The Most Expensive Lie of All. Michelle Conder
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was the one place that had made her feel happy and secure after she’d been orphaned. After her marriage had fallen apart.
She was incredibly proud of her work and her future plans to open up a school camp for kids who’d had a tough start in life. Horses had a way of grounding troubled adolescents and she wanted to provide a place they could come to and feel safe. Just as she had. And she hated that Cruz was judging her—mocking her—like every other obnoxious male she had ever come across. That she hadn’t expected it from him only made her feel worse.
Hopping mad, she had a mind to order him off her property, but she couldn’t quite kill off this avenue of hope just yet. He was supposed to be a savvy businessman after all, and she had a good plan. Well, she hoped she did. ‘Ocean Haven has been in my family for centuries,’ she began, striving for calm.
‘I think the violinist has packed up for the day...’
Aspen blinked. ‘God, you’re cold. I don’t remember that about you.’
‘Don’t you, gatita? Tell me...’
His voice dropped an octave and her heartbeat faltered.
‘What do you remember?’
Aspen’s gaze fell to his mouth. ‘I remember that you were...’ Tall. That your hair glints almost blue-black in the sun. That your face looks like it belongs in a magazine. That your mouth is firm and yet soft. She forced her eyes to meet his and ignored the fact that her face felt as if it was on fire. ‘Good with the horses.’ She swallowed. ‘That you were smart, and that you used to keep to yourself a lot. But I remember when you laughed.’ It used to make me smile. ‘It sounded happy. And I remember that when you were mad at something not even my grandfather was brave enough to face you. I rem—’
‘Enough.’ He sliced his hand through the air with sharp finality. ‘There’s only one thing I want to know right now,’ he said softly.
If she remembered his kisses? Yes—yes, she did. Sometimes even when she didn’t want to. ‘What?’ she asked, hating the breathless quality of her voice.
‘Just how desperate are you?’
His dark voice was so dangerously male it sent her brain into overdrive. ‘What kind of a question is that?’ She shook her head, trying to ward off the jittery feelings he so effortlessly conjured up inside her.
He reached forward and captured a strand of her hair between his fingertips, his eyes burning into hers. ‘If I were to lend you this money I’d want more than a share in the profits.’
Aspen felt her chest rising and falling too quickly and hoped to hell he wasn’t going to suggest the very thing Billy Smyth had done not an hour earlier.
Reaching up, she tugged her hair out of his hold. ‘Such as...?’
His eyes looked black as pitch as they pinned her like a dart on a wall. ‘Oh, save us both the Victorian naïveté. You’re no retiring virgin after the life you lived with Chad Anderson—and before that, even. You’re a sensual woman who no doubt looks very good gracing a man’s bed.’ He paused, his gaze caressing her face. ‘If the terms were right I might want you to grace mine.’
Was he kidding?
Aspen felt her mouth drop open before she could stop it. Rage welled up inside her like a living beast. Rage at the injustice of her grandfather’s will, rage at the way men viewed her as little more than a sexual object, rage at her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment.
Maybe Cruz had a reason for being upset with her after she had failed to correct her grandfather’s assumption that they were sleeping together years ago, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her like a—like a whore.
‘Get out of my way,’ she ordered.
His eyes lingered on her tight lips. ‘Make sure you don’t burn your bridges unnecessarily, Aspen. Pride can be a nasty thing when it’s used rashly.’
She knew all about pride going before a fall. ‘It’s not rash pride making me reject your offer, Cruz. It’s simple self-respect.’
‘Whatever you want to call it, I’m offering you a straightforward business deal. You have something I’ve decided I want. I have something you need. Why complicate it?’
‘Because it’s disgusting.’
‘What an interesting way to put it,’ he sneered. ‘Tell me, Aspen, would it have been less disgusting if I’d first said that you were beautiful before taking you to bed? If I’d first invited you out for a drink? Taken you to dinner, perhaps?’ He took a step towards her and lowered his voice. ‘If I had gone down that path would you have said yes?’ His lips twisted with mocking superiority. ‘If I had romanced you, Aspen, I could have had you naked and beneath me in a matter of hours and saved myself a hell of a lot of money.’
Aspen threw him a withering look, ignoring the sudden mental picture of them both naked and tangled together. ‘You can save yourself a hell of a lot of money and skin right now and get off my property,’ she said tightly.
His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply and she suddenly realised how close he was, how far she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. ‘And for your information,’ she began, wanting to stamp all over his supersized ego, ‘I would never have said yes to you.’
‘Really?’
He stepped even closer and Aspen felt the harsh bite of wood at her back. Caged, she could only stare as Cruz lifted one of her spiral curls again; this time carrying it to his nose. Her hands rose to shove him back but he didn’t budge, and almost immediately her senses tuned in to the warm packed muscle beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, to the fast beat of his heart that seemed to mirror her own racing pulse.
A flash of memory took her back eight years to the feel of his mouth on hers. The feel of his tongue rubbing hers. The feel of his hands spanning her waist. Heat pooled inside her and made her breasts heavy, her legs unsteady. She remembered that after they’d been caught she had been so shocked by her physical reaction to him and so scared of her grandfather’s wrath she’d fallen utterly silent—ashamed of herself for considering one man’s marriage proposal while losing herself in the arms of another. Cruz hadn’t raised one word of denial the whole time and she still wondered why.
Not that she had time to consider that now... He leant forward as if her staying hands were nothing more than crepe paper. His breath brushed her ear.
‘Let me tell you what I remember, gatita. I remember the way your curvy backside filled out those tight jodhpurs. I remember the purple bikini top you used to wear riding your horse along the beach. And I remember the way you used to watch me. A bit like the way you were watching me stroke the mare before.’ His hand tightened in her hair. ‘You were thinking about how it would feel if I put my hands on you again, weren’t you? How it would feel if I kissed you?’
Aspen made a half coughing noise in instant denial and tried to catch her breath. There was no way he could have known she’d been thinking exactly that.
‘Have you turned into a dreamer, Cruz?’ she mocked with false bravado, frightened beyond belief at how vulnerable she suddenly felt. ‘Because really a dream would be the only place I would ever want something like that from you.’
Dreamer?
Cruz felt his jaw knot at her insolent tone. How dared she accuse him of being a dreamer when she was clearly the dreamer here if she thought she could buy and hold onto the rundown estate Ocean Haven had become?
Memories of the past swirled around him and bit deep. Memories of how she had felt in his arms. How she had tasted. Memories of how she had stood there, all dazed innocence, and listened to her grandfather rail at him. He’d been accused of ruining her that night but it was her—her and that slimy fiancé of hers, Chad Anderson—who had tried to ruin him. She and her lover who had set him up for a fall to clear the way for Chad to take over as captain of Charles Carmichael’s dream team.
There’d