Chapter Ten #2
After his grandmother blew out her candles, with some help from Jack, Maxwell rolled up to make a speech on his wife’s behalf.
While he was thanking all the guests for coming and being as charming as a wily fox, Jago took the opportunity to slip away to look for the answer to the question that was playing on his mind.
Why did Mollie accept the payout from his grandfather to jilt him?
It surely couldn’t have been solely about getting help for her brother, although he knew long-term rehab was expensive and repeated sessions were not unusual.
He went to his grandfather’s private study which, unsurprisingly, was locked, but fortunately he knew where a spare key was planted.
His grandfather resented Jago having access to his business records, but since Maxwell’s stroke, Jago had made it his mission to check every detail in case of discrepancies.
His grandfather wasn’t as sharp as he used to be, and Jago had already found a couple of accounting mistakes that would have created a tax nightmare if not corrected in time.
He logged into his grandfather’s computer to access his financial transactions, searching for the payment Maxwell had made to Mollie two years ago.
It wasn’t the first time Jago had seen it, but this time he stared at it, his mind ticking through the possibilities.
There were no records of any emails from Maxwell to Mollie, and yet he felt sure there must have been some communication other than in person.
He couldn’t search his grandfather’s phone because he had seen Maxwell use it to read the speech he had composed for his wife.
Jago rifled through the drawers of the desk, trying to be fast yet tidy in his approach.
His search proved fruitless, and he leaned back in the leather chair and let out a sigh of frustration.
Then he remembered the safe hidden behind the bookshelves.
It was where his grandfather kept large sums of cash and some of Gran’s most valuable jewellery.
Jago didn’t know the combination, but on a whim, he tried his father’s birthday and year of birth, and the safe opened.
Inside was an astonishing amount of cash and some jewellery, and right at the back was a phone.
He took it out and saw that that the battery was dead, so he hunted around for a charger.
He found one in a drawer of a filing cabinet and quickly plugged it in, waiting impatiently for it to charge enough for him to access it.
The minutes dragged by, and he could hear the party in the background and hoped no one would come looking for him.
Finally, the phone had enough charge for Jago to turn it on.
Of course, it had another code but after three tries he cracked it with Jack’s birthday and year of birth.
Jago scrolled through the messages, and his eyes rounded when he saw one from his grandfather to Mollie.
There were pictures attached and he clicked on them, his stomach churning when he saw the explicit images of Mollie.
He had seen her naked, had made intimate love with her many times, but he had never seen her in such provocative poses.
It was so out of character. The images were nothing short of pornographic.
Was this part of her past she was keen to keep hidden?
How had his grandfather come across them?
Had he used them to get her to jilt him?
Nothing made any sense…other than Mollie hadn’t come to him and explained her dilemma but instead had chosen to bolt, leaving him virtually standing at the altar.
That stung more than anything. She hadn’t turned to him but had accepted money from his meddling grandfather to go away.
Mollie was finding it hard to make small talk with some of the guests.
She felt like a fraud, pretending to be reunited with Jago when the truth was she was on borrowed time.
She looked around for him, but he had disappeared during his grandfather’s speech.
Not that he had missed much. The words Maxwell spoke were hardly what anyone in the know would call sincere .
But Maxwell Wilde was a showman, and he worked the room, making the small gathering of friends believe he was a devoted husband. She wanted to vomit.
Mollie made good her escape when the dancing began. She had never felt less like partying. She was on her way back to her and Jago’s room when she saw him come out of his grandfather’s office. There was a thunderous scowl on his face, and his eyes were dark blue flint.
‘I want to talk to you. In private.’ His words were clipped, his mouth set in a tense line.
‘So talk.’
‘Not here. Come into the library.’
Mollie followed him into the library a few doors down from the study. Once they were both inside, Jago closed the door with a resounding click then walked over to stand in front of her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the images?’
Mollie stared at him in shock, her heart beating so heavily she could feel her hammering blood in her fingertips.
‘You’ve seen them?’ she asked without a thought for the NDA.
Shame coursed through her that Jago, the man she loved, had seen her in such degrading poses.
And even though strictly speaking it wasn’t actually her in those pictures, it still felt like she could never escape their black mark against her.
‘I found a burner phone of my grandfather’s just now.’
‘They’re not me,’ Mollie said. ‘They’re deepfakes. I don’t know where your grandfather found them—he didn’t tell me. He just told me that someone was going to release them if he didn’t pay the ransom to keep them out of the press. But the deal was I had to leave and never contact you.’
Jago’s frown was so deep it dug a trench between his eyes. ‘But why didn’t you come to me? I was about to become your husband. Why would you allow my grandfather to convince you to—’
Tears welled in Mollie’s eyes, her heart aching like it was being compressed in a vice. ‘I had to protect my brother, but also I was thinking of you.’
‘Thinking of me?’ Jago snapped back. ‘By jilting me the day before the wedding? How was that in my best interests?’ Bitterness laced his tone, and his gaze was as searing as a laser beam.
Mollie hugged her arms around her trembling body.
‘You were negotiating that big deal in New York. I was worried if those images were released to the press, you would lose the deal and your reputation would be tarnished by me. And I was worried about Eliot. He was fragile. He still is fragile. If he saw me being humiliated in every newspaper and social media platform, it could have tipped him over the edge. I couldn’t risk it. Surely you can understand that?’
Jago swung away from her and raked a hand through his hair.
He dropped his hand back by his side, but she noticed both of his hands were clenched.
Tension and anger rippled across his features, but behind the fury she could see a glimpse of profound hurt he was at great pains to conceal.
‘You promised to marry me, Mollie. You agreed to spend your life with me, and yet you didn’t come to me when you needed help.
You didn’t trust me. You let my grandfather rescue you, but at what price to us? ’
‘It wasn’t about the money, although I needed it desperately for Eliot.’
‘I’m not calling you a gold-digger because you’re clearly not,’ Jago said, some of his anger softening in his voice. ‘Your love and concern for your brother are truly admirable. But I still can’t see why you didn’t wait for me. I was only hours away from getting back from New York.’
Mollie glared back at him out of frustration.
‘Do you know how quickly those images could have been uploaded?’ She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
‘That’s how quickly. I didn’t have hours to waste, I didn’t have minutes.
Your grandfather promised me it would all go away, and it did.
I abided by the terms of his deal, and he did too.
I paid him back the money using some of the money you gave me. He has nothing over me now.’
‘But he still has the images.’
Jago’s statement hit her like a punch. Somehow, she hadn’t taken in everything Jago had told her about finding the images.
They still existed .
Lumps of ice chugged through her veins, and her legs shook until she wasn’t sure she could stay upright. She reached blindly for the desk chair and sat down with an ungainly thump, turning her anguished face towards Jago. ‘They weren’t destroyed?’
‘No.’
‘But your grandfather assured me they would be. He said the ransom would take care of everything, that as long as I disappeared, those images would be gone.’
‘He lied.’
Mollie swallowed and knotted her hands together until her fingers ached. ‘So they still could be leaked?’
‘Not if I can help it.’ Determination underlined his tone. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why did the alleged blackmailer approach my grandfather and not me? I have just as much wealth and reputation to protect, and you were my fiancée.’
Mollie pushed herself out of the chair, wrapping her arms around her body once more. ‘I’ve never understood that either, but you weren’t marrying me for the right reasons, and I wonder now if your grandfather realised that.’
‘All that aside, your first instinct was to lock me out, but this was your present unfolding in real time. I should have been the one to help you. You were the woman I had chosen to be my wife, for God’s sake. But you left me completely in the dark.’
‘You didn’t love me. You never told me you loved me.’
Jago clamped down on his jaw. ‘Words are not as important as actions.’
‘Actions are fine, but I’ve never been told I was loved by anyone in my entire life.’
He drew in a rough-sounding breath, his expression locking down as if her words had triggered something painful in him. ‘I can’t talk about this now. I think we need to confront my grandfather to see where these images originated.’
Mollie frowned. ‘Is now the best time? It’s your grandmother’s birthday.
I don’t want it ruined by an argument with your grandfather.
’ It occurred to her then that she was still in protection mode just as she had been all her life.
Protecting herself, protecting her brother, giving up Jago to protect him two years ago, protecting his grandmother from any fallout after a confrontation with Maxwell.
Mollie was twenty-eight years old and still using the same old strategies she’d used from childhood, trying to fix things and taking responsibility for others.
Jago pocketed the burner phone. ‘Gran will need a rest soon anyway. I’ll see if I can get my grandfather to meet us in his study in half an hour.’ He held out a hand to her. ‘Come here.’
Mollie stepped forward, and he captured her hand and brought it up to his lips, pressing a barely there kiss to her fingertips. ‘I shouldn’t have allowed my business deal to take priority so close to our wedding. It left you in the firing line, and I wasn’t there to protect you.’
Plenty of people had offered to protect her and failed to do so.
She herself had promised to protect her brother but had tragically failed.
But it warmed her heart to think Jago would have done so two years ago if only she had asked him for help.
Mollie gave him a twisted smile tinged with regret.
‘I’m not used to relying on anyone for protection. ’
He gathered her closer and bent his head till his mouth was close to hers.
‘Maybe it’s time to start.’ And he kissed her tenderly, passionately, until she was incapable of thought, only feeling.
Being in Jago’s arms, sheltered by his embrace was like coming home after a lifetime of wandering anchorless, lost, alone.
Dared she hope that he cared more for her than he was prepared to admit?