All or Nothing (bad boy romantic suspense) (7 page)

“Last time I saw you–”

“You were a lousy shot. I only ducked to make you feel better about your aim. See? Even then I was looking out for you, babe.”

“I only missed because I didn’t want blood on the carpet. It was deliberate.”

“You preferred that dent in the door?” The ash tray had made a nasty gouge in the wood-panel door on impact. I’d never got round to fixing it: my little memento of the year with Charlie.

“Okay, so I misjudged that one. I should have hit you with it.”

“You look good, Trude.”

“Too damned right I do. You think I’d come to my brother’s wedding and look like shit?”

I was smiling by then. Our arguments went like that: they either got more and more intense or we’d end up laughing and wondering what we’d been fighting about.

“It’s been a long time, Trude.”

I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He smelt of Issey Miyake and cigarettes.

“Shouldn’t you be inside with Ethan? I assume he’s turned up?”

“Fresh air break,” said Charlie, tapping the cigarette-box-shaped bulge in the breast pocket of his tuxedo. “You know how it is.”

“Haven’t you given that stuff up yet?”

“Everyone’s got their vices, Trudy. Even you.”

I raised one eyebrow and fixed him with a hard stare until he was forced to look away. If the occasional vodka and tonic too many and a tendency to over-stretch my credit cards on Karen Millen and Jimmy Choo were vices, then yes, Charlie had a point, but he was pushing it.

I looked around again. The chapel was set in a stand of pine trees, a short distance from a sprawling country house, all tall windows and mock classical columns. The landscape was so flat here: fields stretching away to another line of dark pine trees, and the sea beyond. I don’t think I’d ever seen a landscape so haunting, so weighted down with sadness.

“I need a drink,” I muttered. I don’t know why I was so tense. There was no bad feeling between me and Ethan; we just hadn’t seen each other for a while. A bit of awkwardness, that was all.

“Later, Trude. Later.”

“So how did my brother end up getting married in a place like this? Does all this belong to her family? Is that it?”

One further element of embarrassment was that I’d never actually met Ethan’s fiancée, Eleanor.

I didn’t know much about her at all.
Very English
, was how Ethan had described her on the phone, way back when they’d just started to realize they were getting serious.
An English rose, Trudy. Can you believe that? Me, with my very own English rose?

I thought he was a bit scared then, feeling out of his depth with this girl and her landed family and their English ways.

“Family with money,” said Charlie. “It’s all about who you know. Connections.”

That was when it happened. My Jane Austen moment. My cliché.

My attention was snagged by movement in the chapel doorway and I turned, thinking Ethan must be emerging and now was the time for me to go and hug him and sweep away the distance that had grown between us.

Instead, it was a guy I’d never seen before.

He was in a tux, this newcomer. He was about six foot, and his shoulders were square, almost as if he was wearing a quarterback’s shoulder pads. He was either an athlete or he spent far too much time looking after himself in the gym.

So: first impression was okay, but nothing to write home about.

And then... that Jane Austen moment.

He peered around, as if lost, and then his eyes fell upon me. It was almost as if he recognized me, as if he’d been waiting all his life for me... but then realized he was mistaken, he didn’t know me at all – exactly that kind of double take.

He looked away, and then glanced back.

His eyes were dark, but when they settled on you it was as if you’d been fixed by a hawk. A raptor, eyeing his prey.

I shook myself, made myself look away. I couldn’t believe I was actually blushing.

Eyes meeting across a crowded gathering.

It was a cliché. I was flustered by my late arrival and by the tense undercurrents of the occasion.

That’s all it was.

Nothing more.

And yes, perhaps I protest too much.

(continues...)

More information and purchasing links for
The Object of His Desire
are available from
the author's website
.

Four Temptations

Four inter-locking story lines in one short novel: three women... one pivotal night... four temptations...

1.
The Tipping Point
: Rebecca's husband has walked out, leaving his best friend Simon to pick up the pieces. Rebecca has never seen Simon as anything other than a friend until now; certainly not as a lover. But now the seed of possibility has been sown, should she? Shouldn't she? And can she even resist?

2.
Words of Love
: Is Rebecca's friend Maggie really considering getting back together with her old flame two years after a vitriolic break-up? Does even a small part of her believe that they can make it work this time round?

3.
The Other Woman
: Ellie is in her early twenties. She's slim and blonde, she has perfect cheekbones, big blue eyes, perfect shape, legs to die for. She's Rebecca?s worst nightmare and her husband?s wet dream.

4.
A Woman Scorned
: They say revenge is best served up cold. Maybe. In Rebecca Swaine's experience revenge is best served up in a public place with a large glass of Pinot Gris. A steamy, passionate story of love and revenge.

Three women... one pivotal night:
Four Temptations
.

Stories of passion, risk and love. Explicit erotic romance from the bestselling author of
The Object of His Desire
and
The Wings of Desire
.

More information and purchasing links for
Four Temptations
are available from
the author's website
.

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© PJ Adams 2014

Published by James Grieve Press

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Cover image © Konrad Bak