Page 163 of The Black Trilogy

A fancy dinner? Showing my face in public was the last thing I felt like doing at the moment, but the charity was important to me and I’d spent years building it up. We always got more out of the donors if I spent some time schmoozing with them at these events, so I figured I’d better put my own feelings aside and make an appearance.

“Nicky, will you be my date? Pretty please?” I wasn’t going alone. Recently widowed or not, attending on my own would be an invitation for a whole host of insensitive idiots to hit on me.

“Sure, baby.”

I nabbed a chocolate digestive and turned back to Sloane. “Put me down as a yes. Can you make sure we’ve got two tables? I’ll take some of the other guys too.”

“Sure thing. The committee members will be super pleased.”

With those arrangements in hand, I changed for Mr. Johnson then met Nick in the lobby. A car was waiting outside to take us to the meeting.

He looked me up and down. “I hate you.”

I smiled sweetly. Didn’t he realise I always played to win? I’d dressed appropriately for the occasion in a push-up bra and left the top couple of buttons on my blouse undone. Yes, I’d worn a suit, but it was tailored to be tight, and the skirt was barely within shouting distance of my knees. A pair of four-inch spike heels completed the outfit. Perfect.

“I’m thinking somewhere with a couple of Michelin stars for dinner.”

“That’s the last bet I’m ever making with you. You’d think I’d have learned over the years.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t learn with the first one.”

Ah, our first bet. We’d made it over a decade ago when I’d been learning to climb, and Nick had tagged along as my husband and I ventured out to Seneca Rocks on a beautiful spring day. Only three months had passed since Nick left the Navy SEALs, he was twenty-four to my nineteen, and he considered himself to be an excellent climber. To be fair, he was pretty good.

As I fastened my safety harness, he’d laid down a challenge—a race up The Bell, one of the hardest climbs in the area. You have to consider we were both even crazier in our younger days, so we ended up making a silly bet. Last to the top had to get a piercing.

I won, of course. Mainly because Nick didn’t know that my husband had been drilling me up and down that cliff every day for the past week. Even though the hole in Nick’s ear had healed up now, the fact he’d had to get it in the first place was still a sore point for him, and he’d never let me forget it.

I straightened up, showing off my assets to their full effect. “You don’t fancy wearing that nice diamond stud again?”

“Get lost.”

The meeting went well. Forty-three points, my second highest score ever. Boom. Hey, I might as well use my genes to my advantage.

Once we got back in the car, I kicked off my heels, which I now knew were designed by a sadist, and stripped out of my suit. I’d stashed jeans, an old T-shirt, and a pair of Converse in the boot of the car to change into for the flight, so we drove straight to the airport. Neither of us needed luggage because we both kept everything we could possibly need in my London home, Albany House. After Virginia, it was where I spent the most time, and Bradley made sure my wardrobe stayed well stocked.

The rest of the team was already on the plane, our Global 8000 this time, and from the smiles and laughter, they reckoned they were going on vacation. Probably not far wrong. We’d all be staying at Albany House—work together, play together was my ethos—and this job promised to be a fun one.

“Drink, boss?” one of the guys asked.

“Just coffee.”

I took the pilot’s seat with Nick beside me. I never slept on planes, anyway. In such a small space, I could do too much damage if I had an episode, so I might as well knock back the caffeine and drive.

Soon we were at forty-thousand feet over the Atlantic.

“Nice takeoff,” Nick said.

“Thanks. Look out, London. Here we come.”

CHAPTER 10

AFTER ALMOST THREE weeks, Luke came to the realisation that Ash, or Emmy, or whoever she was, had gone from his life. He hadn’t heard a single word from her in all that time. Not even a whisper. But that didn’t stop him from worrying about how she was coping.

Did she have enough money? He should have offered her some before she left, he realised now. After all, she’d only worked for a month while she was in England, and that job had paid minimum wage. And what about somewhere to live? Was she staying with Dan or perhaps that small, loud chap? What was his name? Bradley? He’d seemed friendly enough, albeit more concerned with what she was wearing than her welfare.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Ash’s frame of mind worried Luke more than her physical well-being. The last few times he’d seen her, she’d had an aura of sadness, a pain lurking behind her soft brown eyes. What had happened in her past to make her that way? Why hadn’t he spent more time talking and less time peeling her out of her clothes?

For the past fortnight, he’d done little more than sit around the house, trying to look after Tia and occasionally attempting to work, without much success on either count. At least Tia hadn’t turned back into the devil-child she’d been three months ago. Hey, yesterday she’d offered to empty the dishwasher.

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