5. NICO
5
NICO
K ate fucking Lansen .
I thought I had this deal done. Now, I’m wondering how much of a fuss she’s going to kick up. When I admitted I was the purchaser, the look on her face was pure wrath. But even with her eyes flashing loathing, she was stunning. And if that kind of passion is anything to go by, she’d be wild in bed.
Talk about an intrusive thought.
Until tonight, I hadn’t seen Kate since she was eighteen. She’s just as beautiful, but her features are more mature. That naivety she had when she was younger is gone, and what remains is more alluring.
But as attractive as Kate is, I can’t let her get in the way of a good deal.
If I can find her in the crowd, talk to her one to one… convince her the purchase of the company isn’t a bad thing… that I’m not a bad thing…
I glance around the room, sweeping the crowd for her. Fuck, it’s busy in here. From the looks of it, Jack invited half the London society pages. There are at least three guys I went to school with, a woman my mother tried to set me up with when I was twenty-two, and Henry Banville, the youngest (and possibly the richest) Duke in the UK.
But no sign of Kate.
A nudge to my elbow brings me back to the present moment. Champagne slops out of my glass at the impact.
“Watch it!”
My brother, Seb, chuckles. That little dimple appears on his left cheek and his blue eyes dance with amusement.
“It’s not as if you’re drinking the stuff,” Seb argues, clinking his champagne glass against mine. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
“Jack hasn’t signed the contract yet. Couple of small details left to finalise.”
“Nothing serious? No roadblocks?”
“No.” I’m not about to tell Seb that Jack’s little sister could derail the whole thing. “But I won’t celebrate until it’s official.”
“Fair enough.” Seb props his elbows on the bar behind him as he looks out into the party. He’s thoughtful for a moment. “I was hoping you might bring Erica tonight.”
“She was busy.”
Erica Lefroy is the UK’s top runway model, and she’s a long-time friend of mine. We went on a couple of dates a few years ago, but didn’t hit it off romantically. We’ve been friendly ever since, and whenever we’re seen together, the press goes crazy for it. The attention is a tedium I could well do without, but I enjoy her company enough to bear it.
I can tell that Seb wants to talk about her, but I’m too distracted. If I don’t secure this deal tonight, I won’t be able to sleep.
“What the fuck?” Seb mutters, hooking my attention. “Is that Matt?”
I follow Seb’s gaze. Our middle brother, scowling deeply, is barreling through the crowd. He’s intently focused on something on the other side of the room. I swing to check what, and my stomach falls as I catch sight of his wife, Gemma, and teenage son, Charlie.
Gemma’s sleek blonde hair frames her Grace Kelly face, but she’s far from the poised, aloof woman I’m used to seeing. Charlie, a gangly fifteen-year-old, is clinging to her arm, stumbling along beside her, his feet catching on the hem of her pale blue evening dress. He’s so drunk he can barely stand up and Gemma looks like she wants to push him to the gutter.
Charlie’s hair is a shocking electric blue. It’s as eccentric as his black tie suit is conformist. Mother and son are drawing horrified glances from other guests.
“This can’t be good,” Seb says under his breath, throwing a wary look at me. “Charlie’s gone Sonic the Hedgehog .”
“If Sonic downed half a bottle of vodka before he went out.”
“Fuuuuck,” Seb breathes.
Charlie is my only nephew. The teenage pregnancy that nearly gave my mother a coronary. I’m pretty sure the only reason it didn’t is because Gemma is part of the Von Arsworz family—one of the largest diamond suppliers in the world—so it was unlikely Matt had been trapped by a gold-digger. He was just a foolish teenager who didn’t wear a condom.
Small mercies.
“He’s going to kill them,” Seb mutters.
Without another word, I rush towards the imminent collision of husband and wife, hoping I can prevent the ensuing marital battle from erupting on the dance floor. Seb skids along behind me.
“What the hell is going on?” Matt is whisper-yelling when we get there, his anger bubbling beneath the surface. “Why is our son so drunk he looks like he’s about to wet himself?”
Gemma huffs as she props Charlie up. “This is as much your fault as mine, Matthew.”
Matt’s eyes pop wide, but I suspect she may have a point. Not that I’d ever say that to Matt, but he works fucking hard. How can he also be there for his kids?
“How is it my fault?” he growls.
Seb catches my eye, slicing his throat with his fingers like being here is going to kill us . Then he jerks his thumb, signaling we should leave them to it.
I shake my head, refusing to desert Matt with this mess. I hook Charlie’s arm around my shoulder, taking his weight from Gemma.
Fuck, this kid smells like booze and sweat. His full weight leans on me until Seb, with a subtle eye-roll, takes his other side.
Without acknowledging me or Seb, Gemma fixes the sleeves of her dress and flicks a sheet of blonde hair over her shoulder before her icy glare fixes on Matt.
“You left without me. I didn’t want to come alone, so I brought him as my plus one.” She wafts one hand lazily in the air. “I may have lost sight of him for a while.”
Matt’s eyes dart to me. The frustration in his gaze is painful to see. If we weren’t standing in the middle of a bar, he’d probably yell. But he doesn’t. Instead, a contained fury rumbles in his voice when he asks, “And his hair. When did that happen?”
Gemma performs a half-hearted shrug, her left hand still wafting in the air.
“Hey, Dad,” Charlie slurs, head lolling. “Did the hair myself. This morning. Got a tongue piercing too. Thought you’d like it.”
With his eyes barely open, Charlie lets his tongue hang out. A silver ball sits right in the fold. He’s so drunk there’s no chance of having a reasonable conversation with him, but the piercing doesn’t look new.
Above the dark scruff that covers his jaw, Matt’s cheeks turn red. He hoists Charlie from between me and Seb and shoulders his weight alone. He forces his son to stand as upright as possible, but Charlie immediately slumps, eyes shut. The kid is well and truly fucked.
“I’m taking him home,” Matt announces, turning towards the exit before Gemma can object. She teeters behind him on her heels.
“But I’ve only had one drink,” she wails.
Seb’s expression mirrors my disbelief.
“Then stay here,” Matt spits out over his shoulder. Gemma pauses as if contemplating doing the right thing, before peeling off towards the bar and leaving Matt to manage a drunken Charlie alone.
When they’re out of earshot, Seb says, “If he doesn’t divorce her soon, I’m gonna do it for him.”
If the situation wasn’t so messed up, I’d laugh. “They’re miserable.”
“Yup.” Seb swipes a champagne from a passing tray and takes a long swig. An attractive woman in her early twenties walks past. She pauses mid-step to run her gaze over Seb, whose eyes bug out like a cartoon.
“I’m going…” he begins.
“Yeah. Fuck off.”
Left alone, I heave a sigh of relief. I love my brothers, but if I have to deal with anymore family dysfunction this evening, I’ll need to swallow a packet of migraine pills before midnight.
I don’t get long to appreciate the breathing space, because Jack Lansen is cleaving a path towards me. He smiles and shakes hands as he goes, kissing women on the cheek like he’s some kind of celebrity, but when he reaches me, his smile disappears.
“Thank God you’re still here,” he says. “I thought Kate might have run you off the premises.”
My gut pinches at the mention of his sister. “It would take more than that to get rid of me,” I tell him, before draining the remains of my champagne glass. A waitress appears and tops it up immediately. She flutters in my peripheral vision, lingering longer than her job requires. Mildly irritated, I give her a smile, which she returns with gusto.
I focus on Jack, and the waitress finally gets the message, drifting away to attend to the other guests.
“I should have told her before,” Jack admits. “But I wanted to surprise her. I didn’t think she’d take it that badly. She has this weird obsession with the company being her last link to Dad. And if we no longer own it, then we’re finally burying him.”
“Is that what she said?”
Jack scratches his cheek, not meeting my eye. “More or less.”
“Come off it. It was clear as fucking daylight that selling isn’t the main issue. It’s selling to me .”
Jack’s brow furrows, and he stares at the ceiling like there’s something interesting up there. I glance up to check: there isn’t.
“It’s complicated,” he mutters. “She thinks you had your chance, and you blew it.”
Fuck this bullshit . “Don’t you think we ought to tell her the truth?”
Jack stiffens, and this time his eyes latch onto mine. “No. It would absolutely destroy her, and I’d rather save her the pain.” He must see the disagreement on my face because he’s quick to continue. “You know how she worshiped our father. The man could do no wrong. I can’t take that away from her.” Jack sighs. “It’s kinder she thinks you’re the problem than Dad was.”
The problem .
It’s better than The Grim Reaper, at least . That’s what they called me in the press . Fuck, it was horrendous. The papers running headlines like , Ruthless Nico Hawkston backs out of deal that kills Gerard Lansen, as if my actions could cause someone’s heart to give out.
Like I said, bullshit . All of it. But back then, we were grateful for the distraction because it hid the real, dirty truth of it.
Kate was as clueless as the rest of them. No wonder she hates me.
Something tugs awkwardly in my chest, and the physical discomfort of it reminds me why I’ve spent all these years trying not to think of her.
I fix Jack with a hard stare. “We should tell her. She’s not a child anymore. I’m not sure she was a child at the time, either.”
Jack gives me a pained smile. “Honestly, there’s no need. No point in opening up old wounds. Plus, we promised my father we’d hide it from her.” An image of Gerard Lansen on his death-bed, his face haggard and drawn, flashes in my mind. Jack leans in and whispers a reminder, “His dying wish, Nico.”
My jaw locks. I wish I’d never agreed to it. “She never asked about what happened?”
“No. By the time she joined the company, I’d stabilised everything. No small thanks to you.” Jack rubs his hand over his forehead. “She might be annoyed now, but she’ll come round. She’s soft underneath it all.”
Soft underneath ?
I’m immediately assaulted by images of Kate sliding her bikini top off in the hot tub, breasts full, nipples peaked… the scene blurred through the steam and the passage of time.
Shit . This is a woman I haven’t encountered for nearly a decade, but at the slightest suggestion, I’m seeing her without her clothes.
Jack keeps talking, but I’m not listening, too engrossed in thoughts of Kate.
“Nico?” Jack’s voice penetrates, and I refocus to find him staring at me with concern. Fuck’s sake. This woman is already distracting me from more important things. “Sorry, what?” I manage.
“Kate,” Jack clarifies. “She’s got a big heart. It’ll work out. Reckon she always had a thing for you anyway, when she was a kid.” I frown and Jack observes my confusion for a moment, then grins and elbows me in the ribs. “Don’t go getting any ideas. She’s too good for you.”
“Right. Of course,” I say, and Jack gives me a puzzled look, probably because I gave a serious answer to what must have been a joke. Damn . If he ever suspected I’d thought about Kate in any way other than as his little sister, I’d lose my dick to whatever rabid dog he set upon me.
When we were in our mid-twenties, one of our mutual friends tried it on with her at a bonfire night party. Fireworks, marshmallows, and a sneaky grope of her arse.
Jack punched him so hard he lost a tooth.
None of us ever went near her after that. Jack was so overprotective, he would have followed her to university to barricade her into her room if he wasn’t already working overtime trying to salvage the wreck of his father’s company.
And I certainly never told Jack about the hot-tub. How she straddled me in there at his birthday party. Fuck, that was probably on this exact day… ten years ago? She was only a kid; maybe sixteen or seventeen. There was no way I wasn’t pushing her away, telling her to go back inside, but she’d made short work of the bikini top before I got the words out. I can still remember how her white bikini bottoms were almost see-through as she grabbed a towel and made a run for it.
Jack lays a hand firmly on my shoulder. “I’ve got to go work the room. Do you know how many women I’ll disappoint if I don’t give them a moment of my time tonight?”
I grant Jack the expected chuckle and he moves away, leaving me alone at the bar.
A waitress—a different one this time—fills my glass. I watch the bubbles rise for a few moments, but all I can think of is Kate and I decide I can’t leave here tonight without at least trying to talk to her about the deal.
Taking my freshly filled glass, I wander the room for a few minutes. When I finally catch sight of her, she’s laughing like she hasn’t a care in the world, and I get the unnerving sense that I’m seeing a version of her I’m not supposed to see. A party I’m not fucking invited to. A knot of emotion forms at the base of my throat, throbbing behind my collarbone. What the fuck ?
I swallow it down just as Kate swipes a hand through her long, dark hair, pushing it over her shoulder so the glossy veil falls down her back. I instantly want to wrap it around my fist and force her to her knees.
The crowd swells and shifts and I lose her, but I’m pretty sure if I closed my eyes she’d still be there—those long, toned legs and the perfect curve of her arse—imprinted on my retinas.
Fuck me .
I need to find her. Now .