Private Royals (Private 12.50)

Knight’s eyes widened. Looking into Wilkinson’s, he could see hers were ablaze – looking into death’s face had filled her with lust. He sat immobile, so she made the decision for him, grabbing his head with both hands and pulling him towards her, pressing her lips against his and forcing them apart with her tongue.

‘I can’t,’ Knight said, breaking away, his hands on her shoulders.

‘Why?’

‘It’s unprofessional.’

Wilkinson stared at him. Looking into her eyes, he could see a woman caught between rage and sorrow.

‘Fuck you, then,’ she spat, before bursting into tears.

He held her and she sobbed into his chest. She cried for a long time, Knight soothing her. As a single father of two children, and head of Private London, it wasn’t often that he enjoyed any kind of physical intimacy. Feeling Wilkinson pressed against him, Knight wondered if he needed the physical contact of another adult as much as she did.

She lifted her red eyes to meet his.

‘I’m going to take a bath,’ she said.

She got to her feet and left the room. Knight collected the cups of tea and threw their stone-cold contents into the sink. He felt terrible for the woman, whose relationship with Abbie and Grace obviously crossed the threshold from professional to friendship. With little idea of what else he could do to ease her suffering, he opened the kitchen’s fridge – perhaps bathed and with a hot meal inside of her, Wilkinson could find some rest before sunrise.

Knight found a packet of chicken and the ingredients to make a stir fry. He looked around for a knife, but the long chopping blade was missing from the knife block. Assuming it must have been misplaced with the cutlery, he began to open drawers.

The first gave him nothing.

The second caused his brow to knit in surprise. Knight reached inside and took out a business card.

It was the card of Michael ‘Flex’ Gibbon.

CHAPTER 20

KNIGHT TURNED THE card over in his hands, wondering for what reason a publicist would need the contact details of a man whose security company ran mercenary operations into Africa and the Middle East. It was quite possible that there was an innocent explanation, but with Abbie’s life in danger, Knight didn’t have the time to wait for it.

He went to the bathroom.

‘Sadie?’ he called, knocking on the door. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

No reply came from within. Knight leaned closer, hearing the sound of running water. He looked again at the card in his hand, and then he remembered why he had found it.

The missing knife.

Knight let the card drop and reached for the door handle. It was locked.

He took a step back then rammed the door with his shoulder, stumbling across the threshold as the timber splintered around the lock.

Recovering his balance, he looked up and saw the blade beside Wilkinson.

But she was no threat to him.

She was no threat to anyone.

Sadie Wilkinson was dead.

CHAPTER 21

NOT SINCE THE death of his beloved wife had the Duke of Aldershot felt so weary. The cancer that had taken his dear Elizabeth had been cruel and terrible, but at least he’d been able to comfort himself, however slightly, with the thought that it was a cruelty born of nature, and part of God’s holy plan. What was happening to his daughter, however, was of a malicious bearing that he could never comprehend.

His thoughts turning inevitably to the ransom, the Duke looked at the sheaf of papers on his desk, left there by the specialists that Jack Morgan had dispatched from Private. The documents outlined strategies and detailed lenders who could possibly aid the Duke in raising the staggering ransom fee of £30 million.

Thirty million. Even if he could raise it, the Duke knew the legacy of his family would end with the payment to the kidnapper. All of the properties and estates, built by generations of noble blood, lost at a stroke. Lost because of his daughter.