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CHAPTER 14

AS LUKE STOOD outside with Rob and Mark, he resisted the urge to kick something. Or better still, someone. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his tightly clenched fists while he waited for his chauffeur to show up, cursing under his breath.

So much for a nice night out to take his mind off Ash.

Not only had she magically reappeared with a new name and a new look, she appeared to have a new boyfriend too. She didn’t hang around, did she?

Or worse, was he an old boyfriend? After all, Ash, or Emerson, it would now appear, had called Nick right after Tia got kidnapped. They obviously had a history.

What was she playing at? Had she been seeing Nick all along? If so, she must have been creative when she explained her time in England. What did Nick think she’d been doing while she shared Luke’s bed? Working? Staying with friends? Maybe she’d lied to both of them, the cheating cow.

Whatever story she’d spun, Nick certainly hadn’t seemed upset with her tonight, not with the way he’d gazed into her eyes. He’d fed her dessert, for crying out loud. And he certainly hadn’t looked unhappy when they’d taken to the dance floor for a particularly grubby tango either. Most of the men watching had got hard-ons from her slinky moves, and the rest had probably forgotten their Viagra.

Well, apart from one. Luke was the exception, because watching that dirty little display on the dance floor had left him feeling nauseous. He’d wanted to storm out, but his feet had refused to move as he took in the delicate arch of her back... The way her hips swivelled in time to the music... The taut muscles in her calf as she wrapped it around Nick’s thigh…

Enough!

He’d screwed his eyes shut, angry at his lack of self-control, and when he opened them again, it was just in time to see the scarlet swish of Emerson’s dress as she left the ballroom on Nick’s arm. No doubt they were en-route to some posh hotel to dance the tango horizontally instead. Or that enormous mansion in London where Luke had been sequestered while they searched for Tia. Who owned it? Did it belong to Nick? The man reeked of success in every way.

Looks.

Money.

The guy who always got the girl.

How many more lies had Emerson told? Luke thought back to the rumours flying around Lower Foxford when she first came to the village. Ash had been engaged, Carol from the Women’s Institute told him in the bakery one day, but her fiancé cheated on her. Was Nick the guy who did the dirty? Had Ash forgiven his transgressions and taken him back?

If that was the case, the two were as bad as each other. Had Ash been blinded by Nick’s money? Was she really a gold-digger out for what she could get?

Luke sidestepped out of the path of a drunk couple as he considered Ash’s motives. No, not the money. Luke wasn’t short of a few bob himself, and she’d never been interested in his cash. So, what else? Did Nick give her a better time in bed?

“I’m sick of this,” Luke muttered, kicking a discarded beer can into the gutter.

Was he a let-down between the sheets and none of his previous girlfriends had bothered to mention it? Or was it his personality? Had he not paid Ash enough attention? She’d never seemed particularly inclined to go out, but perhaps she’d been expecting Luke to take the lead in that?

Whatever the problem, Tia’s kidnapping and Luke’s botching of the initial ransom drop was the reason Nick had returned in the first place. Which meant Luke himself had been the unwitting catalyst that rekindled Nick and Ash’s romance.

Marvellous. Just marvellous.

Luke booted the beer can further down the road, just missing a couple of girls staggering out of the pub he’d been in earlier. He didn’t miss their disgusted looks.

“What’s your problem?” one of them asked.

“Nothing.” Everything.

“A woman. I bet it’s a woman,” the other said.

Luke’s limo pulled up to the kerb and his driver leapt out to open the door.

“Evening, sir.”

The first girl eyed up the car and her scowl morphed into a predatory smile. “How about we help take your mind off things?”

“Forget it.”

Luke barely grunted at his chauffeur as he climbed into the backseat and slumped back against the soft black leather. That type of girl was two a penny, sex a business transaction. Maybe he’d have been tempted once, but now he’d been touched by love and the sweet agony that came with it.

He wanted more.

Not since he got a D- in his GCSE geography mock had Luke felt like such a failure. And women confused him more as he got older. On the one hand, he hated Ash for her lies and cheating. But a part of him, the part that remembered what it was like to take a risk and win, still yearned for her. Or was it just a bad case of wanting what he couldn’t have?

“You okay, mate?” Rob interrupted Luke’s thoughts. “You’ve been distracted all evening.”

“I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” Luke spoke through gritted teeth, daring Rob to suggest otherwise.

But with a few drinks in him, Luke’s lie skated right past. “Great night though, wasn’t it? Plenty of food, and that music got the posh chicks up dancing. Did you see the sweet brunette in the green dress?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, I got her number.”

“Congratulations.”

Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Tell me you didn’t miss Emerson Black dancing at the end? Talk about hot. What I wouldn’t give to be Nicholas Goldman right now. I mean, the way she looked at him.”

“I saw her.” Luke gripped the door handle so hard it was a wonder it didn’t snap.

“Way out of our league, though,” Rob said. “Well, maybe not yours, Luke, what with you being loaded and all.”

Mark nodded in agreement. “But I bet she’s high maintenance.”

Rob groaned. “Speaking of high maintenance, I got a quote to fix my car today. Two grand! Can you believe that?”

Luke sent Rob a silent thank you for changing the subject before he was forced to stick pins in his eyes. As the car purred along silent streets, Rob and Mark started an in-depth conversation about the benefits of LPG over diesel.

That left Luke to stew over his own thoughts the rest of the way home. Where was he? Oh, yes, Ash had got back together with her fiancé, and it was all Luke’s fault. Worse, he obviously didn’t have the moves to keep a decent girlfriend.

Apart from beer, life was terrible.

By the time Luke walked into his house, his bad mood had boiled over into full-on fury. He slammed the front door so hard a crack appeared in the plaster around the edge, then looked up to find Tia standing in front of him. The set of her mouth reminded him of their mother. She’d pursed her lips that way every time a teenage Luke had embarrassed her at the country club.

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Good evening to you too, darling brother. What’s got your goat?”

He threw his crumpled tuxedo jacket at a nearby chair. It caught on the arm and slid to the floor, not that he cared. “Well, I think it’s safe to say I found Ash. And it’s even safer to say she won’t be coming back.”

“What? You found her? Where? Did you speak to her? Why isn’t she coming back?” Tia spilled out questions Luke didn’t want to hear.

“No, I didn’t speak to her. She spent the whole evening cavorting with her boyfriend, and I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to interrupt.”

“Boyfriend? But you’re her boyfriend?”

“Not anymore. Do you remember a guy called Nick from a couple of weeks ago?”

“About six foot two, dark hair, designer stubble, big muscles?” Tia tilted her head and smiled. “Kind of dreamy?”

“Yes. I mean, no. That’s him, but not the dreamy part.”

Did the man brainwash every woman who crossed his path?

“Nick was so kind to me. The day after I got rescued, he kept asking if I was okay, or whether there was anything he could do to help.”

“Well, it seems he’s Ash’s fiancé. Except she’s not called Ash. Her real name’s Emerson Black.”

“Are you sure?” Tia’s eyes narrowed. “If you didn’t even talk to her, how do you know that?”

“She was at the charity ball, which turned out to be for her flipping charity. She started it up a few years ago. Oh, and another gem—before she started shagging Nick, she was married to some other bloke. That woman she goes through men like most people go through toilet paper—just leaves all her mess on them and moves on.” A hollow laugh escaped his throat. “On the bright side, at least she didn’t get her claws any deeper into me.”

“So what did she do, divorce her husband and take him to the cleaners?”

“No, she didn’t divorce him. Apparently, she killed him instead. Her nickname is the Black Widow.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Ash I knew.”

Luke heard the doubt in Tia’s voice, and it only fuelled his anger.

“Then you didn’t know her very well, did you? She’s got a history of violence. Rob reckons she cut off some bloke’s finger, and your kidnapper said she kicked him in the nuts.”

Just thinking about those incidents sent Luke to the drinks cabinet in the lounge. Tia trailed behind as he slopped whisky into a glass and knocked it back.

Why was she looking at him like that? He wasn’t the problem here, and neither was his drink.

Emerson Black was the problem.

Alcohol was merely the solution.