King's Ransom

by Jackie Ashenden

  Then I went home and consoled myself with my newly purchased vibrator and memories of Ajax beside the pool. In the bedroom. In the shower... Everywhere but the plane before I’d left Sydney.

  The look in Ajax’s eyes as he’d held me. The way his hands had shaken. The agony on his face as he’d kissed me goodbye.

  The way he’d paused when I’d told him I loved him.

  The way he’d walked out without a backward glance.

  It was all too painful to remember so I didn’t.

  Six months after I’d arrived in New York, I got a phone call from an Australian number.

  It was late in the day and I was at home, settling in for a night of crappy TV, and my heart nearly stopped when I saw the numbers on the screen. And then it started beating again, hard and fast, making my hands shake.

  Was it Ajax? Or was it someone else? My father? Who else knew I was here? Who else knew this number?

  I hit the answer button and a man’s deep voice said, ‘Is this Imogen White?’

  It wasn’t Ajax.

  The combination of relief and disappointment was so bitter it nearly choked me. ‘Yes,’ I said, forcing it away. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘This is Leon King. I want to know what the hell you’ve done to my brother.’

  Shock coursed through me. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Ajax has been a fucking bastard to deal with for the past six months, which, to be fair, is nothing unusual. But now he’s shut himself up in his house and won’t see either Xander or me.’ There was a pause. ‘We’re worried about him.’

  I closed my eyes, longing pulling at me, making the hole in my heart hurt worse than anything I could imagine. ‘What makes you think I can help him?’

  ‘Well, he got like this pretty much as soon as you left so I’m assuming it’s got something to do with you.’

  ‘It might not.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I tried asking him about you,’ Leon said, ‘but he refused to answer any questions and at the mention of your name... Well, let’s just say he wasn’t happy.’

  My voice didn’t work, but I tried to speak anyway. ‘I promised him I’d stay here. That I wouldn’t come back.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he wanted me to be free.’

  ‘Christ,’ Leon muttered, sounding exasperated. ‘Look, I don’t know what you two are to each other, but can’t you come back to Australia and be free with him?’

  ‘I promised,’ I repeated, clutching the phone. ‘I told him I’d stay.’

  Leon sighed. ‘Do you want to stay?’

  I thought of the life I’d made for myself here. The job and friends and apartment. It was a nice life. It was everything I’d dreamed about. And yet...

  There was something missing. Him.

  My throat felt thick. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then come back.’ Leon’s voice was flat. ‘Come back and help him.’

  The ache in my chest got worse. ‘Can’t you do anything for him?’

  ‘You don’t think I’ve tried? He won’t listen to me and he won’t listen to Xander. Which leaves you.’ For the first time I heard a note of actual worry in his tone. ‘Someone needs to help him, Imogen, because, God knows, if there’s one man who deserves a fucking break it’s my brother.’

  A shiver went through me. When I’d left Sydney, I hadn’t fought to stay. I’d gone to New York with only the most cursory of arguments. I’d told myself that getting that promise out of him was a victory, that leaving was the best thing for both of us.

  Besides, he’d wanted me to go and I hadn’t wanted to make myself into even more of a problem for him than I was already.

  Lies. You know why you didn’t fight.

  It was fear. Fear that he didn’t feel for me what I felt for him. Fear that I didn’t deserve him. Fear that because my mother had died for me I didn’t deserve to be happy.

  Then again, if I wasn’t, wouldn’t her sacrifice have been in vain?

  Ajax had told me she would have been glad that I existed and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have wanted me to exist unhappily. That wouldn’t have honoured her memory.

  You know what will.

  Yes. There was only one way to honour that memory, only one way to repay the debt I owed her. And that wasn’t with yet another sacrifice.

  It was with happiness. With love.

  With showing a man who’d given up too much that he didn’t have to give up anything more. That if I deserved happiness then he did too.

  Tears filled my eyes.

  ‘Well?’ Leon demanded, after I hadn’t spoken. ‘Will you come back?’

  I didn’t hesitate this time.

  ‘Yes,’ I said fiercely. ‘Yes, I’ll come back.’

  That night I booked a ticket home and the next day I handed in my resignation at my job. And I packed up my life in New York.

  But before I left I made one last phone call.

  The phone rang for a while before it picked up, but my father’s voice hadn’t changed, hard and cold and suspicious. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s Imogen.’

  There was a shocked silence. ‘Where are you? Where the hell are—’

  ‘I haven’t got time for explanations,’ I interrupted firmly. ‘I wanted you to know that I’m coming home. And when I get back I will be marrying Ajax King.’

  ‘You ungrateful little—’

  ‘And if you so much as touch me or harm Ajax or his family and friends in any way—and I mean any way, Dad—I’ll take what I know about you and your business to the media.’ I paused, letting that sink in, then I added, ‘And I’ll make sure everyone knows just what kind of man you really are.’

  There was another long, shocked silence.

  ‘Imogen,’ Dad said and there was a hoarse tone to it that I’d never heard before.

  ‘You’ll leave Sydney,’ I went on, ‘and you won’t come back. And in return I’ll stay quiet. But the moment you hurt anyone I care about, I’ll tell the world. And you’ll never work in Australia again.’

  I could feel his anger radiating clear across the Pacific. But all he said was, ‘Okay. You have a deal.’

  A day later I flew back to Sydney to reclaim the life I’d always wanted.

  And the man I loved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ajax

  SOMEONE WAS KNOCKING on the front door.

  I ignored it the way I’d been ignoring all visitors to my house for the past few months. Instead I shoved the empty takeout boxes that were sitting on the coffee table to one side, put my laptop down, poured myself another liberal amount of Scotch, then stared at the screen.

  I’d been putting off my housing project for too long and I couldn’t put it off any more. I had to do something, because at the moment it felt like I was in limbo.

  All I’d done since Imogen had left was take the boat out every day, trying to get rid of the dead feeling inside me, trying to shock it back to life with the things that usually calmed me. The wind, the salt, the sun. Ropes under my hands and the crack of the sails above me.

  But even being out on the ocean didn’t get rid of it.

  Everything was muted and flat, what little joy I’d taken from life utterly gone.

  I accepted it. It was all part of the sacrifice. And knowing she was in New York and having the time of her life made it better.

  I got updates from my New York contact about how she was doing, but after a while I told him not to send me any more.

  It was easier not to know.

  I’d flung myself into work, chasing down the last of my father’s loyal lieutenants, mopping up the rest of his mess. It was hard work and I took a certain relish in it. But I made good on my promise to Imogen and left her father alone.


  He’d tried to exact his revenge on me for placing his daughter beyond his reach, but I avoided it. I didn’t retaliate, didn’t engage.

  She held me back from the precipice and I couldn’t let her down.

  Eventually White lost interest.

  With Imogen gone, what was the point? For either of us?

  My brothers tried to talk to me, but I didn’t want to talk to them. There was nothing they could say that would make any difference.

  They had the women they loved and if I was grateful for nothing else, it was that.

  I was never meant to have the things I wanted for myself anyway and I didn’t know why I hadn’t remembered that.

  I stared at the document that had come up on the computer—Imogen’s management plan. She’d put so much work into it and had been so excited about it...

  Pain shifted in my chest, so intense I couldn’t breathe. It would fade in a minute and then I’d go back to being deadened and numb but, for the moment it lasted, all I could see was her face, luminous with excitement, her green eyes glowing.

  For a second I tried to pretend that I didn’t know why it hurt so much, but it was too hard and so I gave up.

  I knew why it hurt so much.

  I was in love with her. I’d probably fallen in love with her the moment her gaze had met mine in the mirror of the bathroom the night I’d kidnapped her.

  No wonder I felt like a dead man walking half the time; she’d taken my heart to New York with her.

  Not that love would have made a difference anyway.

  Love was just another sacrifice I’d had to make.

  The hammering on the door didn’t stop.

  Fuck. I was going to have to either keep ignoring it or answer the bloody thing.

  Ignoring it took work though and for once I was glad of the distraction. Otherwise I’d have to think about who could take Imogen’s place on the housing project and thinking about that filled me with rage.

  Cursing, I shoved myself to my feet, stalking out of the room and down the hallway to the front door.

  Who the fuck was it? And how had they even got to the front door? They’d have had to get past the guards at the gate so it had to be someone I knew.

  I could have checked via the front door camera, but I couldn’t be fucked looking.

  God help me, if it was Xander or Leon disturbing me again I’d have their fucking balls on a plate.

  I jerked open the door and the heart I thought was dead shocked suddenly back into life.

  It wasn’t Xander or Leon.

  It was Imogen.

  She stood on my doorstep, her gilt hair loose and gleaming down her back, wearing a simple turquoise cotton dress that gave her green eyes a tinge of blue and her skin a creamy glow.

  I hadn’t seen her for a whole six months and I felt like a man who’d been in the desert for years surrounded by nothing but sand, suddenly seeing green grass for the first time.

  Fresh. Beautiful. Evidence of life...

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her familiar voice with its husky edge sounding shaken.

  I couldn’t think of a bloody word to say.

  ‘Uh, are you going to invite me in?’ She gave me a small hopeful smile. ‘Or do you want to have this conversation on the front doorstep?’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I demanded, graceless and rough, like I hadn’t spoken for days.

  She swallowed. ‘I came back. Obviously.’

  ‘But... I freed you.’ My heart was thundering in my head, beating so loudly I could hardly hear a fucking thing. ‘You were supposed to have a life.’

  ‘And I did,’ she said. ‘It sucked.’

  I stared at her, not understanding. ‘What do you mean, “it sucked”?’

  Imogen took a step forward and put her palm in the centre of my chest. ‘Seriously, I’m not having this conversation outside.’

  Her touch was pure electricity, delivering another shock to my heart and, before I knew what I was doing, I’d backed away from the door so she could come in, closing it behind her.

  She made as if to remove her hand but automatically I put mine over hers, keeping it exactly where it was, desperate for her touch.

  Her skin was warm and I could smell her. Ah, fuck...roses.

  I ached.

  ‘You idiot.’ Her eyes glowed with a familiar determination. ‘Did you seriously think you could send me away and that I’d stay? I told you I loved you before I left. That hasn’t changed.’

  My jaw was so tight I could barely speak. ‘You were supposed to stay in New York. Get a job and friends and an apartment and—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ She waved a hand as if that was nothing. ‘I did all those things. But I didn’t leave Sydney because I wanted to, Ajax. I left to make you happy.’

  Again, I could not think of one fucking thing to say.

  ‘But you’re not happy,’ she went on, gazing up at me. ‘I can see that you’re not. And you know something? I’m not happy either.’ Her hand pressed a little harder on my chest. ‘Mum gave her life for me and I’ve spent a long time thinking that I didn’t deserve to have anything because of that. But... I was wrong. You taught me that. She wouldn’t have wanted me to be unhappy. That would mean she died for nothing.’ Imogen’s thumb moved caressingly over my skin. ‘Her death needs to mean something, Ajax. And the best way I can think of to honour it is with happiness. With love.’

  The ache inside me intensified. It was plain she believed every word she said. I only wished I could believe it too.

  ‘If anyone deserves to have that, it’s you,’ I said roughly. ‘But you can’t have it with me.’

  She didn’t look away. ‘Why not?’

  My breathing was ragged from the effort it took not to grab her and hold her. Keep her with me. Never let her go.

  ‘Because you know what will happen when you’re with me,’ I said. ‘There’ll be guards and security and threats and—’

  ‘No, that’s not what will happen.’ Her finger was on my mouth before I could move. ‘What will happen with you is sex and sailing and swimming. And food and more sex. And then some interesting projects that I can really sink my teeth into, and more sex, and then a dolphin or two, and then—’

  I shook her finger away before the touch would overcome my control. ‘Imogen, you’re not listening.’

  She pulled her hands from me and took my face between them. ‘I am. You’re not listening to me.’ Her eyes were very green. ‘I love you and telling me you can’t be with me because you want me to be free is a bullshit excuse. You’re scared. I can see it.’

  Of course she did. She’d always been able to see right through me.

  I said nothing. There was no point in denying it.

  She searched my face. ‘What are you so afraid of?’

  ‘That promise I made you—remember it?’ I met her gaze head-on. ‘That was the only thing that kept me from hurting your father. The only fucking thing that stopped me from being just like him. From being like my dad. And yes, that makes me afraid.’

  ‘It wasn’t the only thing,’ she said as if she knew it for truth. ‘You wouldn’t have done it anyway.’

  ‘I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him so fucking badly for what he did to you.’

  ‘But you didn’t. You’re not that type of man, Ajax.’

  ‘I could have become him,’ I went on, laying out just what type of man I was for her. ‘I still could. I can feel it inside me, his violence. Christ, so much. I hurt people, Imogen. Including my brothers. Fuck, I just stood back and watched them suffer. How can I be allowed to have you—have anything at all—after that?’

  ‘That wasn’t your fault.’ Her tone was quiet and absolutely sure. ‘Your father threatened them, you didn’t. And you did what you could to protect them.’

  ‘But what if I didn’
t?’ I couldn’t stop the words from coming out, the secret truth I’d been trying to hide. ‘What if I didn’t do everything? What if there’s a part of me that enjoyed it? What if there’s a part of me that’s just like him? That wants to be like him?’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re not him, Ajax King. Not in any way. You don’t hurt people—you protect them. I was the daughter of your enemy. You could have used my life to get Dad to leave Sydney, but you didn’t. And those houses you’re building, they’re to improve people’s lives.’ Her thumbs stroked my cheekbones so gently. ‘Everything you do is about keeping people safe, the way you kept your brothers safe all those years ago.’

  ‘They weren’t safe,’ I almost spat. ‘You don’t know what they went through.’

  ‘I think they would have thought it was worth it to see Augustus in jail.’ Her mouth curved in a smile of such tenderness it hurt to look at it. ‘Do you know that Leon called me in New York? He told me that I’d better come home, because something was wrong with his brother. They want you to be happy, Ajax. Don’t you think you should honour them by, you know, actually being happy?’

  My brothers. They were the reason for everything. Because I was the oldest and I had to protect them. And I’d told myself that I’d had to stand aside and let them get hurt in order to ultimately protect them.

  The end justified the means, always.

  But...what if that was a lie? What if there had been something in me that had let it happen? The same thing that had been in my father, who caused people nothing but pain.

  ‘They don’t know,’ I said raggedly. ‘They don’t know that Dad threatened them. They don’t know that I couldn’t lift a finger to save them.’

  ‘So tell them. Talk to them.’ Her fingers were cool on my skin. ‘But you’ll have to let me stay first, because I’m not leaving you.’

  That steely determination was in her eyes, her will as strong as mine.

  She’d got under my skin the second she’d appeared, with her wide-eyed innocence, incessant questions and electric presence, and I had a feeling she would never leave.

  But it wasn’t her I was fighting. It was myself.

  ‘I’ll never be an easy man to live with.’ My voice was cracked and broken, all the fight running out of me. ‘I can’t change my past and I’m possessive as fuck. And you’re wrong. I’m a man like my father was through and through.’