by Sara Wood
Why should he make her pulses leap about so erratically? It didn’t make sense. Oh, he was good-looking enough in a foreign kind of way. Handsome, she supposed. But so were many other men who’d walked into the hotel where she’d worked: young, affluent and personable, and she’d been indifferent to them. And they to her, of course!
Bemused, she scrutinised him carefully in an effort to solve the mystery. And felt her fascination go up a notch or two. His hair was still dark—black and gleaming with the richness of a raven’s wing—but it was shorter now, the rebellious curls sleekly hugging the beautiful shape of his head.
His face… Well, those high cheekbones and carved jaw would make any woman’s heart beat faster coupled with the dark, intense eyes and sexily mobile mouth. She suppressed a small quiver in her breast.
‘What’s he doing?’ hissed Sue.
‘Don’t know.’
Her voice had been hoarse because his liquid and relaxed gestures had caused the muscles to ripple beneath his black T-shirt in a way that left her breathless.
‘He’s beautifully toned,’ Sue whispered, eyes agog. ‘Not over-developed—just perfect. Wow! And he used to be so skinny.’
No, Laura wanted to say. He was always strong and wiry. But she didn’t want to betray her ridiculously chaotic hormones by speaking. His shoulders and chest had certainly expanded. Cassian’s torso was now a devastatingly attractive triangle of powered muscle and sinew.
She watched him, her eyes wide and puzzled. He was more than just a perfect body. He…
She stiffened, suddenly realising what drew her to him. Cassian possessed what she—and many others—might search for all their lives. Something that money couldn’t buy. Total self-assurance.
She let out her tightly held breath. Cassian was sublimely at home in his own skin, whereas she had lived in the shadow of someone else’s rules and had moulded her behaviour to the will of others. She was someone else’s creation. He was his own.
And she longed to be like him.
Suddenly he laughed, and she felt a sharpness like a vice in her chest as she was almost bowled over by the sheer force of life which imbued his whole body—his brilliant white teeth flashing wickedly in the darkness of his face, the tilt of his chin, the warmth in those hot, dark eyes.
‘Now that’s what I call sex appeal!’ Sue whispered in awe. ‘Isn’t he like his mother? What was her name?’
Laura swallowed and found a husky voice emerging. ‘Bathsheba.’
‘Unusual. Suited her.’
‘Exotic,’ Laura agreed.
His mother had been the most beautiful and vibrant woman she’d ever known. Bathsheba had dark, wavy hair, eyes that flashed like scimitars when she was happy, and a face with the same classically chiselled bones as Cassian’s.
For the five years that Bathsheba had been her stepmother, neither she nor Cassian had taken much notice of her. But then Enid had kept them apart as much as possible.
And tragically, during the time that Bathsheba and her father were together, Laura had witnessed how two people could love one another but be incapable of living with one another. They were torn asunder by their differing views—particularly where the disciplining of Cassian was concerned.
‘Bathsheba and Cassian vanished overnight, I remember,’ Sue mused.
Laura nodded. ‘They walked out into the night, taking nothing with them! I was appalled. I wondered where they’d live, how they’d cope. George never recovered, you know.’
Her eyes softened. It seemed incredible that one person could have such an effect on another. Her stern, unbending father had died of a broken heart. She shivered, shrinking from the destructiveness of passion. In her experience, it had never done anyone any good.
‘Well, Cassian’s got over his feelings about Thrushton. He’s coming up the path!’ Sue marvelled. ‘Oh, why does something riveting like this have to happen, when I’m going on holiday tomorrow?!’
Laura couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘He’s hardly likely to stay long. He hated this house!’ she said, feeling an irrational sense of panic. ‘This can’t be a social call. He never noticed me, hardly knew I existed. And he just loathed Tony—’
She gasped. A key was rattling in the lock. There was a pause. Cassian must have realised that the kitchen door wasn’t locked at all. The latch was lifted. Laura couldn’t breathe. Why did he have a key?
The door creaked open a fraction. And then it was flung back with considerable force.
In an instant, the room seemed to be filled with him, with the blistering force of his anger. She cringed back instinctively by the half-concealing fall of the curtain, afraid of his potency and bewildered by the physical impact he had on her.
Cassian simmered with a volcanic rage as he scanned the kitchen with narrowed and glittering eyes. And all too soon, the full force of his incandescent fury became focussed directly at her.
CHAPTER TWO
THE smell of freshly baked bread had hit him immediately as he’d opened the door—even before it had swung fully open. Although his senses had enjoyed the aroma, he’d tensed every muscle in his body.
It meant one thing. A sitting tenant. And a legal minefield ahead.
Unsettled, he’d paused to collect himself. He had wanted to be alone here when he first arrived. To chase away the past. That was why he’d left Jai in Marrakesh, exploring the High Atlas mountains with one of their Berber friends.
Instead, it looked as if he’d have to chase a tenant out first! Furious with Tony for not mentioning that he’d rented the place out, he’d thrust at the door with an impatient hand and stepped into the room.
His heart had beat loud and hard as he’d entered the house where he’d cut his teeth on conflict, toughened his character and learnt to deal with Hell. He’d steeled himself.
And then he’d seen Laura.
The shock rocked him. It was a moment before he could collect his wits, a fearsome scowl marring his features and his eyes narrowing in disbelief as he realised the situation.
‘You!’ he growled, his voice deep with disappointment.
Of all people! She ought to have gone years ago, left this house and made a new start in life!
When she flinched, obviously struck dumb by his greeting, he scowled harder still, silently heaping vicious curses on Tony’s fat head. Her huge eyes were already wary and reproachful. Instinctively he knew that she’d weep pathetically when he turned her out and he’d feel a heel.
‘Hi, Cassian!’
He started, and glanced sideways in response to the cheery greeting from a strawberry blonde.
‘Sue,’ he recalled shortly and she looked pleased.
In a second or two he had assessed her. A ring. Biting into her finger. Married for a while, then. Weight increase from children or comfortable living—perhaps both. Her clothes were good, her hair professionally tinted.
She didn’t interest him. He turned his gaze back to Laura, drawn by her mute dismay and her total stillness. And those incredible black-fringed eyes.
‘W-what…are you doing here?’ she stumbled breathily.
Cassian’s mouth tightened, his brows knitted heavily with impatience. She didn’t know! Tony had taken the coward’s way out, it seemed, and not told his adopted sister what he’d done with the house he’d inherited on his father’s death. Little rat! Selfish to the last!
‘I gather Tony didn’t warn you I was coming,’ he grated.
Her lips parted in dismay and began to tremble. For the first time he realised they weren’t thin and tight at all, but full and soft like the bruised petals of a rose.
‘No!’ She looked at him in consternation. ‘I—I haven’t heard from him for nearly two years!’
‘I see,’ he clipped.
The frightened Laura flicked a nervous glance at the removal van. Her brow furrowed in confusion and she bit that plush lower lip with neat white teeth as the truth apparently dawned.
‘You’re not…oh, no! No!’ she whispered in futi
le denial, her hands restlessly twisting together.
And he wanted to shake her. It annoyed him intensely that she hadn’t changed. This was the old Laura, self-effacing, timid, frightened. He did the maths. She’d been fifteen when he’d left. That made her twenty-seven now. Old enough to realise that she was missing out on life.
His scowl deepened and she shrank back as if he’d hit her, then with a muttered exclamation she whirled and frantically grabbed a tea towel, beginning to polish the hell out of some cutlery that was drying on the drainer. It was a totally illogical thing to do, but typical.
Cassian felt the anger remorselessly expanding his chest. His eyes darkened to black coals beneath his heavy brows.
She’d always been desperately cleaning things in an attempt to be Enid’s little angel, not realising that she would never achieve her aim and she might as well cut loose and fling her dinner at the vicious old woman.
It appalled him that she hadn’t come out of her shell. Well, she’d have to do just that, from this moment on.
‘Just stop doing that for a moment.’
Grim-faced, he took a step nearer and she looked up warily, all moist-eyed and trembling.
‘I—I need to!’ she blurted out.
‘Displacement therapy?’ he suggested irritably.
Close up, he was surprised by the sweetness of her face. It was small and heart-shaped with sharply defined cheekbones and a delicate nose. Her rich brown hair looked nondescript and badly cut—though clean and shiny in the morning light which streamed through the window. His sharp senses picked up the scent of lavender emanating from her.
And signs of fear. Although her body was rigid, there was a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth where she was trying to control a quivering lip. Perhaps she knew his arrival presented some sort of threat to her beloved security, he mused.
‘I—I don’t know what you mean!’ she protested.
Her whole body had adopted a defensive pose. Arms across breasts. Shoulders hunched, eyes wary. He sighed. This wouldn’t be easy.
‘I realise this is a shock, me barging in, but I didn’t expect to see anyone here,’ he said gruffly, softening his voice a little without intending to.
‘Tony gave you a key!’ she cried, bewildered.
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’
He frowned. She’d sussed out the situation, hadn’t she? ‘To get in,’ he said drily.
‘But…’
He saw her swallow, the sweet curve of her throat pale against the faded blue of her threadbare shirt. Noticing his gaze, she blushed and put down the tea towel, her hand immediately lifting again to conceal the tatty collar.
His body-reading skills came automatically into use. Obviously she was poor. And she was proud, he noted. Slender hands, roughened from physical work. Pale face… Indoor work, then. She must be on night shifts—or out of a job, since she was home on a weekday.
Not married or engaged, no sign of a ring. But several pictures of a child in the room. Baby shots, a toddler, a school snap of a kid a bit younger than his own son. He felt intrigued. Wanted to learn more.
‘I’m confused. That removal van…’ She cleared her throat, her voice shaking with nerves. ‘It can’t…it doesn’t mean that…that Tony has let you stay here with me?!’ she asked in a horrified croak.
So that was what she’d thought. ‘No. It doesn’t. But—’
‘Oh!’ she cried, interrupting him. ‘That’s a relief!’
He was diverted before he could correct the conclusion she’d drawn. Laura’s slender body had relaxed as if she’d let out a tense breath, the action drawing his eyes down to where her breasts might be hiding beneath the shirt which was at least two sizes too big.
Fascinated by her, he kept his investigation going and finished his scrutiny, observing the poor quality of her skirt and scuffed sneakers. Long legs, though. Slightly tanned, slender and shapely.
He felt a kick of interest in his loins and strangled it at birth. Laura wasn’t his kind of woman. He adored women of all kinds, but he preferred them with fire coming out of their ears.
‘Laura,’ he began, unusually hesitant.
Sue jumped in. ‘Hang on. If you haven’t come to stay, why bring a removal van?’ she asked in a suspicious tone.
‘I’m about to explain,’ he snapped.
He frowned at her because he didn’t want her to be there. This was between him and Laura. Like it or not, Laura would have to go and he didn’t want anyone else complicating matters when he told her the truth.
He’d tell her straight, no messing. Disguising the news with soft words wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to the situation.
He sought Laura’s wondering gaze again, strangely irritated by her quietly desperate passivity. She ought to be yelling at him, demanding to know what he was doing, persuading him to go and never return. But she meekly waited for the world to fall in on her.
He wanted to jerk her into life. To make her lose her temper and to see some passion fly. At the same time, he felt an overwhelming urge to protect her as he might protect a defenceless animal or a tiny baby. She was too vulnerable for her own good. Too easy to wound. Hell, what was he going to do?
In two strides he’d breached the distance between them. With the wall behind her, she had nowhere to go though he had the impression that she would have vanished through it if she could.
Grimly he took her arm, felt her quiver when he did so. Looking deeply into her extraordinary eyes, he saw that she recognised he was going to tell her something unpleasant.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered, hating the way she made him feel. Firmly he pushed her rigid body into the kitchen chair.
And inexplicably he kept a hand on her shoulder, intensely aware of its fragility, of the fineness of the bone structure of her face as she stared up at him in fear and apprehension, drowning him, making him flounder with those great big eyes.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
Feeling distinctly unsettled by her, he dragged up a chair and sat close to her. Immediately she shrank away from him, covering her knees with her hands primly. His mouth tightened.
He loathed seeing her like this, a slave to her past, to the constant belittling by Enid which had relentlessly ground away her confidence. It had been just like the elements, the wind and the rain out there on the moors, grinding down solid rock over the years. She needed to leave. To find life. Her true self.
Confused by his own passionate views of Laura’s future, he plunged in, eager to send her out into the world.
‘When I said that I’m not staying here with you, Laura,’ he said firmly, ‘I meant that you won’t be living here at all. I’ve bought Thrushton Hall from Tony. I’m moving in.’
‘Moving…in?’
She was blinking, her eyes glazed over as if she didn’t understand. He tried again so that there would be no mistake.
‘Correct. You, Laura, will have to move out. Pronto.’
Laura let out a strangled gasp. Her stomach went into free fall, making her feel faint.
‘No!’ she whispered in pure horror. ‘This is my home! All I’ve ever known! Tony wouldn’t do that to me!’
‘Yes, he would,’ Sue muttered. ‘He’s a loathsome little creep.’
‘That’s true,’ Cassian said in heartfelt agreement.
Laura stared at the implacable Cassian, her brain in a fog. ‘This is ridiculous! I live here!’
‘Not any more.’
She gave a little cry. ‘I’ve been paying the bills and maintaining the house ever since Tony disappeared! You—you can’t turn us out of here!’ she said weakly.
‘Us.’
Suddenly alert, he turned to scan the photographs around the room, his eyebrows asking an unspoken question.
‘My son,’ she mumbled, still dazed by Cassian’s announcement. ‘Adam,’ she added blankly as tears of despair welled up in her eyes. ‘He’s nine.’ She saw Cassian’s eyes narrow, as he began to make a calc
ulation and she jumped in before he could say anything. ‘Yes, if you’re wondering, I was eighteen when he was born!’ she defied hysterically, bracing herself for some sign of disapproval.
Cassian, however, seemed unfazed. ‘You and your son,’ he said quietly. ‘No one else living with you?’
Suddenly she wanted to startle him as he’d startled her. Panic and fear were making her unstable. A spurt of anger flashed through her and with uncharacteristic impetuosity she answered;
‘I’m totally alone. I never had a husband—or even a partner!’
Everyone here knew how the travelling salesman from Leeds had flattered her by pretending she was beautiful. He must have seen a gauche, nervous and drab female in ill-fitting clothes and decided it would be easy for his silver tongue to dazzle her. Laura realised now that her transparent innocence, coupled with her teenage desperation to be loved, had been her downfall.
She flinched. There had been one fateful evening of bewilderment and repugnance—on her part—and then the arrival of Adam, nine months later. The shame of what she’d done would live with her for ever. And yet she had Adam, who’d brought joy to her dreary life.
Annoyingly, Cassian took her confession in his stride. ‘I see,’ he said non-committally.
Laura stiffened. ‘No you don’t!’ she wailed. ‘You stroll in here, claiming you’ve bought Thrushton Hall—’
‘Want to see the deeds?’ he enquired, foraging in the back pocket of his jeans.
The colour drained from her face when she saw the document he was holding out to her. Snatching it from him, she frantically unfolded it and read the first few lines, her heart contracting more and more as the truth sank in.
This was Cassian’s house. She would have to leave. Her legs trembled.
‘No! I don’t believe it!’ she whispered, aghast.
Despite the harshness of her childhood, this house held special memories. It was where her mother had lived. Deprived of any tangible memories of her mother, it comforted her that she walked in her mother’s footsteps every day of her life. And Cassian intended to drive her away.
