CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘YOU’VE got it?’ Jake was pale with relief. ‘I can ring them…you can transfer it now…’

      ‘Why don’t I just deposit it into your account?’

      ‘For Beth to see?’

      ‘She’s going to find out, Jake. Once the inheritance goes through, you’re going to have to explain why there isn’t any…’

      ‘That’s weeks away.’ Jake shook his head.

      ‘It’s two weeks away, Jake. And you can deny it all you like, but this problem isn’t going to go away. Beth has to be told.’

      ‘I know that,’ Jake shrilled. ‘I know that. But I can’t tell her now, Em. Not with the way things are. If Beth and I can just get past this…And anyway…’ his face crumpled in despair ‘…I don’t trust myself with that sort of money…’

      ‘You’re getting help?’

      ‘I’m going to meetings every day…I haven’t gambled in weeks.’

      Her bank details jumped up on the screen and Emma swallowed, reeling at the balance, her fingers hovering over the keyboard as Jake read out his loan shark’s details.

      ‘You have to pay me back, Jake.’

      ‘You know I will.’

      ‘No, Jake, I don’t.’ She turned to face her brother. ‘I want it in writing. I want the money you owe me to go directly into my bank account when the settlement goes through.’

      ‘Are you saying you don’t trust me?’

      ‘I don’t trust you, Jake.’ After what she’d had to go through today, it wasn’t hard to say. ‘I don’t trust you with money—I’d be an absolute fool to. I need it in writing.’

      ‘Fine!’ he snapped, ripping out a piece of paper from her printer and scrawling a note stating the sum that was being borrowed, and that he would pay her back at the time of their settlement. ‘Satisfied?’

      Emma took the piece of paper and placed it in her bag, hardly able to make out the digits on the keyboard as her eyes swam with tears. She knew the second she hit ‘confirm’ she was truly indebted to Zarios. For the next two weeks she was a pawn in the elaborate game he was playing—conning poor Rocco.

      ‘Never do this again, Jake. I will never help you again.’

      ‘I’ll never ask.’

      And he meant it. Staring into eyes that were as blue as her own, seeing the wretchedness in his features, the shame, the grief, the embarrassment, she knew that he meant it and reached out her arms to her brother.

      ‘I’m so ashamed…’ he sobbed. ‘I hate myself more than you hate me.’

      ‘I don’t hate you, Jake. I’m just scared for you.’

      ‘I miss them, Em.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘They’d be so ashamed…’

      ‘Don’t think about that.’

      ‘I’ll make them proud.’ He was a snivelling mess, his grief, his shame, his fear so raw, so real, that surely, surely this was his rock bottom? Surely this had to be the last time? ‘I’m never gambling again. I’m going to make you proud—make Beth and the twins proud…’

      ‘Make yourself proud, Jake.’ She gave a tired smile as he glanced at his watch.

      ‘I’ve got a meeting…’

      ‘Then go.’

      ‘How did you get Zarios to agree?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Emma gave a thin smile. ‘You’ve got the money.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      Jake wasn’t the only one with an important meeting to attend. Staring out of her window Emma watched as Zarios’s sleek silver car purred up to the kerb. She could almost sense that he knew the money had just been spent.

      That she was now his.

      That thought was confirmed when, instead of opening his car door, instead of walking down the path to her flat, Zarios gave a short burst on his horn that told her, as if she didn’t already know, he was here.

      That he had come to claim what he now owned.

      ‘Emma!’ Rocco rose from his chair and embraced her. ‘It is good of you to come and see me…’

      The house was just as it always was whenever Emma went there. Situated in the exclusive Melbourne suburb of Toorak. The door had been opened by Roula, Rocco’s elderly housekeeper, and she had walked them through the home which was more like a vast mausoleum to his brief marriage—its walls and surfaces lined with images of their brief union.

      Emma was shocked at the frailty of Rocco as he held her. In the few weeks since she’d last seen him he’d aged more than a decade, and Emma knew it wasn’t just his illness he was suffering from, but a broken heart—he’d loved her parents, too.

      ‘You should have told me you were bringing Emma over,’ Rocco scolded his son.

      ‘What, and spoil the surprise?’ Zarios smiled.

      ‘I am too old for surprises.’

      ‘You’re sixty,’ Zarios pointed out, but it was hopeless. Age really was just a number, and despite his wealth, despite the trappings they afforded, the years really had ravaged his father.

      ‘Emma is staying tonight,’ Zarios informed Rocco. ‘She needs a break, and there is also something—’

      ‘You should have said—I will tell Roula to make up a room, that we have a guest…’

      ‘There is no need to make up a room for a guest. Emma is family,’ Zarios corrected him, and Emma noticed the slight swallow before he continued. ‘Or she will be soon.’

      A smudge of a frown flickered over Rocco’s brow. ‘You two?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Are together?’ Still Rocco frowned. ‘Since when?’

      ‘Since