Stranded For One Scandalous Week (Mills & Boon Modern) (Rebels, Brothers, Billionaires Book 1)

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘I didn’t know it was your bath,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to use the main bedroom. I thought this was one of the guest rooms.’

  Something flickered in his expression before he shut it back to bland. ‘I guess in recent years that is what it has been. But a long time ago it was my room.’ He stared at her a little longer. ‘I feel surprisingly disappointed.’

  Her jaw dropped. She ought to be outraged, but the awful thing was she actually felt a touch flattered. Maybe the champagne had already had more of an effect on her than she’d realised?

  ‘How long are you here for?’ His forehead wrinkled.

  She had to swallow before she could answer. ‘Six weeks. But it might run a little longer as there’s more than was initially listed...’

  He lifted one of the large, fluffy white towels from the rack and placed it beside the champagne bottle. ‘I didn’t realise Leo had got that underway.’

  ‘Mr Castle seemed to think the place would be empty for the duration of my contract.’

  ‘Ordinarily he would’ve been right.’ Ash’s mouth tightened. ‘Maybe it’s best if we continue this conversation downstairs. Ten minutes, okay?’

  She stared at him, shocked. Wasn’t he going to apologise for thinking she’d been hired as his evening’s entertainment?

  He stared back at her, his head tilting as he read her expression, and that wicked smile flashed again, banishing what had barely been a hint of remorse. ‘Unless you’re happy to negotiate terms in here...?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not.’ He seemed amused by the colour she knew was climbing her cheeks again. ‘Sex work is legal in this country.’

  ‘I’m aware, but it’s not my chosen profession.’ She wanted to slide right under the bubbles, she really did.

  He shrugged carelessly. ‘Can you blame me for the mistake? The scene was perfectly set—candles, champagne, and you were beautifully positioned to maximise the effect of your...assets.’

  His gaze didn’t waver from hers—didn’t drop to assess those ‘assets’ once more. And right now, those assets felt tight and achy and it was appalling.

  ‘It’s not unusual for you to find a woman just waiting for you in your bath or bed?’ she asked huskily, shocking herself with the question. She never talked to anyone about such things.

  ‘Not unusual in the least.’ He grinned, the devilish lights in his eyes twinkling. ‘It’s something I enjoy. A lot.’

  But he didn’t pay them to be there. They arrived by choice—because of want.

  Merle glared at him, horrified by her own reaction, her own wild thoughts. Since when did she feel anything thing like attraction to someone so...so...smugly sexual?

  ‘Pleasure is something to be valued and appreciated,’ he added almost piously. ‘Not embarrassed about.’

  And, with that pithy piece of sexual arrogance, he left.

  Merle waited, almost completely submerged, until he’d vanished. The second he closed the door she scrambled out of the slippery bath. She dressed quickly in loose jeans and a tee shirt and threw on a baggy sweatshirt for good measure, despite still burning from that mortifying moment. She left her hair in its damp twist on top of her head and checked her reflection. For a millisecond she stared at her make-up-free skin and wished she was something she wasn’t.

  Fool. Why suddenly think of mascara and lipstick? She did not want his interest. Judging by the pictures she’d seen in the media, she wasn’t anything like the women he usually met and that was a good thing. And, while she’d like a boyfriend one day, Ash Castle wasn’t ever anyone’s boyfriend. He was a lover, a seducer, an unrepentant playboy who doubtless left a mountain of broken hearts behind him. Merle’s wasn’t going to be one of them. As if he’d ever be interested anyway. It was only context that had made that glint flash in his face for those few seconds. She shrank in embarrassment, refusing to think about what he may or may not have seen of her in that bath. Or what he’d have thought.

  ‘Are you usually based on Waiheke or in Auckland?’ Ash called from where he stood in the centre of the atrium the second she appeared on the staircase. ‘Because it’s late. I’m not sure how we’ll get you back to Auckland now the last ferry has already left.’

  Merle descended slowly, stopping three steps from the bottom so she could keep her distance yet be able to look him directly in the eyes. She couldn’t leave here. Not tonight or any other night for the next six weeks.

  ‘I came here to do some work. I need space and peace,’ he added when she didn’t reply, and his gaze grew pointed.

  ‘You’ll have that,’ she muttered, hoping to assure him despite the sudden racing of her pulse. ‘You won’t even know I’m here.’

  His mouth tightened, then curved into a slow, deliberate smile that yet again didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Won’t I? When you’re naked in my bath and sleeping in my bed?’

  She stared, sure he’d worded that deliberately to put those inappropriate images in her mind and unsettle her all over again. ‘I’ll switch to another room, of course.’

  She tried to breathe away the blush she felt beating across her face and trained her own gaze a little lower. It wasn’t the wisest move. He had the most perfect cheekbones; they were like blades, angling towards the arrogant set of his chin and his full mouth. And she really shouldn’t look at his mouth. The full sensuality of it made her think of hunger and kisses. She forced her focus back up to his eyes. They were intent upon her, but within their heated gaze there was more than unhappiness growing. There was misery. Why?

  ‘Delay your work for a week,’ he said abruptly. ‘Head home for a holiday. Full pay, of course.’

  She instantly forgot her curiosity. Head home? To where exactly? She stared, unable to think of a reply as her anger built. Why did he need this enormous house all to himself? Why this one, when he had all those others? Aside from being a whizzy finance billionaire in his own right, she knew he was the heir to the Castle Holdings luxury apartment empire in Australia. His father had amassed a huge amount of property over there—where Ash Castle was supposed to be living right now.

  But the man standing before her was obviously used to getting everything his way. To ‘full paying’ away any annoying inconveniences. And, not so deep beneath her surface, she smarted from the sting of his rejection. It was stupid, especially given the fact that she was well used to rejection.

  For once in his life Ash Castle wasn’t getting everything he wanted. At least, not tonight. He’d arrived on a whim and it was too bad for him that she was already here—under contract and with nowhere else to go.

  ‘I don’t need a holiday,’ she said stiffly. ‘I need to do my job. Which means I need to stay here.’

  ‘Until tomorrow.’ He nodded. ‘Then you can go home for a week.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘Unfortunately, I’m between residences at present.’ She hated having to inform him of the deeply personal fact.

  ‘Between residences?’ he echoed bluntly, his gaze sharpening. ‘You mean you’re homeless?’

  She tensed even more. ‘As I spend my time going from contract to contract, I’ve no need to set up a permanent residence.’

  It was a lie. Very few jobs were live-in and the only reason she’d got this contract was because she’d been able to leap on a plane at short notice. Sonja, the manager of the archival company she worked for, had been going to do it but her early pregnancy had been reassessed as high risk and she’d asked Merle to step in at the last minute.

  Unsurprisingly, Ash Castle stared disbelievingly, making her feel as if yet more mortifying explanation was necessary. She’d spoken more in the last five minutes than she had all week and her voice was still rusty.

  ‘Archivists don’t get paid incredibly well,’ she muttered.

  ‘You amaze me.’ That untamed gleam glinte
d in his eyes and his lips twitched.

  An odd little fire in her ignited. There was no need for him to be facetious.

  ‘Plenty of incredibly important jobs are low-paid.’ Her heart thudded at her daring. Merle didn’t stand up to anyone. Certainly not a man like this. Her grandmother would’ve torn strips off her if she’d seen her even look at him.

  ‘Is archival work incredibly important? I wasn’t aware.’

  She had the feeling there were a lot of important things he was unaware of.

  He was watching her closely and his sudden smile was both irreverent and tantalising. ‘Do you think there are things you can teach me?’

  With that soft-spoken drawl he revealed himself completely. Jaded. Experienced. Cynical. Incorrigible. Everything she wasn’t. But yes, she could teach him some things. Manners, for a start.

  ‘It’s not my job to teach you anything,’ she said with a bravery she was far from feeling. ‘You’re a grown man and I’m sure you’ll be able to figure things out for yourself. Eventually.’

  For the merest moment Merle basked while he stared at her, his mouth slightly ajar. She ought to be cautious, as if she’d just prodded a sleeping dragon, yet she was strangely exhilarated.

  ‘If you’re prepared to delay the completion of the archival process and pay for me to stay in a nearby hotel and holiday for the week, while on full pay,’ she said warily, feeling a wholly foreign confidence trickle in her veins, ‘then of course I’ll do as you wish and leave first thing in the morning. However, it’s a weekend in the height of summer and this is a small, popular island with not that many accommodation options. Do you think you’ll find me a place?’

  He stared at her for a long second. His mouth compressed. ‘You want me to find you a place?’

  ‘You want me to leave.’ She couldn’t hold his gaze and found she needed to study the floor intently as that damned fire beat across her face. ‘Alternatively, you could be the one to stay elsewhere.’

  ‘What?’ He sounded flummoxed.

  A hitherto dormant imp of mischievousness took over her mouth. ‘Would that put you out?’ She darted a glance up at him and the rest spilled out softly. ‘Are you not used to working for what you want?’

  There was another moment in which he just stared at her. That unhappy emotion had vanished from his eyes, and there was only gleamingly sharp speculation now.

  ‘Oh, I work hard to get what I want,’ he said pointedly. ‘And I always get it.’

  How nice to be him. But as he held her gaze with a fierce intensity, Merle’s bubble of bravado popped. Breaking into a sweat at her temerity, she dropped her gaze and surreptitiously watched him pull a phone from his pocket. It was a latest release, squillion-dollar tech toy. Of course.

  ‘It’s late to be making calls.’ She worried her lower lip, already regretting her runaway, rogue tongue moment. She should have stayed quiet. She couldn’t afford to lose this job. ‘I—’

  ‘But not too late to check an online bookings app,’ he interrupted before she could apologise.

  Merle watched, partly glad because he didn’t deserve her apology. As he tapped and swiped the screen over the course of the next six minutes, his frown deepened and his jawline hardened. Merle’s heart raced as his expression turned positively rigid.

  ‘You’re going to have to stay,’ he finally gritted.

  Was it bad to relish the fact that the man couldn’t get his way? Doubtless it was a rare occurrence for him. And a very rare victory for her. A thrill shivered through her. She’d stood up to him and she’d won.

  ‘You stay in my old room. I’ll take the master suite.’ He squared his shoulders and his smile was bitter-edged. ‘Might as well exorcise all the demons while I’m here.’ He lifted his gaze to ensnare hers once more, his lips twisting in a mocking smile. ‘You’ll have to work extra hard now you know I’ll be here watching you.’

  Her sliver of success melted in the face of what could only be described as a...promise. A veiled, heated, inappropriate promise.

  Her pulse thickened and she regretted his change of mind. Wouldn’t it be better for her to be as far away from him as possible while he was here? What had she been thinking? She’d wanted to win one over on him—the kind of guy who got everything his way all of the time. ‘I thought you wanted space.’

  She hadn’t meant to say anything more but somehow it slipped out.

  He regarded her beneath half-lowered lids. Merle found she was unable to move beneath the intensity of his gaze. Was this how he did it? Seduction by a simple stare?

  ‘I thought I did,’ he murmured. ‘But I also enjoy watching interesting things, Miss...’

  He didn’t know her name. He’d made all kinds of assumptions and he didn’t even know her name.

  ‘Merle Jordan,’ she said stiffly. And she wasn’t ‘interesting’.

  ‘I’m Ash Castle.’ He mock-bowed. ‘But you already knew that.’

  She nodded. It had been his arrogant, own-it-all air that had given him away but she awkwardly offered a more polite explanation. ‘Your photo’s in the study.’

  A young Ash with his parents, captured on the beach just outside. His eyes widened, exposing a flash of that other emotion before his expression shuttered again.

  Inside, she was feverishly panicked about getting through this. She’d avoid him entirely for the next week. Fortunately, she was well used to staying out of sight and silent. All those years of hiding like a mouse in the wings of her mother’s performances would finally come in handy. Not to mention hiding from her grandmother’s shouting. It wouldn’t be hard at all to avoid him in a house this size, plus she had all those boxes to bury herself in.

  Yet, intriguingly, as he hesitated his expression turned more than serious, more than sombre, more akin to misery. It didn’t suit him. A tinge within Merle tugged her down the stairs towards him.

  ‘No one knows I’m here,’ he said. ‘Not even Leo. I’d like to keep it that way.’

  ‘Of course,’ she mumbled.

  He didn’t realise she had no one to tell and she was far removed from anyone in his world. But she did need to stay here. Not only did she have nowhere else to go, but this was also an important job for her professionally. She had debt to clear and a future to forge.

  ‘You won’t even know I’m here.’ But as she earnestly attempted to reassure him, she saw the look in his eyes morph once more.

  CHAPTER TWO

  YOU WON’T EVEN know I’m here.

  Well, that was impossible. Ash scowled. How was he going to forget the sight of her gleaming in the moonlight like a welcome beacon? She’d been rising out of that bath like a dryad at a magical spring, complete with champagne fountain and a flushing allure that had transfixed him. Only he’d been so jaded he’d mistaken her for a woman of the night and said so. Even for him it had been inappropriate, an unthinking utterance of the first possibility his tired brain had come up with. Wishful thinking, if he was being completely honest. The fantasy of her waiting nymph-like to give him pleasure had made perfect, albeit impossible, sense. He should’ve held his outrageous, rebellious tongue, but he never yet had.

  And now?

  He needed to be alone, but he’d never been going to stay a full week. It was going to be a couple of days max. He’d just wanted her well out of the way so he could be clear of any human contact while he absorbed the shock of what had been done to the place. But now he was stuck with her. Yet he wasn’t feeling as irritated about that as he had been only a second ago.

  Yesterday’s headline should’ve been easy to ignore. The newspaper article comparing ‘playboy rebel Ash’ to his illegitimate half-brother, Leo, the ‘responsible leader’, had been rubbish. Yet it had forced him into the action he’d been deferring for months. Almost a year ago, Ash had inherited everything. His father, Hugh Castle, had refused to recognise Leo right to the end. He
’d also refused to believe Ash’s own refusal to be involved in the family business. No matter that they’d been estranged for a full decade and that Ash hadn’t once set foot inside the company headquarters or any of the family properties in all that time. Or that he’d deliberately set out to make his own fortune—taking risks purely to have the satisfaction of being more successful to spite his father.

  None of that had mattered. His father, as always, didn’t listen, didn’t care and only did what he wanted. As Ash was Hugh’s first-born, legitimate male heir, it was onto his unwilling shoulders that the company had been foisted. But Ash had immediately moved to ensure all Hugh Castle’s heirs got their fair share. He’d intended to liquidate all assets and split the wealth. But Leo had asked for a different solution. It wasn’t that Ash had ʻabandoned responsibility’, forcing Leo to take over Hugh’s company, Leo had insisted. He’d been determined to take over. Ash had simply stood aside and let him. How could he say no when Leo had been denied so much by the Castle family already?

  Ash had half expected his half-brother to raze Castle Holdings to the ground. He wouldn’t have blamed him, in fact he would’ve enjoyed watching. But Leo hadn’t done that. Leo had obviously inherited integrity from his mother. Maybe growing up away from the malignant force that had been their father had benefited him.

  Whereas Ash was utterly his father’s son. Careless. Ruthless. Selfish.

  But there was one particular problem Ash had been avoiding. This last personal property—the former family holiday home on Waiheke Island. The press would never think to look for him here. No one would, which was why he should’ve realised the idea of Leo arranging a woman for him was ridiculous. It wasn’t in his ultra-responsible half-brother’s playbook. Truthfully, it wasn’t in his either. And this woman was no courtesan. She couldn’t underline that fact more boldly than with the monstrously 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.