‘Yes, who is this?’ But Molly’s heart was thumping with excitement because, although she couldn’t quite believe it, she was convinced she already knew who that voice belonged to.

‘Ophelia…don’t you remember my voice?’ her sister cried, audibly anxious. ‘I wish you weren’t in Spain. I want to see you right now, put my arms round you and hug you!’

And Molly burst into floods of tears and that was that. She had found her sister. Within the space of a minute the two women were catching up and soon Molly, who had never been a fan of polite pretences, found herself admitting that Leandro had only married her because she had fallen pregnant.

‘You don’t sound very happy,’ Ophelia remarked worriedly.

‘I’m not,’ Molly said ruefully, but didn’t add that, despite this fact, she still could not imagine living without a regular fix of her workaholic husband, because that sounded very wet and wimpy.

She was stunned when Ophelia told her that they had an older half-brother of Russian extraction called Nikolai Arlov. It was wonderful for her to learn that both her siblings had been trying really hard to trace her for several years. Ophelia was eager to satisfy Molly’s curiosity about Nikolai, her children and her husband, Lysander Metaxis. Her thoughts buzzing at the dizzy awareness that she did have a family of her own, after all, Molly was able to laugh out loud with pleasure when she discovered that Haddock the parrot was still alive.

Wrapped in a colourful silk wrap, Julieta put her head round the door to tell Molly that the limo had arrived to take her home and to ask her if she wanted any breakfast before she left. Molly shook her head and asked her sister if she could call her back later. Awash with wondering thoughts about seeing Ophelia again and getting to know her brother and both their families, she dressed in the combat trousers and T-shirt she had packed. By then she had also discovered that most of the missed calls on her phone were from Leandro. Guilt engulfed her and she felt remarkably like a misbehaving teenager who had broken her curfew, and who now had to go home to face the music.

She was dismayed to find a clutch of paparazzi outside the apartment block, apparently awaiting her appearance. Questions were shouted at her in Spanish and she hurried into the limo, grateful for the presence of Leandro’s security men who prevented the photographers from filming her.

She entered the castle, which was unusually silent. Basilio greeted her oozing an attitude of funereal calm and gloom. She was surprised when Leandro strode out of his study, for she was aware that he had a business trip to Geneva that day. ‘I assumed you would have already left.’

‘I waited to show you the morning paper.’ Molly followed him into his study and glanced down enquiringly at the publication lying open on his desk. Horror seized her by the throat and she went rigid when she studied the photos on the page. One depicted a bleary-eyed and tousled woman being helped across a pavement and the second the same woman lying flat and apparently unconscious on the rear seat of a limo. That woman was her and her first foolish thought was that she had never seen more unflattering pictures. Her skirt had ridden up over her thighs and her pregnant tummy rose above them like a mountain.

‘How could you get in such a condition?’ Leandro raked at her furiously. ‘Didn’t you consider the health of the child you carry?’

‘I was just very tired…I swear I wasn’t drinking alcohol!’ Molly protested shakily. ‘The photos are very misleading-’

‘You mean you weren’t in a nightclub until four this morning with our estate manager? And you didn’t require him to practically carry you out of it again?’

Molly swallowed hard, belatedly taking in the reality that Fernando Santos was the individual urging her shambling and sleepy self towards the car. ‘I was one of a large party of people which included him.’

Her husband’s strong bone structure was bone-white with tension below his bronzed skin. ‘He spent the night at my sister’s apartment with you. He was seen leaving early this morning!’

Molly didn’t quite know what to say to that without dropping Julieta straight into a mire from which there would be no clean return. How could Leandro think that she would sleep with another man? Why did he believe she could be so untrustworthy and disloyal? She was carrying his baby. Didn’t he have any respect for her at all?

‘I’m not having an affair with Fernando. He’s really not my type-although I have to confess that, right now, when you’re standing over me like a hanging judge, you’re not my type either,’ Molly confided tartly. ‘I’m very sorry if the photos cause you embarrassment, but I wasn’t in any way under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. I was simply very, very sleepy and I have nothing else to apologise for.’

Brilliant dark eyes cut into hers like abrasive diamond cutters. ‘I don’t believe you. I want the truth…’

‘I’ve told you the truth.’ Molly was torn between feeling hugely intimidated and hugely resentful that he could have so little faith in her that he instantly dismissed her explanation. ‘I went out with Julieta to celebrate her birthday.’

‘Then why wouldn’t you tell me where you were so that I could join you?’

Molly shuffled her feet, knowing that there was no acceptable answer to that and wishing she didn’t feel obligated to cover up for Julieta’s private life. It was not a friendship she wanted to put at risk. ‘I just wanted a night off from being your wife. Is that a crime?’

His classic features hardened at that facetious response. ‘How long have you been seeing Santos?’

‘Maybe you’d like me to be an unfaithful wife and then you would have grounds for divorcing me. Is that what this is about? You’ve realised that you made a mistake marrying me and you want an escape route?’ Molly slung at him accusingly.

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Leandro drawled icily.

‘No, I’m not. I want an escape route!’ Molly threw at him in a rage. ‘I want my life back, so why shouldn’t you? You’re an absentee husband and I’m lonely. I want a man who’s interested me and who I can share stuff with. But you’re so busy making money and putting everything else ahead of me, you don’t have time for me or the baby that’s coming. Why shouldn’t I want more than your precious money, your title and social position? None of those things are important to me!’

‘You’ve said enough,’ Leandro intoned with ferocious bite, mentally stacking up those far-reaching accusations as a clumsy attempt to deflect him from her inexcusable behaviour. ‘I still have a flight to Geneva to catch. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘You said you couldn’t give me love-but what have you given me?’ Molly whispered chokily.

Leandro ground his even white teeth together. He refused to listen to her. He didn’t want her to start crying. He was so angry with her that he didn’t trust himself to speak. As long as she continued to deny everything, there was nothing to discuss and no way forward. He would get the truth out of Julieta, and if Molly had betrayed his trust he would have no choice but to divorce her. But having reached that pinnacle of masculine decisiveness, Leandro discovered that that obvious solution had zero appeal for him. He pictured Molly in Santos’s arms and he felt as if someone were trying to rip his guts out with a machete. The black rage tamped down inside him surged higher and the fierce struggle it took to stay in control angered him even more.

Molly couldn’t believe that Leandro was still planning to fly off to Geneva just as if nothing had happened. His rock-hard self-discipline and devotion to banking business when their marriage was in crisis struck her as yet more proof of his lack of caring. Her mobile phone rang just as she reached the sanctuary of her bedroom. The instant she heard her sister’s voice, her control over her tumultuous emotions dissolved. Suddenly she was in floods of tears and struggling to find the right words to answer Ophelia’s concerned questions. Unfortunately there was no pleasant way to explain that Leandro was convinced that she had been carrying on an affair with one of his employees. Her sister was very shocked by that admission and then she explained that she was with their brother, Nikolai, who also wanted to speak to her. Somewhere just out of Molly’s hearing at the other end of the line she could hear an urgent discussion taking place between her newly discovered siblings.

‘Do you really want to stay with this bozo in Spain?’ a very forceful masculine voice enquired a little while later. ‘I can pick you up in a few hours and fly you back to England.’

Molly was shaken by the idea of leaving Spain within hours, but it was a remarkably tempting offer when she was in dire need of comfort and support. ‘Could you…I mean, would you?’

‘I’m very impatient to meet my baby sister,’ Nikolai confessed bluntly.

‘I’m not a baby-’

‘You are on my terms,’ he countered with uncompromising bluntness.

Feverish indecision assailed Molly. She desperately wanted to be with her sister and meet her brother. Leandro had devastated her to the extent that she could barely think straight. He had accused her of infidelity and paid no heed to her denials. He had shown no sign of even being prepared to listen to her perfectly reasonable complaints. Was she really planning to sit and wait for him to return from Geneva for more of the same? He didn’t love her. Nothing was likely to change that. She was never going to compare to Aloise and the fact that she was expecting his baby in another few months currently seemed to be a matter of near indifference to him. Perhaps he had decided that marrying her had been a mistake. That could explain why he had made little effort to make their marriage a success.