The Twin Secret She Must Reveal
Автор
Joss Wood
Прочтений
15,4K
Глав
12
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WAS IT. In an hour she’d be married.
Thadie Le Roux glanced at her elaborate wedding dress on the double bed and touched the platinum-blonde micro braids threaded into her hair and twisted into an elegant knot at the back of her neck.
After numerous setbacks, insane press attention and her two brothers falling in love during the process, they were almost at the finish line. In a couple of hours, she’d be Mrs Clyde Strathern.
Was Clyde, ensconced in another suite down the hallway of this house, excited?
She wasn’t. Not particularly. Then again, the last time she’d felt butterflies-in-her-stomach, gut-churning, light-headed excitement had been that night in London four years ago, when she’d, uncharacteristically, allowed a gorgeous stranger to join her in her hotel room and take her to bed.
He’d been a once-in-a-lifetime collision, and their coming together gave her the best gift of her life, her twin sons, Gus and Finn. You can’t think about Angus, Thadie, not on your wedding day.
Tightening the belt of her short dressing gown, she sat down on the edge of the huge bed, staring at her stupidly expensive wedding dress. The doubts she’d had over the past three months rolled over her and her breathing turned shallow, her skin prickling with dread. What was she doing? Clyde didn’t love her, she didn’t love him...
Thadie forced herself to calm down, pushing her doubts and concerns away. You know why you are getting married, Le Roux, it was a carefully thought-out decision, remember?
On a practical level, Clyde had agreed to pitch in with her boys, which meant more ‘me’ time for her. For years she’d been glued to the twins and she, maybe, wanted to return to work, and start designing again. Part-time, of course.
And yeah, providing her boys with a dad made her feel a little less guilty about wanting to do something for herself. They needed a father, and rugby superstar and national hero Clyde, both sporty and smart, was a good choice.
They moved in the same circles, had met at an event. She couldn’t even remember what for now. And, unlike her tempestuous, volatile parents, Clyde was laid-back, nothing ever ruffled him. Being around him felt as if she were sailing consistently calm waters.
It was a simple transaction: Clyde liked her high profile and wanted to be part of the famous Le Roux family. She wanted a father for her boys, to shed the loneliness and responsibility of being a single mum. She knew she’d never crave his love and, provided he kept his promise to help raise Gus and Finn, he’d never disappoint her.
Could she be blamed for wanting her boys to have a stable, old-fashioned, two-parents-who-were-involved-in-their-lives upbringing? Clyde had agreed to take on that challenge.
She winced, thinking that Clyde hadn’t spent much time with the twins lately, and she suddenly wondered whether helping her raise them was something he still wanted to do. No, she was overreacting. Clyde would’ve said something if he had any doubts about marrying her.
Admittedly, the last few months had been horrible. She’d had her first wedding venue cancelled by an unknown person, and for a while they’d been without a venue to host what was being dubbed South Africa’s Wedding of the Year. She’d had journalists publicly questioning their commitment to each other, people trolling her on social media, and she’d had to ask Clyde’s stepsister, Alta, to step down as a bridesmaid due to her constant negativity. Despite a few arguments, and many tears caused by stress and frustration—hers, not Clyde’s, he’d been unfazed by all the drama—they’d made it to their wedding day.
She was just stressed, being overly dramatic. It was fine, they were fine. Everything was fine.
Thadie lifted her head as her best friend, Dodi, walked into the room. As the owner of a bridal salon, Dodi had helped her choose her wedding dress. Thadie was, if she was honest, a little jealous that Dodi worked in the fashion industry when she had studied fashion design and had once had big plans to be the next Stella McCartney or Vera Wang.
Instead of making garments, she’d made babies.
‘Is Liyana here?’ Thadie asked her, thinking of her glamorous mother. ‘She promised she would be.’
Dodi frowned and shook her head. ‘She sent a message saying she’d go directly to the church.’
Despite having known Liyana would let her down, Thadie still felt disappointed, a little wounded. Her mum had never kept a promise in her life, and had never really been a mum to her in the traditional sense, so why did she expect something different on her wedding day? It would never occur to the ex-supermodel that her wedding day was one of those iconic mother-daughter moments that was supposed to be treasured.
‘Stupid of me to think that she’d put herself out,’ Thadie murmured. ‘Then again, if my dad was still alive, he’d probably forget he was walking me down the aisle and he’d have to be dragged off the golf course.’
Or out of one of his many mistresses’ beds. Her father being a serial cheater was another disappointment. Then again, her mother hadn’t been that hot on monogamy either.
Between her parents, not knowing Angus’s surname and losing his unexamined business card—resulting in her not being able to contact him after their mind-blowing night together, or when she’d found out she was pregnant—she was done with being disappointed. It was far better to keep her expectations low and, above all, realistic.
‘Dammit,’ Dodi muttered, her attention on something happening outside the window.
Thadie stood up. ‘What’s going on?’
When Thadie moved to stand next to her, Dodi threw out her arm, keeping her back. ‘There’s a commotion at the gate. It’s a fair distance away but I can see photographers, some with long-range lenses.’
No, that couldn’t be right. To keep the press away, she’d arranged for a text message to be sent to their guests at the end of the church service telling them where to head for the reception.
Only a few people knew the location of the reception and she trusted most of them with her life. Thadie, still dressed in her short, silky dressing gown, crossed the room and yanked open the door to the adjacent living room. Her boys, thankfully, were with Jabu, Hadleigh House’s long-term butler and the twins’ honorary grandfather.
Ignoring her brothers and their fiancées and Alta, Clyde’s stepsister, Thadie turned to her bodyguard—she’d opted for some personal protection due to the amount of press attention she was receiving—and asked Greg to fetch Clyde from his suite down the hallway. It was urgent.
A minute later Clyde stepped into the room but, instead of looking at her, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo trousers and stared at the carpet. He’d clearly been expecting trouble. Interesting.
‘We have photographers outside the gates,’ Thadie stated, turning to face Clyde and Alta, ignoring her anger-induced shakes. ‘I made it clear I wanted this venue to remain secret until after the church service, that I didn’t want to be swarmed by the press. Yet here they are. Which one of you leaked the venue?’
The pale blonde tossed her magazine aside and rose to her feet. She picked up her flute of champagne and downed its contents. ‘I did,’ she admitted, without a hint of remorse.
Nobody looked surprised at that revelation. ‘I figured,’ Thadie said through gritted teeth. Alta had made it very clear she wasn’t a fan of their union. ‘Why?’
Alta exchanged a look with Clyde. He walked to the drinks trolley, poured a slug of whiskey into a crystal tumbler and tossed it back. When he turned again, his eyes connected with Alta, who nodded her encouragement.
Encouragement for what?
‘I gave her permission to leak the venue,’ Clyde admitted.
‘Why?’ Thadie whispered, shocked to her core.
Clyde looked at Alta and, being the good soldier she was, she stepped into the battle. ‘Clyde and I hoped it would finally cause you to call off the wedding.’
What was happening? This was all so surreal.
Thadie saw both her brothers had stepped forward, their faces stormy, and she lifted her hand to hold them back. This was her fight, her problem to solve. ‘I’m sorry to be dense, but are you saying you don’t want to marry me, Clyde?’
Clyde pushed a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘Of course I don’t! We’ve been trying to get this wedding cancelled for weeks, but nothing we’ve done has succeeded in getting you to call it off!’
‘Here’s a novel idea—why didn’t you just tell Thadie you didn’t want to get married?’ Micah demanded, looking furious.
Fair point.
‘Why go to the hassle of having the venue cancelled, the leaks to the press about Alta being dropped as a bridesmaid, about your relationship?’ Jago asked, his tone Arctic-blizzard cold.
‘Clyde’s brand is built on him being the good guy, the nice guy, the perfect gentleman. I didn’t want his reputation tarnished,’ Alta explained. ‘As his publicist, that’s of paramount importance. Thadie is part of the Le Roux dynasty, South African royalty,’ she continued. ‘She’s been famous, and adored, by the public since she was tiny. You and Micah have clout and influence and are exceedingly popular as well. Clyde getting engaged to Thadie was PR gold and gave him incredible exposure. The plan was always to break up with her after six months or so.’
Right, so he’d never intended to marry her, to be a dad to her sons.
‘I’m still not getting why you’d sabotage your wedding when a simple “I’m not interested any more” would do,’ Micah stated.
‘Clyde was about to break it off, but then he received an offer from a famous, family-orientated brand to be their spokesperson. It’s a deal worth millions and it took months to negotiate. But he can’t be associated with any scandal, he has to keep his nose clean. Breaking up with you, Thadie, the nation’s princess, would’ve been problematic. But if you jilted him, public sympathy would be with Clyde.’
Wow. Okay, then. Thadie shook her head in disbelief.
‘If you’d explained all this to me, Clyde, we could’ve found a solution together. But to go behind my back, to cause me, and my family, untold hours of stress is unforgivable. Micah even spent weeks out of town looking for another venue for us and Ella found this place despite all odds! Jago and Micah have paid for this wedding in advance!’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Micah murmured.
‘It does matter!’ Thadie yelled. ‘And it all could’ve been avoided if you were honest with me, Clyde! And don’t get me started on the promises you made to my boys.’
Clyde lifted one shoulder in a half-baked shrug. And the small gesture, his dismissal of her boys and their feelings, sent her revving into the red zone.
‘They are spoiled brats anyway, and they don’t like rugby,’ Clyde said, sounding deeply bored. Who was this man? Why hadn’t she seen this side of him before? Or had she ignored what she didn’t like because she’d been so damn determined to snag a father for her sons?
‘They are three!’
‘Really? I thought they were older. Anyway...so Alta is ready to face the press, she’ll tell them you’re calling off the wedding.’
Uh...no.
In a couple of sentences, he’d managed to insult her as a mother—she’d worked damn hard to make sure her kids were not spoiled!—and show her he was clueless about her kids. And he still thought she’d save his precious deal?
How had she been so blind? How had she fallen for his lies to the point where she’d agreed to marry him?
It wasn’t often she lost her temper or acted irrationally, but he’d pushed all her buttons. Nobody messed with her kids and their emotions. Or played her for a fool.
She was done talking. It was time for action. She spun around, and half ran out of the room, heading for the stairs. She was dimly aware of being followed and within seconds she was at the front door of the grand Victorian mansion.
‘Thads, you’re in a short, very revealing dressing gown,’ Dodi shouted from somewhere behind her. ‘And you’re not wearing any shoes! Where are you going?’
She wrenched the door front door open and stepped onto the portico, facing the press who’d gathered at the gate at the end of the long driveway. From this distance, the long-range cameras would get some good photographs of her, but that wasn’t enough.
She had an ex-fiancé she needed to throw under the bus.
In his Canary Wharf penthouse office on Monday afternoon, Angus Docherty kicked up his feet and rested his size thirteens on the corner of his desk, his eyes on the screen of his tablet in his lap. He’d recently returned from Pakistan, having completed an off-the-grid mission, and he had mountains of work to do.
The world didn’t stop because he’d been unavailable for the past few weeks. Despite owning and operating an international, multibillion-pound company focusing on securing people, assets, and premises, he also carried out sensitive missions for western governments...missions that were dangerous, off the books and top secret.
Once a soldier, always a soldier.
It was still a source of amusement that owning and operating a business had never been on his radar growing up. No, like his father and grandfather, and great-grandfather, he’d been destined for military service, expected to match his father’s and grandfather’s illustrious achievements. His great-grandfather retired as a colonel, his grandfather died a few days after being promoted to major general.
Of all his army-serving ancestors, it was his father who’d attained the highest rank, the youngest general in fifty years. General Colm Docherty answered only to God. And, sometimes, to the Prime Minister. He was a legend in military circles, respected and revered. He had a tireless work ethic and was disciplined and focused. The General was a hard man to work for, he demanded his pound of flesh.
From his son, he demanded that pound of flesh, his spine, and his internal organs too.
If The General was difficult to deal with at work, he was ten times worse at home, pedantic and unemotional, relentlessly demanding. His only child was held to a higher standard than everyone else. Angus had to run faster, work harder, achieve more, and be better. Be the best. Acceptance by his father meant he had to be perfect. Failure was not tolerated. Ever.
Catching a bullet in his thigh, which narrowly missed his femoral artery but shattered his femur, was his biggest failure of all. Being shot not only derailed his father’s plans for him to be the second general bearing the Docherty name but fundamentally changed his relationship with his parents. The pins in his thigh were enough for him to be discharged from the military, a blow he still felt today. He’d had no wish to be promoted to a desk job, but leaving his unit was a wound he’d yet to recover from...
And his leaving the military was, to The General, the worst of failures. Dochertys were soldiers, and if you no longer served under the Queen’s command, you were nothing. Up to that point, Angus had believed his parents, on some level, loved him.
He rubbed his hand over his face, thinking he was more tired than he realised if he was walking down memory lane, thinking about his estranged parents. He yawned and stretched, pushing his hands through his thick hair, overly long from spending weeks on the road.
A rap on his door had him looking up and he waved his second in command to come in. They’d served together in the unit, and Heath was the first person Angus employed when he’d established Docherty Security.
Heath, his tablet in his hand, dropped into the visitor’s chair. Angus caught the smile on Heath’s normally taciturn face and wondered what was making his dour friend smile. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
Heath shook his head, his mouth twitching in amusement. ‘I’m watching a video of a South African client. She got dumped shortly before her wedding and her impromptu press conference has gone viral.’
Angus dropped his legs and took the tablet, tapping his finger against the play button. The woman wore a silky dressing gown, edged by six inches of white lace at the cuffs at the wrists and hem, revealing most of her thighs and long, gorgeous legs. The top of her dressing gown gaped open and he, and the rest of the world, caught a glimpse of a luscious breast, covered by a strapless, lacy, pale blue bra.
He moved on to her face, and he stilled, every nerve in his body frozen. Thadie...
Angus felt his heart rate increasing—something that rarely happened—and he drummed his fingers on his thigh. He never lost his cool but one look at her lovely face and tall, sexy, curvy body had his core temperature increasing.
He’d been in firefights, had bombs explode around him, fought for his life in hand-to-hand combat, been shot and he never lost his cool. One look into her extraordinary eyes and he was a basket case.
Angus lifted his finger to trace her cut-glass cheekbones, her pointy chin and lush mouth. Her eyes were almond-shaped and as dark as sin, and her skin reminded him of a topaz pendant his grandmother wore, rich and a golden brown. There were freckles on her nose and dotting her cheeks and he recalled trying to kiss every one he found on her body. Not, in any way, a hardship. In the video she wore thin, long, bright blonde braids—they suited her—but he remembered her having springy coils touching her shoulders.
Angus pushed play and her rich voice rolled over him.
‘I came here to tell you my fiancé, ex-fiancé,’ she corrected, holding up a finger, ‘has not only dumped me but has just admitted to sabotaging the plans we made for our wedding. He did that in the hope the stress of multiple wedding disasters would cause me to call it off because he didn’t have the guts to do it himself.’
Her chest rose up and fury caused her cheeks to glow with a pink undertone. She was hopping mad and, man, she was stunning. Then Thadie placed the balls of her hands into her eye sockets and pushed down. After a few seconds, she lowered her hands, but he caught no sign of tears.
‘He told me he intended to blame me in the court of public opinion for the break-up so I’m out here, telling you I’d planned on getting married today, that I was prepared to become his wife.’
Prepared? That was an unusual turn of phrase and one that didn’t imply she was wildly in love with the groom. Angus watched, fascinated, as two tall men approached her—alike enough for him to think they were twins—dressed in designer suits and, judging by the roses in their lapels, part of the wedding party. They also exuded a proprietary and protective air.
One of the men draped his jacket around her shoulders, hiding her body from the cameras. Then he wrapped his arm around her and led her back to the house. The other stood in front of the press corps, who were lapping up the drama.
‘As most of you know, I’m Jago Le Roux. As stated, my sister’s wedding has been cancelled,’ he said, his expression grim. ‘I’d ask you to respect our privacy and give her space to work through this day and drama, but I suspect that’s not going to happen, is it?’
A barrage of questions punctured the air as he followed his siblings back to the house. The video cut off and Angus, still shaken but trying to hide it, lifted his eyes to look at Heath.
‘Explain,’ he demanded.
Heath stretched out his long legs and rested his hands on his stomach. ‘We were hired to protect one of Johannesburg’s most recognisable faces, the heiress Thadie Le Roux—’
Her first name, he recalled her telling him, meant ‘loved one’ in Zulu. It was an unusual name and one he’d never heard before or since that night in London four years ago. Memories of gliding his hands over her silky, glorious skin, exploring her sexy mouth, her gasps and her groans as he loved her, bombarded him. Those six hours spent with her were the best sexual memories of his life, and it took all his willpower to keep his expression impassive.
‘This is a massive story in South Africa and, as a result, Docherty Security is attracting attention down there. It’s been forty-eight hours since the wedding was called off, but the ex-fiancé is, in the hope of rehabilitating his reputation, doing interviews. His actions are fuelling the story and keeping it in the headlines. Now the international press corps has picked up the story and, because her mother is a famous ex-supermodel and socialite, the attention on her is going to double. Or triple.’
Angus listened to him, only one part of his brain focused on what he was saying. He couldn’t believe he’d found her, that he knew now who she was, her surname, where she lived. Four years ago, on meeting each other at an engagement party, they’d left the party separately and met up on the pavement below the couple’s penthouse apartment. He’d invited her out for a drink but somehow, in the taxi from the party to the bar, they’d started kissing and she’d instructed the taxi driver to take them to her hotel suite.
All their conversation from that point on had been done with hands and lips, with strokes and kisses. They’d agreed, only first names, nothing more. Their attraction and chemistry had been mind-blowing, overlaid with an intensity he’d never experienced before. For the first time, instead of running out of the door after a sexual encounter, he had been desperate for more time with her. In a day or two, he’d reasoned, definitely by the time she was due to leave London in four days, he’d be ready to say goodbye. Because he always, always said goodbye. Back then—and now—he had sky-high emotional barriers and a gorgeous foreigner wasn’t going to punch through them.
As always, he hadn’t had the time, or the inclination, to make space for a woman in his life and seventy-two hours had seemed enough time to get her out of his system.
Over breakfast the next morning, he’d invited her to stay with him for the rest of her time in London, and, to his surprise, she’d accepted. Because she’d lost her phone the night before, they’d agreed she’d check out of the hotel, find a store and replace her phone. And he’d take her suitcase with him to his office. When she was done, she’d call him—he’d placed his business card on the bedside table—and he’d give her directions to his flat, and he’d meet her there, and they’d spend the rest of the day in bed.
The phone call never came and her suitcase still sat at the back of his walk-in closet. In the days following their encounter, he’d tried to find her, but soon realised it was an impossible endeavour when he only knew her first name.
But he knew more now.
It was a ten, twelve-hour flight to Johannesburg and if he flew out later, after his dinner meeting with an important client, he could be there by mid-afternoon, South African time, tomorrow.
No! Flying to South Africa was a ridiculous notion. She was a one-night stand, nothing more.
‘Her family has an incredibly high profile, and she has a huge social media following. Her brothers recommended us to their younger sister when she expressed a need for a personal protection officer. I’m worried that if something happens to her, if she so much as kicks her toe, Docherty Security is going to catch flak. I think she needs more PPOs. She might not agree to pay for more bodyguards, might not want them, but this is a nightmare waiting to happen.’
Angus nodded his agreement. He understood Heath’s worry about reputational damage, it was normally at the forefront of his mind too. But not today.
Yes, he’d been crazy attracted to her, and the memories of that night were seared onto his brain. But attraction wasn’t driving his need to see her—his curiosity was. After four years of wondering, he might finally get answers to questions that still, occasionally, kept him awake at night. What had happened after she’d climbed into the taxi outside her hotel? Why had she changed her mind? Had she had second thoughts? If she’d decided not to see him again, why hadn’t she contacted him to collect her suitcase?
How had she gone from passionately kissing him on the pavement to vanishing?
He wasn’t interested in rebooting their affair, in picking up where they’d left off. He just wanted to know, dammit. He’d always been able to read people and situations and this ability had saved his life on more than one occasion. Where had he gone so wrong with Thadie?
He’d always been the type to dig, to understand, to gather every bit of knowledge about a situation so he had a clear, objective view of the events. She was an unsolved puzzle, an incomplete mission, an end that hadn’t been securely tied. As a soldier, and a perfectionist, Angus hated unresolved questions.
He’d read her wrong and her not contacting him felt like a failure. And failure, as his father had drummed into him from the day he could understand the concept, was unacceptable.
But was he really going to fly thousands of miles and incur the running costs of his inter-continental jet just to ascertain how, and why, he’d read her wrong? Yes, he wanted to know how. And why. It wasn’t wounded pride, or ego: the reality was that if he misconstrued another situation during an undercover operation or misinterpreted another person in a dangerous situation, people, including himself, could get hurt or killed. The worst failure of all.
There was also a good chance that when he got to South Africa, once he laid eyes on her, he’d wonder why he’d built her up in his mind, why he’d spent so much mental energy on one long-ago night. There was no chance she would carry the same punch she had years ago.
But he’d have the answers to his questions, and, since he was rich, he could easily afford the costs he’d incur. While he was there he’d also address the issue of Docherty Security suffering reputational damage, by arranging and swallowing the costs of additional protection officers for Thadie.
In a couple of days, he’d never have to give her another thought.
It was a plan with a solid outcome, one that had no chance of failing.
Angus liked plans. And he never failed.
