates. She ducked inside and pulled her mobile from her bag, checking for messages now that she was out of the bright afternoon sun and could actually see the display. Nothing yet from Kincaid, and nothing from her sister. Closing the phone, she glanced up and caught sight of her father emerging from the temporary corridor that led round to the back of the complex.

She had seen him before he saw her, and in that instant took in his slumped shoulders and bleak expression. "Dad," she called out, and hurried towards him. "Is Mum all right?" Glancing at her watch, she added, "I haven't missed visiting-" The words died on her lips. At the sound of her voice, he had looked up, his face hardening, his chin coming up with the familiar bulldog pugnaciousness.

"You've missed seeing her, if that worries you at all," he said as he came up to her. "She's sleeping. It was a bad day, but then you'll know that, won't you? With all the time you've been taking from work to spend with your mum."

"Dad-I was-I am-but-"

"You have something better to do with your time? Is that what you're telling me?"

"No, Dad, of course not. But someone was killed last night-"

"And that's more important than your mother dying?"

Gemma stared at him, feeling as if she'd been punched. "What are you talking about? Mum's not dying. They've said it's treatable-"

"That's doctor talk for when they don't want to tell you the truth. She's bad. I've never seen her like this."

To Gemma's horror, she saw that he was close to tears. "Dad, she's going to be all right." She reached out, touched his arm, but he shook her off.

"Don't you dare talk down to me," he spat at her. "You've no right, missy, and this is one time when you don't know best."

All his criticism, all his disapproval, suddenly seemed more than she could bear. A red wave of fury exploded behind her eyes. "And don't you talk to me like that," she shouted back at him. "What have I ever done to deserve being treated like that?"

Vaguely, she was aware of other people moving past them, of whispered comments, but she was past caring. "I've made something of myself, something that should make you proud. I'm responsible. I've got a good career. A beautiful child. A good relationship. Why can't you for once give me a lit-"

"So that's the way it is, is it?" Having got a rise out of her, he had gone cold. "If your life is so perfect, why don't you marry him and give your mum some peace of mind while you can?"

"I still don't like him," said Cullen when he and Kincaid were at last back in the car. "He's very convincing, but he was just as convincing as an arrogant shit at Harrowby's. So how can you be sure which one is the act?"

They had called in a search team for the Khans' house, and a tow for their dark blue Volvo SUV, which turned out to be registered to Sophie Khan. "Ka never drives it, unless we go out together in the evenings or on weekends," she had told them.

When asked to confirm her husband's whereabouts on the two nights in question, she had said that of course he was home in bed, and what sort of idiot did they take her for if they thought she wouldn't have noticed him leaving to go run someone down?

She'd had one child on her hip and the other wrapped round her leg, and had looked fierce enough to rip their entrails out if they threatened her family.

Khan had gone quiet and distant, and Kincaid couldn't read behind the mask. Having told them quite civilly, once he'd calmed down, that they were wasting his time and theirs, Khan had added that any documents he had copied from Harrowby's he had passed on to his journalist colleague, and that he would not give his friend permission to release them.

"And if you think I'm a hard case," he'd added with a faint smile, "you haven't met Jon. You'll not get a scrap of paper from him with anything less than a subpoena."

"Should we tackle the journalist?" Cullen asked now with what sounded like relish.

Kincaid considered, then said, "Not until we've had another word with the slippery Giles Oliver."

Gemma watched her father walk away, her anger ebbing as quickly as it had come. She wondered if she would ever learn not to bite, not to try for the last word, because it was inevitably a losing battle. All she had done was prove that he still had the capacity to hurt her, and to make her doubt herself.

But what he had said-was he right about her mum? She turned and started down the long tunnel of the makeshift corridor, her heart pounding as if she'd just run a sprint. When she reached her mother's ward, she stood at the desk, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth as she waited for the charge nurse to be free.

It was the same Pakistani man she had spoken to the first night her mum had come in, and he smiled in recognition as he handed off a chart to another nurse and turned to her.

"You can go in," he said. "She's resting, but-"

"Is she worse?" Gemma asked. "My dad said she was"-she couldn't bring herself to say the word-"that she was having a bad day."

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far." The nurse shook his head. "She's just tired from the chemo, and the antinausea medication makes her a bit sleepy. She's doing just fine. You go in and see for yourself." He waved her off, turning to someone else, and she had no choice but to follow his command, even though her heart was still skipping erratically.

The curtains were drawn round her mum's bed. Gemma took a breath, then parted them and slipped quietly into the chair by the bedside. Her mum was sleeping, just as the nurse had said, and her breathing was easy and regular.

Relief flooded through Gemma and she closed her eyes against the sudden welling of tears.

Her dad had meant to hurt her. He had always been sharp with her, and critical, and she had assumed it was because she was the eldest and he expected more. But this-she hadn't seen this. When had her father's feelings towards her changed into something more than impatience?

Sensing a change in her mum's breathing, she looked up and found her mum awake and watching her.

"I'm so sorry, Mummy," she whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I'm just glad to see you, love." Vi lifted a hand towards Gemma's wet cheek, but the IV line hampered her and she let it fall back to the bed. "You've not been crying, have you?"

"No, I-" Gemma wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks and blurted out, "Mum, why does Dad hate me?"

"Hate you? Don't be silly, love," Vi said, with a hint of her usual briskness. But even that seemed to tire her, and she sank back into her pillows, adding more quietly, "Of course your dad doesn't hate you. Whatever gave you that idea?" She searched Gemma's face and sighed. "Don't pay him any mind. He's worried, and he's taking it out on you."