Trust: Betrayed by Cristiane Serruya Read Free Book Online Page B

although her clothes screamed money. She appeared to be wearing a very short see-through silk dress and nothing underneath. Her high heels were Louboutin. She had enormous earrings and lots of bracelets that sparkled and clinked when she moved.
    Sophia studied the stunning woman, trying to discern if she was a pro or not. Thoughts whirled in her head as she decided what she should do. She looked around the restaurant. Alistair didn’t notice, but people had turned to look at him and the woman, whispering behind their hands. When the blonde pouted her lips at Alistair, Sophia was spurred into action.
    Well, I’m not just going to stand in the middle of the restaurant. She is the intruder.
    As she walked slowly to Alistair’s side, part of their conversation reached her ears.
    “-a long time, my dear.” And the woman put a hand on Alistair’s crossed arms intimately, “I miss our...” Sophia couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence as the woman stood on her tiptoes and whispered it in Alistair’s ear. She got down on her heels with a smug smile on her face.
    Alistair pushed away the hand that was now caressing his biceps and stated in a dry voice, “I can’t say the same. Forever will not be long enough for me to forget, Emma. Now, if you’ll excuse-” As he turned, he saw that Sophia was almost at their side. He was thunderstruck for a split second, then immediately stopped a passing waiter, took some notes from his wallet, saying, “We have to go. Keep the change.”
    As Sophia approached him, he put an arm over her shoulder, ordering, “Come.”
    Without waiting for an answer or saying farewell to the blonde woman, he dragged Sophia out of the restaurant, and walked in silence to the side street, where Garrick was parked, waiting. Still brooding, he entered the BMW after her and closed the door with so much calm it was disquieting.
    What just happened?
Sophia was bewildered and decided to stay quiet. She enlaced her fingers and rested them demurely on her lap, gazing outside, not really seeing the passing cars and the people hurrying to and fro.
    “Garrick, please, drive to my place,” Alistair said into the intercom.
    Sophia’s head whipped to look at him, “Alistair, I can’t-” She stopped as she saw the anguish stamped on his features. “Alistair, my dear, I have a meeting at two-thirty.” She glanced at her watch, “It’s one forty-five.”
    “Sophia, I have to tell you something. We need to talk.”
    She looked at her watch again, “Is it so important that it can’t wait until tonight?”
    I’ll lose my courage.
He sighed, “Tonight, then.”
    Mayfair. Lodes’s Clinic.
     
    Tuesday, October 23
    rd
    , 2007.
     
    11.41 a.m.
    “Please, sit, Alistair Connor.” Doctor Benjamin Lodes motioned to one of the armchairs. He was Lachlann’s urologist and had know Alistair since he was a baby. He waited until Alistair was comfortably seated and perched himself on the table. “How have you been feeling?”
    “Uh... Still a bit uncomfortable. I thought I was fine when I finished the last antibiotics...” Alistair didn’t like the grimace that crossed Doctor Lodes’s face. “Why? Did the new tests show a relapse?”
    “I don’t have good news, my boy.” The doctor sighed and sat in the other armchair and patted Alistair’s knee. Alistair’s eyes rounded at the serious and fatherly tone the doctor’s voice had acquired. “I- Alistair Connor. You don’t have a chronic urinary infection.”
    “No?” Alistair’s face showed his surprise.
But that was what you told me in March and kept telling me all these months.
    “Seems that the test results were wrong.” The doctor stretched his arm and picked up a folder, taking out a sheet and handing it to Alistair. “This arrived just this morning, and, according to the result, you have contracted a serious STD.”
    “What?” Alistair’s face showed his disbelief at the news. “But I thought-”
    “Yeah. I know I said it was a urinary