“He didn’t say.”
“I don’t understand,” she breathed, and she heard him swear softly beneath his breath.
“I think you’re just about to,” he gritted. “He’s with someone called Sadie.” The blue eyes bored into her questioningly. “Know her?”
Josephine nodded. “Yes, I know her,” she said dully. Best friends weren’t all they were cracked up to be, were they? And yet, deep down, he wasn’t telling her anything that she hadn’t already guessed.
But despite the fact that Luke had gone, only one question nudged at the edges of her mind.
“So just why are you here, Blake?”
BLAKE shrugged. “I guess I’ve come to pick up the pieces .”
Still feeling as though she was in the midst of some nightmare, Josephine stared at him uncomprehendingly. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes moved over her, noting the angular line of her collarbone and the way her hipbones jutted against the filmy material of her dress.
As a model, she had always been slim, but now she looked as though a breath of wind could blow her away. Had marriage to his cousin turned her into a mere shadow of herself?
“How the hell can he afford to take off like that?” he demanded.
Josephine stared at him blankly, because his words didn’t make sense. Come to think of it, nothing made sense right now. “What?”
“I think it might be a good idea if you took a look at your accounts,” he ground out.
All she could see was his blue eyes burning into her. “Accounts?” she echoed.
It was only a hunch, but Blake knew his cousin well enough to suspect that he had taken more than his clothes with him. “Just do it, will you?” he said quietly. “I doubt whether Luke has financed his trip with the fruit of his own labors.”
The rising sense of panic she felt was making her blood run cold, and though she shook her head in denial, she couldn’t stop herself from suspecting the worst. But he wouldn’t have taken her money, surely? Bad enough that he had walked off with one of her supposed friends—surely it couldn’t get any worse than that?
She could feel Blake’s eyes on her as she walked to the bureau to find the telephone number of the bank. She picked up the phone and punched in the numbers and when it was answered she said, shakily, “I’d like to know the balance of my current account, please. And could you check my savings account, too, please?”
The sums quoted took her breath away and her fingers were trembling as she turned round to meet the piercing brilliance of his eyes.
“Both accounts are empty,” she said in a dead, flat voice. “He’s taken everything.”
His mouth twisted, ruing an aunt who had showered everything on his pretty, petulant cousin. “It seems that your precious Luke is nothing more than a common thief.”
The rising panic was fast turning into a swamping tide. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “He can’t have done!”
“Well, it looks as if he damned well has!” He let out a low sigh of frustration. “I told you that you were a fool to marry him, Josephine! I’ve known the guy for most of my life—I knew what he was like! You should have listened to me!”
Yes, she should have listened to him, but how could she have done, when her perception of him had been tainted by the night she had spent in his arms? And the fact that he hadn’t wanted her afterward.
“Does it make you feel better to say ‘I told you so’?” she questioned, her voice shaking with a sense of anger and outrage.
He shook his head. “You know, you’re going to have to contact the police.”
“The police?” It was unthinkable, surely, to report her husband to the police?
“Of course you will!” he stated impatiently. “Your precious Luke can’t be allowed to get away with bleeding you dry! I presume that most of it was your money?”
Of course it was. Luke’s “acting” career had dried up around about the time she’d married him. They had lived off the small fortune she had earned as a model. And when she had decided to study for an alternative career, her fees at business school and the fact that neither of them had been earning had eaten into a fair bit of it.
“Yes,” she said dully. “It was mine.”
“Well, surprise, surprise,” he murmured.
And then, with threatened tears making her mouth taste salty, she turned to stare up at the impassive man who stood before her. “Oh, Blake,” she whispered, because he might be forbidding, but at that moment he looked so damned strong. “What the hell am I going to do?”
“YOU could always go back on the catwalk,” Blake murmured.
But Josephine shook her head. Her days of hanging around the cattle market, of being judged by the length of her legs and the swell of her breast were long gone. “I’m through with modeling.”
Blake’s eyes glittered. “You could always come and work for me.”
“You?” Disbelievingly, Josephine stared at the to-die-for face. “You’d give me a job? Just like that?”
“Well, no, not just like that. Didn’t I hear that you’d gone back to school? That you were planning to make your mark in the world of high finance?”
She wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm she could hear in his voice, but now was hardly the time for nitpicking about his attitude. “But I know virtually nothing about venture capitalism.”
Now the blue eyes gleamed. “Oh, so you remember what I do for a living, do you, Josephine?” he questioned softly.
She remembered a whole lot more besides, but that was a trip down memory lane that she did not intend taking. “Like I said, it’s not something I’m familiar with.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly brain surgery,” he drawled. “And you’re a fast learner, aren’t you?”
Her cheeks flushed as she wondered whether he was referring to the things he had taught her in bed, but she pushed the thought away. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would you go out of your way to help me?”
His mouth curved. Did she think that if she turned those big, green eyes on him, she could twist him around her little finger like she’d done once before, and make him act in a way that was alien to him? Because before Josephine, he’d never had a one-night stand in his life. Never.
“Oh, don’t flatter yourself that it’s because your plight is making my heart bleed for you,” he murmured. “You got yourself into this situation and part of me feels like telling you to get yourself out of it, but—”
“But?”
“Luke may be a worthless airhead,” he mused. “But the fact remains that he happens to be related to me—and his behavior leaves a rather nasty taste in my mouth.”
“And the scandal wouldn’t do your reputation any good, I suppose?”
He gave a cool smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry your head about that. My reputation speaks for itself—and some two-bit marital breakdown