Chapter Eleven
Jago returned with Mollie to the party but as he had anticipated, his grandmother was tiring and ready for a rest. Jack was in the process of helping her out of her chair, tucking her arm in his and gently leading her out of the room.
His brother might be a hard-nosed divorce lawyer, but there was a softer side to him not many people witnessed.
There was no sign of his grandfather, but some of the guests insisted on saying goodbye to him and Mollie, which delayed his mission to confront the old man.
‘Congratulations on getting back together,’ one of his grandmother’s friends said with a beaming smile. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy together. Can’t wait until the wedding—that is, if I’m invited again?’
‘Of course you will be,’ Jago said almost mechanically.
But the idea stuck in his head like a thorn on a fine fabric, leaving its mark even when he pulled away from its grip.
There was nothing to stop him marrying Mollie, not now he knew what had caused their break-up.
He could make up for the last two years: he had enough money to give her a comfortable life, a secure and happy future.
They were a good match, not just physically.
Mollie understood him in ways a lot of people didn’t.
She understood the loss he had experienced because she had faced her own tragic losses.
He felt a connection with her he hadn’t felt with anyone else.
Surely that was a good basis for a long-term partnership?
Finally, the last guests left, and Jago asked Harriet where his grandfather was.
‘He’s out in the garden by the fountain. Jim took him out a while back for some fresh air,’ she said. ‘He goes out most afternoons at this time if the weather is fine.’
‘Thanks,’ Jago said, taking Mollie’s hand in his. ‘If you see Jim, ask him to wait until I’ve finished talking to my grandfather in private.’
‘Will do, Mr Jago,’ Harriet said and smiled at Mollie. ‘I hope you enjoyed the party. Lady Wilde was so delighted to see you it was all she could talk about. It’s given her such a boost.’
‘It was a lovely party and the food was delicious,’ Mollie said with a smile. ‘Thank you for all your hard work.’
‘It’s my pleasure,’ Harriet said with another smile then excusing herself went off to finish clearing the tables.
Jago led Mollie out of the room. ‘Did you actually eat anything?’
‘No, but the food looked delicious.’
‘You’re a very convincing liar.’
‘Years of practice.’
They went out to the garden, and Jago spotted his grandfather in his wheelchair, facing the large fountain. Jago gripped Mollie’s hand a little tighter and glanced down at her. ‘Ready for a showdown?’
Her features were cast in lines of worry. ‘I’m not sure any good will come out of cross-examining a fragile, old man.’
‘He might be physically frail, but his mind is strong, and I won’t allow him to get away with what he’s done.’
Mollie didn’t answer, but he heard her give a ragged sigh. Jago was not going to stop until he had answers to questions no grandson should ever have to ask a grandfather, but needs must. His and Mollie’s future depended on it.
Maxwell must have heard the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel pathway for he turned his chair around to face them as they approached. ‘I thought that was Jim to take me inside,’ he said with a scowl.
‘I want a word with you,’ Jago said.
His grandfather straightened in his chair with effort, his hands gripping the armrests with white-knuckled force. ‘Isn’t it time you took Mollie back where she came from? You have no future with her. She’s wrong for you.’
Jago clenched his jaw so tightly he thought he might crack a molar or two. ‘I know about the images.’
Maxwell’s bushy brows snapped together in a frown, and he aimed his flashing gaze at Mollie. ‘You told him?’
‘No,’ Mollie said.
‘I found them myself,’ Jago said. ‘On a burner phone in the safe. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Why did the supposed blackmailer contact you and not me? Mollie was my fiancée. I should have been the target of an extortion event, but I wasn’t. Why was that?’
Maxwell’s gaze lost some of its fire, and he seemed to sink further into his chair. ‘What does it matter now? I got rid of the problem.’
‘The problem being me?’ Mollie said with quiet dignity.
Maxwell disregarded her comment and railed at Jago. ‘I couldn’t allow you to end up like your father, madly obsessed with a woman who wasn’t good enough for him. Their obsession with each other led to their deaths. Do you think I wanted that for you? I had to put a stop to it.’
‘You orchestrated those images,’ Jago said through clenched teeth. ‘There was no blackmailer, was there? It was you the whole time.’
Mollie gasped. ‘ You did it? Was I really that bad a choice of bride?’
‘It wasn’t about you personally,’ Maxwell said. ‘I needed to disentangle Jago from a relationship that could have led him down the same path as his father.’
‘My father loved my mother,’ Jago said.
‘Love?’ Maxwell made a scoffing sound. ‘That wasn’t love, it was obsession.
They were more interested in themselves than anyone else.
Their obsession with each other was more important than their careers, their family, their children.
And it led to their deaths, making you and your brothers orphans, ruining my and your grandmother’s lives in the process.
I saw it happening all over again with you, history repeating itself.
I had to stop you. I couldn’t stop your father, but I had a moral responsibility to stop you from destroying yourself. ’
‘I hardly think you’re the right person to lecture anyone on moral responsibility,’ Jago threw back. ‘Who else has those images? You’re a smart man, but your computer skills are not up to the task of creating deepfakes as professional as those.’
Maxwell glared back at him. ‘I paid someone to do it, but they did it in my presence on that phone so there were no copies. I paid them in cash so there wasn’t a paper trail.’
‘So why did you keep the images on that phone?’ Mollie asked in an anguished tone that clawed at Jago’s heart.
‘In case you dared to come back,’ Maxwell said. ‘It was my insurance policy.’
‘Mollie didn’t breach your damned non-disclosure agreement,’ Jago said. ‘I tried to get her to talk, but she refused to utter a word. Do you realise what damage you’ve caused? Two years of hell for both of us. How can you ever justify what you did?’
Maxwell’s hands tightened even further on the armrests of his chair. ‘Rail at me all you like, but I did it for you. Now, where’s Jim? I want to go inside.’
Jago grasped Mollie’s hand. ‘I’ll send him out for you. But first, I want to make something clear. I don’t know who generated those images for you, but they belong in jail. And frankly, so do you.’
Maxwell growled like a grumpy old animal confined to a cage. ‘You can delete the images, and no one will be the wiser.’
‘I’ll delete the images for Mollie’s sake, not yours,’ Jago said squeezing her hand firmly in his.
‘You no longer have any hold over her or me.’ He turned and led Mollie back towards the manor, desperate to get away from the evil his grandfather had wrought.
He was furious he hadn’t worked it out before now.
He had let two years pass without searching for the ugly truth.
He had blamed Mollie, believing her to be a gold-digger, when in fact his own grandfather had blackmailed her out of Jago’s life.
How could he forgive himself, much less his meddling grandfather?
When they got back to their room, Mollie was still trembling from Jago’s interaction with Maxwell. No one had ever stood up for her before, and to witness Jago doing so sent a wave of love and admiration through her. ‘Was it two years of hell for you?’ she asked.
Jago scraped a hand through his hair, his expression still brooding with anger. ‘He had no right to destroy your life or interfere with mine. I’m so angry right now I can barely speak.’
‘Thank you for what you did for me out there.’
He turned to look at her, his anger slipping into a mask of anguish. ‘What did I do for you? I believed the worst of you for two damn years. I should have gone looking earlier for answers. I shouldn’t have allowed him to hoodwink me into thinking you were after money.’
‘It’s in the past. Let’s hope it stays that way.’
Jago began to pace the floor, his strides agitated, jerky, restless. He stopped and looked at her. ‘Let’s go back to London. I can’t stand to be anywhere near that man right now after what he’s done.’
‘But what about your grandmother?’
He let out a rough-edged sigh and pushed back his sleeve to glance at his watch. ‘She will have gone to bed by now. I’ll call her tomorrow. How soon can you pack?’
‘Five minutes. I didn’t bring much.’ Mollie started gathering her things together, part of her relieved she didn’t have to stay a minute longer and yet conscious that the weekend pretending to be Jago’s fiancée was coming to an end.
Would he want to continue their…whatever it was? Relationship? Fling? Something more?
The drive back to London was mostly silent.
Every time Mollie glanced at Jago he was frowning, as if his mind was replaying the tense interaction near the fountain.
Even his choice of music on the journey seemed to reflect his mood, the brooding Mahler symphony a perfect soundtrack for the dark emotions running under the surface.