Cheating Hearts Ch. 01

Thank you for the comments. I will try and proof read before submission, but English is not my 1st language, and i will need help. Hint: Urgent need of an editor. Here is chapter 1; I have tried to make it longer.

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Chapter 1

"You never did tell me how you paid the hospital bills and how you are paying for this place." Elizabeth was not stupid, although some may argue on that given her recent actions over the past several months. She not only cheated on her husband and instead of dealing with it like the big girl she was she allowed herself to drink to access and then get in a car to wind up almost getting herself killed.

Jasmine had known Beth would ask as soon as she started feeling better. It has been two months since the accident and she was almost back on her feet again. While she was recuperating in hospital Jasmine had gone back to University at Luke's insistence and found a better place for her and her sister. Luke had insisted on Manhattan. It was not Fifth Avenue, but it was a beautiful two bed roomed apartment and close to Luke's Penthouse which was the main reason he chose it. He had not made any demands immediately, but had given her time to help Beth. If not for this morning's phone call demanding she come over for dinner that night, she would have forgotten he was actually blackmailing her.

"Did you hear me Jasmine?" Elizabeth raised puzzled ice blue eyes to her sister from the bed. Jasmine looked deep in thought as she stared out the window. It was snowing outside, and normally that would have made Jasmine very happy. At 27 Elizabeth was 8 years older than Jasmine, and though she had not readily welcomed the role of big sister, she came to love Jasmine, and to know her well, enough to know when she was hiding something.

"Yes I heard you Beth." She turned to face the bed. Her sister had been lucky. Except for the fractured ribs which had perforated her lungs and the main reason for her operation she escaped unscathed in terms of physical scars on her body. She looked ethereally beautiful with the fragile air caused by her convalescence. Her beauty made Jasmine wonder what Luke saw in her. But whatever it was he was forcing her to behave like the whore he thought Beth was.

"Luke gave us the money." Jasmine finally managed to get those words out. She could not meet her sister's eyes though. She knew hope would be reflected there, Beth would think he was ready to forgive her.

"He did?" Elizabeth said in wonder. Could time have healed the wounds she had caused her husband? But then if that was the case he would have visited her in the hospital? She finally decided Luke was not the forgiving type. What else could be going on?

Jasmine was not going to tell her sister that tonight she will be sleeping with her former husband. It would have been easier if she was not looking forward to it. She hated herself for desiring Luke, it was practically incestuous, but what red-blooded female could resist a gorgeous man like him? Normally she was attracted to men who were black like her, but Luke was a man in a class of his own. Over six two and built like a swimmer with the wide shoulders, a man who moved with the grace of a jungle cat. She had always felt as if his emerald green eyes could see right into her soul. The eyes were at odds with his jet black hair, and the slight olive tint to his skin, but made sense since his mother Consuela was Italian. The Irish eyes he got from his late father Matthias. She could not deny she had had a crush o him, but she should have gotten over that by now, but no matter it was not like Luke or Beth had noticed. She jerked herself back to the present before she stared fantasising about his sensual mouth.

"I am going to pay him back when I start working." That sounded false even to her. It suggested that Luke was a very generous man because he was going to have to wait a long time for his money.

"You have done so much already." Elizabeth quickly pointed out. "I am going back to work though, so I will make sure he gets all his money." Being beholden to him was not how she wanted to get Luke back.

Jasmine said nothing. It was this desire of Beth to go back to modelling which had resulted in her infidelity. She did not understand how someone married to a hunky powerful worldly man like Luke could want any other man was beyond her. What could have been missing in that relationship? If anyone should know how loyal Beth was, it was Jasmine. James and Lorna Mitchell who were killed on one of their Red Cross missions in Iraq had adopted her when she was just a baby and had lost her parents to cholera. Elizabeth had just started modelling, when the Mitchells died and Jasmine who was a minor at the time would have been taken in by the social services, but Elizabeth had refused and fought to stay with her. It would have been too terrible a blow to be parted from the only family she had left.

Beth was a wonderful person, a little vain, but who wouldn't be if the they blonde and supermodel thin and tall. She had professed to love Luke so her actions were kind of hard to understand. She said she not only regretted her actions, but never even enjoyed the sex. Jasmine had not really asked for the details having no desire to hear about her sister's love life down to the intimate details. It might be the 21st century, but Jasmine was very much a keep it in the bedroom kind of girl, not that she had ever shared the said bedroom with a man. She was not experienced in matters of passion and felt she was in no position to judge Beth. Beth had always liked attention, it might have started as harmful flirting because that was just how Beth behaved. She flirted with anyone male. All she knew was when she made a commitment she will make sure of her feeling for the man concerned. Make sure she loved the man completely so that she will never stray.

"I am going out tonight Beth." Jasmine said never looking at her sister. She was not a very good liar, and was afraid Beth will be able to tell the truth of what she was up to.

"Finally a man has snatched my sister's attention away from her books. I can't tell you how happy that makes me." Elizabeth cried out in an excited voice. She worried about Jasmine's deep concentration on her studies. She was too young to be so serious. The only time she had fun was when Beth dragged her out with her to the movies.

It made Jasmine feel so bad. Was she any better than Beth who had cheated? Was it not worse to want your sister's man even if they were no longer together?

"I need to make a phone call." Jasmine said.

Jasmine hurried out to a phone booth to try and get out of this spider's web she was letting herself get tangled in. Luke's elegant secretary Mrs Margaret Read answered his office phone. She had only met the woman once and felt very intimidated by her, not that she looked like a dragon or anything. She looked like a woman in her 20's at 40, and beautiful. Luke liked beautiful things and could afford them, so why buy her?

"Can I talk to Mr. Randall please?" Her heart was beating very fast from running and nerves, but it appeared there was no reason for her nerves as she never got to speak to Luke. He was tied up in a meeting and would be tied up the whole day.

She knew it would not be productive to try again. Running an Internationally renowned billion dollar shipping company was a job that would keep any man busy 24/7. Luke not only made it look easy, but found time to play, and she was his new plaything. She recalled his phone call. "Go out and get something sexy to wear for dinner at my house. I will expect you at 7:00 pm sharp." Then he had hung up. She decided to go out shopping for the required dress. No doubt she will have to rely on the shop assistants to know what was sexy. Unlike Beth she had never really thought of clothes much. Jeans were her main clothes. If Luke was disappointed with what he got, that was his problem.

Disappointed was the last thing Luke experienced that night. He had sent his driver to pick her up, and for that she was thankful for it. Having him witness her ungainly movements getting in and out of the car in her tight dress and impossibly long high heels would have been mortifying. She managed to trip herself just trying to get into the car and she was glad the only person who saw her faux pas was George. As it was George managed to refrain from laughter at her rude exclamations, he was a kind elderly English gentleman. She had liked him the few times she had come into contact with him while she stayed with Beth bad Luke before she moved to the University Campus to give them their privacy. Thinking along those lines made her realise Beth and Luke have been divorced longer than they were married. They were married for just six month and have been divorced for seven.

Sooner than she wanted they arrived at Luke's place. It was even harder to get out of the limo than to get in. How women like Beth did managed wearing impossibly high heels and tight dresses and still perform the act of getting in and out of cars not only with dignity, but with style was beyond her.

This time she did not have to ring the bell. The door was slightly opened as he was waited for her.

"Come right in Jasmine." Luke said his attention on his blackberry. He finished and turned to look at her and barely managed to not gasp, as it was he blinked and stared. Who knew she hid such a lush figure with her baggy jeans and even baggier t-shirts? He had thought her quiet a tiny thing standing exactly five feet tall, and tiny she was compared to his height, but she was like a pocket sized Venus, with all the curves in the right places. He normally liked big breasts on a woman, but he liked that her perfect handful meant she could get away without wearing a bra and he could see the tight buds of her nipples. It could not be the cold outside for she had been wearing a heavy jacket when she came in, and the room was warm. Perhaps it was not just desperation that had made Jasmine agree to his deal. He admired her slender curvaceous body in skin tight blue silk held together by thin diamante covered straps with a square neckline and moulded to her body until it reached mid thigh level.

He kept staring and she wondered if he was displeased and regretted making the deal with her.

She could not have been further from the truth. He was admiring her shapely stocking free legs in black diamante encrusted high heeled sandals. She had beautiful tiny feet with her toe nails painted a clear colour like her fingernails. The exposed skin made him wonder if she was flawless all over. Her inky black hair which shone like spun silk was cut into a shoulder length bob with a centre parting exposing the beautiful curves of her cheeks. Her eyes seemed bigger, a beautiful brown like aged brandy and framed by dark curly lashes that seemed natural as she wore no makeup. Her small pert nose he had always found enchanting, but it was her pink glossed wide mouth that drew his attention now, and he stopped looking at her like a date. She was here to perform a duty that was all.

"Come with me into the dining room." He forced himself to say. He did not want to waste time on dinner, but to go straight to bed, but she looked like she could bolt any second.

Jasmine tried a smile. She did not think she could speak at the moment. He looked gorgeous, still dressed in neatly belted grey pants that must have been matched with a jacket and tie, but those were now worn with only a crisp white shirt. He had made no effort on her behalf, but he still looked wonderful in his work clothes.

The dining room table was set and ready for them. He held out her chair and she sank into it gracefully.

He liked her soft subtle scent, and the nervous smile that revealed small even white teeth.

Luke sat across her. The flowers and candles a nice touch to what he had requested from his house keeper. Mrs Vine was a romantic who had not given up on him finding love not just passion, and he allowed her her delusions.

"May I say you look more appetising than Mrs Vine's perfect fish dish tonight." Luke shocked her with his words, but it was his wicked smile that sent shivers up and down her spine. And it served to remind her he was not perfect. All his teeth were straight and white except for the crooked one on the left side of his two front teeth.

"I... Well thank you." She could not believe she was stammering. She had never been comfortable around Luke. Her body hot then cold the next minute, and now the sound of his deep velvet smooth voice sent shivers up and down her spine.

The meal was well prepared and quite tasty Jasmine was sure, but she hardly knew what she ate. Luke had asked her if she drank wine and she had declined. She did not have the head for alcohol it will take only one glass for her to be wasted.

Luke was reminded of her age. What happened to him disliking cradle snatching? Was he really going to use a young girl like her because he was jaded over her sex? He would have changed his mind were it not for her moan as she enjoyed her desert. The way she closed her eyes and licked her spoon. Then all he could think about was her lying naked on his bed.