“Of course I’ll wear it,” I said to reassure him. “I want to be able to contact you in an emergency.”
But before I could take the pendant off him, he moved in on me to secure it himself, those large hands sliding around my neck, under my hair. It was so unexpected, I caught my breath, and with that inhalation, a scent of his skin—hot and mysterious, distinctly male, and nothing like the minty-mouthwash scent I associated with Marcus.
I could feel throbbing all around my body then, behind my breasts and lower down, undeniably sexual. His breath stirred the hair on my forehead and my lips fell open. As his fingers brushed the nape of my neck, securing the necklace, a hot shiver ran over me and I sucked in an unsteady breath, overwhelmed by the masculinity of the biceps that surrounded me.
I’m attracted to Nicholas.
There was no question in my mind now, and I shouldn’t have been shocked. The hints had all been there, but…I hadn’t been attracted to any man this way before.
Ever.
When I’d first met Marcus, he’d impressed me with his sophistication and witty charm. But this thing with Nicholas was…elemental, visceral. His male scent—soap or deodorant with the slightest hint of perspiration—slid under my defenses like the key to some lock that undid me.
In that moment, I didn’t care about propriety, I was intoxicated. He was big, strong, masculine, and yet his touch was so gentle I could hardly breathe. For a terrible second I thought I might slump against him, then as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. He stepped back and I was so unsteady I wavered.
“Keep it on,” he said, but his voice was husky and low.
I nodded, quite sure I wouldn’t be able to speak. In that moment we weren’t employer and employee. He was a man. I was a woman. And what lay between us was so palpable I could see it in his gaze, as no doubt, he could see it in mine.
“So…” Gisel said beside us. Her presence, along with Lizzie who was arriving behind her, shocked me out of the daze I’d been in. “Nick, are you busy?”
There was no missing the sarcasm in her tone, but years of training allowed me to level a glacial stare in her direction. “We’ll both be busy with the police,” I told her. “Do you require something? Payment perhaps?”
She was my employee, subcontracted by Nicholas, and I wasn’t about to tolerate her innuendo in my presence. What she said behind my back was her own business.
She shrugged as best she could with two cases and a satchel over her shoulder. “I just want to give you the address of where I’m delivering Ms. Walters-Lee.”
“Email it to me,” Nicholas said shortly, then he shook Lizzie’s hand. “You have my number,” he told her, his tone gentling, as I imagined everyone did in her presence. “Please call me if you need anything at all.”
She dimpled prettily, and patted the baby’s back as he rested against her shoulder. “We’re both very grateful. Thank you.” Then she smiled at me and followed Gisel out of the house.
Nicholas walked them to the door, then he closed and locked it behind them. I joined him at the closed library door.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked solemnly.
No. “Of course.”
He opened the door, followed me in and introduced me to the detectives who seemed just as edgy as he was. As I answered their questions, I had a sense that they were concealing something from me, perhaps out of kindness. The old me would have pressed them for information, but today I wasn’t sure I could handle it. So I told them what I knew—the Christian names of the men Marcus had told me he was dealing with, the places he’d met them and the figure he’d borrowed off them on the understanding that the debt repayment would appear to be a legitimate consulting fee—something he could slide past his accountants.
“And this two million dollars,” the older of the two detectives said, “When was it meant to be repaid?”
“As quickly as possible,” I replied. “Their interest rate was a hundred percent each week…” The younger detective made a sound of surprise. “…which Marcus hadn’t cared about because he’d organized to get the funds out of a discretionary account the very next day, to cover his tracks.”
I was embarrassed to describe Marcus in such an unflattering way, because he’d never done anything like this in his life before, but it would only waste time to try and justify him. So I swallowed down distaste and continued, “Unfortunately, he struck a problem with one of the trustees and couldn’t access the money. In the weeks afterwards, he struggled to sell assets to cover his debt and the figure grew astronomically.”
The younger detective shook his head. “A hundred percent interest a week.” He sounded appalled, as I had, when Marcus had told me.
“And that’s when he tried to kill himself?” The older detective said it kindly, but I could feel myself starting to tremble as shock set in.
I nodded, but it was a shaky gesture.
“I’m sorry to ask you this,” he went on, “but we need all the information you have.” He paused, and I waited for the inevitable question—the question Nicholas had never asked me—the question I never wanted to answer. “What did your husband do with the money he borrowed?”
“My ex-husband,” I said, buying time.
The detective nodded, and his younger associate leant forward. I was very much aware of Nicholas behind me then, and I wanted more than anything to order him from the room, only… he would find out sooner or later. These policemen would retrace Marcus’s steps and discover for themselves if I didn’t tell them. And if I made a drama out of the retelling, Nicholas would realize how mortified I felt.
Better to appear calm and accepting.
I raised my chin and said as smoothly as I could, “After our separation, Marcus took a gay lover and spent the majority of his available cash on or with him. Then they went on an exclusive holiday and accrued gambling debts.” I needed a calming breath before I could go on. “As you can imagine, he was too embarrassed to ask anyone for help, so this lover connected him with underworld figures who readily loaned him the cash.”
A beat of silence followed as I fought the heat suffusing my cheeks.
The detective asked, “And this lover?”
“Disappeared as soon as Marcus reneged on the loan.”
No one said anything for the longest time, and I forced myself not to wonder what they were thinking, especially Nicholas.
A few questions followed: names, dates, places. I relayed all I could remember of Marcus’s babbling on the night he’d woken with his stomach pumped.
In retrospect, it was surprising that I remembered so much, but it seemed that my horror at the tawdriness of his situation had engraved the details into my mind, like the night he’d first told me about his debt and the horrible men who were coming after him for the money.
I should have been at the launch of Fritha’s teahouse, Bohemian Brew meeting the glamorous Hollywood star Noah Steele who’d been a surprise guest. Instead I’d spent a dreadful night listening to the horror that Marcus’s life had become, and trying to convince him to get a bodyguard and be careful.
I’d hired Nicholas soon after, and that too had changed me. Not that I would consider myself ‘frightened’, but I certainly faced life with more wariness than I had done previously. Inside my own home, however, I felt completely safe, and I suddenly wanted that haven again now, so I stood to dismiss these intruders whose professional questions had unsettled me so greatly.
They took the hint.
“Thank you Mrs. Knight.” Both detectives shook my hand. “We’ll follow up at the hospital and phone you if we get any information on Mr. Knight’s whereabouts.”
Nicholas saw them out, and must have spoken to them because it was several minutes before he returned to the library. By then I was in the wingback chair beside the window, looking out at the view of Sydney Harbor, breathing slowly, in and out. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked, steady and comforting, and I needed that.
Nicholas stopped in
side the doorway. “They’re going to tap your home phone and your cellphone in case there’s a ransom demand.”
I turned slowly to face him. Ransom? Why had I never thought of that? “I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “Do you mean that kidnappers might ask me to pay for his release?”
“Would you be willing to do that?” His eyes narrowed marginally and I felt another disturbance emanating from him. But I didn’t explore that because I was too busy thinking about my own situation.
Would I lose everything?
I stared at Nicholas, waiting for clarity, but there was none.
My finances had always been separate to Marcus’s. I owned this home. I’d bought it with my inheritance from my grandparents. My stock market investments provided more than enough to fund my lifestyle. Combined, they might produce ten million dollars. Could the kidnappers ask that much?
Marcus’s assets were tied up in his companies, and without his signature, I couldn’t liquidate them in any case. Even if I could, that might take months to settle. If I wanted Marcus alive, it might well be down to me to find the money.
Nicholas’s frown grew. “Why were you upset this morning?” he asked out of the blue.
That took me by surprise, and it probably showed on my face. So much had happened in the last few hours, the young man I’d hurt felt distanced from my thoughts. It was a struggle to find my way back there and, in fact, the whole sequence felt as if it had happened in a dream.
“Were you hurt?” he persisted.
I shook my head. “Quite the opposite.”
I’d done something cruel, something completely selfish, with little thought for how it would affect anyone else—much as Marcus had, I now realized.
Years of suppressing his true nature had resulted in utter recklessness when the genie had been let out of the bottle. Unlike my controlled experiment, his foray into satisfaction had blown up in his face. But it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t a bad person. And he certainly didn’t deserve what had happened to him.
So when I looked up at Nicholas, my answer was suddenly clear. “I can’t let Marcus die. Not if I can do something to stop it.”
He nodded slowly, and as I watched, his expression closed down. No doubt this was the bodyguard ‘face’ he showed the world. His armor.
“I see. Good,” he added. “If you’re clear about what you want, that will make negotiations easier.”
“I feel responsible for his safety,” I said, acknowledging aloud for the first time my part in his downfall. If I’d faced up to his sexuality sooner, instead of tolerating the discomfort of our lovemaking, he might not have ended up where he was right now.
In retrospect, I should have cared less about our position in society and divorced him six years ago when he’d first told me he was gay—when he’d first admitted that abstaining from sex with men wasn’t making his craving for it go away. Instead, I’d allowed another six years of sex that was unnatural to him—and to me—by continuing our sham of a marriage.
I should have thought about what was best for him instead of retreating into alcohol, but I’d been desperate to numb my horror at realizing that he’d been imagining me as a man so he could become aroused.
I still wanted to shudder when I thought of it now. Instead, I straightened in the chair because Nicholas was watching me very closely.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked softly, and it was several moments before I realized he was talking about Marcus.
“No!” I said, too loudly. “He was—” I’d been about to say the perfect husband but that was clearly a lie. “—kind and gentle.”
“But gay.”
A shudder ran over my body and I suddenly realized this was the limit of my tolerance. I absolutely could not discuss this with Nicholas.
I stood and smoothed down my skirt. “I want to be alone.”
He nodded, as if he’d been expecting that. “I’ll make dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.” I wasn’t about to settle into some cozy domesticity with him.
“What happened this morning?” he asked again, and I knew I would have to say something or he’d draw his own conclusions.
So I lied. “The masseuse asked me why my muscles were so tense. We got into a discussion about my divorce, and I suddenly felt overwhelmed with grief.” He stared back at me, saying nothing, so I added, “It was the first time I’d cried. There was clearly a backlog of grief to be released. I’m sorry if it was awkward for you. I would certainly have preferred to cry alone.”
“I’m not sorry,” he said quietly, and in the next few seconds I saw a gentling of his expression. It surprised me so much, I had to press my lips together to stop them trembling, because the ridiculous urge to cry, yet again, had returned.
At last I managed to say, “Goodnight.” It was barely dark, but I knew a warm shower and a sleeping tablet would settle me until morning.
He looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he said, “Keep your phone by the bed, and wake me if it rings.”
We stared at each other for almost a minute while I thought about the idea of me walking into his bedroom to wake him. Did he even wear pajamas? What if he was naked?
Chapter Five
Heat flared on my cheeks again but I merely said, “Very well,” and walked past him, out of the library and up the stairs to my room. When I was inside with the door closed, I stopped to look at the door handle. It had no lock. I’d never imagined I’d need one.
Nor did I imagine I needed to protect myself from Nicholas. I trusted him with my safety implicitly. But…the thought that he might come into my room if my phone was ringing unnerved me completely. Would he? I normally wore a silk nightgown to bed. I certainly wouldn’t want him to see me in something so revealing.
Unless…
I walked over to my dressing table and sat to stare at my reflection. “You want him,” I whispered to myself, then I had to close my eyes against the truth that was staring back at me. I wanted his hands on my body, gliding over my ribs, cupping my breasts. I wanted him to look into my eyes, the way he had at the bottom of the stairs, with that hunger, and there was a very good reason for that.
Nicholas Aston didn’t have a gay bone in his body. He was one hundred percent heterosexual male, from the top of his tousled black hair to the tips of his black leather boots. Every toned, tanned inch in between throbbed with testosterone, and I suddenly wanted to feel that power—near me, on me, in me.
I didn’t want him dominating me. Not for a second. And nor did I want to dominate him, or harm him in any way. This was a desire for mutual gratification, a hunger to re-establish myself as a woman in the most primal way I could. My body literally craved his touch, and I’d never felt that before in my life.
It was so exhilarating it made the blood pound around my body, but the potential lack of control terrified me. Add to which, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Marcus was in trouble. The police could phone at any time. I couldn’t afford to take a sleeping tablet. It might make me groggy when I needed to have my wits about me.
Nicholas would be in the next room. In bed. Possibly naked.
Why can I not stop thinking that?
My remedy for a lack of self-discipline was action, so I forced myself up and into my bathroom where I cleaned off my makeup and stepped into the shower. I wanted to concentrate on mindless tasks, but my hands on my own body felt unnaturally intimate and as I soaped my upper body, my nipples hardened into pink, yearning peaks.
I had no idea where Nicholas was in the house, but I knew I could close my eyes and use my imagination to have him in the shower with me, touching me—and perhaps masturbation might halt the throbbing arousal he’d ignited so easily, but that might create more problems that it relieved. What if masturbating about Nicholas made me even more responsive to him in real life.
No, I couldn’t go there.
Instead, I cleansed myself as perfunctorily as I could, then rubbed my body harshly with the towel, as if I could somehow
erase my own sexuality. Rose-scented body lotion and a solid hundred strokes of hair-brushing ended my rituals, then I went to my walk-in closet to sort through nightgowns, wondering which one I should wear.
The reckless part of my mind wanted me to select the red lace Dior, because I knew my nipples could be seen through the fabric. But I ignored that completely to slip on an ice pink silk La Perla gown with black lace detail on the bodice—enough to hide any telltale nipples.
Not that I was expecting Nicholas to see me in it, although, just to be sure, I withdrew the matching wrap and laid that over the bottom of my bed. Then I crawled into the soft, white sheets and settled myself under the light quilt.
My bedroom temperature had always been kept cool because Marcus had radiated so much body-heat. When he left, I didn’t have the heart to change it, so I’d resorted to quilts in the middle of summer. There was no quilt on the bed in Nicholas’s room, however, just a sheet, which he may well throw off…
I opened my eyes in the darkness, hoping to dispel the image that had surfaced in my mind, of his naked body sprawled across those crisp cotton sheets. It was a very long time before I fell into a light sleep, only to wake instantly to the sound of the phone.
Within seconds I remembered the significance and I snapped on the bedside lamp and picked up my cellphone, “Louella Knight.”
“I’ve got your husband.”
I was sitting on the edge of the bed with the phone pressed against my ear, expecting the cultured tone of the mature detective who’d sat in my library, not a gruff voice that had no shred of humanity in it.
“What? Where?” I asked, my voice faint, barely above a whisper.
“Fifty million cash tomorrow to settle his debt. Or he dies.”
Completely impossible.
My door clicked open softly and Nicholas came in, completely dressed, as if he’d been waiting for the call.
I stared into his eyes as he crouched in front of me, and I had to say something to the horrible man so I blurted, “Tell me the details.”
Nicholas gestured for me to tilt the phone, which I did, and he put a small microphone up next to it, recording the call as I listened. His fingers brushed my ear but I didn’t register that as a sensual gesture. I was too focused on the horrible reality.
Husband Heel (Husband #3) Page 6
