His and Steve’s bust-up at the casino was still trending across the social media networks, but seemed to have been ignored so far by the main news providers. Unfortunately, Dani’s image was trending too, along with details about her snatched straight off her Facebook page.
He ought to have insisted on getting her a new phone before he put her on that plane. He really hoped she was safe, because he’d never forgive himself if she ended up being mobbed or hurt because of him.
Since the tickets were pre-booked, he’d put Dani on the direct UK flight bound for Exeter, while he’d taken the longer route via the Netherlands. They were due to rendezvous on the 18.46 cross-country train service from Exeter to Penzance.
Though he balked at doing it, knowing he’d be subjecting himself to an earful of shit, Xane called Sally Kettering to see if she could work some PR magic to divert the press attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, Sally happened to be hanging out with Elspeth, so all he got was a crapload of abuse, causing him to hang up before he’d even mentioned Dani. Lord only knows why he’d ever thought he and Elspeth were a good fit. He must have had his head up his own arse for the last eighteen months. It wasn’t as if they’d ever seen eye to eye on much. Actually, only ever on one thing – Steve.
Although still hurt, Xane had to admit his anger had lost most of its heat since the punch-up in the casino. Enough of what Steve had been so desperate to tell him had sunk in for him to realise that they’d both been played for fools. Elspeth had jerked both their strings, just as she’d done from the very start of their three-way relationship. It’d cranked her libido up to eleven the first time she’d seen him and Steve kiss. It’d only started going wrong when it dawned on her that they didn’t actually need her to have fun. Leastways, he didn’t. He couldn’t pretend Steve felt the same way, no matter how much he’d sometimes wished it.
Steve didn’t mind fooling around together, but that’s as far as it went. Any actual love he felt, he saved up for Elspeth, who all too eagerly lapped it up.
Xane stretched his spine, arching against the uncomfortable waiting-room seat. His ribs moaned in protest, but he’d decided they weren’t fractured, only bruised. A couple of painkillers and he’d be absolutely fine.
With another forty minutes remaining until his flight boarded, he returned to his phone for amusement. One by one he zapped the backlog of messages, only hesitating over the one that flashed up from Steve.
He wasn’t ready to let bygones be bygones, but he did want to know how the guy was after the beating he’d taken. OK, there were a few points he’d like to go over in more detail too, and he couldn’t deny that in the back of his mind there was a little theatre running in which they enjoyed a very different post-break-up reunion. He knew it would never happen. Steve was genuinely in love with Elspeth, and Xane was far too much of a gentleman to come between a pair of newlyweds, no matter how much they’d fucked with him in the past.
That wasn’t to say he entirely wished them well. Elspeth had screwed him good – frickin’ evil cow – and hadn’t hesitated to massage a few facts to get what she wanted. She’d known exactly how he’d react to any suggestion that she and Steve might tie the knot, and she’d known how Steve would react too. The guy was a generally decent bloke. He’d been honest with Xane from the start about his feelings. He’d never led him on or fostered unreasonable hope.
Xane pressed ‘read’ on the text from Steve.
Have you checked out? We really need to talk about this.
Yes. You?
he replied.
Holed up with a sore head & a nose the colour of a blackberry. You’d shit yourself laughing if you saw it. Glad you’re OK. Where are you? Can I meet you somewhere?
Xane hesitated, and then typed.
Holland. Don’t think meeting’s a good plan. Get your nose seen to. Cops visit?
Not so far. Dr’s appt booked for the morrow.
That was something. Bastard security hadn’t needed to wade in so hard. His throat still hurt, and his ribs … his ribs were definitely not broken. Not that assuring himself of that fact seemed to be fixing them.
Sorry things have all gone to shit, especially about Daniella being drawn in. I hope you know I’d never knowingly screw you over. I should have known something wasn’t right when you weren’t at the ceremony. It was weird you not being there.
Yeah.
Xane, I’m really effing sorry. I really didn’t mean to hurt you. I know how you felt and I know I’ve said it before, but I’m sorry I couldn’t return your affections the way you would have liked.
Don’t worry.
I’ll get over it.
I don’t know why I didn’t talk to you myself about the wedding, other than Elspeth seemed so adamant that it was sorted. I only wish I understood why she lied.
She knew it was the only way to get you to herself
, Xane typed, then deleted it. He tapped his phone to his lips, pondering.
You’ll have to ask her
, he eventually responded.
Steve and Elspeth had made their choices. They’d have to work out between them whether they’d made the right ones and if they could be honest with one another. He was no longer involved. It turned out that the triangle they’d been convinced was so strong had actually been pretty flimsy.
Don’t blame the others for this, Xane. None of it is their fault. You should carry on without us.
They’re a bunch of self-serving, egotistical cretins and you know it.
You’re no saint yourself, and you’re a goddamned exacting slave master. You need to cut them some slack. I’ll send my official resignation to Graham and get Elspeth to do the same. She owes you that much. With us gone, it should be easier for the rest of you to get back on track. Black Halo for ever. Be well. Steve.
Dani could count on one hand the number of trains she’d been on. Travel hadn’t figured significantly in her childhood, so the whole process made her nervous. Thankfully, her seat was booked and easy enough to find in the blissful quiet of the first-class carriage. Xane hadn’t arrived yet, so she pushed her case into the overhead luggage rack and settled down to wait for him.
Although it hadn’t actually been that long since they split up to catch separate flights, it seemed like an eternity to Dani. She felt stranded. Unhelpful thoughts kept rattling around in her head. Such as, what if he changed his mind about wanting her, and didn’t turn up? What would she do then, stuck on the south-west coast with nowhere to go and no one to turn to? One thing she had realised from being with Xane was that she didn’t want to go back to her old life and become consumed by its misery again. Somehow she needed to find a way to move forward with her life.
Dani gnawed her thumbnail, envisaging fraught talks with her mum in the not too distant future. She dearly hoped they could negotiate a pathway of acceptance, because the thought of a future in which they were totally estranged tore open a hole in her chest.
Dani’s heart sped a little as the door swooshed open, but it was a group of businessmen, not Xane. They occupied a table further along the carriage. A sales rep came on board next, followed by a student with a free travel pass, a girl with a pink-and-black-checked shirt. She slid into the window seat on the opposite side of the aisle to Dani, turned her head towards the window and cranked up the volume on her MP3 player so the tinny sound made a persistent hum.
Dani checked the time and the seat reservation numbers again. Where was Xane?
Her heart fluttered as the train pulled away from the station. What had happened? Why wasn’t he here? Had his flight been delayed, and if so, what did she do at the other end of the train journey? Waiting for him to catch up seemed to be the only option. It wasn’t as if she knew how to find Ric, and even if she did make her way to his private island, he might not believe her story.
‘Hi, I’m your rock-star cousin’s girlfriend, and he told me to meet him here before he flew to another country.’ That was more likely to induce mirth than convince someone to let you stay at their house for the night.
‘Can you watch my case?’ she asked the student. ‘I need to go and see if my friend’s got on the train.’
‘Huh? Sure.’ The girl waved vaguely at her.
As first class occupied the rear of the train, Dani set off towards the front. If she walked the entire length of the train, she’d definitely find him – if he was on board.
‘Going somewhere?’ Xane asked, emerging from the WC as she negotiated the doors between her carriage and the next. A jolt of exaltation and relief rolled through Dani’s tensed body as she drank in the sight of him: leather jacket with the collar turned up, boots and black jeans that were glued to him like a second skin. Dani crushed him in her embrace, wrapping her arms tight around his middle, while he was still in the act of removing his sunglasses. ‘Xane, thank God. I thought you weren’t here.’
‘Hey,’ he soothed, returning her hug. ‘I’m here. What’s the panic? No one’s harassed you, have they?’
‘Nobody’s noticed me at all,’ she replied, lifting her chin to look up into his face. He’d removed the remaining contact lens, so that he stared back at her with those beautiful rain-washed, silver-grey eyes. The bruising had now come out around his eye, but even with that blemish he remained breathtaking. Looking at him, knowing that he was hers, that he’d made an actual commitment of sorts to her, just blew her mind.
She strained upwards on tiptoes to reach his lips.
‘Did you miss me?’ he asked, grinning.
‘Enormously.’
‘Me too.’
His lips brushed softly against hers, teased her with feather-light touches, until she was forced to take charge and demand more of him by threading her fingers through his long hair and pulling him closer until their tongues danced together.
Xane was all raw power compared to her but, when he yielded, he yielded good. His body seemed to fold around her, so that the height difference didn’t matter. His touches skimmed over her curves, awakening surface tingles and deeper cravings.
He turned her and trapped her between the curved carriage wall and the solid mass of his body. His palms covered the small of her back, his fingers stretched across her ass, and he thrust one thigh between her legs.
Xane had a way of kissing her that took away all her restraints. She crooned as he tempted her with fleeting touches on her arms and breasts, encouraged her with the heat of his thighs and loins. If the door slid open, what did it matter? It was probably just the sway of the train. All right, and if one or two people brushed past, that was OK too. They weren’t being indecent, only affectionate. Folks could look the other way. It wasn’t as if kissing in public was banned.
‘Tickets from Exeter.’
They broke apart awkwardly.
Dani shrank against the wall, her cheeks burning, while Xane tried to fit a hand into his front pocket, struggling because of the bulge behind his fly. With a bit of wriggling, he managed to draw things forth.
‘And the lady’s.’
Dani sheepishly avoided making eye contact with the inspector as he tore the corner of her ticket and handed it back to her.
‘Perhaps you two would like to find your seats. You’re blocking the aisle standing out here.’
‘We’ll do that,’ she agreed, and tugged Xane into the carriage proper.
The girl in the checked shirt flicked them an idle glance as they slipped into their seats, then sat bolt upright a second later and stared with her mouth hanging open. ‘Zzzayn,’ she burbled, tugging the headphones from her ears, her gaze locked unblinkingly on Xane.
Goddammit, was there a woman in existence who didn’t know who he was, and didn’t want to have his babies? They were supposed to be incognito, but no doubt the whole Twitterverse would know their exact location within minutes.
Xane squeezed her thigh. ‘It’s fine. Let me handle it.’
‘Shh!’ he said, winking at the girl. He stretched across the aisle to talk to her. ‘Hi there.’
‘Hey,’ she replied, in an equally conspiratorial whisper. ‘Are you?’
‘Yeah,’ he confirmed, which had her mouth falling open again. ‘Are you listening to anything good?’
She offered him one earplug so that he could hear.
‘Bohemian Night Witch?’ He nodded along to the beat. ‘Yeah, they’re not bad. They warmed up for us one time at Sheffield.’
‘I was there. They weren’t as good as you guys, but then you’re the best,’ she gushed, the volume of her voice rapidly rising. She half rose out of her seat, then, realising she was drawing attention, sat down again. ‘I’m gutted you guys have split. It sucks so bad. Is your voice really that busted?’
‘There’s nothing wr–’
‘He needs to rest it,’ Dani butted in, cutting off Xane’s denial. ‘He’s just a bit husky. It’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t use it too much.’
‘Ah, right,’ said the girl nodding. ‘That’s good. It’s just the article I read said you wouldn’t sing again.’
‘That’s such shit,’ Xane blabbed, clearly unhappy about the story that’d been put out.
Dani squeezed his knee. Better that story than the one about him and Steve fighting over her. ‘He just needs rest. Like he’s not supposed to be talking.’
‘Oh. Oh, all right. I won’t disturb you. I want you to recover, especially if it means you’re getting back together.’
‘I don’t kn–’
Dani dug her nails into his thigh to warn him off suggesting anything to the contrary. The girl put her headphones back on and settled against the window again, grinning maniacally. To Dani’s relief, she didn’t try to renew the conversation, nor did she suddenly dig out a phone and start texting.
Xane pursed his lips but remained silent. He lifted her hand off his thigh and held it as stations and minutes slowly rolled by. Twilight settled over the countryside, then the outside vanished altogether and was replaced by a reflection of the carriage interior. Xane curved his body towards her and settled his head against her shoulder. He gave an expressive yawn and closed his eyes.
‘Tired?’
He smiled and snuggled a bit closer, pulling his jacket, which he’d taken off, over them like a blanket. A moment later, he slid one hand under her skirt hem and up her thigh.