of years the memory of his night with Elena had been too viscerally tied into his grief and the gnawing guilt that he had failed to save his father.
Kyle sent him the kind of neutral, male look that said he’d noted Nick’s interest in Elena, but wasn’t going to probe any further. It was the kind of unspoken acceptance that short-circuited the need for a conversation, and which suited Nick.
His feelings for Elena were clear-cut enough. He wanted her back in his bed, but he wasn’t prepared to think beyond that point.
Kyle turned into the underground parking building of the Messena building. “Any success locating the ring?”
Nick unfastened his seat belt as Kyle pulled into a space. “I’ve been asked that question a lot lately.”
By his mother, his older brother, Gabriel and a selection of great-aunts and -uncles who were concerned about the loss of an important heirloom piece. Last but not least, the insurance assessor who, while engaged in a revaluing exercise, had discovered the ring was missing.
Climbing out of the Jeep, Nick slammed the door. “I’m beginning to feel like Frodo Baggins.”
Kyle extracted his briefcase, locked the vehicle and tossed him the keys. “If that’s the little guy off Lord of the Rings, he had prettier eyes.”
“He also had friends who helped him.”
Kyle grinned good-naturedly. “Cool. Just don’t expect me to be one of them. My detective skills are zero. ”
Nick tapped in the security PIN to access the elevator. “Anyone ever tell you you’re irritating?”
“My last blonde girlfriend.”
Nick hit the floor number that would take them to Gabriel’s suite of offices and a discussion about diversifying his business interests. “I don’t recall your last girlfriend.”
Of all the Messena clan, Kyle was the quietest and the hardest to read. Maybe because of his time in Special Forces, or the fact that he had lost his wife and child to the horror of a terror attack, he had grown to be perceptibly different to them all.
“That was because I was on an overseas posting.”
“She was foreign?”
“No. A military brat.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged, his expression cagey. “We both moved on.”
Nick studied Kyle’s clean profile. With his obdurate jaw and the short, crisp cut of his hair, even in a sleek business suit he still managed to look dangerous. “So it wasn’t serious.”
“No.”
Kyle’s clear-cut indifference about his last casual relationship struck an odd chord with Nick. Kyle had cared about his wife and child, to the point that he hadn’t cared about anyone since.
Nick hadn’t lost a wife and child, not even close, but it was also true that for years, ever since their father had died, and the night with Elena, he had not been able to form a relationship.
The elevator doors slid open. Moving on automatic pilot, Nick strolled with Kyle through the familiar, hushed and expensive interior of the bank.
Normally, his social life was neatly compartmentalized and didn’t impinge on the long hours he worked. But lately his social life had ground to a halt.
Dispassionately he examined the intensity of his focus on Elena, which, according to his PA, had made him irritable and terminally bad-tempered. He had considered dating, but every time he picked up the phone he found himself replacing it without making the call.
The blunt fact was that finding out that the past was not set in stone had been like opening up a Pandora’s box. In that moment a raft of thoughts and emotions had hit him like a kick in the chest. Among them the stubborn, visceral need to reclaim Elena.
He couldn’t fathom the need, and despite every effort, he hadn’t been able to reason it away. It was just there.
The thought of making love with Elena made every muscle in his body tighten. The response, in itself, was singular. Usually when he finished a relationship it was over, his approach to dating and sex as cut-and-dried as his approach to contracting and completing a business deal.
But for some reason those few hours with Elena had stuck in his mind. Maybe the explanation was simply that what they’d shared had been over almost before it had begun. There hadn’t been a cooling-off period when the usual frustrations over his commitment to his business kicked in.
But as much as he wanted Elena, bed would have to wait. His first priority had to be to obtain answers and closure. Although every time he got close to Elena the concept of closure crashed and burned.
Despite the buttoned-down clothing and schoolmarm hair, there had always been something irresistibly, tantalizingly sensual about Elena. She had probably noticed he’d been having trouble keeping his hands off her.
It was no wonder she had practically run from him in Cutler’s office.
* * *
Nick had liked her.
A surge of delighted warmth shimmered through Elena as she strolled through a small park.
Six years ago Nick had cared enough to step in and protect her from a date that would have been uncomfortable, at best. More probably it would have ended in an embarrassing struggle, because Geoffrey Smale had a reputation for not taking no for an answer.
Feeling distinctly unsettled and on edge at this new view of the past, Elena made a beeline for the nearest park bench and sat down.
For six years she had been mad at Nick. Now she didn’t know quite what to feel, except that, lurking beneath all of the confusion, being discarded by him all those years ago still hurt.
The problem was that as a teenager she’d had a thing for him. Summers spent in Dolphin Bay, visiting her aunt and watching a bronzed, muscular Nick surfing, had definitely contributed to the fascination.
Walking away from the night they’d spent together would have been easier if he had been a complete stranger, but he hadn’t been. Because of her summers with her aunt at the original Lyon homestead on the beach, and because of Katherine’s work for his family as a housekeeper, Elena had felt connected to Nick.
Too restless to sit, she checked her watch and strolled back in the direction of the Atraeus Hotel, where she was staying.
As she approached a set of exclusive boutiques a glass door swung open, and a sleek woman wearing a kingfisher-blue dress that showed off her perfect golden tan stepped out onto the street.
The door closed on a waft of some gorgeous perfume, and in the process Elena’s reflection—that of a slightly overweight woman dressed in a plain dress and jacket, and wearing glasses—flashed back at her.
Even her handbag looked heavy and just a little boring. The only things that looked right were her shoes, which were pretty but didn’t really go with the rest of her outfit.
Not
