Also by Stephanie Harte
Risking it All
Forgive and Forget
TANGLED LIVES
Stephanie Harte
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Stephanie Harte, 2020
The moral right of Stephanie Harte to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781789546286
Aria
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Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Become an Aria Addict
For my husband, Barry and my children, Sarah and James. Thank you for spurring me on when I felt overwhelmed and for always believing in me.
1
Gemma
It was three o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t help noticing that everything was unusually quiet on the Golden Mile. Since moving to Puerto Banús, a thriving resort that boasted numerous nightclubs and late-night bars, we’d become accustomed to the throb of the after-dark playlist that continued until the small hours. My eyes were closed, but I lay awake, listening to Nathan’s steady breathing. I suddenly became aware of somebody climbing the stone stairs below our penthouse apartment. The sound appeared amplified in the darkness – or was it because my senses were heightened that made the echoing seem especially disturbing?
When the footsteps stopped outside our front door, my eyes sprang open, and panic gripped me with an iron fist. Recently, I’d been having a recurring nightmare that someone broke in and kidnapped my baby in the middle of the night, while Nathan and I were sleeping. But I could see Luca’s chest rising and falling in the Moses basket next to our bed, so I knew he was safe.
‘Nathan, wake up,’ I whispered, shaking my husband by the arm. He stirred at the sound of my voice, but he was still in the depths of sleep, so I shook him again, harder this time.
‘What’s up, Gemma?’ Nathan’s sounded groggy. Removing his hand from under his pillow, he rolled over and looked at me.
‘There’s somebody outside.’ Clutching the covers in terror, I slid further down in the bed.
As Nathan’s dark eyes registered what I’d said, he threw back the quilt and swung his long legs out of bed. I reached over and put my hand on his bare shoulder before he had a chance to stand up.
‘Phone security; please don’t go out there,’ I said.
After Alfie Watson and his team were arrested in Boulogne, Nathan and I decided we’d move to Spain until the dust settled. Although the authorities had said they were confident they had caught the men responsible for the robbery at the Antwerp Diamond Centre and were not looking for anyone else in connection with the heist, we felt it was too risky for us to go back to British soil at the moment. One of the reasons we’d chosen to buy this ultra-modern luxury apartment was for the safety aspect. It was situated on the top floor of a three-storey building inside a gated community with a concierge and round-the-clock security. It had its own lift, so why would somebody bother to climb all those stairs?
Nathan’s dark hair flopped forward when he reached under the bed and pulled out a baseball bat. ‘Stay here,’ he said. As he crossed the white marble floor of the hallway, we heard the footsteps retreating down the staircase. Nathan flung open the front door, but the intruder was long gone.
I was eager to hear what he had to say. He wouldn’t be able to dismiss my concerns this time. How would he explain the presence of somebody outside our door? ‘I suppose I just imagined hearing those footsteps running down the stairs, did I?’ I said when Nathan came back into the bedroom.
‘It was probably just kids.’ Nathan yawned and slipped back into bed.
‘At three o’clock in the morning?’
He tucked a strand of my dark brown bob behind my ear before kissing the top of my head. ‘Go back to sleep, Gemma.’
‘I won’t be able to, not with somebody lurking outside our apartment.’
‘Whoever it was isn’t there now.’ Nathan pulled the quilt over himself and rolled onto his side. Pulling me towards him, he draped a protective arm o
ver me.
Despite my husband’s reassurance, I knew I wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I was on edge, so my anxious state of mind wouldn’t allow it. There’s nothing like a bit of sleep deprivation to lower your mood and allow self-indulgent paranoid thoughts to fill your brain. It didn’t matter how many times Nathan told me there was no evidence we were under threat, the eerie feeling of someone watching my every move had become part of my daily life. It never left me and occupied my thoughts day and night. It was an unnerving sensation, but Nathan was convinced it was all in my mind. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to worry about; I was just imagining it. He was probably right.
Since Luca’s birth, I’d been on edge; my emotions were out of control. Nathan was sure the change in my behaviour was because I was adjusting to life with a new baby, but I thought there was more to it than a case of the baby blues. Although that would account for some of my symptoms, it didn’t explain why I’d developed a fear of being watched all the time. I didn’t know if it was an irrational fear brought on by anxiety or if my sixth sense was right.
Either way, something was amiss. I didn’t imagine the incident just now outside our apartment, no matter what Nathan said. As it played on my mind, I knew I’d have trouble sleeping, and if I managed to drift off, I’d dream I was reliving the nightmare.
No wonder I’d found myself travelling down this dark path. Our lives would never be the same again. When you lived through a traumatic experience, it did strange things to a person; you couldn’t expect everything to return to normal in an instant, could you? The memory of Alfie setting the yacht ablaze to destroy any evidence it contained, even though he knew Nathan and I were still on board, haunted me. He had been willing to burn us alive to stop himself being linked to his crimes. I couldn’t get my head around that fact. I had been pushed to the edge and felt like I was unravelling. My sanity was fraying at the seams.
I didn’t like feeling weak and out of control. I’d always been the strong one in our relationship, but these days I had to lean more and more on my husband for emotional support. That was something that didn’t sit comfortably with me. I valued my independence too much.
I was seventeen when I met Nathan on the beach at Southend. We were childhood sweethearts. People said we were too young to marry, but nothing would keep us apart. He was my soulmate. My world fell to pieces when our marriage hit rock bottom, but since I’d become pregnant, it was back on track, and our relationship was stronger than ever.
Being a mother for the first time was hard work. I was struggling without a close network around me. Nathan had been a fantastic help, doing chores and everyday tasks to take some of the strain off me, but that hadn’t stopped me feeling overwhelmed at times. Reeling from exhaustion and fluctuating hormones, I’d found myself being sucked into a dark place. A place I was reluctant to visit, in case I couldn’t find my way out again. I kept reminding myself that this was all new to me, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. But I’d always been my own worst critic.
Nathan had found it difficult growing up without his father around, and in the past, he’d struggled with commitment issues and insecurities. Because of that, he wanted Luca to grow up with two loving parents and never experience the pain he went through.
2
Nathan
The day Gemma showed me the little pink line on the pregnancy test, it brought a tear to my eye. It was a fantastic feeling knowing my wife was expecting our first child, but I also couldn’t help feeling a little sad. I wanted to share the news with my family, but I’d been estranged from my mum since I’d found out she’d lied to me about my dad. She’d let me grow up thinking Dad had abandoned me. I never understood why he’d do that to me, and it filled me with insecurity.
Mum had paid the ultimate price for keeping her secret from me. It had damaged our relationship, and I wasn’t sure we’d ever recover from it. We hadn’t spoken in over a year. I’d thought about picking up the phone and putting an end to our argument on several occasions, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to forgive her yet. Because of what she’d done, I was thirty-three years old, and I’d never met my father. She’d cut him out of our lives when I was a baby, so I’d been denied a relationship with him. That had a powerful effect on me. My upbringing had undoubtedly left its mark on me. I’d battled demons all my life.
Since Gemma first told me she was pregnant, I’d had a sudden urge to find my father. I was curious to find out about the man I never knew. I wanted to contact him and hear his side of the story. I hoped it wasn’t too late for us to start building bridges.
I’d spent an unsuccessful year trying to locate Gareth Stone, but rather than diminishing, my desire to find him had intensified. It crossed my mind that he might have changed his name, and be living under an alias. That could explain why I hadn’t managed to track him down. I didn’t want to consider a different possibility; there was a chance he might be dead. I couldn’t bear to think about the fact that we might never get the chance to meet and make memories. I had to stop myself from grieving the role he never got to play.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I found out the truth, so I decided to use a people-tracing service. They contacted me yesterday to tell me they had an address and phone number for Gareth Stone.
3
Gemma
Nathan was sitting on the balcony, in his favourite sheltered spot, out of the wind and in the sun, when he broke the news to me. He wanted to go back to England. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t want to return to the eye of the storm.
Since he’d learnt the truth about Gareth, and now that he was a father himself, Nathan had been preoccupied with meeting his father. My husband had waited more than thirty years for this opportunity. Wanting to trace your biological parent is a completely normal thing to do. I knew he was desperate to meet Gareth, so I couldn’t be the one to stand in his way. I just wished we could get on a plane like normal people and be in England in a couple of hours, instead of embarking on a three-day trek. We had Alfie to thank for that. Exposing us to a life of crime meant we now had to live under the radar, and airports had far too much security for us to negotiate.
Nathan had already made the travel arrangements. I was slightly peeved that he hadn’t consulted me first, but that was typical of my husband. He’d always been impulsive. I can’t say I was overjoyed at the thought of an eleven-hour drive from Marbella to Santander, followed by a twenty-four-hour ferry to Portsmouth before a two-hour drive to London. The journey was not for the faint-hearted, especially with a four-month-old baby in tow.
Breast milk is about ninety per cent water, and the doctor told me it was important to drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated. But I wouldn’t be able to do that unless I developed a bladder of steel before we left. I knew what Nathan was like, once he got behind the wheel of a car – he was like Cruella de Vil. He wouldn’t stop for anything. Nathan dismissed my concerns and assured me it was a better option than having to drive through Spain and France to get to the Eurotunnel terminal.
‘I know you want to avoid the long drive, but just think about this for a minute: it’s January, Nathan. How will Luca cope on a twenty-four-hour crossing if the sea’s really rough? I think we should travel by car in case the weather’s bad.’ I could see my husband was excited by the prospect of finally meeting his dad, so I didn’t want to rain on his parade, but despite my best efforts to bite my tongue, my words came out in a nagging pitch.
Nathan brought his dark eyes back to mine and smiled. ‘You’re overthinking this. Luca will be fine. He sleeps most of the time anyway.’
I flashed my husband a look of disbelief. ‘Only a man who wasn’t breastfeeding could make a statement like that! I think the dark circles under my eyes tell a different story.’
Nathan reached towards me, caught hold of my hand and kissed it. ‘I’m sorry, Gem, I shouldn’t have said that. I was only joking. Do you forgive me?’
‘That de
pends…’
Nathan pulled me down onto his lap and wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders. ‘Look, if you’re that worried about the journey, we can stop at Aranjuez and spend the night there.’ Nathan flashed me his bright, white smile before he continued with his sales pitch. ‘It’s halfway between Marbella and Santander, so it’s only five hours away.’ My husband looked deeply into my green eyes before he continued. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure gone? It’ll be fun, Gemma.’
‘Don’t you think you should phone your dad first and let him know we’re coming?’ I said, putting my arms around his waist.
‘There’s no need.’
Nathan’s dark eyes didn’t meet my gaze. He seemed put out by my suggestion. I knew there was no point saying any more. My husband had made his mind up. By the look on his face, it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. This wasn’t up for discussion. Nathan had a habit of keeping his emotions bottled up. I could tell something was bothering him. Even though he wanted to see Gareth as soon as possible, it was obvious Nathan wasn’t sure how he was going to react. It wasn’t every day your long-lost son turned up on your doorstep. It must have crossed his mind that Gareth might reject the idea of a reunion before it could even get off the ground.
Nathan had decided without any real consideration that the element of surprise was the best tactic to use here. I couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the situation. Purely from a selfish point of view, it was a long way to travel if we were going to find a closed door at the end of it. But who could blame Gareth if he reacted like that? Turning up on his doorstep out of the blue was a risky thing to do. That pretty much summed up my husband though – he was a born risk-taker.
For me, the thought of leaving Spain was like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it would be a blessing. I didn’t feel safe here at the moment. I was on edge all the time. Either my mind was playing tricks on me, or somebody was watching me. If we went away, in theory, that should stop and then I might be able to relax. But on the other hand, returning to the UK could be a huge mistake. Would we be able to remain undetected once we were on English soil? I couldn’t help thinking it was too soon to go back. Thanks to my current state, whichever way I looked at it, neither option was desirable. I was being ruled by fear.