Neon Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  What's next?

  Want to stalk me?

  End of book stuff

  Neon

  Elise Noble

  Published by Undercover Publishing Limited

  Copyright © 2016 Elise Noble

  ISBN: 978-1-910954-28-7

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Edited by Amanda Ann Larson

  Cover design by Elise Noble

  www.undercover-publishing.com

  www.elise-noble.com

  Don’t let anything dull your sparkle.

  CHAPTER 1

  ONE, TWO, THREE, four, five... Oh, pluck a duck, he'd lost one again. Trying to get those girls in one place was harder than herding cats. Cats with ADHD who'd been popping acid. Bradley should know—he'd been running round after them for enough years.

  “Where's Carmen?”

  Emmy shrugged and took another sip of coffee. “Think she went to get her Korth.”

  Bradley let out a long sigh, wondering once again why he did this. “I told her, she doesn't need a gun. We're going to a spa resort, not a war zone.”

  “Health farm,” Emmy muttered, and he glared at her.

  “Spa resort. But you need to get healthier. How many cups of coffee have you had today?”

  “Two.”

  “Three. And it's not even seven. Breakfast should be a smoothie and porridge, according to Toby, not caffeine and a donut.”

  Bradley spent many hours conferring with Toby, Emmy's nutritionist, who frequently shared his sense of despair when it came to encouraging the girls to do what was good for them. Bradley loved each and every one of them from their pretty heads to their karate-kicking feet, but their stubborn personalities sometimes made him wish he still worked in a hair salon.

  Carmen sauntered into view, carrying a knapsack and a suspiciously large case. Good grief.

  “What's in there?”

  “Accessories.”

  “The kind of accessories that can put a bullet through a man's head at a thousand yards?”

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  “You don't need a sniper rifle at Cedar Ridge. We're going for three days of rest and relaxation, and they don't have anywhere for shooting.”

  “Nate gave me this when we got married, kind of like a wedding ring. It stays with me.”

  Bradley blinked a couple of times, trying to stop the tic in his eye. “Fine, put it in the trunk.” He still had ninety-five miles to convince her to leave it there.

  Carmen opened the back of her Mercedes G-Wagon and stared inside. “What's all this stuff?”

  “Tia's luggage.”

  “I thought we were only going for three days?”

  “We are.”

  He still needed to break the news that Tia wouldn't need the contents of any of her six suitcases in the resort building. Cedar Ridge operated a strict dress policy, and it didn't include five-inch stilettos or cocktail dresses.

  Carmen slammed the door in disgust and shoved her things into Emmy's car instead, cursing under her breath in Spanish as she did so.

  One, two, three, four, five…six. Finally!

  “Right, let's go. We need to be there by nine, and we're already running twenty minutes late.”

  Dan looked up from her perch on the hood of the car. “Emmy's driving the Cayenne. We've got plenty of time.”

  Bradley patted his pocket again, just in case. Yes, his Valium was still safely inside. For years, he'd simply closed his eyes, but every time she braked hard they'd popped open of their own accord, waiting to see his death. With pharmaceutical help, he could keep his heart rate under one-forty.

  “Who's with me?” she asked.

  “Mack's in the front, seeing as it's her bachelorette weekend. I'll ride in the back with Dan.” How he wished he could ride in the second car with Carmen driving, but Emmy would arrive first, and he needed to be there to facilitate check-in.

  After one more brief delay, when Tia ran back inside to pick up a third pair of sunglasses, they set off. Ninety-five miles of hell. Bradley triple checked his seatbelt then leaned back, practising his breathing exercises. In on three, out on five. In on three, out on five.

  In all honesty, it was a miracle they were going at all. Due to the hectic schedule each of the girls kept, this was the only weekend before Mack's wedding that the six of them were free, and with Luke and his bachelor party heading to Vegas at the same time, Emmy hadn't wanted to leave the office. Thankfully, Mack had resorted to blackmail.

  “Ems, I'll only ever have one bachelorette party, and it won't be the same without you there.”

  “But what if there's an emergency?”

  “The place I like's only a couple of hours away, and we'll have our phones.”

  “We've never been away at the same time as the guys before.”

  “Logan said he'd stay at the office all weekend, and Xav's offered to help too.”

  “But—”

  “And if you don't come, I'm never erasing a speeding ticket for you again.”

  The threat worked, and Bradley spent weeks organising Mack's trip, only for disaster to strike. When an early morning phone call turned his perfectly ordered world upside down last week, he'd been on the point of tearing out his highlights. Even just the thought of it made him sweat…

  “Good morning, it's Valerie from the Sundown Spa. Is this Bradley?”

  Located near Blacksburg, the luxuriously appointed Sundown Spa was the place to go for a weekend break, with every amenity imaginable. Emphasis on the “was.”

  “Yes, it's Bradley.” The tremor in her voice worried him. It spoke of bad news.

  “We've had a small mishap.”

  “What kind of mishap?”

  “Uh, one involving a scented candle and a pair of velvet drapes. We're fixing the damage as fast as we can, but half of the main building suffered damage, and I'm afraid there's no way we'll be ready in time for your friend's bachelorette party.”

  In on three, out on five. “How about I send a team of builders to help out?”

  He didn't like her nervous giggle. “It's a little beyond that. Most of the roof fell down. I can email you a list of other spas in the area that might be able to accommodate you?”

  Bradley forced a smile onto his face, even though he wanted to throw something. Not the crystal horse sculpture on the table in front of him, and not his bespoke diamond-studded clipboard. Something else. “That's very kind of you.”

  Then he threw the phone.

  Out of all the other spas he tried, only Cedar Ridge had seven rooms available at such short notice. Okay, not available, exactly, but when he'd begged Nate to hack into the booking system, he'd found a group of women planning a school reunion who were open to bribery. Five hundred dollars each. Not bad—he'd have tripled it if they'd pushed.

  So, now Bradley and his band of bitches were on their way for a...well, it promised to be an interesting weekend. While the Sundown Spa offered every modern convenience a girl could think of, from in-room cappuccin
o machines to Wi-Fi by the relaxation pool, Cedar Ridge promised a more holistic experience. Back to basics, at one with nature, that sort of thing.

  He considered explaining that to the girls, really he did, but the right moment never appeared. Being honest, he worried they'd refuse to go at all, and they needed this break even if they wouldn't admit it. So, he took the sensible option and simply didn't tell them.

  They'd thank him eventually.

  Right?

  CHAPTER 2

  “ARE YOU SURE this is the right place?” Emmy asked. “It looks kind of...rustic.”

  Bradley swallowed his stomach back down. It had shot into his throat when Emmy slammed on the brakes. “Yes, this is the right place.”

  “I guess the scenery's pretty,” Dan said, and Bradley nodded enthusiastically. The hilly vista would have been even prettier if Emmy hadn't blasted through it at eighty-five miles an hour.

  As she turned into the winding driveway, majestic oaks rose high on either side, wind whispering through their leaves, and in the distance Bradley spotted a stand of cedar trees clinging to the steep ridge that gave the resort its name. Beautiful. No pollution, no noise, no traffic—even the air smelled fresher here.

  Around another bend, a cluster of low wooden buildings sprawled in front of them, with an impressive flight of stone steps leading up to the largest. A sign over the door invited them into reception while a smaller arrow pointed towards the car park along a track to the side.

  Emmy pulled into a space at the far end, and Bradley checked the GPS. “Congratulations, you beat Carmen by fifteen minutes. Now we have to wait.”

  “Let's get our room keys. She'll be here by then.”

  Mack hopped out of the passenger side and glanced at her phone. “There's no Wi-Fi signal.”

  Emmy slammed the door shut. “Maybe it only works around the buildings.”

  Oh, dear. Should he come clean yet? Hmm…yes. Better here than having Mack yell at him in reception. “Uh, there isn't a signal anywhere.”

  Mack turned towards him, looking a shade paler, which was to say ghostly. “What do you mean, there's no signal?”

  “The internet's banned at Cedar's Ridge. The owners believe time spent without technology allows your mind and body to rejuvenate.” That's what their motto said—relax your mind, rejuvenate your body, heal your soul.

  “I-i-it's what?” Mack hugged her laptop case to her chest like a shield. “I need my computer. And my phone. And my iPad. And my camera. And my Kindle. And…”

  Dan put an arm around her. “It'll be okay. Think of all those headaches you've been getting lately. Taking a break from the screen'll be good for you.”

  “I can't.”

  “Sure you can. We'll all be here for you.”

  “What if there's an emergency?” Emmy asked. “Nobody'll be able to get hold of us.”

  At least nobody had hit him yet. “I gave Xav the number for reception, and they'll bring us a message.”

  Mack glared at him. “How could you do this? I only wanted to go to Sundown because it had superfast broadband all the way around the jogging trail.”

  “It's not my fault it burned down. Would you rather have stayed at home?”

  “Yes.”

  Emmy took Mack's hand. “We'll get through this. It can't be worse than the time we went on jungle survival training and the satellite phone broke. Let's go inside and get a nice cup of coffee to relax.”

  “Uh, there's no coffee.”

  Emmy 's eyes lasered in on him. “For a moment there, I thought you said there wasn't any coffee?”

  “Caffeine's banned here. It disrupts your sleeping pattern.”

  “That's the whole fucking point. Come on, we're going home. Mack, are you riding in the front again?”

  Bradley plastered himself against the car door, holding it shut. “Nobody's going home. We're all going to go into the hotel, laze around by the pool, get a massage, and relax until Sunday.”

  “Caffeine helps me relax.”

  “No, it doesn't.”

  Dan blocked Emmy before she could lift him out of the way. “Ems, it's three days. If I've got to go without sex for the whole weekend, you can live without coffee.”

  Bradley plastered on a grin. “There, that's the spirit. Come on, it won't be as bad as you think.”

  “It'll be fucking worse,” Emmy said.

  Carmen's arrival saved Bradley from Emmy's snark as she drew to a halt beside them and jumped out of the car.

  “You waited? I thought you'd have gone inside.”

  Mack folded her arms more tightly around her laptop. “We haven't, because Bradley's brought us to the modern-day equivalent of a concentration camp.”

  “There's no Wi-Fi,” Dan explained.

  Carmen's jaw dropped. “Bradley, how could you do that to Mack?”

  “Because she needs a break. We all need a break.”

  Tia stepped forwards, the voice of reason. “We don't need Wi-Fi. There's plenty of other things we can do out here, like dress up and have a nice, posh dinner.”

  “There's kind of a dress code,” Bradley mumbled.

  “What, like smart-casual? Black tie?”

  “More like a uniform, to symbolise that everyone's equal underneath their daily facade.”

  “Did you get that from the fucking brochure?” Emmy asked.

  “I might have… Look, I'm not a fan of that rule either.”

  She let out a long, slow breath. “So, is that it? No gadgets, no caffeine, no fancy clothes?”

  He cut his eyes towards Carmen. “No guns.”

  “Because otherwise one of us might be tempted to shoot you,” Mack muttered.

  “And no dessert.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath from Lara, but she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. “It's okay. I'm good. I'm sure it'll be lovely.”

  Bradley led the way to the main building, skirting around a cloud of midges gathered under the overhanging trees. Truth be told, this whole nature thing wasn't for him, with its puddles and mud and rain and heat. Give him Emmy's black Amex card and a shopping mall any day.

  “Three days,” he said. “That's all. You never know—you might even enjoy yourselves.”

  Right after the devil took up downhill skiing.

  CHAPTER 3

  “I CAN'T BELIEVE I have to spend three days wearing bleached out surgical scrubs,” Tia complained.

  Emmy plucked at the cream cotton. “It's more like a judo suit. All we need is some mats, and we could—”

  “No!” Bradley held up a hand. “No physical violence.”

  He had to admit they were both right, though. The garments they'd been forced to wear were possibly the most hideous outfits he'd ever seen, and considering his friend Ishmael had made a dress out of cabbage leaves for his spring fashion show the year before last, that was saying something. At least today's attire didn't smell so bad.

  “I still can't believe they confiscated my laptop,” Mack said, wiping an eye with the back of her hand.

  Bradley pulled it away from her face and gave her fingers a comforting squeeze. “They promised to lock it away securely, and you'll get it back on Sunday evening.”

  The nasty witch of a manager had droned on and on about the importance of a totally natural lifestyle and tried to take his diamond earrings too, citing the “no jewellery apart from wedding rings” rule. Luckily, Emmy put her foot down and he got to keep them.

  Now, Emmy huffed and folded her arms. “So, what are we doing first?”

  “I thought we'd try spending an hour by the flotation pool,” he said.

  “We won't flipping know if we've spent an hour, will we?” Mack said.

  She’d been in danger of hyperventilating when the manager confiscated her email-enabled watch as well. Or her last lifeline, as she called it. Apparently, Cedar Ridge didn't like the concept of time either. At least Bradley had managed to snag both sets of car keys. He'd need to hide them carefully, because he didn't trust a
ny of the girls not to take off for civilisation as soon as he turned his back.

  “It doesn't matter if we spend more than an hour. This is your weekend to relax, so you can spend the whole day by the pool if you want to.”

  “I don't want to.”

  “Try it. Please?”

  Her lip wobbled. “Fine. But if I do this, I'm bringing my iPad to the wedding reception.”

  Another battle of theirs, but Bradley knew how to compromise. “Okay, as long as you keep it out of sight under the table.”

  Their rooms lay next to each other at the back of the main building, and Bradley closed his eyes as he slotted his key into the lock. Please, let them be the five-stars the brochure promised, or a decent four at least. He swung open the door and gingerly cracked a lid open. Okay, not as awful as he'd feared.

  No TV, no sound system, no minibar, and the blow-dryer was underpowered, but thankfully management hadn't eschewed the benefits of AC as well. And the bed was top notch with plenty of pillows.

  Maybe this weekend wouldn't be so bad.

  Or maybe it would. As Bradley shuffled along the corridor in his regulation flip-flops, he was thankful for the “no camera” policy. If anyone saw him wearing this...this abomination, he'd never live it down. Ugh. Hadn't the management ever heard of tailoring?

  The girls beat him to the pool, probably because he'd stopped to do his hair, and they'd nabbed seven loungers in a line on the far side and stripped down to their bikinis—well, a one-piece for Lara. Bradley still needed to work on her confidence, because she had a figure most women would die for, and most men too. Like the one in a Cedar Ridge polo shirt polishing tiles on the far side of the water who kept sneaking glances in her direction, the dirty bugger. If he didn't pack that in Bradley would need to have a word.

  “How are your rooms?” he asked, dropping his fluffy towel onto the end seat.

  “Lovely, thank you,” Lara said.

  Emmy glanced over. “Three escape routes—door, windows, and the AC duct near the ceiling. The lock's shit, but the lamp on the nightstand would make a decent weapon in an emergency.”