âYouâre saying that for Lexiâs sake, youâd risk being used for sex?â Leon asked.
It wasnât like that, she told herself. It wasnât just sex. Maybe that was his attitude to her at the moment, but sheâd convince him of her innocence, and then his feelings would change.
It was a huge gamble. But worth going for.
âIf thatâs the price,â she mumbled crossly.
Her gaze was fixed with unlikely intensity on the floor. The atmosphere burned around Emma as, presumably, Leon battled to stop himself laughing out loud.
âAgreed,â he said when sheâd abandoned all hope of an answer.
EMMA sat staring into space, her eyes huge with fear. Her solicitor would come, she told herself. Heâd have the answer. He must.
The question wouldnât go away. It was driving her mad. Over and over again it hammered into her aching head.
Where is my baby?
She broke her numb silence with a whimpering moan of despair, a thin, poignant figure drawn in on herself, a woman lost in her own dark world.
Only two weeks ago, sheâd stood petrified with fear in the dock and had heard the foreman of the jury pronounce her guilty. It had all been a blur from then on. At Leyton Womenâs Prison, a note had been handed to her from her brother-in-law, Leon. It had been brutal in its simplicity. âI have your child.â
Sheâd heard nothing since. Her baby, Alexandra, had vanished off the face of the earth.
From that moment on, life had been suspended for Emma. Perhaps she had eaten at some timeâshe wouldnât know. And sleep had come only when her exhausted body could take no more of the waking hell. Even then sheâd been plagued by nightmares from which sheâd woken sobbing, and drenched in a cold sweat.
That morning, preparing for visiting time, sheâd noticed with sudden shock that the months of stress had etched a network of fine lines around her mouth. Furrows scoured her high forehead and a deep notch had been excavated between her brows.
Leon had done this to her.
In the cheap mirror sheâd seen that her blonde hair was now lank instead of thick and lustrous. Emma had grimaced, had scraped the lifeless hanks back into a severe pony-tail and had fastened them carelessly with a rubber band, unconcerned that spikes of hair stuck out at all angles.
She looked awful. So what? Who was there to see? She just didnât care. Nothing mattered any more. How could it? Alexandra was her baby and sheâd been spirited away. And she was just six months old.
Her baby. The focus of her entire existence. Something miraculous, salvaged from a terrible marriage to Taki. Sweet, dimpled little Lexi, whose chuckles and sunny nature could make her smile despite her worries and whoâd roused in her such a fierce and tender passion that sheâd been shaken by its profundity.
And now Lexi had disappeared. Sitting disconsolately at her appointed place, she took a dog-eared photo from her pocket and stared at it with empty eyes.
Her thoughts tortured her. What happened, she wondered miserably, when a baby was abruptly parted from its mother? Would she eat? Would her child be bewildered and upsetâor would anyoneâs arms, anyoneâs smile be acceptable? She thought of Lexi, sick from crying, and groaned.
âOh, my baby!â
She lifted a frail hand to stifle a sob. The action made her vaguely aware that people were stirring around her, their voices rising above the normal subdued mutter that was normally adopted in the large visitorsâ hall.
Dragged from her inner torment, she lifted her head and gloomily followed the source of interest. And instantly she froze, transfixed by the man who stood in the distant doorway.
Not her solicitor. Someone tall, dark and broad and undeniably Greek, his sharply tailored city suit and impeccable grooming quite incongruous amid the plethora of T-shirts, jogging pants and designer trainers.
Leon. The unfeeling brute whoâd abducted her baby.
The pain in her chest intensified as a harsh protest scraped its way from her throat. Heâd come to gloat! To read her the riot act, to talk about her lack of morals and his right to take Alexandra.
Right! she seethed. What about her right to justice? Her rights of motherhood? Why had she automatically lost her rights as a human being?