Inescapable Read online

  I sighed heavily. What did I expect? That in all the years I’d been gone time would freeze? That nothing would change and people wouldn’t move on?

  ‘Where to now, love?’ my driver asked as I sat back in my seat.

  ‘Back to The Domville hotel please, I’ve seen what I needed to.’

  ‘Sorry you didn’t find your friend,’ he stated as he indicated and pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘Not as sorry as me,’ I said quietly as I stared out of the window, wondering what had become of her.

  The next day, I opened a new English bank account and arranged to transfer all of my money over from my American one.

  The day after that, I had a meeting with a solicitor to change my name by deed poll, with strict instructions that it wasn’t to be enrolled. If it was, it meant that my name change would be accessible online, or in archives, to anyone who took the initiative to go looking for it, and that was the last thing I wanted.

  Three days later, I withdrew all of my money from my Isabelle Knight bank account in cash, closed it, then purchased a one-way train ticket to London. I had a large suitcase full of cash, and the small suitcase Dawn had given me, with the rest of my few worldly belongings inside. Sadly, I’d never found out where Richard had hidden the picture of my parents, or the one of me and Shaz that he’d confiscated the day I moved in with him, and Peter the penguin had vanished too. I had nothing left to remind me of my past. I was like a caterpillar, shedding its chrysalis and turning into a butterfly. I was reinventing myself and wiping the slate clean.

  A month later, I was the proud owner of a new passport in the name of Alexandra Bishop. I’d used my middle name, and my mother’s maiden name. It had always made me smile when she’d told me how Dad had tried to explain the complex art of chess to her when her surname had changed from Bishop to Knight. She’d never understood it, and neither had I, but Dad had said that it was a sign they were meant to be. A real life checkmate. I felt like everything from my old life had been erased, so I wanted to hold on to some small part of it.

  So, in the New Year, at the tender young age of twenty-eight, Alex Bishop was born in London, England.

  Alex

  November - One Year Later

  London

  I had tried to fly under the radar, as much as possible. Part of me wondered if I should have moved even further away, Australia maybe, but I’d done everything to bury my old name and not leave a financial, or paper, trail that Richard could follow. Plus, I’d chosen a city far from Washington, even Glasgow, if he ever came looking for me when he got out, like he’d promised he would. And no one who’d ever known me knew my new name, or where I now lived.

  I’d used the last of my money, or rather the money I’d re-appropriated from Richard’s and my joint account, as payment for a tiny bedsit studio above a tile display shop in SoHo. It had a roof terrace larger than the small accommodation itself. I’d then extended the bedsit to make it into a bright and modern one bedroomed flat. Glass bi-fold doors spanned the rear onto the new smaller south facing roof terrace, so that I could paint with the bonus of sunlight filling the space.

  A savings account held the last of my money, a large payout that had been awarded to me in personal damages after the trial. I didn’t feel any guilt. Even though he’d lost his job, his house, and his reputation, he still had considerable assets. Besides, he owed me more than money could buy, for the hell he’d put me through over those nine years.

  My art became my main focus. It gave me time to lose myself in some creativity, free of any life pressures, and I started to advertise my canvasses on eBay.

  November - Another Year Later

  Even without a formal art qualification, sales of my landscape work through eBay had grown over the last twelve months. My reputation was spreading and soon I was being commissioned to do work for clients who could afford to pay me handsomely.

  I should have been content with my lot. I was financially secure, and as happy as I could ever remember being, but the unfulfilled ambition of having a small gallery to display and sell my work, gnawed at me like a dog on his favourite bone.

  When the tile shop downstairs closed down and the freehold of the building came up for sale, it was too tempting a proposition to refuse.

  My bones had long since healed after leaving Richard, but my sense of self-worth still had a long way to go before the damage he’d caused was anywhere near repaired. It had taken nearly two years for me to stop having panic attacks every time I saw a dark-haired male of his build. Even now, I’d still wake in the occasional sweat, clawing his imaginary hands away from my throat. He might not reside in my life anymore, but his ghost still frequented my memories and haunted my nightmares.

  As I stood in the middle of my new, run-down shop floor, waiting for the architect to come and assess how best to utilise the space, I shook off the shiver that ran down my spine and took a deep calming breath. I had over two years, a new identity, and the Atlantic between us. A new chapter of my life was about to start. I needed to stop constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for my old life to catch up to me.

  Chapter Three

  Alex

  A Friday in October - Three Years Later

  London

  ‘ALEX, SORRY TO INTERRUPT, but there’s a journalist here who wants to take some pictures of you,’ my assistant Tom stated as he touched my forearm. He flashed an apologetic smile at the couple I’d been in private conversation with only moments before in my office.

  ‘A what?’ I exclaimed, tension stiffening my formerly relaxed body in an instant. ‘I told you, no pictures of me. Never any pictures of me, I couldn’t have been clearer when I hired you.’

  ‘I know, it’s not of my doing,’ he stated, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘He said he just came on the off chance of an interview. But you can hardly expect an up-and-coming artist like yourself to remain anonymous forever.’

  ‘Banksy has,’ I retorted.

  ‘Yes, well he sulks about in the dark and doesn’t announce where he’s about to display a collection of his latest masterpieces. Having a small art gallery and displaying your work for sale to the public, doesn’t exactly keep you under the radar, does it?’

  ‘You need to get rid of him, now,’ I ordered, my fingers tightening on the stem of the champagne glass I was holding. ‘Whatever it takes. Tell him you’re the artist if you have to, and talk him through one of my pieces to convince him.’

  ‘Me?’ he exclaimed. ‘The only thing I know about your art is that it’s far too expensive for me to purchase.’

  ‘Waffle, that’s something that I know you’re exceedingly good at.’

  ‘I could take offence at that. When do I ever waffle? You make it sound like I have absolutely no control over what comes out of my mouth, and I do. I totally do. If anyone’s a waffler it’s Janice. She could bore a customer to death she talks that much. About nothing! Look, look at the security monitor, see that woman by the till who just purchased one of your pieces. She’s been sucked into the Janice waffle wormhole. Time gets warped when you’re in that zone. She was a hot-to-trot twenty-something when she came into the gallery and look at her after being Janiced. She’s turned into an old age pensioner leaning on her cane for support. In fact, Janice waffles so much I’m amazed someone hasn’t invented a bestselling waffle iron called “The Janice.” I mean, seriously?’

  ‘Waffling case in point,’ I smirked, taking a sip of champagne.

  ‘Fine,’ he sighed, conceding defeat. ‘I’ll be the artist, but you owe me.’

  ‘I pay you,’ I reminded him, cracking a smile as he rolled his eyes and headed back to the main gallery. He was the closest to a best friend I’d had since I’d moved to England. And being gay meant that I didn’t have to worry about any unwanted advances. In fact, I’d found myself wondering lately if any advances would ever be wanted again. Ten years of mistrust, followed by five years of celibacy, didn’t exactly fill me with the “come and get me boys, I’m
ready for you” spirit.

  ‘I’m so sorry, where were we?’ I asked, turning back to my prospective customers.

  After pencilling a date into my diary for the couple and bidding them goodbye, I checked the monitor to find that the gallery was busier than I’d ever seen it. This was the best launch night I’d ever hosted for one of my collections. It was time I re-entered the fray.

  I closed the office door and walked along the corridor to the opening to the shop front. Immediately I gasped as I saw a young girl with a threadbare teddy dangling from her right hand. Her bottom lip was quivering as her watery large blue eyes scanned the crowds.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, crouching next to her and giving her my best smile. ‘My name’s Alex. What’s yours?’

  ‘Rosie,’ she whimpered with a sniff and juddering breath that made my heart ache.

  ‘And who’s this, Rosie?’ I asked, pointing at the sorry excuse for a cuddly toy.

  ‘Bear.’

  ‘Bear? That’s an excellent name for a teddy bear. Is he your favourite?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded.

  ‘Are you and Bear lost?’ Another nod confirmed the reason for her wide-eyed, tearful state. ‘How about we try and find your mummy and daddy then?’

  ‘Mummy left.’

  ‘She can’t be far, it’s a small shop. How about I pick you up so you can see over all of these tall people and you can point her out to me?’

  ‘She left,’ she repeated, her long, dark lashes sweeping across her pink cheeks as she blinked at me. She was a beautiful little girl. The kind I’d once imagined I might have with Richard. Those dreams seemed a lifetime ago, but the hole in my heart for the life I’d dreamed of having one day, a loving family to dote on, still remained.

  ‘Is your daddy here?’ Another nod confirmed he was. ‘Come on then, up you come,’ I said, holding my arms out to her. She rushed into them without hesitation, pure innocence, unhindered by the mistrust or suspicion that developed as you grew older and wiser. I stood up, shifting her onto my hip as I tried to remember a time when I’d been so naïve to trust anyone and everyone. My heart melted as she wrapped her arms around my neck, Bear hanging down my back as her warm breath skittered across my cheek.

  ‘You smell nice,’ she said, sniffing my hair.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And you’re very pretty.’

  ‘So are you,’ I agreed as we locked eyes. She giggled and blushed.

  ‘Daddy says I’m the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world. He says I’m gorgeous.’

  ‘I think he might just be right, Rosie. Can you see him?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well he can’t have gone far.’ I bit my lower lip as I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone who appeared fretful. I quickly spotted a dark-haired young woman pushing her way through the people milling around drinking champagne as they studied my latest collection of work that graced the stark white walls.

  ‘Rosie, there you are! You scared me half to death. You should never run off like that,’ she scolded as she approached, throwing me a suspicious look.

  ‘Hi, I’m Alex, I own the gallery. I thought she’d spot her parents better up here than tucked away in the corner,’ I stated, offering the woman a warm smile.

  ‘Thank you, but she knows better than to leave my side. Come on, it’s time we got you home, it’s way past your bedtime.’ She held her arms out and my eyes widened with surprise as Rosie wrapped hers tighter around my neck.

  ‘Don’t want to go.’

  ‘Rosie, don’t make me fetch Daddy, he’d be cross to know you ran off.’

  ‘I didn’t run,’ she huffed, before burying her face in my neck.

  ‘Please don’t tell her father, I’m sure it was an innocent mistake,’ I interjected, as I placed a protective hand on the back of the little girl’s head. The thought of an angry man still made my anxiety flare, let alone thinking of that anger directed towards a young child. ‘It’s so easy to take your eyes off them for a moment, only to find they’ve wandered off. She thought you’d left her and was scared.’

  ‘I’d never leave her,’ Rosie’s mum uttered, then let out a sigh. ‘Fine, I won’t tell him if you won’t, Rosie, but it’s time to go. Say thank you to the nice lady for looking after you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rosie whispered as she lifted her blue eyes to mine, making my heart constrict. What I wouldn’t give to have a daughter of my own to look at me like that, like she trusted me to be her protector, her everything. ‘Bye bye.’

  ‘Bye, Rosie.’ I handed her over and watched as they headed towards the door.

  I giggled as Rosie blew me a kiss over her mum’s shoulder, then waggled one of Bear’s paws at me in a goodbye gesture. I blew her a kiss back and waved until the darkness outside enveloped her, a fraction of it enveloping my heart, at the thought that I might never trust a man enough again to create a beautiful child like that with. I shrugged off my melancholy and turned to make conversation with an elderly couple talking about one of my pieces in front of them. He’d been an art teacher before he retired, so we spent a good half an hour lost in art talk before I excused myself to try and circulate.

  ‘Alex,’ Tom’s voice called over the sound of excited chatter. I spotted him waving me over towards where one of my Welsh coastal landscapes was hanging. As I squeezed my way towards him, the air around me suddenly crackled with tension as I saw a tall, dark-haired man, dressed in an obviously expensive tailored suit. He stood with his back to me as he studied my work. ‘Alex, this is Tate Castle, he’d like to talk to you about commissioning some work of his own.’

  ‘Mr. Castle.’ I exhaled his name on a wave of relief, cursing my overactive imagination for thinking that every well-dressed, dark-haired guy I saw, was the one I never wanted to lay eyes on again. It had gone into overdrive recently, since I’d discovered online that Richard King had been released from prison. My nerves were completely shot.

  ‘Please, just call me Tate, or Castle as so many are prone to do. I blame that damn television series.’ His rich laugh, combined with a masculine deep-throaty husk, against an impeccably well-spoken English accent, had those fine hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention again. But this time it wasn’t through fear. I frowned as I tried to tune in to what sensation was currently pulsing across my skin as Mr. Castle turned to face me.

  ‘Oh.’ The solitary word escaped my lips as I drank him in. That sensation I’d only seconds ago tried to recall, slammed into me, body and mind. It was sexual awareness. My past had rendered my senses incapable of feeling it for so long, let alone recognising it, but there was something about this man that had just tuned me straight back in to the feeling of desire.

  ‘Oh?’ His full lips quirked up on one side into a lethal panty-melting smile as his stunning aqua eyes held mine captive. My breathing became more rapid, shallower, as I registered the chiselled cheekbones, and strong, clean-shaven jawline. This man was the personification of handsome. He even outshone Richard, and there was a time I’d never have imagined another man could put him in the shade. In fact, handsome was too tame to describe Tate Castle. I’d have gone so far as to say perfection, if it weren’t for the faint scar that dissected one of his dark eyebrows, which framed his curious gaze. Judging by the face Tom was currently pulling over Mr. Castle’s shoulder, I wasn’t alone in my assessment of this man’s appeal.

  ‘I’m so sorry, for a moment I thought you were someone else, someone I didn’t expect to see here. I’m Alex Bishop, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Castle.’ I offered him a smile at the same time as my hand.

  ‘Please, if you’re going with the Castle part of my name, then I insist you lose the “Mr.” You make me feel old, like my father, and the pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Bishop,’ he stated sincerely, as he smothered my small delicate hand between his two strong ones. Something immediately jolted me to my very core, both of us inhaling sharply at the same time. He quickly frowned and removed his hands, as Tom mouthed “Se
xual tension” at me while fanning his heated face with both hands, the way I wanted to do right now.

  ‘Actually, it’s Miss Bishop, but if I’m going to call you Castle, then I insist you call me Alex.’ I smiled at him, trying to regain my composure and regulate my breathing, but finding it oddly difficult as Castle continued to hold my gaze. He was unapologetically obvious in the way he stared at me, his pupils dilating as the tip of his tongue dampened that plump lower lip, making my chest heave.

  I dropped my gaze to his throat, for a temporary reprieve to compose myself. I stared at where the white of his shirt collar encased his neck, the knot of his tie done in a Windsor, oddly just how Richard had used to do his. His throat pulsed as he swallowed and I found my eyes involuntarily drifting down his body. The suit showed off the width of his shoulders, his body tapering down to a slim waist and hips, made all the more obvious by his buttoned, tailored, navy suit jacket and waistcoat. There was nothing sexier to me than a well-dressed man. Just that thought alone was a surprise to me. I’d seen many suited men in my time, living in the capital these last few years, and none had conjured an image of sexy in my mind, until now.

  The LED lighting above us caught his silver cufflinks. I blinked reflexively as the beam of light sparked my memories, and I was suddenly hit with the image of the lamp shining off the silver handcuff, back in Washington five years earlier.

  Any sexual arousal I’d felt moments ago was suddenly dampened, as I felt the top of my head tingle and heard the noise of the room starting to roar in my ears. Immediately I recognised the onset of a panic attack. God damn it, I hadn’t had one in over three years.