Her heart beat a rhythm of hope as she accepted the decision. Nikos wasn't like her mother. He loved his mother, which meant he was capable of the emotion. And he cared about Ash. He was afraid of love as surely as she feared the emptiness of a life without it. She would teach him that love did not always hurt, that it could be the biggest blessing in a person's life. She'd seen it in the lives of others and she had known in that place all certain knowledge is born, not learned, that it would be the same for her if she had it.
He had reasons for his fear, just as she had reasons for hers, but that didn't mean he couldn't learn something new. She was taking a chance.
She refused to believe he had any less courage than she.
Ash stayed in Spain for the rest of the week, missing Nikos, but reveling in the freedom. The security team didn't catch up with her until Thursday. After a very different return trip to Barcelona, this one in a chauffeured car, she flew home, this time first-class, Friday afternoon.
Nikos flipped open his cell while he clicked the send button on an e-mail to a subordinate in Taiwan. "Petronides here."
"Nikos, it's Blade."
"Have you found her?"
"Yes."
Something in the other man's voice alerted him. "Where?"
"She's in Spain."
"She said she wanted time to think. Apparently she decided she needed distance, too."
"And other things."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Check your fax machine."
Nikos lithely jumped to his feet and crossed the room to where his personal fax whirred. Two sheets were in the printer tray. He picked up the top one, it had Blade's company's logo and said, "For your review."
The sheet underneath was a newspaper clipping in one of the smaller European tabloids. It was obviously not a cover shot, but an interior article. It showed Ash dressed much more provocatively and trendily than her usual attire. She was with an attractive dark-haired man standing beside a casino table. The man had his arm around Ash's shoulder and his expression was nothing short of possessive.
For some strange reason, Nikos felt like he couldn't breathe.
"Go back to your computer. I sent additional photos in an encrypted file."
Nikos didn't know how the other man knew he'd gotten to the fax machine and had looked at the tabloid picture proclaiming a well-known playboy had a new plaything, who had been labeled as nothing more than his "woman of mystery."
Evidently Ash's identity was unknown. Considering the fact that she did not court publicity, he was not surprised. And if the playboy was as wealthy as he looked, he could keep her name from even determined reporters.
Nikos checked his e-mail and there was the one from Blade. He opened it, typed in the password Blade fed him over the phone and a picture materialized on the screen. It was of Ash and the man kissing on the beach. He scrolled down and the pictures got more condemning. Ending with one obviously taken through a window of the couple together in bed…naked.
"Destroy the pictures at your end," he barked.
"Done."
"Thank you, Blade."
"I'm sorry, Nikos."
Nikos nodded and hung up the phone, realizing as he did so that Blade would not have seen his head's movement.
The pain of betrayal tore through Nikos as he tried to wrap his mind around the evidence presented to his eyes. Ash had slept with another man.
He muttered a very ugly Greek word.
It did not help.
He'd believed she was a woman of integrity. He had believed her when she said she loved him. So, what had this been? A last fling before marriage? He could not accept that. He wanted nothing of marriage to a faithless woman.
The pain coalescing inside him was from disappointed hopes he told himself. It had nothing to do with a lacerated heart. His heart had stopped bleeding a long time ago.
Rachel Hemsworth called an hour later. "The security team have located her."
"In Spain?" Why he asked when he had the evidence of the pictures right in front of him, Nikos did not know.