oversized clothes she’d hurriedly thrown on. But the swamping swallow-her-whole trousers and sweatshirt were too late. Ash had seen her naked and one part of him had already made meticulously detailed plans for her very luscious body.
‘The place is large enough for us to avoid each other completely,’ Merle Jordan reiterated in that shy, low, sexy-as-sin voice.
Ash stared as the colour in her luminous skin increased and her beautiful brown eyes darkened. His gloom evaporated as his intuition purred. He had to suppress a satisfied smile.
She was bothered. It wasn’t just because of what he’d said or done. The underlying cause was as obvious as it was reciprocated by him. Instant interest—the immediate recognition of physical, pleasurable, possibilities. Admittedly, they were possibilities she seemed determined to reject. Yet she was the one who’d insisted on staying here. Who’d insisted he discover for himself how impossible it was to find other accommodation on the island. Who’d wanted to teach him a lesson. It had actually pleased him to learn that he’d be able to sell even this ultra-expensive property quickly and easily, given the popularity of all pricing levels of accommodation. So her plan hadn’t only backfired, it’d also had a beneficial consequence.
‘Don’t you think?’ she added.
Maybe there could be more than one benefit. But then he saw the anxiety lurking in the backs of those beautiful eyes.
She’s bothered because she’s worried about being homeless, you idiot.
At his silence that blush swamped her face again. She’d almost stammered as she’d pushed past her shyness to fight for her place here. It had cost her to admit to him the truth of her circumstances. The confession hadn’t been an attempt at manipulation, but rather dragged out of her in raw embarrassment. It drew a response from deep within him too. The feeling shimmered again now and reminded him of another woman who’d also been alone and vulnerable and awkwardly shy. One who he’d stepped forward to help. But back then the flare of protectiveness within Ash had ended in a destructive mess.
Back. Away.
He should leave. Yet the temptation to do the absolute opposite almost overwhelmed him. He wanted to reach out and slide his fingertips down her neck, to push aside that baggy sweatshirt and explore her skin, to draw her close and kiss her past comfortable and right on to pleasured. The concentration required to stop himself made him ache. This chemistry at first sight was explosive. For all of his success with women, it wasn’t something he was used to. He played around but never foolishly. Now it was as if a fever had taken hold. He forced his gaze beyond her, focusing on the house to pull himself together.
It was exactly the shock he needed.
The beach house had always stolen his breath—one moonlit glimpse of the inky water was enough to invoke that old sense of freedom. But the house itself had been altered beyond recognition—entire walls were gone, replaced with larger, newer elements. He’d yet to see all the renovations, but what he could see was so changed. That first feeling of freedom was strangled in seconds by anger. Regret. Self-recrimination. The last time he’d been here was the last time he’d seen his mother alive. And he’d disappointed her so badly.
He refused to remember. But he’d been refusing to remember for a long time now. And after yesterday’s article?
The piece had celebrated his ʻsainted’ father before speculating and comparing his disparate sons’ lives yet again. Ash still couldn’t fathom how his father had been held in such high esteem for so long. Even after Ash had exposed Hugh Castle’s cheating soul to the world by providing Leo with a DNA sample to prove he was Hugh’s illegitimate son, his old man’s other successes had overridden any punishment he should have faced. Hugh had been miraculously forgiven not just by his beloved ‘society circles’, but by the media and court of public opinion too. Even though the lying old jerk had spent years denying Leo’s birthright, years destroying Leo’s mother’s reputation.
Who could blame Hugh for a few transgressions when he’d suffered the heartbreak of a dying wife for so long?
As though his father were the victim. Empathetic explanations were offered and forgiveness assured. But not by Ash. Never by him. The falsity of it all was something he couldn’t forget. Indeed, the abbreviation of his name was apt. Because all Ash could offer were the acrid, smoking remnants of what had once been. And all he wanted to