The De Santis Marriage. Michelle Reid

the surface of her skin as she forced her shaky legs to move back to the desk. He twisted the file around, then stabbed at it with a long finger to draw her eyes down.

      She found herself staring at a bank statement—a bank statement with the Hadley name printed at its head. ‘H-how did you get hold of that?’ she whispered.

      ‘I’m a banker,’ he reminded her—again. ‘With the right contacts and the right strings to pull I can get anything I want.’

      There was a double meaning in that remark that did not pass by Lizzy.

      ‘Look where I’m pointing,’ he prompted.

      She looked, then stilled as if turned to stone.

      ‘The date shows that your company account received a heavy injection of funds just two days ago,’ he spelled out what she had already seen.

      Five and a half million…Lizzy had never seen five and a half million written down in black and white before. To her it was a gasping amount.

      ‘If you look at the next entry,’ her tormentor persisted, ‘you will see that the five and a half million pounds was withdrawn again on the same day.’

      ‘No,’ she breathed, refusing to believe what it was he was implying here.

      Then she jerked out of her shocked stasis. ‘I need to ring my father.’ White as a sheet now, she turned dizzily and headed for the door.

      ‘You will not call anyone,’ that ruthlessly calm voice instructed. ‘At this precise moment I have control of this situation and I mean to hold onto it. Bringing someone else into it will risk that control.’

      ‘Control over what?’ Lizzy swung around to stare at him.

      ‘You,’ he provided. ‘Until you brought me Bianca’s letter I was still puzzling as to why your father had successfully negotiated the loan he needed to save his company only to instantly remove all the money and put it somewhere else.’

      Lizzy suddenly needed to sit down somewhere. The only chair handy was the one placed several feet away from the desk. She sank into it. Her head was swimming, the complicated puzzle of what was really going on here beyond her stunned capabilities right now.

      ‘Your brother is the only other person besides your father authorised to access this account. Put it all together, Elizabeth,’ he encouraged. ‘It does not take much effort to calculate that your brother has taken the money to fund his romantic elopement with Bianca. If you did play a part in their disappearance then I hope you have taken into account that you have been left here to carry the can.’

      At that precise moment Lizzy didn’t care what position she was sitting here in. She was worried about her father. If— when—he found out what Matthew had done he was going to—

      ‘Of course, I must also point out that if you are genuinely innocent of any role in this, then you are still about to carry the can,’ that oh, so hateful voice injected, ‘because I want reparation for being taken for an idiot, and if that means putting you into Bianca’s wedding dress and marrying you in her place, then that is what is going to happen.’

      ‘For goodness’ sake!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Don’t you think this situation is bad enough without you trying to fly to the moon?’

      He laughed! Lizzy couldn’t believe she was hearing it! ‘You have a quaint way of expressing yourself.’