CHAPTER 43

Nikos stared down at the pictures of Ash and the other man. When he'd first gotten the photos, he'd looked at them only long enough to assimilate what he was seeing and then he'd refused to look at them again. He'd meant to delete the images off his computer after he printed them off, but he hadn't.

Then he'd gone to Ash's and told her it was over. And now he sat like a moonstruck calf, looking at the pictures in obsessive, meticulous detail. Ash looked thinner in the pictures, but that wasn't right. Wasn't the camera supposed to add ten pounds? And there was something different about her eyebrows.

He tried to think back to when he'd met with her earlier. Had she looked any different? He couldn't remember. He'd been upset, damn it.

He didn't like admitting that any more than he liked the fact that he couldn't seem to look away from the pictures of his woman with another man. She was his woman. Ash belonged to him. But if she'd gone to bed with another man, she wasn't his. According to the way they'd left things when he'd walked out of her apartment, she wasn't his. He'd even agreed to it.

His pride had. It had demanded he leave rather than push for explanations she was unwilling to give. Not that any explanation could make it okay. He was disgusted with himself for even wanting to know what she'd been thinking. For wanting to understand.

Only he couldn't get past one salient fact. She'd come home prepared to marry him. Why? Why, if she wanted to have sex with another man had she been willing to marry him? He knew it wasn't the money. It wasn't his position, either. Those things did not hold sway for Ash. Or so he had believed.

But he had also believed her incapable of infidelity.

They were not married yet, but once she had taken him into her body, she had belonged to him. He crumpled one of the pictures in his hand as thoughts of her with another man tormented emotions he refused to acknowledge. He should not feel like this. If she wanted someone else, he should be able to deal with that the same way he did a business deal that fell through.

But he'd told her their relationship was not a business deal. And it wasn't. It was more, damn it.

He stared down at the picture again. Why did his instincts keep telling him something wasn't right about the photos? Obviously he didn't want to see his woman with another man. That was what was wrong.

He stared at the one of the woman on the beach. Was it a trick of the camera, or did Ash's body look as different as he thought it did?

His phone rang and he picked it up. "Petronides."

"Nikos, it's Blade."

"Yes?"

"I just had a strange phone call from your fiancée."

"We aren't engaged." Saying the words out loud made him feel hollow and he had to concentrate on ignoring the reaction.

"That's what she said."

"Was she angry with you?"

"No. Actually she thanked me."

"You find that strange?" Actually he did, too. He wouldn't have anticipated Ash thanking Blade for exposing her activities with the Spanish playboy.

"Not after she explained. She seems to think you and her mother have messed her over royally."

Nikos made a noncommittal male sound he knew Blade would understand.

"She asked for a recommendation for a firm to help her find someone."

"Who?"

"The woman in the picture."

Everything inside Nikos froze. "She's claiming it's not her?"

"Yes."

"And she wants you to find this other woman?"

"Not at first, no. She wanted me to recommend another agency. But if the woman in the photos is not your fiancée, then my operative made a mistake. That puts my agency at fault. I don't like mistakes, Nikos."

"I am aware of it. That is why I use your agency exclusively." He paused. "Are you going to find the woman?"

"Yes, but I wanted to give you the courtesy of knowing I was looking."

"I appreciate that."