by Kalia Lewis
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then.”
Cold fear snaked up from the pit of her stomach. “So that’s it then? Six years of knowing each other, a roll on the floor and a polite goodbye?” She shook her head disbelievingly. “There’s something seriously wrong with the way you treat women Tristan. In fact, you’ve a huge gaping hole where your heart should be!”
It wasn’t true. How he felt in this moment about this feisty vixen stood in front of him was proof enough that his heart was well and truly pumping in his body. Sex was a regular visitor in his life. Girls came and went, but nothing, nothing had prepared him for what had just happened. Tonight, he’d been her first, so she didn’t have anything to compare it to, but he did, and quite frankly, it scared the hell out of him. Maybe he just needed some time to assimilate exactly what it was that they had shared, as it wasn’t just sex, but something else. Something he’d never experienced before. The second he’d laid eyes on her six years ago he knew there was an undeniable chemistry, but it had been safer for him, and for her, to hold her at arms-length.
When she cornered him tonight, the temptation was just too much. Thoughts of his father crossed his mind and dread settled in his gut. Who was he fooling? His life was already mapped out for him. There would be no room for Annabelle. His father would make sure of that. It would be wrong to leave either of them with any hope.
Wanting to explain his thoughts, he opened his mouth to speak, but then changed his mind and clamped his mouth shut. Nothing could be done about it. His future was nicely tied into a corporate package. Clutching the door handle, an overwhelming sense of loss filled his being. Not since the death of his mother when he was six had he felt such helplessness.
Capturing a final mental picture of her standing there in all of her innocent beauty, he resigned himself to the path already chosen for him. Staying any longer in her presence would make him waiver and destroy everything his father had sacrificed and worked for!
The urge to run in him was mounting, she could tell by the tic in his cheek. It always gave him away. He shot her a parting glance. She could see there was a war waging beneath his cool features, but rejection seemed to be wining.
“Bloody hell!” he threw at her before leaving and slamming the door behind him.
“Argh!” She picked up her shoe in temper and lobbed it at the retreating door. How could she have been such an idiot to lose her virginity to an arrogant and conceited god-man! Angrily, she stomped to the far-side of the room and flung open another door. It was a restroom. Peering into the mirror she gasped at her reflection. There it was for all to see, the red cheeks, eyes that looked hollow and a paleness that revealed her emotional crash from a great height to bone breaking rocks below. She tried to laugh at her own stupidity. The best laid plans and all that garbage, but it came out as a choke. How could he just walk away with a shrug and a thank you ma’am?
She needed to get out of here! Leaving his suite of rooms, she headed towards the stairs, where bright lights, chatter and music consumed her. A brazen woman going up the stairs and a broken woman going down! Quite the comparison!
Stepping into the cool night air she strolled into the side garden where she could see people dancing through the large windows of Edingthorpe Hall. Hairs prickled on her neck and her gut tightened as she peered in closer and caught sight of him dancing with a raven haired beauty. Jealousy pummelled against her lungs and she couldn’t breathe properly.
How could he be so cruel, moving from one woman to another within minutes! Disgust thumped so heavily in her heart that it was under threat of pumping out of her chest. Stricken, she turned her back on him and ran from the garden and down the long driveway towards the village.
A car pulled up alongside her. It stopped and she heard her best friend Katie get out and call to her, “Hey, Annabelle, are you OK? I saw you leave?”
Tears were now pouring down her face and she turned towards the friendly voice in the dark and sobbed pitifully. “It didn’t go how we planned it. I should have known he’d be just a cold hearted womaniser. I can’t believe what I’ve done. I feel so humiliated.”
“Hey, hey, everything will be OK.”
Sniffling loudly, Annabelle nodded. “Can you take me home?”
Chapter 1
Ten Years Later
Tristan looked down at the city of Houston from his top floor office in Texas. His father, Preston Hemsley-Ford, now comfortable in his protégé’s ability and training, had taken early retirement last year and at thirty-two Tristan was now the official owner of Hemsley-Ford Oil Refineries. Under his directive the company had since expanded its revenue and in his own right he was a billionaire, but that didn’t ease his conscience.
Money was only a temporary fix. It never completely satisfied that gnawing hole of frustration for something more. This emptiness would wake him in the middle of the night and make him restless, yearning for something. What it was, he didn’t know. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. Every day he lived this emptiness and he saw the same dissatisfaction in others.
Over the last ten years he’d gained the reputation of being a ruthless businessman by day and a playboy by night, gracing the front page and gossip columns of many magazines with a variety of gorgeous women. He’d hid this restless feeling well. No-one would ever know the loneliness that came from being known for the size of your bank account and not from having someone discover the hidden facets of who you are. There were only three people in his life that had made that journey into the depth of his core and discovered him beyond his labels: his Gramps, Wade and Annabelle.
Before he retired his father had suggested that it was time for him to find a wife and settle down. It was a poignant moment between himself and his father, as it had always been understood that the two great oil companies, Hemsley-Ford and Boone, would unite forces through marriage and the only daughter of tycoon Marshall Boone, Cara Boone, was the decided choice. Negotiations and a pre-nuptial contract were signed and after a six month courtship he proposed. It was a cold way to live, but it served a function. Responsibility followed money and he had two thousand men reliant upon his decisions. Letting them down was not an option.
Neither Tristan nor Cara was under any romantic illusion about their relationship. For most of their lives they had both been groomed to take on the roles and enter into this marriage. The importance of the union was clearly understood and the wedding was scheduled for August, just three months away. On the one hand he was dreading it, yet on the other hand it allowed him to have a different kind of freedom, one where he could end the current playboy image and put more energy into the expansion of the company.
“So, has the European office been given the go ahead?” Jonah, his right hand man sat peering at him over his glasses, disturbing his troubled thoughts with his high toned voice and bringing him back to the present moment.
Turning from the window, he sighed heavily, nodded and tossed a file to Jonah. “We need to be able to communicate with the Arabs from a more central position, especially Sheikh Tariq el-Tayeb from Socotra. I also want to probe into the North Sea Refineries and look into gas production.”
Jonah flicked through the papers. “Do you want some figures for all the European gas production companies?”
“Yep,” he replied.
Eyeing him suspiciously, Jonah moaned, “You’re going shopping aren’t you?” Tristan’s silence confirmed the question and Jonah sighed. “Do you have a specific area in Europe for the new office branch?”
He shrugged, “Possibly England.”
Jonah nodded, collected up his papers and left, squeezing past a determined Cara as she entered the office. “Darling, I have found the perfect venue for the wedding.”
Tristan turned to look at the woman in the doorway. At five foot ten, she was only five inches shorter than him with long slim legs, small pert breasts and an oval face that was framed with a highlighted blonde bob. The intensive blue of her eyes alwa
ys seemed to flutter between being demanding and sultry. Both were dangerous.
Meandering over to him like a sleek cat, she draped her arms around his neck.
Smiling politely, he moved out from underneath them. Sometimes, when she touched him it brought a sick feeling to his stomach. “Cara, I have to get this submission off before seven tonight. We can chat over dinner.”
She pouted her bottom lip in response and moved towards the door, but he knew she’d not got what she came for. Raised with untold wealth, ‘no’ was never received well by Cara. There was always a hand to play, so it came as no surprise when she tried another tactic.
"Daddy says I can have anything I want for the wedding.”
Here she goes!
“And I was thinking about how to beat Juniper and Olive’s wedding in the south of France last summer, so I’ve decided there’s only one place where we could possibly be seen to get married in.”
He feigned interest. She really was spoilt. “Where exactly is that then?”
“Well, you know how I have this fascination about the lives of the Boleyn sisters?”
Only half listening, he nodded in response; nothing about her really lit up any feelings of passion or real interest. In fact, he couldn’t remember the small details about her, such as her favourite colour or favourite food. Annabelle’s was royal blue and Chinese. Jeez! Where did that spring from?
She continued, “And the home of the Boleyn sisters is called Blickling Hall, it’s in England.”
“I know that Cara, so what’s your point?” She always managed to irritate him. God knows how they were going to survive years of marriage.
An appeasing smile formed from out of her bright red lipstick. “Well then, you probably know that it’s now a public museum, but what you might not know is that it also does wedding functions, so I’ve contacted their recommended wedding planner and made a tentative date there in August for the ceremony.” She clapped her hands excitedly. “Tristan, it’s so perfect!”
Smiling briefly, he sat down and reached for his papers. “It sounds great.”
Cara continued, “We’re flying over there next week to meet with the planner and –”
“I can’t do next week Cara, there’s the oil convention.” Maybe if he opened a large file and made a big show about dropping its weight on the desk the gesture would get across to her how busy he was. Shaking his head at the thought, Cara wasn’t exactly quick on catching hints. When she wanted something not even a ten-ton truck would stop her from getting it. He may as well pay attention and cut it short at the first sign of an opening.
“But I have cleared it with your secretary and Jonah can go instead of you. Please Tristan, this is important to us and I need you to be there.”
A familiar tic pulsed in his cheek. Everything about this wedding was suffocating him and his nerves were on the edge of snapping. Once they were wed there would be some significant changes and boundaries set in place. No visiting him at the office would be top priority. Dropping his attention back to his papers he replied firmly, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do, so if you want me to make it for dinner, please leave now.”
“Oh Tristan, you’ll love it!” She grinned smugly. “I also spoke to your grandfather yesterday and he has kindly offered us accommodation at your family’s ancestral home of Edingthorpe Hall, which I believe is not far away.” Without waiting for a response, she flicked her hair and sauntered haughtily out of the office, swaying her hips seductively as she left.
Tristan’s head snapped up at the mentioned name of Edingthorpe Hall and a shiver ran down his spine. Nearly a decade had passed since that last night and he’d never returned to the village. Something about that night continued to eat away at him. Maybe it was the way Annabelle appeared at the ball as a vision in white or maybe it was just the way they fit together?
Somehow, he’d always known that if they were given enough space alone to ignite that spark that always seemed to dance between them, it would become a blaze. Everything about that night was a call from his inner being and it still haunted him. It felt unfinished, as though he’d not completed something… A jolt sped through his body as a flashback of her lying naked beneath him propelled itself onto the walls of his mind.
Damn! Why now? Why even after ten years can’t he just lay that ghost to rest and be done with it?
The saddest thing of all was his loss of Wade’s friendship. The last he saw of him was on the drive to the airport. It had been strained and Tristan couldn’t bring himself to tell Wade. Speaking about what he and Annabelle had shared was like laying it open for someone else to sully it with their opinions and anger. Choosing the option to remain silent meant that he’d closed a door on a part of their relationship and he felt guilty about it.
In the first year Wade had made countless attempts to remain in contact, but his guilt had prevented him from returning the calls. It galled him that one night, no, correction, that several hours, had ended six years of one of the closest relationships he’d ever had. Why had she done it? Why had she cornered him in his room on the pretence of giving him a gift? If she’d left him alone maybe he would never have tasted whatever it was and maybe now this emptiness wouldn’t exist? More importantly, his friendship with Wade and his grandfather would still be intact.
Old anger and resentment roused inside of him and he clenched his fist around a sheet of paper, screwed it up into a tight ball and threw it across the room. There was no doubt about it, Annabelle was to blame for the loss of his friend whom he’d loved like a brother and for the minimal contact that he now had with his grandfather. For nearly ten years he’d tried to forget Annabelle Summers and that incredible experience by pursuing the carnal pleasures of other women, but he still found it impossible to let go of that sensual memory. The way she seduced him and allowed him to take her virginity on the floor like some untamed animal made his blood boil. “Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath.
****
Humming the wedding march tune, she shoved the filing cabinet drawer closed with her hip. It was going to be a brilliant day and Annabelle couldn’t believe her luck. Not only was her small shop a highly recommended business in the historic city of Norwich, but Wedding Belle Planners had just scooped a wedding contract, so big, that afterwards she was thinking of taking a holiday to somewhere hot and peaceful, where all she had to do was sit in a bikini and read juicy novels.
Pouring herself a coffee, she went over the telephone conversation she’d had yesterday with her close friend Daniel Carter, Manager of Blickling Hall. The woman, Cara Boone and her fiancé, were flying over from Houston Texas next Wednesday for the consultation and a tour of the stunning 17th century Jacobean house that hosted magnificent ceremonies in the two garden rooms, and receptions in various styles of marquees.
Taking her coffee she sat at her desk and surveyed the shop. The front door opened onto the main street and it had a quaint Victorian bay window, which she’d lit up with fairy lights. Set out on the shop floor were small round tables decorated with different styles of table cloths and dinner settings and display stands with various types of materials and colours pinned to them. A cream sofa graced the wall next to a bookcase filled with photo albums of past events and wedding accessories, and her desk was nestled at the back near the door to the little kitchen and shower room.
Not bad for a girl who started with nothing. Smiling, she sighed with the pleasure that comes from hard work. Out of the window she saw a flash of black hair before the shop door flew open, sending the little bell above it tinkling and her nine year old daughter April rushed in.
Annabelle’s heart lurched as it always did when she looked at her daughter. Not for one single moment was she allowed to forget about Tristan and put the memories of him behind her. Every day she was reminded of his eyes, his smile and his character, all presented in the beautiful package of her daughter. Catching April as she threw herself into her arms, she laughed and hugged her tightly. “What’s all the
excitement about?”
“Hi mum, guess where Katie took me after school?”
“Let me guess, erm, the museum of historical arts?”
“No silly, we went to the laser centre and I got to shoot Katie with a laser gun!”
“Of course, how educational.” She raised her eyebrows at Katie as she staggered in holding her side, pretending to puff from being short of breath.
Dramatically, Katie wobbled to the sofa and plonked herself down. “Never again shall I set foot in a dark room full of little people with plastic laser guns!”
Smiling, Annabelle swatted Katie’s feet off the cream material. “You’re such an actress; you’d get an Oscar for that performance.”
April ran and jumped on top of Katie, squealing with laughter as they tousled and tickled each other.
“Okay guys, who’s up for Friday night pizza?”
There was a unanimous shriek of “me!” And she began to shut up the shop.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in a booth eating pizza. Annabelle grinned excitedly, “Guess what? I got a huge wedding coup today, but it’s pretty much last minute and I was wondering if you’d be free in late August for doing the photography?”
Katie nodded. “Sure, let me know the final date and I’ll shift some things around.”
She continued, “The couple are coming over from Houston next week, so they’ll be here in time for your photo exhibition on the Friday.”
Katie had specialised in freelance photography. Her dream was to travel to foreign places and photograph events for the National Geographic magazine. In the meantime she did a lot of wedding and portrait work and often covered for Annabelle at the shop during holidays and sickness.
Shovelling another bite of pizza into her mouth, Katie raised her eyebrows deviously. “Hey, isn’t Houston where Tristan is based?”
