Stranded For One Scandalous Week (Mills & Boon Modern) (Rebels, Brothers, Billionaires Book 1), Natalie Anderson [android e book reader .txt] 📗

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 do was destroy what was left of his father’s legacy. For him this place on Waiheke Island was the core—the most obvious construct of his father’s deceit. It was the ultimate symbol of his father’s ability to build over the truth with nothing but a fabrication of perfection.

That article had forced all those feelings up and he’d finally come to face the poisonous betrayal of his father’s last actions. To say his final, bitter goodbye so he could forget it all for ever. To finish it, so Leo didn’t need to trouble. But his capable half-brother had already stepped in. He’d hired Merle Jordan to sort out the vast personal collections that had been dumped here in the aftermath of their father’s death. Was there any need for Ash to stay here at all?

Bitterness and an acrid sense of futility swamped him—scouring off the old scab and exposing the raw wound he’d been hiding for years. He’d been helpless the last time he was here, too—watching his desperately unwell mother. Disappointing her beyond redemption. But there was one last thing he needed to do for her—despite his inability to ever secure her forgiveness. And that task wasn’t right for a stranger’s hands—not even the soft, light, careful hands of the archivist standing before him. It was a job only for Ash. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. He had enough regrets regarding his mum already. So he had to stay for a day or so at least to accomplish this last for her—he’d go through her things and dispose of them himself.

Like most people, Ash infinitely preferred pleasure to pain. And the memories he couldn’t restrain now were the worst of his life. So what else could he do but glance again at the welcome radiance of his initially unwanted housemate?

The luscious Merle Jordan’s hair was still mostly tied up in that messy pile while a few wispy curls lingered from the damp heat of the bath. She wore not an ounce of make-up but her pouty lips were a tantalising pink and her eyes were like dark pools in secret caves—their depth indeterminable, possibly dangerous, but still so damn inviting. His senses begged him to step closer, to stare deeper, to touch and discover if she was as soft and yielding as she looked. Sex had always been an escape and he needed escape more than anything in this bitterest of returns.

‘I’m hungry, Merle.’ He couldn’t resist voicing his thoughts.

Her eyes widened and he could’ve sworn the pulse at the base of her neck fluttered faster.

‘Is there anything delicious to eat?’ he added lazily, unable to resist the pleasure of watching her react to such a very little tease.

She swallowed. ‘Um...’

‘Or do I have to find that out for myself as well?’

He suppressed the smirk at her visible flare of irritation.

‘There’s...’ Her voice faded away.

‘Not much?’ he gathered drily, wondering how much more it would take to provoke the real response he just knew she was thinking.

Her expression turned mutinous. Her lashes fluttering her eyes a direct