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Paulo saw Lucas struggling in his seat, dangling upside down, as blood poured from a gash across his face, his arms flailing as he tried to release himself, caught in the snare of his seatbelt, which had saved his life, but which now threatened to kill him by strangulation.

Suddenly released from his inertia, Paulo raced over to the car. He pulled uselessly at the driver’s door, which was too crushed to open properly, but with the top down, Paulo was able to stretch himself over and release the belt, groaning as Lucas dropped out of the seat with a tortured cry, partially falling into his arms.

Paulo hauled him out, then stumbled for a couple of steps before collapsing to the ground with Lucas, who was now groaning in agony.

‘My dad …’ Lucas gasped. ‘Where is he … my dad?’

Paulo shook his head, not able to say the truth, that Andre looked like he was about meet his maker. Lucas grabbed Paulo’s tuxedo jacket with his bloody hands, his words ragged.

‘You … you did this.’

‘No,’ Paulo shook his head, and Lucas gripped him harder, his eyes wide and wild.

‘It was you …’ The effort seemed to drain every last effort from Lucas whose head fell back, seemingly slipping into unconsciousness as his head crashed onto the road surface.

Paulo rose to his feet, staggering back. ‘You can’t blame me, it was you, you idiot, if you die it’s your own fault, not mine.’

Paulo scrabbled back to his car, threw himself into his seat, fumbling to get his key in the ignition. Casting one more glance in the wing mirror at the prone bodies lying in the road, his car tyres screeched as he spun the wheel around and slammed his foot on the accelerator, speeding as quickly as he could away from the scene, driving like all the demons in Hell were on his tail.

‘So it was me driving …’ Lucas said slowly, his throat thick with emotion as the memories came flooding back and the realization dawned. ‘Paulo was right.’

Camille turned to Paulo, a stunned expression on her face, her tone accusing. ‘I didn’t know you were there. I thought Andre and Lucas were alone. I didn’t know—’

‘That’s how I knew,’ Isobel said to Camille, ‘when Paulo talked about the accident, that night, he said “we were racing too fast on the mountain road.” Though there was never any mention of that in the reports, which just mentioned the icy conditions.’

‘I saved his life,’ Paulo yelled, looking at Lucas. ‘He would have choked to death if I had left him hanging there. When I realized Lucas had crashed his dad’s car, I was less than a mile from Günther’s Bar. It was still open. I drove straight there to use their phone and called an ambulance.’

‘And then you fled,’ Camille spat.

‘I was in shock!’ Paulo shot back. ‘I didn’t know what to do!’

‘You saved your own skin, as usual,’ Camille yelled.

‘Well, you wouldn’t have saved me! I’d already spent the evening being treated like the poor friend, having to borrow Lucas’s clothes just to fit in and paraded around Andre’s rich buddies like some kind of pet monkey. It was made clear to me exactly what my place was that night, so can you imagine what would have happened if I’d told the authorities that I’d been there when the accident happened? That we were racing? That Lucas was the one who was driving that night? Andre shouldn’t have been driving – he’d been drinking and taking cocaine – but he was in a better state than Lucas. It’s a miracle they weren’t both killed.’

‘I killed my father …’ Lucas murmured, as everyone turned to look at him. Stephanie moved across to comfort him – whatever the truth of everything, it was clear that her heart went out to him at that moment – but Lucas barely noticed. ‘I’m a murderer … I killed him … I killed my father …’

‘No, you didn’t kill your father.’ Paulo shook his head, a triumphant expression on his face. ‘It was only when Isobel told me about the rumours of an affair that were circling around before Lucas’s birth that it suddenly all made sense to me. You only have to look at the two of them closely and it’s obvious. Why don’t you tell him, Camille?’

Lucas’s head jerked up. ‘Tell me what?’

Paulo stared at Camille, his dark eyes boring into hers. ‘Tell him everything.’

Chapter 33

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at Camille. She felt sick suddenly, her pulse racing, her palms sweating. It was as though she had been plunged into the middle of a nightmare, but she knew she wouldn’t wake up from this. Everything she’d fought so hard to keep buried for so long was tumbling out, and there seemed to be no way to stop it. How did Paulo know all of this? How long had he been keeping secrets, harbouring resentments, concocting his plan?

Camille glanced across at Lucas, then at Nicolas. They were both looking at her intently, waiting to see what she would do next. She opened her mouth to speak, not knowing what she was going to say, but then she was transported back to the night of the accident, the night her whole life had been turned upside down …

It was almost one a.m. and Camille was preparing for bed, slipping off her high heels and her gown, removing her make-up and brushing her teeth. She was exhausted. As the guest of honour at a dinner held by the Fédération de la Haute Couture de la Mode, at which she’d been presented with an award, it wasn’t the done thing to slip away early. Camille had stayed to mingle and socialize, declining invitations to the after-parties and leaving just after midnight. She was sad to miss Andre’s birthday party in St Moritz, she just hoped he had behaved himself, she knew anything could happen when he was on one of his hedonistic trips.

Camille climbed in between the cool, crisp, Egyptian cotton sheets and had just turned off the lamp when the telephone by the bed began to ring. She groaned, flicking the light back on. Who was it, and what did they want at this hour?

‘Madame Fontaine? I’m afraid there’s been an accident …’

Camille went into shock. She didn’t scream or cry, just calmly listened to what she was being told before replacing the receiver. Her priority was to get to Switzerland as quickly as possible to be with her son and her husband. Hysteria could wait.

Camille picked up the phone once again and instinctively found herself calling Nicolas. It felt entirely natural to reach out to him at this terrible moment. She heard the click as the call was redirected, and he sounded groggy when he came on the line.