Stranger at the beach house (31 page)

I
looked across, trying to force a polite smile as the middle aged man with
thinning hair sat down on the bench next to me, smiling brightly and looking at
the magazine as he looked back at me. “He’s everywhere at the minute isn’t he?”
he laughed gently as I nodded. I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation but
he carried on anyway. “Personally I’m really grateful to the man. I was one of
those people who invested my savings. I should get some of it back now at
least. It broke my wife’s heart when we lost everything,” he said as I nodded
sympathetically. He didn’t take my silence as a cue to shut up and just carried
on talking. “He seems to do well with the ladies, it makes you wonder if
there’s a poor girl sat somewhere with a broken heart who wants to put the
record straight,” he smiled. What a bizarre statement.

A
strange feeling ran through me that this man wasn’t a random stranger, but a
journalist. I wasn’t sure if I was being totally paranoid but he had an odd
vibe and I wasn’t hanging around any longer to see if I was right. “Good day,”
I said, rolling up the magazine and putting it in my bag.

 
“Rose,” he said as I stood and stared at him
for a second, absolutely gobsmacked before all but running to my car and
collapsing against the wheel. I couldn’t believe it. Sam was right. It had
already started.

I
fired up the engine and pulled out of the car park, looking in my mirrors to
see if anyone was following me and suddenly remembered the lone car that was
parked on the road outside the house. I needed to get back and there was only
one place I wanted to be as I called Harry. “Is the house clear?” I asked and I
could tell he was taken aback by the panic in my voice.

“Yes,
Babe,” he said as I hung up and pressed my foot to the accelerator pedal.

It
was getting dark as I arrived and Harry was stood in the kitchen waiting for me
as he looked at my flustered face with a puzzled frown. “What happened?” he
asked as I shut and locked the door behind me.

“I
was approached by a journalist in York. I was sat on a bench and he started
talking about Sam. I didn’t say anything to him, but when I got up to leave he
said my name. He knew who I was, he had followed me, Harry,” I said as he shook
his head.

“It
shouldn’t happen again. Sam got the injunction. The team sweeping the house
found a small listening device. He must have put it there when you went for his
water,” he said and I didn’t know what to say. I had one question to ask Harry
as I pulled out the magazine from my bag, noticing that Sam hadn’t text me
back. I opened it to the page with the pictures and passed it to Harry.

 
“Do you know anything about this?” I asked, as
he scanned the pictures for a few seconds, looking up at me as he passed me the
magazine.

“No,
Babe, but they print bullshit. You need to trust him,” he said and something
about the tone in his voice made me think he’d heard from Sam again today,
probably since my text.

“Have
you spoken to him, Harry?” I asked quietly as he nodded.

 
“He’s really busy, Babe,” he said simply,
trying to justify Sam’s actions. Not too busy to talk to you though I thought,
making my way through to the bedroom, pulling on the T-shirt that smelled of my
boyfriend and climbing into his big white bed, hugging Blue my little teddy and
wanting to hide from the world and everyone in it.

I
wasn’t sure what time it was, but it felt like the middle of the night, the
only light in the room came from the small fragment seeping in from the hall
outside and the green hue of the digital clock that sat on the nightstand as I
blinked my blurry eyes open to check for the time as the fuzzy digits became
clearer. 3:15am.

I
sensed him before I saw him, his broad outline slumped in the chair opposite
the bed, thumbing quietly through the magazine I had thrown on the floor last
night, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see from here that he
looked exhausted. His eyes were rimmed with red, from tiredness or crying and
at least two days dark stubble lined his jaw as I sat silently gazing at my
beautiful Sam. He hadn’t realised I had woken.

It
was a few moments before he looked across at me, laid in his T-shirt in his bed
as our eyes locked and he said nothing, just opening his arms, sad eyes
pleading for me to go to him.

I
threw my legs over side of the bed and all but ran to him, jumping onto his lap
as he held me tightly, needing his closeness, needing to feel him and craving
the touch I had missed for so many days. We would have to talk, and the reality
of whatever he would tell me would be there forever, but first I needed this
moment, just me and him in the dark room of the secluded beach house, far away
from the rest of the world and all its troubles.

“We need
to talk, Rose,” he said, placing down the magazine and kissing the top of my
head as I nodded silently.

 
“I know,” I said as he stood up, taking me
with him in his arms and putting me back on the bed as he crawled beside me,
pulling my head against his chest and stroking my hair. “Did you get my text?”
I asked in the darkness. This was the question at the forefront of my mind and
would pretty much determine the outcome of everything else. He sighed heavily.

“Yes
I did. Now you need to listen to me, Rose, and hear me out. I didn’t want this
to come out yet, not now and not like this, but I don’t have a choice,” he
said. I gazed up at his beautiful face, etched with concern and my heart was
pounding, my brain racing and praying he wouldn’t tell me that the press were
right and I’d been wrong to trust him.

“There’s
no easy way to say it, so I’m just going to have to say it. Victoria Bloom is
your sister, Rose”. What? I flew upright, eyes burning into his, the shock
evident on every feature of my face as he just gazed at me nodding. “I’m sorry,
Baby, I asked her to wait until this circus was over but she wouldn’t,” he said
as I just stared, completely unable to process what he was saying to me.
A sister?
My sister?
What the hell
did he mean?

“I
don’t understand, Sam,” was all I could say.

 
“When you told me you wanted to find your
father I put my Private Investigators on it. Well strictly speaking that’s not
true, Rose, I actually asked them to look into it when Alice first showed me
the letters,” he said as I gazed at him, puzzled, dumbfounded and slightly
annoyed.

“I
only did it to see if they could find him. I wasn’t going to do anything with
the information. I just didn’t want you to see the letters and get your hopes
up if there was no chance of tracing him. I wasn’t going to tell you that bit
because you already called me a stalker once, but anyway that’s what I did,” he
said and I couldn’t help the small giggle that burst from my lips. Yes he had
interfered, but in his heart he thought his reasons were sound and I wasn’t
about to hold it against him. Right now I had much bigger issues to contend
with.

“They’d
narrowed it down to about three potential people. Apparently there were quite a
few William’s from London who joined Harvard that year. A couple of weeks ago
all the agents met for their weekly meeting and there was a freelancer there
who was working on a case he needed some help with. They use this guy sometimes
and he’d been privately employed to look for your mother. You can imagine it.
When the details came out they knew they were searching for the same couple.
They had your mother’s details from me and your father’s details from
Victoria,” he said as I tried to piece it all together.

“Why
was Victoria looking for my mother?” I asked urgently. It was a huge
coincidence and I couldn’t understand why she’d want to.

 
“I asked the same thing. It turns out that her
own mother died just over a year ago and recently your dad has been spending
more and more time talking about Grace. He told Victoria the story of his first
love and he’s never got over it. He and his wife were from similar families and
they were kind of forced together. They were really good friends and kindred
spirits in a way. She had fallen for a soldier, and her parents had prevented
her from seeing him before he was posted to Northern Ireland. He was killed in
action. Her and your father married and forged a life together. Apparently they
were happy enough, able to express their hurt openly and accepting each other’s
pain for their lost loves. Victoria had always known about the soldier, but she
only recently found out about Grace. She thought it would help her dad to find
closure if she could discover what happened to her and that’s why she was
looking”.

It
was a sad story and tears welled in my eyes as I thought back to the letters.
At least he had found someone to share his life with, someone who understood.
Sam wiped away the tears from my eyes and kissed me gently. “Do you want to
know the rest?” he asked as I nodded silently, gazing at him and still trying
to absorb it all.

“Before
J could stop him, the agent told his client that Grace had died. When I found
out, I told him not tell her where your mother was buried. I couldn’t risk her
coming here and finding out about you. I needed to be absolutely certain you
wanted to go ahead with this. Then the whole story about me broke and things
got crazy. I had to tell her about you, it was the only way I could stall her.
I explained that she couldn’t just barge into your life and that she needed to
back off. I told her what you’d been through and I thought she understood, but
she even found out I was going to the publishing ball and came to see me there.
She’s tenacious your half sister, really fucking determined, Rose,” he laughed
and I laughed gently with him. I had known there was something strange about
the way that girl was looking me.

“I
noticed her that night,” I said as he nodded.

 
“I bet. She didn’t stop staring at you. She
told me you had her father’s eyes and it was all I could do to stop her
marching up to you and telling you who she was. It was probably just as well
that you ran,” he smiled as I shook my head.

“She
called me a couple of days ago and told me she was coming down here so I had to
meet her, to stop her. I had no choice. I just asked her to wait a few more
days until something more interesting happened in the world and the press were
off my back, but she said her father was worse than ever. She really believes
this will help him, Rose,” he smiled and I could understand her wanting to help
William. I had felt the same when I read those letters and I didn’t even know
him.

“Has
she told him about me, Sam?” I asked as he shook his head.

 
“No, Baby, that’s why she wanted to speak to
you so badly. She knew if you refused to meet him that it would break his heart
and there would be no way back from that”. I blew out in an exaggerated sigh.
It was a huge revelation and so much to absorb.

“What?”
I said to Sam as he looked at me grinning.

 
“I know your dad. He owns a private bank and
we have a lot of mutual clients. I couldn’t believe it when I found out,” he
laughed and I was smiling broadly.

 
“What’s he like?” I asked, unable to contain
my curiosity about the man I never thought I’d meet.

 
“He’s a good guy, Rose,” he said and now it
was my turn to laugh.

“That’s
what Harry said about you,” I smiled as he raised his eyebrows.

 
“I can’t imagine he said that yesterday when I
hauled his irresponsible fucking arse over the coals,” he said, and I could
tell by the changing tone in his voice that Sam was still livid that Harry
hadn’t known where I was.

 
“You can’t blame Harry it’s hardly his fault.
He’s been dragged into this as much as I have and he tried his best. It’s not
as if I’m his responsibility,” I said in my friends defence, shaking my head at
Sam.

“You
were his responsibility, Rose. I meant it when I said in London that there was
a small possibility that you could be approached. I’d had a couple of threats,
nothing too serious, but I couldn’t take a chance with you. I hired a bodyguard
and Harry said he would do it. He promised me he’d keep you here and he’d keep
you safe. If I’d have known he was here just so he could spend his time fucking
Joy, I would have stuck with the bodyguard,” he said angrily as I burst out
laughing.

 
“Seriously, Sam, a bodyguard?” and I couldn’t
hide the expression that betrayed just how ridiculous I thought that idea was.

“I
won’t take any chances with your protection, Rose,” he said matter-of-factly
and my heart melted as I pulled him in for a deep, long kiss as our bodies
merged, revelling in the togetherness after all the time apart as he slid my
T-shirt off and rolled me beneath him, showering every inch of my body with
beautiful kisses and letting me know just how much he’d missed me.

There
was one more thing I needed to say.

“Sam,
you once made me promise always to talk to you and you fucked me so hard by
that fireplace to make sure I would never forget that promise,” I said, looking
up at him as he smiled back at me, obviously remembering it as fondly as I did.
“Now I need you to make me a promise and I really, really need to you to keep
it,” I said and from the small smile that tickled his mouth, I guessed he knew
what was coming.