by E. S. Carter
Wick sat silently in the dark of the limousine with his gaze anywhere but her and his thoughts passed over his features faster than Lydia could decipher them. She could happily watch him thinking all night. His brow would crinkle occasionally, and his full lips would twist up in a sly smile. At times, it appeared that Wick thought he’d hit the mother lode and his face couldn’t mask his opportunistic glee, but Lydia wasn’t concerned by whatever Machiavellian plans he was plotting because she had a few of her own.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Lydia’s voice broke the silence of the car and Wick flicked his eyes to hers.
“Only a penny?” he enquired with a roguish grin that turned him from handsome to positively knicker-melting.
Lydia allowed herself to return a slow, seductive smile. It was the smile she always used on men to get whatever her heart desired.
“Well, a penny for your thoughts seems a little pricey to me, but I can afford it.”
“I’m sure you can.” Wick’s grin widened. “I’m also certain that you’re aware I’m in a rented suit and wearing my only good pair of shoes. Which begs the question, why are we going to Vegas?”
Lydia broke his far too intuitive gaze and turned her attention to the muted glare of the airport lights.
“Who was the guy you were with earlier?”
Wick changed his approach, allowing Lydia to avoid his first question because it didn’t matter why a beautiful, rich woman wanted to marry him in secret. He was more than up for the task but he was also beyond intrigued to find out why.
“Conrad.”
“Are we playing the one-word answer game?”
Lydia’s eyes flashed to his, and she watched as a slow smile curved the corner of his mouth and his shoulders rose into a nonchalant shrug.
“I’m only trying to get to know my bride to be. For all I know, that guy you pissed off could be your husband, and while I’m down for a rush wedding, I’m not sure I’m ready for bigamy.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Lydia admitted with a sigh, matching his casual indifference with her own.
“So, let me guess. We’re doing this to enrage him further? Because he looked a little miffed by your show-stopping performance, therefore I’m assuming he’s going to be positively murderous by this new development.”
“Conrad doesn’t own me. Neither do my sisters or the Bennet name. We’re doing this because I want to do it. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Lydia turned to face Wick fully and leant forward in her seat until her silk covered knees touched his suit covered ones.
“Do you not want to marry me, Mr Austen?”
Wick followed her movements and bracketed her thighs with his. Lydia looked down at where they touched, and a flash of heat passed through her at the feel of his strong legs pinning her in place.
“It’s tradition to at least take your wife to be on a date before getting hitched.” His voice was throaty, intimate and enticing.
“I’m not a traditional girl.”
Wick’s legs tightened around Lydia’s at her breathy confession and the air in the car thickened with sexual tension.
“What about sex before marriage? Are you traditional in that sense?”
Wick’s eyes roamed her face and landed on Lydia’s parted lips.
“Mr Austen,” she breathed huskily. “Why don’t you come a little closer and find out.”
Darcy questioned the bartender half-heartedly. His amusement at this drama unfolding from a few overheard words at a bar was evident in his manner, his tone and the ever-present grin on his face.
Eliza, on the other hand, grilled the poor man as if he’d committed a crime. Darcy was surprised she hadn’t demanded his birth certificate, bank statements and any other evidence she deemed necessary to prove he wasn’t bullshitting her or hiding anything important.
Once she was satisfied his words were truthful and had heard his retelling of the scene over a dozen times, she dialled for her PA.
“George, I know you had the weekend off, but I’ll add an extra week on your holiday allowance if you can come in straight away.”
Darcy appeared as if he wasn’t listening to Eliza’s conversation but he was with rapt attention. He’d expected her to bark out orders at her assistant despite it being a Saturday night, but instead, she bargained with him. Had her tone not been abrupt due to her worry over the Lydia situation, Darcy thought he could hear the underlying nature of an easy friendship between them.
“Okay, okay, two weeks and an extra bonus. I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important, George.”
Darcy swallowed a snort at hearing Eliza get played by her assistant and Jane, on witnessing his amusement, whispered in his ear, “Eliza might be the boss of TBG, but George is her right-hand woman. I think she’s the only one that gives Eliza as good as she gets.”
“George is a woman?”
Jane laughed loud enough to briefly catch Eliza’s attention before she once more spoke into her phone, “We’ll be at the office in fifteen minutes. I’ll fill you in when we get there.”
Jane leant into Darcy’s side and admitted, “Her name is Georgiana, but don’t you dare call her that unless you want to incur her wrath and I wouldn’t advise it. You think Eliza is feisty. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Darcy should have paid more heed to Jane’s warning.
They arrived at TBG’s multi-story building in the heart of the city’s financial district and made their way to the top floor. He didn’t know what to expect regarding the supposedly ‘feisty’ George and he certainly didn’t anticipate being introduced to a sweet looking older lady, with bifocal glasses, tightly permed hair, and wearing a pleated tartan skirt, cashmere twinset and pearls. She looked far more like a Georgiana than a George.
“What’re these pretty boys doing here?”
George didn’t bother with introductions. She took one look at Darcy and Bing and spat the question at Eliza before bustling back behind her desk.
“Their brother has abducted Lydia,” Eliza replied before kicking off her high heels and padding around George’s desk to turn on the top-of-the range computer system that sat there.
“He didn’t abduct her, Lize,” Jane interjected, keeping her voice neutral and soothing. “They absconded together by all accounts.”
“Abducted, absconded, it’s all the same to me,” Eliza sniped. “Our dearest sister has plane-jacked the company jet, and she and the brother of these pretty boys are on their way to Las Vegas.”
That got George’s attention.
“Las Vegas? Is she pregnant?” George turned to Bing and poked a finger in his chest while shouting, “Did your good for nothing brother knock up little Lydia?”
Bing withered under George’s anger, and Jane stepped between them both to diffuse the situation, but the little firecracker of a woman went up on her tiptoes and continued to stare at Bing as if he was evil incarnate.
“George, it’s not what you think,” Jane began, but the little whirlwind was having none of it.
“Why else would a girl of good standing like Lydia elope to Vegas with some random? What’s the name of your brother, boy? I want to get Malc to do a full profile,” George demanded, stepping forward until Jane was sandwiched between her and Bing.
“I’ve already sent Malcolm all the details I have on Wick Austen,” Eliza called from her spot at the desk.
“He’s emailing over everything he has before we leave. Which is why I’m here.”
Eliza looked briefly at Darcy and then addressed George once more. “I need you to get us booked on the next private flight out of the city. I don’t care what it costs, and I know you, George—” she smiled wickedly at the older lady “—you’ve got more contacts than God. If anyone can get us there by morning, it’s you.”
The older woman seemed to puff up to twice her size at Eliza’s compliment and with Bing forgotten and a task in hand, she stepped away from their confrontation as if it never happened.
George eyeballed first Bing and then Darcy, and on landing her gaze on the eldest Austen, she pouted her heavily lipsticked mouth and added saucily, “Although, if you want to leave me that one, I could give him a test drive.”
Darcy’s cheeks burned, a reaction he hadn’t had since he was a teen caught fawning over his French teacher. He cleared his voice before speaking, addressing Eliza and choosing a topic that would divert the attention of the cougar eyeing him like he was her next meal.
“Why bother to investigate my brother? We can tell you anything you need to know, and while we’re at it, you can finally fill us in on that flighty sister of yours.”
Eliza walked out from behind the desk, grabbing the small tablet that sat next to the computer. After handing the device to George—who still gazed at Darcy with hunger—and instructing her to arrange flights, Eliza came to stand beside Jane and Bing.
“Why would you tell us the truth about your brother? As far as I’m concerned, Wick came tonight with one intention, and that was to snare himself somebody of wealth.”
Darcy scoffed, “What a ridiculous assumption. What made you conjure up that preposterous idea?”
Eliza didn’t smile, but her eyes flashed in victory.
“Because, Mr Austen. I’ve just run a search on your family’s company, and the information I found was fascinating.”
Darcy shrugged. He had nothing to hide from the Bennets.
“So what? If you’d asked, I would’ve told you that Austen’s has been in difficulty for a few years. It’s not something I’m ashamed to admit. I wanted to sell, my family thinks otherwise. There is nothing to hide.”
“Really?” Eliza pressed, her eyes boring into his. “You would eagerly have told me how your company is weeks, at a push, months away from bankruptcy?”
Darcy opened his mouth to confirm this truth when Eliza halted him with her open palm in his face.
“Be careful, Darcy,” she warned, elongating the syllables of his first name until it ended on a rasp of her breath. “I’m very good at reading people. I know when someone is lying, and once lost, my good opinion is gone forever.”
Darcy took a step forward. The urge to get closer to this maddening woman crept through his veins like poison. When he was all but an arm’s reach away, he smiled devilishly.
“Then I’m assuming, knowing the weak disposition of most of humanity, you must have a propensity to hate everyone.”
Eliza matched his smile and said in her sweetest voice, one laced with the promise of unyielding retribution, “And, you—” she smirked but didn’t break eye contact “—are guilty of misjudging them all. Who do you think has the worst character flaw, Mr Austen? The one who won’t abide liars, or the one who doesn’t look further than the end of his nose?”
Chapter Eleven
Jane felt nothing but guilt.
Here they were, on a stranger’s private plane heading to find Lydia before she made the most foolish mistake of her short life, and Jane was finding it difficult not to think about anything other than the man at her side.
Bing Austen. Her blood seemed to thrum with his name.
They’d been in the air for about an hour, with Eliza sat a row in front of her frantically firing off emails, and Darcy sat across the aisle from her sister. His gaze rarely left the eldest Bennet, but her sister was too consumed on fixing this mess to notice. Jane noticed though, and she observed it only because she was doing everything in her power to distract herself from the man at her side. It didn’t work.
Jane was sat so close to Bing she could feel the heat from his body and smell the sandalwood of his soap.
It was a potent combination.
Misreading her rigid posture for worry, Bing gently placed his hand on her thigh.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find them,” he said softly, keeping his voice low so it didn’t carry to their siblings. At least that’s what Jane thought he said because the heat of his hand seared through the lace of her dress and set her entire leg alight.
She managed to swallow past the dryness in her throat and offered a small nod in reply.
“Should I ask for a drink to settle your nerves or some food maybe?”
Bing’s concern only fanned the flames of Jane’s libido and she lowered her face to hide the blush painting her cheeks.
“No—” she cleared the frog from her throat and swallowed once more “—no thank you. I think I’ve indulged enough tonight already.”
Bing lightly squeezed Jane’s thigh. It wasn’t sexual, more an offer of comfort, but Jane still felt that touch lick over her skin as if it was his lips kissing at her flesh and not his palm.
“Jane,” Bing said her name like a question and his hand left her thigh to lightly grip her chin and encourage her to look at him. “I feel it too.”
Jane blinked once slowly, her lips parting on her exhale, and her heart stuttering in her chest.
“Feel what?”
Jane asked the question despite hoping she already knew the answer. It was a confession she desperately wanted to hear. She didn’t want to be alone in this. She was afraid of this almost overpowering connection she felt towards a man she didn’t know. It was so out of character for her that it was threatening to unpin her already shaky foundations.
“This,” he replied simply, dropping his hand from her face and linking his fingers through hers. “This link that connects me to you.”
Bing closed his eyes for a second as though searching for the right words before opening them and allowing Jane to see the truth held in his eyes.
“You felt it too. I saw it on your face the first moment we met. It’s an exquisite ache, a lovely sort of déjà vu. We spoke, and I was overwhelmed by the sensation that we’d been here before.”
Bing allowed her to drink her fill of his words before leaning towards her, a movement Jane mimicked without even knowing until their mouths were mere millimetres apart.
Then he kissed her.
It was indulgent, warm, and a gentle connection of the soft skin of his lips against hers. A brief but delicious joining of their bodies, where something passed between them more powerful than words.
When Bing pulled back his look was filled with awe.
“I knew it would feel like that,” he confessed quietly, his almost dazed expression drugging Jane and enticing her to move closer to him.
“Like what?” she all but breathed, her body closer than ever to his, their mouths once more almost touching.
“Like I was tasting a thousand of our lives on my lips.”
Jane closed the small gap between them and this time it was her mouth that sought his.
Could it be, with all the drama surrounding them that she’d found this man who scrambled her thoughts yet also brought her a clarity she hadn’t felt for a long time?
With Bing’s lips on hers, Jane didn’t give much more consideration to that question because everything else around them faded away—Lydia, Lize, the loss of her father.
Even the guilt.
Wick’s eyes widened almost comically at the opulence of The Mansion at MGM Grand. The luxury, exclusivity, and wealth was so palpable, he could almost taste it in the air.
A Rolls Royce Phantom had picked them up from right outside the doors of TBG’s private jet—no customs or baggage claim for them, unlike the rest of the unwashed masses—and proceeded to navigate with ease through the Vegas traffic until it entered a private driveway separate from the rest of the MGM resort, and exclusive to The Mansion’s clientele.
There, surrounding an imposing eighteenth century, Italian style mansion, were no more than thirty oversized villas.
The one in which Wick stood mute and overawed, had to be over twelve thousand feet. It came with a private butler called Michael, who explained that his every whim could be catered to, with a menu-free restaurant at his disposal where the chefs would coo
k whatever he desired, and an on-call chauffeur to take him anywhere he wanted to go.
Lydia—completely underwhelmed by the luxury surrounding her and uninterested in the attentiveness of their butler—immediately flopped down on the huge couch in the living room and busied herself with her smartphone.
Wick paid her little attention and eagerly followed the butler on a grand tour, lapping up all the luxury details and cataloguing everything he wanted to experience while here.
The villa boasted a private dining room, full kitchen, jetted tub, walk-in steam shower, private gym, full-sized private pool, hot tub, home theatre room and even a baby grand piano. Room service was available twenty-four hours a day and from over one hundred restaurants in the city, including the Forbes five-star rated Joel Robuchon next door.
By the time the butler was finished with his tour, and Wick heard about all this place had to offer, the youngest Austen was seconds away from stripping naked and rubbing himself all over the expensive rug at his feet in luxury induced ecstasy.
“Thank you for entertaining Mr Austen, Michael,” Lydia politely addressed the butler, but the curt edge to her tone was clear—she wanted him gone. She stood gracefully on her bare feet and slowly made her way towards the two men before instructing the older man, “Take the day off, we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“But I’m starving,” Wick complained, before turning to face the butler and place his request. “I wanted—”
“I don’t care what it is you wanted,” Lydia harshly cut him off. “The kitchen is always fully stocked, I’m sure you’re capable of feeding yourself.”
She stared fixedly at Wick until he closed his mouth, swallowed down his request, and dropped his eyes in submission. Then she dismissed Michael with a wave of her hand. The butler left swiftly, leaving the two of them truly alone for the first time since they’d left the ball.
“I’ve already filled in the application form for a marriage licence,” Lydia stated offhandedly, and Wick swallowed audibly at her dispassion. A touch of trepidation mixed with a hefty dose of excitement thrummed through his blood at the realisation that this was happening.