by Douglas, Michelle; Gordon, Lucy; Pembroke, Sophie; Hardy, Kate
‘Which is why I need you to persuade him to sell This Minute to us,’ Ezekiel finished.
Any satisfaction Thea had felt flew away. Why did he have to choose this day to suddenly have faith in my abilities?
‘I was under the impression that Zeke had already declined your offer.’ And he would continue to do so. She might not have seen him in eight years, but she knew Zeke. He’d never give his father what he wanted without a fight.
‘Of course he has,’ Ezekiel said, impatiently. ‘Otherwise why would I need you? Zeke’s letting his pride get in the way, as usual. He knows that the best thing for him and This Minute is to become part of Morrison-Ashton, and for him to take up his rightful role here.’
The role you refused to give him eight years ago. ‘He seems very set on moving on to something new.’
‘And selling This Minute to Glasshouse.’
‘Glasshouse?’
That would be a disaster. For Morrison-Ashton, at least. This Minute would give their main competitor a huge advantage in the digital arena, and the PR fallout from Zeke Ashton defecting to Glasshouse would run and run. It would certainly eclipse any positive coverage her wedding to Flynn was likely to garner.
‘Precisely,’ Ezekiel said, as if he’d heard every one of her thoughts. ‘We need Zeke to sell to Morrison-Ashton. For the family as much as the business. So, you’ll do it?’
Could she? Would Zeke listen to her? Would he care? Or would he go out of his way to do the opposite of anything she asked, just as he did with his father? If she could make him see reason...if she could win this for them... This wouldn’t just be a business victory. This would assure her place in the Ashton family more than marrying Flynn could achieve.
But even if he did listen...could she ask this of him? Could she choose the business and the family over Zeke all over again, knowing it would hurt him?
Only one way to find out.
‘I’ll do it.’
* * *
Zeke had never given very much thought to weddings beyond showing up in an appropriate suit and whether or not there’d be a free bar. But sitting at a small wrought-iron table at the edge of the villa’s huge entrance hall, taking his time over coffee, he had to conclude that, really, weddings were a whole lot of palaver.
The villa had been humming with activity since dawn, as far as he could tell. Before he’d even made it downstairs garlands of flowers and vines had been twisted round the banisters of the staircase, the floors had been polished, and potted trees with ribbons tied around their trunks had been placed at the base of each arch that spanned the hall.
He had no doubt that every other room in the villa would be receiving similar treatment over the next twenty-four hours, but they’d started with the area most likely to be seen by the greatest number of people that day.
And, boy, were there a lot of people. Guests had started arriving very early that morning, flying in from all over the world. From his chosen seat he had a great view of the front door, through a large arch that opened onto the hallway. Clearly not everyone was staying at the hotel down the road, as several couples and families with suitcases had pitched up already and been shown to their rooms. Family, Zeke supposed. He recognised some and recognised the looks he received even better. First the double-take, checking that it really was him. Then the raised eyebrows. Then a whisper to a companion and the whole thing started over again.
Zeke had seriously considered, more than once, taking a pen to the linen napkin he’d been given and fashioning some sort of sign.
Yes, it would say, it really is me. Zeke Ashton Junior, black sheep, passed-over heir, broke his mother’s heart and had the cheek to come back for his brother’s wedding. And, no, I’m not selling my father my company, either. Shocking, isn’t it?
The only thing that stopped him was that, even if he managed to fit all that on a napkin, no one would be able to read it from the sort of distance they were keeping. So instead he smiled politely, raised his coffee cup, and refused point-blank to leave his table. People wanted to stare? Let them.
As the hour became more reasonable other people started to stop by, ostensibly to drop off presents but probably to gawp at the villa and try and catch a glimpse of the bride. Zeke wished them luck; he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since he’d said goodnight the evening before.
That, Zeke thought ruefully, had been a mistake. Swilling the dregs of his coffee around at the bottom of his cup, he tried not to remember the way Thea had smelled, so close in the darkness, and failed. Just as he’d failed to forget every moment of that last night he’d spent with her before he left.
The way she’d smiled at him before the party. The way she’d kissed him and sworn that it didn’t matter when he told her about Flynn taking his job. The way she’d supported him when he’d decided to go and face his father, tell him what he really thought of him.
How his rage had bubbled to the surface as he’d approached his father’s office. How unprepared he’d been for what he’d heard there.
Mostly he remembered the moment he’d known he had to leave. Right then—that night. He remembered climbing up to Thea’s window to ask her to come with him, and her tears as she told him she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The way his heart had stung as he’d realised she really meant it.
Eight years and he couldn’t shake that memory.
Couldn’t shake the hurt, either.
Catching the eye of the maid, Zeke gave her his most charming smile. She frowned, but headed off to fetch the coffee carafe anyway. Zeke supposed she had other things she was supposed to be doing today, and he was stopping her. But no one had told him what to do. He might be the best man, but it seemed the title was wholly ceremonial. Flynn had disappeared out earlier with one of their cousins, apparently not even spotting Zeke at his table. Whatever tasks there were to be performed today, Flynn seemed to have plenty of help.
Which left him here, drinking too much coffee, and overthinking things. Not ideal.
Across the wide hallway he heard heels clicking on stone and looked up, already knowing somehow who it was.
Thea looked tired, Zeke thought. Was that his fault? Had she been kept awake thinking about exactly where everything had gone wrong between them as he had? He motioned to the maid for a second coffee cup and waited for Thea to cross the hall and sit down at his table. Even if she wanted to avoid him he knew the lure of coffee would be too strong for her.
It took her a while, because another crowd of people had arrived with gifts wrapped in silver paper and too much ribbon and she’d got caught up playing hostess. Zeke watched her smiling and welcoming and thanking and thought she looked even less like the girl he remembered than she had in her wedding dress. The Thea he’d known had hated this—all the fake smiles and pretending to be delighted by the third set of champagne flutes to arrive in the last half-hour. She’d played the part well enough after her mother died, at her father’s insistence, the same way she’d acted as a mother to Helena and run the Morrison household for the three of them. But she’d always escaped away upstairs at Morrison-Ashton company parties, as soon as it was at all polite. These days it seemed she relished playing the part.
Eventually Isabella arrived, her smiles and gestures even bigger than Thea’s. As his mother took over the meet-and-greet, Thea stepped back from her guests, a slightly disappointed frown settling onto her forehead, looking suddenly out of place. After a moment she moved across the hallway towards him. And the coffee. Zeke had no doubt that the caffeine was more appealing to her than his presence.
‘Good morning, Zeke.’ Thea swept her skirt under her as she sat, and smiled her thanks at the maid as she poured the coffee. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Like a baby,’ Zeke lied. ‘And yourself?’
‘Fine, thank you.’
‘Up early on wedding business?’ he asked
, waving his coffee cup in the direction of the new arrivals.
‘Actually, I was just catching up on a few work things before tomorrow.’ Thea picked up her cup and blew across the surface. ‘I’ll be off for almost a month for the honeymoon, so I’m trying to make sure everything is properly handed over.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have more important things to do today than work. Wedding things,’ he added when she looked confused.
Thea glanced down at her coffee cup again. ‘To be honest, I’ve been able to leave most of that to the wedding planner. And Helena and Flynn.’
‘Most brides want to be involved in their wedding plans, you know.’ At least, the ones who wanted to get married. Who were marrying a man they loved. And Zeke was beginning to think that Thea didn’t fall into either of those categories, whatever she said.
‘I didn’t say I haven’t been involved,’ Thea said, her voice sharp. ‘But at this point it’s all the last-minute details and fiddly bits, and Helena is much better at making things look good than I am.’
‘So, what are you doing today, then?’ Zeke asked.
‘Actually, I do have one very important wedding-related task to do,’ Thea said. ‘And I could really use your help.’
Zeke raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’
Thea nodded. ‘I need to buy Flynn a groom’s gift. I thought you might be able to help me find something he’d like.’
He hadn’t seen his brother in eight years, and he’d had precious little clue what the man liked before then. But if this was the excuse Thea needed to talk to him about whatever was really on her mind, he’d play along. It might even be fun.
‘Okay,’ he said, draining his coffee. ‘I’ll bring my car round while you get ready to go.’
But Thea shook her head. ‘Oh, no. I’m driving.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MORE SHE thought about it, the more Thea was convinced that this was a brilliant idea. She could use the shopping trip to sound Zeke out on his plans for This Minute before she approached the more difficult task of convincing him to sell it to Morrison-Ashton. And at the same time she could prove exactly how happy she was to be marrying Flynn by choosing her husband-to-be the perfect wedding gift.
Plus, it got her out of the villa—and she got to drive. That was almost enough to assuage the twinges of guilt that still plagued her about her mission that morning.
‘Why am I not surprised?’ Zeke asked as she pulled up outside the front door in her little red convertible.
‘I like to drive.’ Thea shrugged, her hands never leaving the wheel as Zeke opened the passenger door and lowered himself into the seat. ‘It was an engagement present from Flynn.’
Well, he’d given it to her anyway. She rather suspected that Helena had helped him choose it. Flynn’s idea of appropriate gifts tended to be more along the line of whatever the jeweller recommended.
‘Of course it was.’ Zeke buckled up his seat belt and rested his arm along the side of the door.
He looked casual enough, but Thea knew he was gripping the seat with his other hand. He’d complained regularly about her driving in the eleven months between her passing her test and him leaving.
‘So, where are we going?’
‘There’s a small town just twenty minutes’ drive or so away.’ Smoothly, Thea pulled away from the villa and headed down the driveway, picking up speed as they passed another load of guests coming up. She’d just have to pretend she hadn’t seen them later. ‘It has some nice little shops, and there’s a wonderful trattoria where we can stop for lunch.’
‘Sounds nice. And I’m honoured that you’re choosing to spend your last day of single life with me. Really.’
Thea rolled her eyes and ignored him. There was plenty of time to deal with Zeke and his terrible sense of what counted as funny once they reached the town. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the drive.
Zeke fiddled with the car stereo as Thea turned off onto the main road, and soon they were flying through the gentle hills and green and yellow fields of the Tuscan countryside to the sound of the classic rock music he’d always insisted on.
‘I know I don’t own this CD,’ Thea said—not that she cared. Somehow it sounded right. As if they’d fallen back in time to the day she’d passed her driving test, just a few weeks after her seventeenth birthday, and Zeke had let her drive his car for the first time.
Zeke held up his phone, connected to the stereo by a lead she hadn’t known existed. ‘You know me. I never travel without a proper soundtrack.’
The summer sun beamed down on them as they drove along the winding road, past farms and other villas and the occasional vineyard. She’d have two weeks to explore this land with Flynn, Thea thought. Two whole weeks to get used to the idea of being his wife, to get to know him as her husband, before they headed back to London to set up their new home together. It would be perfect.
The heat on her shoulders relaxed her muscles and she realised that Zeke was blissfully silent beside her, not even commenting on her speed, as any other passenger might have done. Maybe he was remembering that first trip out, too. Maybe he was remembering what had happened afterwards, when they’d found a ruined barn on the edge of a nearby farm and he’d spread his jacket out over the hay as he laid her down and kissed her...
Thea glanced at the speedometer and relaxed her foot off the accelerator just a touch.
Time to think of calmer things. Like Flynn, and their honeymoon.
Eventually she slowed down to something approaching the speed limit as they passed rows of stone houses on the outskirts and joined the other traffic heading over the bridge into the town. Thea pulled into the same parking space she’d used the last time she’d visited, just outside the main piazza. She grabbed her handbag, waiting for Zeke to get out before she locked the car.
‘So,’ he asked, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head as he stepped into the shade of the nearest building, ‘where first?’
Thea stared down the street, through its red stone arches and paving, and realised she hadn’t a clue. What did you buy your future husband as a wedding gift, anyway? Especially one who, even after decades of friendship, you didn’t actually know all that well?
Glinting glass caught her eye, and she remembered the jeweller’s and watch shop she and Helena had found down a winding side street off the piazza. Surely there’d be something there?
‘This way,’ she said, striding in what she hoped was the right direction through the crowds gathered to watch a street entertainer in the piazza.
‘Where you lead...’ Zeke said easily, letting her pass before falling into step with her.
Thea’s stride faltered just for a moment. He didn’t mean anything by it, she was sure—probably didn’t even remember the song. But at his words a half-forgotten melody lodged in her head, playing over and over. A promise to always follow, no matter what.
Her mum had sung it often, before she died. And Thea remembered singing along. The tune was as much a part of her childhood as bickering with Helena over hairbands and party shoes. But more than that she remembered singing it to Zeke, late at night, after half a bottle of champagne smuggled upstairs from the party below. Remembered believing, for a time, that it was true. That she’d follow him anywhere.
Until he’d actually asked her to leave with him.
Shaking her head to try and dislodge the memory, she realised they were there and pushed open the shop door. There was no time for dwelling on ancient history now. She was getting married tomorrow.
And she still needed to find her groom the perfect gift.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see what this place has that screams Flynn.’
* * *
The answer, Zeke decided pretty quickly, was not much.
While Thea examined racks of expensive watches
and too flashy cufflinks he trailed his fingers over the glass cases and looked around at the other stuff. Flynn wasn’t a flashy cufflinks kind of guy, as far as he remembered. But maybe Thea knew better these days.
He glanced over and she held up a gold watch, its oversized face flashing in the bright overhead lights. ‘What about this?’
‘Flynn has a watch,’ Zeke pointed out.
‘Yeah, but maybe he’d like a new one. From his wife.’
‘Wife-to-be. And I doubt it. The one he wears was Grandad’s.’ He’d spotted it on his brother’s wrist the night before, at dinner, and stamped down on the memory of the day their father had given it to him.
‘Oh.’ Thea handed the watch back to the assistant. ‘Maybe we’ll look at the cufflinks instead, then.’
With a sigh, Zeke turned back to the other cases, filled with precious gems and metals. Maybe he should get something for his mother. Something sparkly would probably be enough to make up for any of the apparent pain Thomas had said she’d felt at his departure. Not that Zeke had seen any actual evidence of that pain.
Maybe she was just too caught up in the wedding festivities to remember that she’d missed him. It wouldn’t be the first time that other people, other events, had taken precedence over her own sons.
A necklace caught Zeke’s eye: pale gold with a bright blue sapphire at the centre. The same colour as Thea’s dress the night before. He could almost imagine himself fastening it around her neck as they stood outside her room—a sign that he still...what? Cared? Remembered what they’d had? Regretted how things had ended? Wanted her to be happy? Knew that even though they’d both moved on they’d always be part of each other’s past?
That was the hardest thing, he decided. Not even knowing what he wanted to tell Thea, what he needed her to understand. It wasn’t as simple as hating her—it never could be, with Thea. But it wasn’t as if he’d shown up here this weekend to tell her not to marry Flynn, to run away with him at last instead. As they should have done eight years ago.