A horn blast from a delivery vehicle that wanted the restricted parking place jerked her attention away from the tough line of Nick’s jaw.
A split second later the passenger door of the Jeep popped open. Nick ignored the waiting vehicle. “Damn, I did hurt you,” he said softly.
Elena tried to suppress a small stab of panic that, after six years of stoically burying the past, she had clearly lost control to the point that she had revealed her vulnerability to Nick.
Pinning a bright smile on her face, she attempted to smooth out the moment by checking her watch, as if she was in a hurry. “It was a blind date. Everyone knows they never turn out.”
“It wasn’t a blind date for me.”
The flat tone of Nick’s voice jerked her gaze back to his.
Nick’s expression was oddly taut. “Six years ago I happened to overhear that a friend of yours had organized a blind date for you with Geoffrey Smale. I told Smale to get lost and took his place. I knew you were the girl I was taking out, and I slept with you for one reason—because I liked you.”
* * *
Broodingly, Nick climbed into the passenger-side seat of the Jeep. He shot an apologetic glance at his younger brother, Kyle, as he fastened his seat belt.
Kyle, who had a military background and a wholly unexpected genius for financial investment, accelerated away from the curb. “She looked familiar. New girl?”
“No.” Yes.
Nick frowned at the surge of desire that that thought initiated. The kind of edgy tension he hadn’t felt in a very long time—six long years to be exact. “That’s Elena Lyon, from Dolphin Bay. She works for the Atraeus Group.”
Kyle’s expression cleared as he stopped for a set of lights. “Elena. That explains it. Zane’s PA. And Katherine’s niece.” He sent Nick an assessing look. “Didn’t think she would be your type.”
Nick found himself frowning at the blunt message. Kyle knew he was the one who had found their father’s car, which had slid off the road in bad weather, then rolled.
His stomach tightened on a raft of memories. Memories that had faded with time, but that were still edged with grief and guilt.
If he hadn’t been in bed with Elena, captivated by the same irresistible obsession that had been at the heart of his father’s supposed betrayal, with another Lyon woman, he might have reached the crash site in time to make a difference.
The coroner’s report had claimed that both his father and Katherine had survived the impact for a time. If he had left Elena at her door that night and driven home, there was a slim possibility he might have saved them.
Nick stared broodingly at the line of traffic backed up for a set of lights. Kyle was right. He shouldn’t be thinking about Elena.
The trouble was, lately, after the discovery of a diary and the stunning possibility that his father had not been having an affair with Katherine, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Elena. “So...what is my type?”
Kyle looked wary. “Uh—they’re usually blonde.”
With long legs and confidence to burn. The exact opposite of Elena, with her dark eyes, her vulnerability and enticing, sultry curves.
Feeling in need of air, Nick activated the electric window. “I don’t always date blondes.”
“Hey, I won’t judge you.”
Although, for a while, it had been blondes or nothing, because dating dark-haired girls had cut too close to the bone. For a couple 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