The mayor’s eyes narrowed. ‘Or she got rich on hers. Though, to be fair, she was on top more often than not.’
The urgent need to defend Tash slammed headlong into the unbidden image of her, all golden and glorious reared back above him. Jardine’s words should have been exactly what he wanted to hear. That she was the gold-digger he’d always suspected. That she’d slept her way to her present success.
Except, inexplicably, he didn’t believe that. Not for one moment.
That just wasn’t Tash.
‘I didn’t realise you were on the list for tonight,’ Aiden muttered, knowing full well Jardine wasn’t. Though it had been tempting to get him along to pick his brains about Tash. Turned out there wasn’t much brain there to pick amongst.
‘Admin error, I’m sure. I came with Shannon Carles.’
Right. His latest ‘cracker’.
‘I hadn’t realised exactly who your father’s ingénue was,’ Jardine went on, blind to the tension pouring off Aiden. ‘Should I give him a heads-up that there’s not too much that’s innocent about her?’ He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and Aiden had never had a stronger urge to step slightly away.
His fingers curled into fists of their own accord. ‘Her personal life is none of MooreCo’s concern. We’ve simply commissioned her artistic skills.’
‘I give that a week.’ Jardine snorted, swigging down the last of his drink. ‘She’s insidious.’
If he’d said anything else...any other word...
‘What do you mean?’ The question bled out of him. So maybe at least one part of him was still looking for evidence.
‘You won’t mean to. You won’t know quite how it happened. But one day you’ll have her toothbrush in your cabinet and her brand of milk in your fridge.’
‘That doesn’t sound too sinister.’ It actually sounded weirdly good. For a half a heartbeat.
‘She’s like one of those spiders that lures you in with the pretty exoskeleton and the seductive dance and then, once she’s got you, wham, not so pretty and not so seductive any more.’
He couldn’t really imagine either of those things. ‘She doesn’t strike me as the black widow type.’
‘I’m talking about the tears and the neediness that start.’
Needy. Hadn’t he used the exact same word himself, earlier? Aiden stared at Jardine and wondered if this was how he came across to strangers. Or, worse, to people he knew.
Maybe to Tash.
‘Classic bait and switch, mate,’ Jardine said, turning for the bar. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’
No. He was saying so much more, and he was probably saying it to everyone here. Suddenly those eyes following Tash around the room didn’t seem so benign. He scanned the venue, found Jardine’s date drinking it up at the second bar and reached for his phone.
He and Carles had at least two mutual friends. One of them was bound to owe him a favour.
Within ten minutes, Carles was shoving her mobile phone back into her purse and copping an earful from a very unhappy Jardine as they moved towards the exit. He couldn’t really stay without his date and she’d just received an urgent phone call from her marketing department....
Unfortunate, but necessary, she’d gushed.
Aiden had just smiled and held the door for them both.
As he turned back to the room he caught the tail end of Tash’s glance. Her relief was patent and he knew, without asking, that Jardine had likely been enjoying taunting her with his presence.
‘Jerk,’ he muttered.
‘I hope that wasn’t for me, darling,’ a familiar voice said from behind him.
He turned into the warmth of a familiar smile. ‘Mother.’
‘Well, I’m here. I hope this will be worth it,’ she announced. It had been years since Laura Moore had been to any of MooreCo’s events. The ribbon-cutting for the Terrace high-rise was probably the last. Corporate parties, unlike dinner ones, just weren’t his mother’s forte. She didn’t do well with all that pressure and no formal role to play.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he murmured, kissing her cheek. Though his purpose for asking wasn’t quite as solid now as it had been at eight o’clock this morning. This morning he’d believed that his mother’s presence might help to remind Tash that Nathaniel Moore had a loving wife to go home to. That there was a marriage about to be wrecked. And it might help his father, too, to have them in the same room at the same time. For the same reasons.
Maybe that was all he needed to be cured of this obsession he seemed to have.
Insidious. An ugly word from an ugly human being but he just couldn’t shake it. Tash had certainly wheedled her way dangerously close to out of his bad books, which was quite an achievement given how in them she’d been when he first walked into her studio.
He furnished his mother with something from the bar, topped up his own glass and then turned to search out his father.
‘Who’s your father talking to?’
Aiden’s heart shrivelled to half its size as his eyes followed the direction of his mother’s enquiry, but then plumped out again as he realised it wasn’t Tash. ‘Margaret Osborne. The wife of—’
‘Trevor Osborne, yes, I recognise her now. Goodness, the years haven’t been kind.’
Every part of him cringed at the slightly too-loud tenor of her voice. Guess that was what came of being out of the scene for so long—she’d lost her social skills when it came to business matters. Though he couldn’t even imagine her working a room quite as fearlessly as Tash, even at the top of her game.
He shepherded his mother across the crowded room until they caught his father’s eye. It widened with alarm—as well it might....
‘Laura?’
She leaned in for an air kiss—so she hadn’t completely forgotten how to be Mrs Nathaniel Moore—and then smiled at her husband’s surprise. ‘I know. I’m as flummoxed to be here as you are seeing me. Your junior partner invited me.’
His father seemed about as discomposed as Aiden had ever seen him. ‘You’re always invited, Laura. You know that.’ Dark eyes scanned the room and then flared even further.
‘Nathaniel, should we—?’ Tash appeared by Aiden’s side and then jerked to a halt at the immediate tension in his father’s body language. ‘Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting.’
She turned her curiosity to his mother, who stood politely blank-faced.
His father quite literally couldn’t speak.
‘Laura Moore,’ his mother finally said, introducing herself on a smile, her dark brows slightly folded in. ‘And you are?’
‘I’m—’ Tash opened her mouth to speak but both men rushed to cut her off.
‘The guest of honour,’ Nathaniel said.
‘Natasha’s here with me,’ Aiden blurted, simultaneously. The surprise Tash turned on him very neatly matched his own. Why the hell had he said that? Was it because inviting his mother here tonight suddenly seemed like the worst idea ever?
Or was it because he didn’t want to be proved correct all of a sudden?
‘Oh, you’re the artist?’ Laura covered for both her momentarily inept men. ‘Nathaniel has brought home photographs of your work. Just lovely.’
Tash smiled and Aiden recognised it instantly as her game-face smile. The one