“You told me to live!” she whispered, slipping her tongue between his lips.

“I am living. This is what I want. Love me. Love me!” she continued.

Her own body was so aroused that she wondered how it could still obey her. But then she was operating on instinct. And love.

Cassian tore his mouth away, his face strained. “But afterward—”

“Forget afterward. This is now,” she said fiercely.

The ecstasy in her body was nothing to the joy in her head, her heart and her soul. Cassian would possess her.

She’s his in the bedroom,

but he can’t buy her love….

The ultimate fantasy becomes a reality

in

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The Unexpected Mistress
Sara Wood

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

CASSIAN lounged contentedly on the roof of the large rented house which he shared in typically cosmopolitan style with two English strippers, a Buddhist from Florida, and a Moroccan herbalist. It was late, the sky a dense black scattered with stars, the air warm and still.

He and his literary agent were watching the snake charmers and acrobats performing in the Djemaa el Fna, Marrakesh’s extraordinary market square. His agent’s mouth had been almost permanently open since they’d emerged onto the roof ten minutes ago and Cassian’s dark eyes hadn’t stopped twinkling in gentle amusement.

‘A tad different from central London,’ his agent marvelled with great understatement, goggling at a group of Saharan nomads who were sweeping majestically through the square.

Men in rags, walking like kings, Cassian thought, reflecting on his belief that outer trappings often concealed the real person beneath.

‘Same world. Different values and desire. Life stripped to its bare necessities. The need to eat, to find shelter and love,’ he observed lazily.

Stirred but not staggered by the scene below, Cassian poured coffee from the silver beaked pot and offered his agent a sweet pastry. After living here for a year, it had all become gloriously familiar to him; the huge lanterns illuminating the storytellers, the contortionists, the clowns and boy dancers, and the crowd of Berbers mingling with an incongruous sprinkling of awestruck tourists.

By now his ears were attuned to the din. Drums, cymbals and western music drowned the hubbub of voices—and also, mercifully, the groans coming from the stall of the dentist who was enthusiastically wielding his pliers.

A willing slave to intense feelings and sensuality, Cassian delightedly inhaled the powerful aroma of humanity mingling with spices and the smell of cooking from the blazing braziers dotted around the square. And he wondered curiously where his passion for living life to the hilt would take him next.

‘So,’ said his agent in bright cocktail-speak, clearly uncomfortable with the culture shock he was experiencing. ‘Now you’ve finished the book, I suppose you and your son are both going home for a while?’

Cassian sipped his Turkish coffee, appreciating its richness. ‘Jai and I have no home,’ he said gravely.

And yet… As if to contradict that statement, an image had come unexpectedly into his mind. Instead of the black night and the ochre buildings, the blazing torches and the patchwork of bright colours below, he saw emerald-green hills laced with grey stone walls, ancient woodlands and small stone villages by a cool, rushing river. The Yorkshire Dales. And, specifically, Thrushton.

Astonished, he inhaled deeply as if he could feel the freshness of the champagne air in his lungs. For the first time in his life he felt a pang of longing for a place he’d once known and loved.

That startled him: he who’d spent his adult life passionately embracing a setting, teasing out its darker side to create one of his popular thrillers…and then leaving without regret for new sensations, new horizons.

‘Still, you must have a great sense of relief,’ his agent persisted. ‘You’ve got your freedom back, for a start. No more sitting hunched over a PC for hour after hour,’ he added jovially, attempting to penetrate the mysterious psyche of the man he knew only as Alan Black.

‘I never lose my freedom. If I ever felt it was threatened,’ Cassian replied quietly, ‘I’d stop writing at once.’

‘Hell, don’t do that! We’ve got another film producer offering us an option on your next book!’ panicked his agent, seeing twelve per cent of a fortune vanishing overnight.

But Cassian had stopped listening. His sharp ears had heard an unusual noise in the narrow alley beside the house. Moving to the low parapet, he could see a man there, curled up in a foetal position and moaning with pain. Someone was running into the darkness of the souk beyond. Without making a fuss, he politely excused himself and went to investigate.

It was a few minutes before he realised that the bruised and battered man he’d hauled into the house was Tony Morris, his old enemy from that very part of England which had sprung to mind so surprisingly at the mention of the word ‘home’.

As Tony blubbered and whimpered, and he silently washed the blood from the flabby face, Cassian found his longing for Yorkshire increasing quite alarmingly, the memories coming hot and fast and extraordinarily insistent.

Ruled by his instincts, he acknowledged that perhaps it was time to go back. Time to immerse himself in the landscape which had reached like loving arms into his unhappy soul and given him solace and peace of mind. Time also to face the devils that haunted his dreams.

And then Tony offered him the opportunity on a plate to do just that.

Laura slammed two mugs on the table and doled out the last of the coffee granules with a preoccupied expression. Coffee wasn’t the only thing she’d have to eliminate from her shopping list. Poverty was staring her in the face.

‘Sue,’ she said urgently to her life-long friend, ‘I’ve got to get a new job sharpish.’

Sue looked sympathetic. ‘Nothing yet, then?’

‘No. And I’ve been searching in Harrogate all this week!’

‘Wow!’ Sue exclaimed, suitably impressed.

Her friend was the only person who knew what a huge step that had been. It was a month now since she’d lost her job. Night after night, Laura had lain awake worrying about her child’s future, his poor health, his fragile state of mind. For Adam’s sake she must find work! She must! she’d thought with increasing panic.

No work was available in Thrushton where she lived, nor in the small community of Grassington nearby. None, either in nearby Skipton.

Up to now her entire existence had been confined to the rolling dales and picturesque stone villages surrounding the River Wharfe. Of the rest of Yorkshire, she knew nothing—let alone England—and the thought of travelling further to work had made her blanch with apprehension.

It was a stupid reaction, she knew, but not one of her making. If she had ever been born with self-assurance and confidence, then it had been crushed by her restrictive up-bringing. If she’d ever had ambition then that too had withered and died, thanks to the critical tongue of her adoptive father’s sister, Aunt Enid, and the scorn and cruelty of her father’s son Tony.

She knew she was submissive and reticent to a fault. But the needs of her own child meant a radical rethink of her life. It didn’t matter to her that she wore jumble sale clothes, but she had to earn good money and buy some decent gear for Adam—or he’d continue to be bullied unmercifully.

‘I’d do anything,’ she said fervently, ‘to ensure we can stay here. This house is my…my…’

‘Comfort blanket,’ supplied Sue with a grin. ‘Be honest. It is.’

Laura glared at her horribly perceptive friend and then let her tense mouth soften in recognition.

‘You’re right. But I need stability and familiarity in my life. Adam too. We’d both go to pieces anywhere else.’

‘I know, duck. I think you’ve got real grit to pluck up the courage to hunt for work in Harrogate.’ Raising a plump arm, Sue patted Laura’s long and elegant hand in admiration. ‘But…it’d be a bit of a nightmare journey without a car, wouldn’t it?’

Laura grimaced. ‘Two buses and a train and a long walk. What choice do I have, though? Nine-year-old boys can eat for England. Mind you, employers weren’t exactly falling over themselves to take me on. I’m fed up! I’ve exhausted every avenue,’ she complained crossly.

‘Must be something out there,’ Sue encouraged.

Laura rolled her eyes. ‘You bet there is. Lap dancing.’

Tension made her join in with Sue’s giggles but it was frustrated resentment that made her jump up and perform a few poses around an imaginary pole. She adopted an ‘I am available’ face and moved her body with sinuous grace. It seemed an easy way to earn money.

‘Crikey. I’d give you five quid!’ Sue said admiringly. ‘Madly erotic. But then you’ve got the most fab legs and body. That monumentally baggy shirt would have to go, though,’ she advised. ‘Wrong colour!’

Hastily smoothing her tousled hair, Laura subsided breathily into the chair and wriggled down her slim skirt—which she’d acquired like most of her clothes from the local jumble sale and which was almost a size too small.

She felt quite shaken by her erotic performance. She was a natural. Perhaps these things could be passed on genetically, she thought gloomily. After all, she was a bastard. That had been rammed into her enough times.

If only she knew what her real mother had been like! Then she wouldn’t have to wonder if her mother had been a tart, as Aunt Enid had claimed.

‘She was a slut!’ Enid—her father’s sister—had claimed. ‘Your mother slept with anyone and everyone. And married to your father, a respectable solicitor! Diana brought the name of Morris into disrepute.’

Laura would never know the truth. Would never know why her mother had been unfaithful. Would never know the identity of her real father. Nobody else knew that she wasn’t George Morris’s child.

As soon as Laura was born, her mother had run away and George had had no choice but to bring Laura up as his daughter. Which he’d resented. That explained his indifference and total lack of affection.

Misty-eyed, she looked around the comfortable, stone-flagged kitchen with its huge Aga and deep inglenook fireplace, wincing as she imagined the uproar when her mother’s infidelity had been discovered. And she understood how hard it must have been for her ‘father’ to accept his wife’s bastard.

Together with Aunt Enid, he had created a regime so narrow and unbending in an effort to keep her on the straight and narrow, that she had turned into a timid mouse. Albeit, she thought wryly, with unrivalled domestic skills and a posture a ramrod would be proud of. Pity she didn’t have other qualifications. She might be more employable.

‘You know, Sue,’ she confided, ‘sometimes I’ve felt as though I’m prostituting myself at interviews with all that smiling, all that looking eager and charming and willing…oh, I hate it all!’

Close to losing control, she thumped the table, and Sue jumped in surprise at Laura’s unusual vehemence.

‘Something’ll turn up,’ her friend soothed, not very convincingly. ‘I’ve got my dental appointment later, in Harrogate. I’ll get the local paper for you to look through the Jobs Vacant column.’

‘I’ll do anything decent and legal. I’m willing to learn, conscientious and hard-working…but the downside is that I’m plain and shy and my clothes are out of the Ark,’ Laura muttered. ‘I see all the other applicants glowing with confidence in their make-up and attractive outfits and I know they’re laughing at me behind their smooth, lily-white hands!’ Glaring, she held up her own. ‘Look at mine! They’re rough enough to snag concrete. I tell you, Sue, I’d be just as good as them, given a lick of lippy, a decent haircut and a ten-gallon drum of hand cream!’

‘I’ve never known you so forceful,’ Sue marvelled.

‘Well. It’s because I’m angry.’ Laura’s blue eyes flashed with rare inner fire. ‘When will the world recognise that appearances aren’t everything? That it’s what’s here—’ she banged her chest vigorously ‘—and here—’ her head had the same treatment ‘—that’s important! And what’s that removal van doing outside?’ she wondered, breaking off with a frown.

‘Getting lost,’ suggested Sue without interest. ‘Nobody round here’s moving that I know about.’

Built from local rock in the Middle Ages and enlarged in the Georgian period, Thrushton Hall stood at the far end of the twenty other stone houses that comprised the tiny village, a cheerful cottage garden separating the handsome manor house from the narrow lane outside—which led only to the river.

Laura leaned across the deep window embrasure and peered through the stone mullioned window. Clearly the van driver had missed a turning. And yet the name plaque on the low drystone wall seemed to satisfy the removal men who’d jumped from the cab, because they brought out a flask and sandwiches and proceeded to settle themselves on the wall to eat.

‘Well, unknown to us, we’ve become a designated picnic spot!’ Laura declared wryly. A battered four-wheel drive cruised up and drew to a halt behind the small van. ‘Here’s another picnicker!’ she called back to her friend. ‘Huh! We’ll have a coachload of tourists here in a minute and I’ll have to give them sun umbrellas, waste bins and loo facilities! Sue, come and…!’

But her words died in her throat. From the Range Rover emerged a tall, slim figure in black jeans and T-shirt. The breath left her lungs as if they’d been surgically deflated.

‘What’s the matter?’ Sue hurried up, then grabbed Laura’s arm with a gasp. ‘Blow me! Isn’t that…?’

Laura’s eyes had grown huge, her lashes dark against the unnatural pallor of her face.

‘Yes!’ she choked. ‘It’s Cassian!’

His appearance was so unexpected, so utterly bizarre, that she stood rooted to the ground in numb disbelief while he chatted to the men. And then he began to turn to the house. Like children caught doing something naughty, she and Sue hastily dodged back out of sight.

‘What a hunk he’s become!’ Sue declared. ‘He’s absolutely scrummy. But…why’s he here—of all places?!’

Laura couldn’t speak at all. Her mind was whirling, confused by the sight of the dark and sinister figure, whose sudden arrival seventeen years ago—and equally sudden disappearance five years later—had split her family apart.

She’d been ten at the time. Her father had begun to talk of nothing but a female client who’d come to his legal practice. One day he had announced that he was to marry the artist he’d been defending—and that his bride and her twelve-year-old son would be moving in. It was only then that Laura had realised George must have divorced her mother.

Tony, up till then the adored and spoilt only son, had been scarlet with fury at the news. For her, the arrival of Bathsheba and Cassian had been a revelation. Suddenly the house had burst into life with colour and laughter and music and Laura had quickly become familiar with the smell of turpentine mingling with that of the herbs and spices of exotic dishes.

But almost immediately there had been titanic rows over Cassian’s behaviour. Laura could see him now; a silent and glowering boy who couldn’t behave conventionally and who’d refused to fit into the community.

Vividly she recalled his defiance in the face of Aunt Enid’s rigid rules and the way he’d disappeared for days, seemingly existing without food or comfort.

And while she’d envied his independence and stubborn refusal to be anyone other than himself, she’d feared that very freedom he exemplified. He had been untameable, with an adventurous, bohemian past and he came from a greater world than she or her friends could ever know or understand.

And so they were strangers to one another. She had admired and watched him from afar, wishing she had his nerve, envying his daring.

As he had grown into a young man, the depth of his inner assurance had attracted the girls like bees to a honeypot. He was the local Bad Boy, and women longed to be noticed by him. One or two were. The chosen dazed and dazzled girls had huddled in Grassington square, discussing with awe the passion they’d unwittingly unleashed, while she’d listened in horror.

And, she was ashamed to say, with a secret excitement. Not that she’d want to be part of his life at all. He scared her though she didn’t know why, and she couldn’t fathom what made her heart race whenever she set eyes on him.

It was quickening now, bringing a flush to her cheeks. Squirming with dismay, she took a cautious peek out of the window. Cassian had resumed talking to the removal men, one foot on the low wall, an expressive hand gesticulating as he described something.

A strange exhilaration caught hold of her, something that coiled warm and throbbing in her veins. She stared, mesmerised. Cassian had charisma. He had always been different, magnetic, special.

Laura shot a glance at Sue. Even her sensible, down-to-earth friend was gazing open-mouthed at him, her expression nakedly admiring. And Sue was in a state of tension, her fingers gripping the curtain tightly.

Just as she was, Laura thought in surprise, releasing the creased curtain in embarrassment. She didn’t like being disturbed like this and she felt uncomfortable that her nerves were jiggling about all over the place.

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 futile 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 calculation 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.

‘You have no choice.’

Her head snapped up, sending her hair whirling about her set face. A frightening wildness was possessing her. Hot on its heels came an urge to lash out and pummel Cassian till his composure vanished and he began to notice her as a person instead of an irritating obstacle he needed to kick out of his way.

Her emotions terrified and appalled her. They seemed to fill her body, surging up uncontrollably with an evil, unstoppable violence. She fought them, groping for some kind of discipline over them because she didn’t know what would happen if she ever allowed those clamouring passions to surface.

‘You don’t want this house! You can’t possibly want to live here!’ she whispered, hoarse with horror.

His calm, oddly warm eyes melted into hers.

‘I do. I can.’

She took a deep, shuddering breath but she was losing a battle with her temper. Her child’s security was threatened. She wouldn’t allow that.

‘This is my home!’ she insisted tightly, clinging for dear life to the last vestiges of restraint. ‘Adam’s home!’

He shrugged as if homes were unimportant. ‘I had the impression that it was Tony’s. Now it’s mine. Do you pay rent?’

‘N-no—’

‘Then you have no legal rights to stay.’

Laura gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in consternation. ‘Surely I do! I must have some kind of protection—’

‘There could be an expensive legal case,’ he conceded. ‘But you’d have to go eventually. You’d save time and hassle if you did so straight away.’ He smiled in a friendly way, as if that would console her. ‘You’ll find somewhere else. You might discover that moving from Thrushton turns out to be a good idea in the long run.’

She glared and was incensed when his eyes flickered with satisfaction. It was as if he welcomed her anger!

‘What do you know?’ she yelled. Dear heaven! she thought. She was losing control, acting like a banshee—and couldn’t stop herself! ‘It’s a stupid idea! For a start, I don’t have any money!’ she choked, scarlet from the shameful admission. But he had to know her circumstances. ‘There’s nowhere I can go!’ she cried in agitation. ‘Nowhere I can afford!’

He continued to gaze at her with a steely eye, his heart clearly unmoved by her plight. And she knew that her hours in her beloved house—his house, she thought furiously—were probably numbered.

‘It’s true. She’s dead broke. Lost her job,’ confirmed Sue, suddenly butting in. Cassian jerked his head around in surprise as if he, like Laura, had forgotten Sue was there. ‘I reckon she can stay put if she chooses—’

‘I don’t deny that.’ Cassian flung an arm across the back of the chair, his eyes relentlessly fixed to Laura’s. She flinched as his expression darkened, becoming unnervingly menacing. ‘But you ought to know that living with me wouldn’t be pleasant,’ he drawled.

‘Meaning?’ Sue demanded.

He shrugged. ‘I’d be…difficult.’ His eyes seemed to be issuing a direct challenge. ‘I’d eat her food, play music late at night, change the locks…’ There was a provocative curve to his mouth, something…unnerving in his expression as his gaze swept her up and down. ‘Laura, I’m not changing my way of living for anybody, and I have the distinct impression that you’d be shocked by the way I wander about half-naked after my morning shower, with just a small towel covering me and my—’

‘Please!’ she croaked.

‘I’m just warning you,’ he murmured with a shrug.

She felt hot. The rawness of his huge energy field reached out to enfold her in its greedy clasp and she instinctively flattened herself against the back of the chair.

She blushed, ashamed to be assailed by the unwanted rivulets of molten liquid which were coursing through her veins. His sexuality was too blatant, too unavoidable. This was something alien to her and she couldn’t cope with it. Didn’t want it at all. Living with him would be a nightmare.

‘It’s no use! I can’t stay if he’s living here!’ she declared to Sue shakily. ‘Sharing would be impossible!’

‘Don’t you give up!’ Sue snapped. She glared at Cassian. ‘Laura’s been far too sheltered all her life to manage anywhere else—so you leave her alone, you ruthless, selfish brute. Push off back where you came from!’

Cassian rose, his eyes dark and glittering. ‘I’m not going anywhere, whatever insults you choose to hurl at me. I’m moving in, once the removal men have finished their early lunch.’

‘Lunch?’ With a start, Sue glanced at the kitchen clock and let out a groan. ‘Oh, crikey! My dental appointment! Never mind. I’ll cancel it,’ she offered urgently. ‘You need backup, Laura—’

‘No,’ she said quickly, sick with nerves, hating the wobble in her voice.

This was her battle. Sue was making things worse. Cassian had visibly tensed when Sue had shouted at him. He’d listen to logic, she was sure, but he wouldn’t be bullied.

Proud and erect, she stood up with great dignity, conscious, however, that her five-seven didn’t impinge on Cassian’s six foot.

And they were now only inches apart, waves of heat thickening the space between them, pouring into her, the heavy, lifeless air clogging up her throat. Laura gulped, feeling that all the power was draining from her legs till they trembled from weakness.

‘Well! Are you fighting me, Laura?’ he taunted.

Rebellion drained away too when she met his challenging eyes. His confidence was daunting. How could she fight him when he held all the cards?

‘I—I…’

‘Still the mouse,’ he mocked, but with a hint of regret in his dark regard. ‘Still meekly huddling in the corner, afraid of being trodden on.’

‘You rat!’ Sue gasped.

‘It’s true!’ he cried, his voice shaking in an inexplicable passion. ‘She can’t even stand up for her own flesh and blood!’

‘Leave her alone!’ Sue raged.

‘I can’t! She has to go! I have no intention of having a lodger around!’ Cassian snapped.

With a whimper, Laura jerked her head away and found herself staring straight at the photo she’d taken of her son on his ninth birthday. Her heart lurched miserably.

Adam looked ecstatic. They’d spent the day at Skipton, where they’d explored the castle, picnicked by the river, and splashed out on a special treat of tea and cakes in a cosy café. Cheap and simple as day trips went, but a joy for both of them.

The recriminations surrounding his conception had been hard to bear. Yet, even in the depths of her shame, Laura had felt a growing joy. This child was hers. And when he was born, her emotions had overwhelmed her, unnerving her with their unexpected intensity.

Love had poured from her and it had felt as if her heart would burst with happiness. She’d never known she had such feelings. Her child had reached into her very core and found a well of passion hidden there.

For hours she had cuddled her baby, his warm, living flesh snuggling up to her. And it had been more than compensation for the hard, unremitting drudgery which Enid had imposed on her as a punishment for her ‘lewd behaviour’.

She’d hardly cared because she had had her son to love. Someone to love her back.

Laura squared her shoulders. She would never let him down. Adam was horribly vulnerable and deeply sensitive. Cassian couldn’t be allowed to uproot them both. Did he honestly imagine that they’d pack their bags without a murmur, and tramp the streets like vagabonds till someone took them in?

She flung up her head and spoke before she changed her mind. ‘You’re wrong about me! I will fight you for my home! Tooth and nail—’

‘To defend your lion cub,’ he murmured, his voice low and vibrating.

Her eyes hardened at his mockery. ‘For the sake of my son,’ she corrected in scathing tones, infuriated by his condescension. ‘Sue, get going. I can deal with this better on my own. Besides, I’d rather you didn’t witness the blood he sheds,’ she muttered through her teeth.

‘Sounds promising,’ Cassian remarked lazily.

Laura ignored him because she thought she might choke with anger if she said anything. The situation clearly amused him. For her, it was deadly serious.

‘Come on, Sue. Off you go and get those molars drilled,’ she ordered tightly.

Secretly astonished by her own curt and decisive manner, she pushed her protesting friend towards the door.

Naturally, Sue resisted. ‘I can’t believe this! The worm turns! This I’ve gotta see!’

‘I’ll get the camera out,’ Laura muttered. ‘Please, please, go!’

‘I want close-ups!’ Sue hissed. ‘A blow by blow account, when I get back!’

‘Whatever! Go!’

It took her a minute or two before Sue could be budged but eventually she went, flinging dark and lurid warnings in Cassian’s direction and promising Laura a stick of rock from Hong Kong to brain Cassian with if he was still around.

Quivering like a leaf, Laura shut the door, braced herself, and turned to face him. With Sue gone, it felt as if she was very alone. And she would be—till the following afternoon. Adam was going to his best friend’s house after school and sleeping over. It was just her and Cassian, then.

Her heart thudded loudly in her chest at the strange pall of silence which seemed to have fallen on the house, intensifying the strained atmosphere.

Cassian was looking at her speculatively, his eyes half-closed in contemplation, a half-smile on his lips.

‘It’s a problem, isn’t it?’ he said mildly.

‘The camera or the blood?’ she flung back with rare sarcasm.

The black eyes twinkled disconcertingly. ‘You and me. In this house together.’

The huskiness of his voice took her by surprise. It contrasted oddly with the intensity of his manner. There was a determined set to his jaw and the arch of his sensual mouth had flattened into a firm line.

‘You can live anywhere. I can’t—’ she began.

‘You must have friends who’d take you in,’ he purred.

‘I couldn’t impose!’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

She felt close to tears of anger and frustration.

‘You don’t understand! I have to stay!’ she insisted frantically.

‘Why?’

‘Because…’ She went scarlet.

‘Yes?’ he prompted.

She stared at him, unwilling to expose her fear. But she saw no other way out.

Her eyes blazed with loathing. ‘If you really want to know, I’m scared of going anywhere else!’ she cried shakily.

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Then it’s time you did.’

She gasped. So much for compassion. But Cassian would never know what it was to be uncertain and shy, or to be uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. Her pulses pounded as her heart rate accelerated.

‘There’s more,’ she said, her lips dry with fear.

‘Yes?’

She swallowed. This was deeply personal. Normally, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged this out of her, but Cassian had to realise what this house meant to her.

‘My…’ She felt a fool. He was looking at her with cold hard eyes and she was having to expose her innermost secrets. For Adam, she told herself. And found the strength. Her eyes blazed blue and bright into his. ‘My mother lived here,’ she began tightly. ‘So?’

She drew in a sharp breath of irritation. This wasn’t going to get her anywhere. But…he’d adored his own mother. Wouldn’t he understand?

‘Cassian,’ she grated. ‘Is your mother still alive?’

He looked puzzled. ‘Yes. Why?’

Thank heaven. Maybe she had a chance. ‘You still see her, speak to her?’

‘She’s remarried. She lives in France, but yes, I see her. And I speak to her each week. What are you getting at?’ he asked curiously.

She offered up a small prayer to the Fates. ‘Imagine not knowing anything about her. Not even how she looked. Think what it would have been like, not to know that she’s beautiful, a gifted artist, and full of life and fire!’ Her eyes glowed feverishly with desperate passion.

‘I don’t see the—’

‘Well, that’s how it is for me!’ she cried shakily. ‘No one will speak of my mother and all trace of her was removed the day she left.’ Her voice broke and she took a moment to steady herself. ‘I wouldn’t know anything at all about her if it wasn’t for Mr Walker—’

‘Who?’ he exclaimed sharply.

‘He’s someone in the village. A lonely old man with a vile temper but he can’t walk far so I do his weekly shopping. He gives me a list and money for what he needs. I lug his shopping back, he complains about half of it and we both feel better.’

Her eyes went dreamy for a moment. Out of the blue, Mr Walker had once said that her mother was lovely. In his opinion, he’d said, Diana had been wasted on boring George Morris.

‘What did he say about her?’ Cassian asked warily.

She was surprised he was interested, but she smiled, remembering. ‘That she was passionate about life.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. He said she was kind and very beautiful.’ Laura sighed. ‘Since I’m nothing like that, I think he was probably winding me up. When I asked him for more information he refused to say anything else.’

‘I see,’ he clipped, dark brows meeting hard together.

‘The point is that this house means more to me than just bricks and mortar and general sentimentality.’ Desperate now, she felt herself leaning forwards, punching out her words. ‘Thrushton Hall is all I have of my mother!’ she jerked out miserably.

‘Surely you must know about your mother—!’

‘No! I don’t!’ Wouldn’t he listen to her? Hadn’t he heard? ‘I don’t know what she looked like, how or why she left me, nothing!’

She was aware of Cassian’s stunned expression and took heart. He would see her plight and take pity on her.

‘Cassian, other than the house, I have nothing else to remember her by, not one single item she ever possessed. Everything has vanished. The only actual trace of her is me!’

She steadied her voice, aware that it had been shaking so strongly with emotion that she’d been almost incoherent.

‘I don’t believe this!’ he muttered.

‘It’s true!’ she cried desperately. ‘I’ve had to rely on my imagination! I’ve visualised her in this house, doing everyday things. That is where she must have stood to wash up, to cook,’ she cried, pointing with a fierce jab of her finger. ‘She must have sat at that very table to eat, to drink cups of tea. She would have stood at that window and gazed at the view of the soaring fells, just as I do. I can imagine her here and think of her going about her daily life. If—if I leave Thrushton,’ she stumbled, ‘I would have to leave behind those fragile half-memories of my mother. I’d have nothing at all left of her—and the little that I have is infinitely precious to me!’ she sobbed.

She saw Cassian’s jaw tighten and waited seemingly for an eternity before he answered.

‘You must make enquiries about her,’ he muttered, his tone flat and toneless.

Laura stared at him helplessly. How could she do that?

‘I can’t,’ she retorted miserably.

‘Afraid?’ he probed, his eyes unusually watchful.

‘Yes, if you must know!’ she retorted with a baleful glare.

‘Laura, you need to know—’

‘I can’t,’ she cried helplessly. ‘She’s probably started a new life somewhere and I could ruin it by turning up on her doorstep. I couldn’t do that to her. If it was all right for us to meet, she would have come to see me. I can’t take the initiative, can I?’

He was silent, his face stony. But she knew what he was thinking. That perhaps her mother hadn’t wanted to be reminded of her ‘mistake’.

Closing her mind to such a horrible idea, she lifted her chin in an attempt to appear tough. Though even a fool would have noticed her stupid, feeble trembling.

‘You must learn the truth—’ he began huskily.

‘No!’

She wrung her hands, frustrated that he couldn’t see how scared she was of confronting her mother. Maybe she was flighty. Maybe she’d had a string of lovers. Maybe…

‘Cassian,’ she croaked, voicing her worst fear, ‘I can’t pursue this. I—I just couldn’t face being rejected by her.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘How the devil do you know!’ she yelled. ‘She left me, didn’t she? Though…I suppose she knew that George would have won custody, whatever she did. She’d run away. He’d been looking after me and was a lawyer, after all. Mother must have known she didn’t have a chance. To be honest, I don’t even know if there was a court hearing about me. There might have been—and she might have tried to take me with her. I’ll never know. Nobody would ever talk about her.’ Slowly her head lifted till her troubled eyes met Cassian’s. ‘Mr Walker said she was full of life. Knowing how your mother felt, I understand why anyone with fire and energy would have found it difficult to live here,’ she said with dignity.

Cassian looked uncomfortable. ‘Laura,’ he said in a gravelly voice, ‘this is nothing to do with me. Not one of your arguments is sufficient reason for you to stay. Excuse me.’

He strode into the hall. She heard the sound of men moving about, presumably bringing in his possessions. She buried her head in her hands. She’d failed.

Cassian saw her emerging from the kitchen a few moments later, her eyes pink from crying, silver tear-track streaks glistening on her face. He gritted his teeth and continued to organise the stacking of his few belongings in the spacious hall.

Behind his bent back, he could hear the fast rasp of her breathing and sensed she was close to hysteria. And he felt as if he’d whipped a puppy.

‘All done, guv,’ announced one of the men.

Grateful for the diversion, he gave Len and Charlie his undivided attention. ‘Thanks. Great meeting you,’ he said warmly, shaking the men’s hands in turn.

He slid his wallet from his back pocket and handed over the fee plus a tip, brushing away their astonished refusals of such a large sum of money. What was cash to him? It came easily and went the same way.

Charlie had told him about his new baby and Len was nearing retirement. They could both do with a little extra and he believed passionately in circulating money while he had the earning power.

‘I had a windfall. Might as well share it, eh?’ he explained. Like an obscene advance from a film company.

‘Yeah? You’re a gent,’ said Len in awe.

‘Thanks,’ added Charlie, looking stunned.

‘Have a pint on me.’

Len grinned. ‘Treat the wife to a slap-up meal and a holiday, more like!’

‘Buy a baby buggy!’ enthused Charlie.

He saw them out, found them shaking his hand again and accepted an invitation to visit Charlie’s baby and to have tea and cakes with Len and his wife. After much scribbling of addresses, he returned to the tense and angry Laura.

‘What are you trying to do by gossiping out there—drive me to screaming pitch?!’ she demanded furiously, her hands on shapely hips.

He stole a moment to admire them. ‘Being friendly. Would you prefer I dismissed them with a curt nod and a growl?’ he enquired.

She flushed. ‘No…oh, you’re impossible!’

He felt pleased. Her eyes were sparkling, a hot flush brightening her cheeks. If only he could release her emotions…

He bit back an impulse to invite her to stay so he could do just that, and followed up her remark instead.

‘I just live by a different code from you. Now…will I push you into suicide mode if I just check I’ve got all my possessions here?’

She blinked her huge eyes, dark lashes fluttering as she eyed the stack of boxes, his luggage, and three bags of shopping.

‘Do you mean…that this is all you own in the whole world?’

‘It’s all I need. Books, computer stuff and a few mementoes. Plus a few changes of clothes and some food stores.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she muttered.

‘Not many people do. Now, this is what I’ve decided,’ he said brusquely, suddenly needing to get away from the censure of her accusing eyes. ‘I’d booked a room in a hotel in Grassington because I didn’t know what state the house would be in. I’ll go there now and leave you to start looking for temporary accommodation. Someone will take you in for a few days till you can find somewhere permanent. I’ll be back in the morning. To take possession.’

He turned on his heel. Flinched at her horrified intake of breath as it rasped through emotion-choked airways.

‘Cassian!’ she pleaded in desperation.

But he’d opened the door, was striding up the path and ignoring the sound of her weeping. It would be good for her, he kept telling himself, wrenching at the door handle of his car.

She needed to find out the truth about her mother. But first she’d have to stand up for herself, to gain some strength of will—and being forced to move would make her take her life in her hands at last.

He crunched the gears. And accelerated away, angry with her for making him feel such a swine.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN he turned up the next morning she was beating the hell out of a lump of dough and he couldn’t help smiling because her small fists were clearly using it as a substitute for his head.

Her glare would have put off a seasoned terrorist but, knowing how normally reclusive she was, he could only be pleased. This was precisely the reaction he’d hoped for.

‘Any progress?’ he asked, coming straight to the point.

‘No.’ She jammed her teeth together and kneaded the bread with a fascinating ferocity. ‘If you must know, I didn’t try! And if you’re looking for coffee,’ she said, as he opened and shut cupboards at random, ‘you’re out of luck. There isn’t any.’

He went to find some in the supplies he’d brought, came back and put on the kettle. The bread dough looked so elastic she could have used it for bungy jumping.

‘You did discuss leaving with your son, didn’t you?’ he enquired.

Laura slammed the dough into a bowl and covered it with a cloth. ‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ she said grimly, pushing the bowl into the warming oven to prove and slamming the heavy iron door with some force. ‘Adam’s been with a friend. I won’t see him till this afternoon after school. Besides…’ Her face crumpled and he realised that she looked very tired and pale as if she’d been up most of the night. ‘I can’t tell him!’ she confessed helplessly.

‘You can. You’re stronger than you think—’ he began.

‘But he’s not!’

Quite frantic now, she began to fling fresh ingredients into a mixing bowl and he began to think that the resulting cake would weigh a ton.

‘In what way isn’t he strong?’ he asked quietly.

‘Every way,’ she muttered, measuring out flour carelessly. ‘Cassian, you know what it’s like to be uprooted from somewhere familiar. You loved the narrow boat where you lived with your mother before you came here after her marriage, and you loathed Thrushton—’

‘Not the house itself, or the countryside,’ he corrected, wondering what she’d say if he brushed away the dusting of flour on her nose and cheeks. It made her look cute and appealing and he didn’t want that. It was very distracting. ‘Just the atmosphere. The stifling rules,’ he said, miraculously keeping track of the conversation.

‘Well, moving is traumatic, especially when you’re a child. Can’t you put yourself in Adam’s place and see how awful it would be for him to leave the place of his birth?’ she implored, pushing away her hair with the back of her hand. ‘Making friends is hard for him. He’d find it a nightmare settling into another school.’

‘Life’s tough. Children need to be challenged,’ he said softly. He passed her a coffee.

‘Challenged?!’ She flung in the flour haphazardly and began to fold it into the cake mixture as if declaring war on it. ‘He’s sensitive. It would destroy him!’ she cried, her face aflame with desperation.

‘Here. That’ll turn into a rugby ball if you’re not careful. Let me.’

He took the bowl from her shaking hands, combined the flour and the abused mixture with a metal spoon then scooped it all into a cake tin. Gently he slid the tin into the baking oven and checked the clock.

She stood in helpless misery, her hands constantly twisting together.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.

‘You say your son is sensitive,’ he mused. ‘Is he happy where he is at school now?’

She frowned. ‘N-no—’

‘Well, then!’

‘But another one could be worse—!’

‘Or better.’

‘I doubt it. He’d be such a bag of nerves that he’d turn up on his first day with “victim” written all over his face,’ she wailed. Her eyes were haunted. ‘You can’t do this to my child! I love him! He’s everything I have!’

His guts twisted and he had to wait before he could speak.

‘And you? How will you feel, living elsewhere?’

His voice had suddenly softened, caressing her gently. She drew in a sharp breath and shuddered with horror.

‘I can’t bear to think of going,’ she mumbled pitifully. ‘I love every inch of this house. I know it, and the garden, the village, the hills and the dales, as well as I know the back of my hand. There’s no lovelier place on God’s earth. My heart is here. Tear me away,’ she said, her voice shaking with passion, ‘and you rip out a part of me!’

‘I’m sorry that you will both find it hard,’ he said curtly. ‘But…there it is. That’s life. One door closes, another one opens.’

Laura gasped at his callousness. It was as she feared. He was determined on his course of action. She turned away as tears rushed up, choking her. Her hands gripped the back of a chair for support as she imagined Adam facing a new playground, new teachers, new, more intimidating bullies…

‘All right, Cassian!’ She whirled back in a fury. ‘You open and close all the doors you want—I’m staying put!’

He smiled faintly and his slow and thorough gaze swept her from head to toe.

‘Flour on your face,’ he murmured.

Before she knew it, his fingers were lightly travelling over her skin while she gazed into his lazily smiling eyes, eyes so dark and liquid that she felt she was melting into a warm Mediterranean sea.

By accident, his caressing fingers touched her mouth. And instantly something seared through her like a heated lance, tightening every nerve she possessed and sending an electric charge into her system.

She struggled to focus, to forget the terrible effect he was having on her. He was throwing her out. Going gooey-eyed wouldn’t help her at all. Rot him—was he doing this deliberately? Her eyes blazed with anger.

‘If you want me to go, you’ll have to get the removal men to carry me out!’ she flung wildly.

‘No need. I’d carry you out myself. I don’t think it would be beyond my capabilities,’ he mused.

In a split second she saw herself in his arms, helpless, at his mercy…‘Touch me and you’ll regret it!’ she spat, thoroughly uncomfortable with her treacherous feelings.

‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly, apparently fascinated by her parted lips and her accelerated breathing. ‘I think I might.’ Equally slowly, a dazzling grin spread across his face. It was at once wicked and beguiling and made Laura’s stomach contract. ‘But,’ he drawled, ‘that wouldn’t stop me from doing so.’

She blinked in confusion. There were undercurrents here she didn’t understand. Somehow she broke the spell that had kept her eyes locked to his and she looked around desperately for a diversion.

‘I’d fight you!’ she muttered.

‘Mmm. Then I’d have to hold you very, very tightly, wouldn’t I?’ he purred.

Her throat dried. Almost without realising, she began to tidy the dresser, despite the fact she was so agitated that she kept knocking things over.

Cassian came up behind her. Although there had been no sound, she knew he was near because the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her spine tingled. Sure enough, his hand reached out, covering hers where it rested on a figurine she’d toppled.

‘You’ll break something,’ he chided, his breath whispering warm and soft over her ear, like a summer breeze in the valley.

‘I don’t give a toss!’ she jerked out stupidly, snatching her hand away.

He caught the flying figure deftly and set it on the dresser. His arm was whipcord strong, his hands big but with surprisingly long, delicate fingers.

‘Laura, surrender. You can’t fight the inevitable.’

She blinked, her huge eyes fixed on his neatly manicured nails. Her body was in turmoil and she didn’t know why. It was her head that ought to be in frantic disarray.

She should be panicking about her eviction. Instead, she was finding herself totally transfixed by his breathing, the cottony smell of his T-shirt, the accompanying warm maleness…

Oh, help me, someone! she groaned inwardly, trying to gather her wits.

‘It can’t be inevitable! Have pity on us!’ she whispered.

‘I am. That’s why I’m chucking you out. And when I do, would you like a fireman’s lift, or something more conventional?’ he murmured in amusement, turning her to face him.

Laura’s knees weren’t functioning properly. She wobbled and he steadied her. He was incredibly close, his smooth, tanned face sympathetic and kind. It didn’t make sense. But his gentle smile broke her resistance. For a terrible, shaming instant, she was horribly tempted to reach up and kiss that inviting mouth so that the tingling of her own lips could be assuaged.

Her eyes widened at her temerity. This was madness! Where were her inhibitions when she needed them? She’d never felt like this. Never had such an overwhelming urge to abandon what was decent and proper and to submit to physical temptations!

It was a relief that he couldn’t know how she felt. The unguarded, unwanted and definitely unhinged response of her own body shocked her. It felt as if she was glowing. Erotic sensations were centred in places where he shouldn’t have reached. It was awful. Like finding she enjoyed sin.

Shame brought high colour to her cheeks. A terrible thought flashed through her mind. Perhaps she was a slut. Perhaps her mother had been… No! Her hand flew to her mouth in horror, dismayed where his casual behaviour had taken her.

‘Laura,’ he murmured, drawing her imperceptibly closer.

‘Let me go! I told you!’ she moaned, wriggling away from the pressure of his hands and emerging hot and flustered because of the skin-tingling way they had slid down her arms. She moved back warily. ‘I don’t want you to touch me!’ she stormed. ‘Let’s get this straight! If you do force me out, I’ll come straight back in!’

His eyes danced with bright amusement. ‘I’d lock the door.’

‘I’d break a window!’ she retorted heatedly.

‘Do you intend your son to use the same point of entry?’

Laura ground her teeth in frustration. Her argument was futile and they both knew it. That didn’t help her temper much.

‘So you turn out a woman and a child, both of whom were born in this house! How do you think you’ll be treated by people in this village?’ she flared.

‘Like a leper. However, it’s not something that would disturb my sleep,’ he replied gravely.

No. It wouldn’t. Cassian never worried about the opinions of others. In her desperation she tried another tack. A last-ditch attempt to find a scrap of compassion in Cassian’s granite heart.

‘Adam is asthmatic. Emotional upsets can bring on an attack. Do you want his health on your conscience?’ she demanded.

‘That would be unpleasant for all of us,’ he admitted. ‘What do you suggest we do?’

Her mouth fell open. ‘What?’

Quite calmly, Cassian perched on the kitchen table, one long leg swinging freely and his steady gaze pinning Laura to the spot.

‘I’ve bought the house. I want to live in it. So do you. That suggests a conflict of interests. How do you propose we deal with the situation?’

She was astonished. She hadn’t expected negotiating tactics.

‘Tell Tony you’ve made a mistake! Get him to buy it back!’ she pleaded.

Cassian shook his head. ‘No use. He’ll have paid off his debtors to save himself from being beaten up again.’

‘Again?! What do you mean?’ She felt the colour drain from her face. ‘Where is he? What’s happened to him?’ she asked in agitation.

‘You’re surprisingly concerned, considering Tony’s indifference to you,’ he observed. ‘If I recall, he was the favoured child. He went from public school to university, whereas you were destined to leave school early. It never bothered him that your lives were unequal. You didn’t figure in his life at all.’

‘There was a crucial difference between Tony and me,’ she pointed out sharply.

‘Sure,’ Cassian scathed. ‘He was a selfish jerk. You were a doormat—’

‘I—I was…!’ OK. She was a doormat. He didn’t have to say so! ‘I was hardly in a position to demand my rights,’ she said stiltedly. ‘I had no blood ties with anyone in this house and you know that. It’s hardly surprising he had all the advantages. I was lucky—’

‘Lucky?’ he barked, leaping to his feet angrily.

‘Yes! They brought me up. I was fed and clothed—’

‘You were crushed,’ he snapped. His eyes blazed down at her, sapping her strength with their ferocity. ‘And you’re grateful because they offered you the basic human needs! Laura, they systematically browbeat you. They punished you for what your mother did to the oh-so-important George Morris, solicitor of this parish. They turned you into an obedient, colourless, cowering mouse, afraid of opening your mouth in case you said the wrong thing—!’

‘Don’t you criticise my family!’ she cried hotly. ‘It’s none of your business how we lived! I don’t care what you think of me…!’

She gulped. Because she did care. It upset her that he saw her as such a wimp. An obedient, colourless, cowering mouse! That was an awful description. Was she that pathetic?

Muddled, she stood there, her chest heaving, wondering why he was so angry and why she kept losing the composure which had always been such an integral part of her.

That was because he’d flung her into her worst nightmare. He was knocking away all her props. Leaving her with nothing. Perhaps she could plead with Tony herself…

‘Tony,’ she reminded him, her voice thin with panic. She sat down, shaking. ‘Just tell me what’s happened to him!’

Cassian felt like shaking her. She still saw justification in the way she’d been treated as a child. And yet cracks were beginning to appear in her armour. Rebellion simmered inside that tense body. She might have been taught to abhor passion but it was there, nevertheless and the thought excited him more than it should.

Inexplicably he’d wanted to press his lips on her pink, pouting mouth and her unavailability had only made the urge stronger. He couldn’t understand his reaction. He’d been celibate for a long time and many women had tried to steer him from his chosen path, using all the tricks in the book and then some.

Tricks he could deflect. This was something else. Whether he liked it or not, Laura was reaching something deeper in him without even knowing what she was doing.

Curbing his rampaging instincts, he set about hurrying her departure before her temptations proved his undoing. Women could be dynamite at the best of times. He dare not get tangled up with someone like Laura. That would be dangerous in the extreme for both of them.

Pity, he found himself musing recklessly. It was such a luscious, kissable mouth… And he hungered for it more than was wise.

Grimly Cassian subdued his lurching passions. He could be hard on himself when necessary. And this was essential.

‘I met Tony in Marrakesh—’ he began at a gallop.

‘Marrakesh!’ she exclaimed, as if it were the planet Mars.

He gave a faint smile. To her, it probably was.

‘Stupidly he’d swindled some thugs and they’d beaten him up. I got out the sticking plasters, let him stay for a while—’

‘You have a house in Marrakesh?’ she asked, wide-eyed.

Cassian perched on the table again. ‘No, I rented rooms. Tony hotbedded with Fee, a stripper, who I—’

‘What?’ Her eyes were even wider, her mouth now joining in the amazement. She was wonderfully transparent. ‘You…lived with a…stripper?!’

‘Two, actually.’ Before her jaw dropped any further and she did herself an injury, he added, ‘We weren’t cohabiting, I hasten to add. Same house, different rooms. Loads of space, no obligations to one another, come and go as you like…a perfect arrangement. No commitment, company when you want it, solitude when you don’t.’

‘But…strippers?’

Disapproval came from every line of her body. He decided she needed to have her judgement shaken up.

‘Don’t let the job fool you. Fee’s a sweetie, with a very strict moral code. Comes from Islington. You’d like her. Runs a shelter for sick animals in her spare time.’

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