Free Trusting a Stranger by Kimberley Brown Page A

thing when really that was fraudulent. Of course he doesn’t trust you. Something tells me that his trust is something that you have to earn.
    Through the strong, timber door, she could hear snippets of conversation. Ethan was talking to someone named David, she soon worked out.
    â€˜What did he say?’ Ethan was asking. ‘The corporate crime division had been going from strength to strength? Well, that’s very kind of him but I still can’t come back just now.’
    Silence. Hayley tried to imagine what the invisible David might be saying.
    â€˜I really can’t,’ Ethan repeated a moment later. ‘I’ll do what I can from here but first I have to work out how Tomasi is getting his information. This case needs to be my first priority, David, no matter what Michaels thinks. Katy’s safety depends on it. Sometimes these things do get personal.’
    A few moments later, farewells were said and there was a knocking noise on her door.
    â€˜Come in,’ said Hayley, feeling that the formality was unnecessary given that he had already walked in here all by himself. Not to mention that soon afterwards, he had seen her virtually naked.
    â€˜Sorry about that,’ Ethan said, swinging the door open but barely walking into the room. ‘Work.’
    â€˜The Tomasis are involved with your work as well?’ Hayley asked. ‘How did that happen?’
    He sighed and she realised she had asked another question. More than one. Had she always been like this, she wondered, or was it some change in her character, brought on by her new association with this man?
    At least, this time, Ethan didn’t seem to mind.
    â€˜They are involved now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working with the Corporate Crime Division of a private industry body back home. They recruited me after Erica died. Thought I might know something about the Tomasis and care enough to find out more.’
    Hayley nodded. She tried to imagine how Ethan’s life must be. All these different layers of concerns, all centring around the one family he had married into, and had not been able to separate from even after his wife had died.
    â€˜And have you?’ she asked.
    â€˜Enough to discover that he won’t stop at anything. Alvaro Tomasi wants Katy. So does the rest of his family.’
    â€˜I’m not the first person he has sent here, am I?’
    Ethan shook his head. ‘And I doubt you will be the last. Please don’t feel bad about it. He is a powerful and influential man. You need to spend some time now working out how to keep yourself safe now you have disappointed him. Tomasi does not take disappointment lightly.’
    Icy fingers seemed to clutch around her heart. Yes, she had been shot at, but Hayley had not really believed until this moment, when the stern set to Ethan’s features confirmed what he was saying, that she might continue to be in danger. ‘What do you mean?’
    â€˜I mean he’s a cruel man and not all of his methods are as easy to identify as a bullet from a gun.’
    â€˜You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.’
    â€˜Are you going to sleep?’
    Hayley regarded him for a moment. ‘You know, I might ask a lot of questions, but you ask the most random ones.’
    â€˜It’s not completely random.’
    â€˜Well, the answer is that I don’t completely know. I might sleep eventually. Why do you want to know?’
    â€˜There’s something I can show you. If you want to see it.’
    ***
    Ethan pushed a DVD into the player in the sitting room and stood back with the remote control to turn the television on. Hayley was sitting on the sofa behind him, her legs curled beneath her. She was still wearing the bathrobe. He had never before realised how attractive one of those could be. Not to mention that he was acutely aware of how little she was wearing beneath it.
    â€˜This video is taken from a family