She hadn’t anticipated a lot.
Including the fact that she thought, somehow weirdly detached, that she and Cash looked good together. It was almost as if she was looking at two other people, not herself and Cash.
Her Mom, Dad, Gram, Ben, Kieran and Jenny had, for years, teased her that she was some kind of bizarre mutant.
She’d not been a very pretty baby (to say the least) or a darling little girl.
She’d been passably pretty in high school, not ugly enough to get bullied, not pretty enough to get many dates.
In college, though, as she matured and let her wild nature loose (or, looser, as her father would say), things changed.
A few years after college, she met Ben and she didn’t think about it much until later, until they all started commenting on it.
Even the day before he died, Ben had mentioned it.
“I married a pretty lady,” he’d whispered in her ear that morning, his voice husky because it was right after they’d made love, “what’d you do with her?”
Abby had twisted her head and kissed his neck.
“What do you mean? She’s right here,” she’d whispered back, tightening her arms which were wrapped around him.
He’d lifted his big body up on his elbows and framed her face with his hands.
“No. What I got right here isn’t a pretty lady,” his face was serious, then his mouth descended to touch hers and against her lips, he said, “she’s a beauty.”
He hadn’t been joking and to that day, standing in Harvey Nichols with Jenny and knowing it was one of the last things he ever said to her, Abby treasured that memory and equally treasured knowing, before he died, that her husband thought he’d been married to a beauty.
But the picture with Cash was something else.
After Ben, Abby really didn’t think of the way she looked. She couldn’t care less.
But wearing her “Smoky Evening” look and her expensive shoes and her grandmother’s elegant cape, she looked like she belonged on movie-star-gorgeous Cash Fraser’s arm.
And if Jenny was flipping out, Abby was freaking out.
“It’s a good picture,” Jenny whispered and Abby felt her throat get tight.
“Yeah,” Abby agreed.
Jenny cleared her own throat and commented, “He’s hot.”
Her friend didn’t know the half of it.
And for the first time in their friendship, Abby didn’t share.
She was terrified of what Jenny would say if she knew the confused, illicit, guilt-ridden feelings she had about Cash.
Feelings she shouldn’t have.
Feelings she wasn’t entitled to have.
Feelings that would lead nowhere because firstly, her heart belonged to a dead man and secondly, she was the other man’s whore.
And Jenny, who adored Ben, would never forgive her for betraying him.
Maybe with someone she met in some normal way, at a pub, at a party, walking down the street.
Not with Cash Fraser.
Instead, Abby asked, “Okay, so what does a girl wear to make dinner for an international, hot guy, spy hunter?”
Jenny kept slapping hangers, staring down at the clothes with a discerning, determined eye, clearly on a mission, and muttered, “No clue.”
Abby started to move to another rail. “We’ll figure it out.”
And they would.
Because they always did.
Chapter Five
Sleeping with Cash
Upon opening the door to his home, Cash smelled the food and it was instantly apparent that Abby could cook.
He also heard the music.
It was hard not to. The neighbours could likely hear the music.
This was because it was loud.
He threw his overcoat around the newel post and headed to the back of the stairs, rounded the wall and then down the backstairs toward the kitchen which was at garden level.
He was late, tied up at work. He’d called and told her this fact. She was already at his house when he’d phoned and she didn’t seem to mind that he’d be home at nine rather than seven, as he’d told Moira to tell her he’d be.
He did mind.
Further, he minded that she obviously didn’t.
Now it was a quarter after nine and it sounded like she was having a blowout party attended by rock stars, groupies and their various and assorted roadies and hangers on.
He made it to the garden level of his three-story townhouse to see, thankfully, she was not having a party.
Instead she was reading a magazine.
When he bought his house in Bath and started renovations, he’d had this level torn out so most of it was open plan. Then he’d hired an interior designer who designed the space for him.
Against the back wall there was a modern, black, chrome and stainless steel, state-of-the-art kitchen that several women he’d brought to his home had been in gales of ecstasy about but Cash, himself, rarely used.
At the foot of the stairs separated from the kitchen area by a wide counter with tall stools was a comfortable seating area he never used.
Across from the stairs and extending from the kitchen there was a modern, black-lacquered dining table that seated twelve that he sometimes wondered why he’d purchased because he’d never sat there.
There was a cloakroom under the stairs and the only interior door, off the dining area, led to a workout room with a rowing machine, elliptical machine, weights and weight bench that, outside of his bedroom, was the room he used most in the house.
The wall to the garden shared by the kitchen and seating area had been fitted almost entirely with floor-to-ceiling windows including a set of French doors.
Abby was lying on her stomach on his enormous, scarlet red couch.
She was, he was surprised to see, wearing a pair of bottom-hugging jeans, high-heeled shoes with what looked like a number of thin, sexy straps at the ankle and a taupe jumper woven in such a way that it was see-through and visible underneath was a creamy camisole.
Her back was to him and her hair was in a ponytail at the back of her head. She had her knees bent, ankles crossed, feet swaying in the air and she was flipping through the pages of a magazine.
She looked like the stereotypical American teenager and if he heard her snap some gum in her mouth, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
His hand went to the knot in his tie and pulled while he called, “Abby.”
He watched as her body jerked.
Then her head twisted around, ponytail flipping over her shoulder, and her eyes locked on him in stunned surprise.
She regarded him as if she was house sitting and expected him at that moment to be in a business meeting halfway around the world, not in his house as he told her he’d be.
“You’re home,” she announced unnecessarily.
“That and I’m starving,” he replied.
“You’re late,” she told him, not moving from her position.
“I called,” he informed her, yanking off his tie, walking deeper into the room and tossing it on the large grey chair that sat perpendicular to the couch.
“You called and said you’d be here at nine. It’s not nine. It’s after nine,” she returned.
Cash shrugged off his suit jacket, it joined his tie and he unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt.
He was not in the mood for this.
He planned to have been there the last two and a quarter hours, eating the food she’d cooked for him and exploring the sexual boundaries of their arrangement.
He had not planned to be as tired as he was as hungry as he was and as late as he was. Further, he had not planned to come home to smell something nearly as enticing as her ass in those jeans, enter into a loud conversation with her so he could be heard over her music and have her behave like she was his actual girlfriend, something which, for many years, he avoided having.
This was one of the reasons he did not approach any of the women of his acquaintance to pe
rform the duties he was paying Abby for as he had no desire to give them any ideas. And they’d get them, he was certain.
“Abby,” Cash stated wearily, “I’m shattered. I need a drink, food and bed in that order.”
She studied him calmly for a moment then put her hands in the couch and lifted in a push up, twisting her hips into a sitting position. She rose to her feet and went to the stereo, turning down the music to a decibel level that was almost, but not quite, normal.
“What do you drink?” she asked, her spiked heels sounding on the wood floors as she walked to the kitchen.
“Tonight, whisky,” he answered, watching her move through his house.
She went directly to the cabinet where his housekeeper stored the liquor and opened the door.
Obviously she’d become acquainted with his kitchen.
“Water?” she asked.
“No.”
“Ice?”
“No.”
“How many fingers?”
She was also obviously acquainted with whisky.
“Two,” he answered.
She took down the whisky and a squat glass and poured two fingers while he went to the stereo and turned the music down passed normal straight to old woman.
When he turned away from the stereo, she was in front of him with his glass.
“I think it might be illegal in a few countries to play Foreigner that low,” she declared in her soft voice.
“I doubt England is one of those countries,” Cash returned.
“I bet Scotland isn’t,” she replied and seeing her mischievous grin, suddenly, he wanted to kiss her.
Not touch his tongue briefly to hers but kiss her so hard, so long and so thoroughly he could smell her sex mingled with her perfume.
She didn’t read his mind instead, she went on to tease, “Though, considering your people brought us the Bay City Rollers, maybe not.”
It was deeply unfortunate, Cash thought, that she’d teased him.
That made him want to kiss her even more.
He didn’t because he knew if he did, at that moment, he might not be able to stop.
He took the whisky from her and lifted it to his lips, his eyes watching her over the rim of the glass. Even dressed casually with very little makeup, she was stunning.
Before taking a drink, he returned, “My people also brought you Nazareth.”
He watched her warm hazel eyes grow even warmer.
“Touché,” she replied softly.
Good Christ, he thought, taking in her warm eyes and soft tone and he found it took a supreme effort of will not to reach for her.
She seemed oblivious to his rampaging thoughts and turned, again heading toward the kitchen.
“I ate already,” she informed him as she moved and he followed.
This did not please him.
He didn’t respond. He leaned a hip against the counter and saw the kitchen was clean and tidy, only a glass half-filled with red wine sat on one of the counters.
Abby took down a plate.
“If I eat late, I don’t sleep. My body doesn’t like it,” she shared.
He knew she liked her sleep, she’d told him that morning when he’d woken her to hear her sweet, soft voice sounding husky, irate and adorable.
He watched her pull out cutlery and set it beside the plate she’d retrieved and while he did so he found that he didn’t like that he knew exactly eight pertinent facts about her. These being she sold her body for money, couldn’t sleep if she ate late, lived in her grandmother’s house, had a dead husband, liked loud music, red wine and sleep and, most importantly, she sounded unbelievably fuckable in the morning.
“I would have preferred you waited for me,” he told her honestly.
Her gaze shifted to him as she pulled on oven mitts.
“Sorry,” she murmured, sounding like she actually was, and turned away to open the oven door.
The tantalising smell came out in a wave and she extricated an earthenware pan filled with what looked like pasta shells overstuffed with meat and sauce and covered in cheese.
“Stuffed pasta shells, garlic bread and salad,” she announced, setting the pan on a pad, she threw off the mitts with an expert flick of her wrists and her eyes went back to him. “Baked pears with cream and chocolate sauce for dessert,” she told him, reaching to pull open the drawer by his hip. “I ate my dessert too,” she admitted.
“If that’s as good as it smells, I’ll forgive you,” he told her.
“It is,” she smiled then bent her head, grabbed a serving spoon and shut the drawer.
“Who taught you to cook?” he asked as she served up the shells.
“Mom,” she replied.
“Is your mother close?” he enquired.
“I like to think so,” was her strange and, Cash thought, evasive answer.
Cash didn’t let it go.
She might wish to remain distant but he didn’t want that and he bloody well paid enough to have her as close as he wanted her.
Which was exactly what he was going to get if he had to tie her down and interrogate her.
Shaking off that altogether too stimulating thought, he pressed, “Is she in England?”
“No,” Abby replied.
“America,” he stated.
“Yes.”
“That’s not exactly close,” Cash remarked.
She’d finished serving up the shells and was returning to the oven for the bread. “Well, she’s not exactly in America,” she came back to the counter with the bread, gracefully flipping the oven door closed with her foot before she did. Her eyes stayed on her task as she went on, “It’s more like she is and she isn’t.”
“That sounds difficult to do,” Cash observed.
She tore off an enormous chunk of what looked like homemade garlic bread and put it on his plate before her eyes met his.
“She’s dead, Cash.”
Her quiet words felt like a blow to the belly.
Fucking hell but he was a bastard.
“Abby,” he said softly by way of an apology.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” she told him, putting his fork on the plate and handing it to him then she moved to the fridge.
Cash carried on, he shouldn’t have but he didn’t know that so he did. “Is your father still in America?”
“Yep,” she said casually, head in the fridge, “lying beside Mom.”
When she turned around, hands holding a big salad bowl, her gaze came to his. He saw her eyes were carefully guarded. His eyes were on her, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth.
She went on matter-of-factly, “Heart attack. Dad. Cancer. Mom. Mom went first. Two years apart.”
With some effort, he started to eat.
The food was, incidentally, better than it smelled.
She put his salad in another bowl, dressed it and slid it along the counter to where he was eating and watching her.
She was busying herself putting away the food when he remarked, “That must have been rough.”
“It happens.”
“It does, Abby, that doesn’t mean it isn’t rough.”
She finished with wrapping foil around the shells and, head bent to the pan, she replied quietly, “Miss them every day.”
He felt her four words settle heavily somewhere in his gut.
He decided to let her be and as she put the food into the fridge he told her, “That may be the first time anyone used that oven.”
She closed the refrigerator door and came back to the counter saying, “I wondered why it was sparkling clean. I thought you might be obsessive compulsive.”
“I have a housekeeper,” he looked pointedly around the pristine room then back to Abby. “The jury’s out on if she’s obsessive compulsive.”
He heard her soft laughter as she jumped up to sit on the counter and grabbed her wineglass.
“My verdict, yes,” she said to him with a grin and he was experiencing the strong desire to put his foo
d aside and kiss her when he watched an unusual look cross her face.
She was, Cash realised, struggling with something.
He didn’t wait for her to win her struggle because her winning, he thought (correctly) would mean him losing.
“What is it, Abby?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she promptly replied.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“Cash –”
“Abby, what is it?” he sounded just as impatient and annoyed as he was getting with her cagey behaviour.
“I just wondered…” she hesitated then lifted her hand as if to pull her hair out of her face but then she encountered it tied back and looked endearingly confused for a moment before her hand drifted down to her lap.
He waited.
She took a sip of wine.
He finished his pasta and salad and prompted, “You wondered what?”
Her eyes came to him. “About your folks,” she cleared her throat, “I wondered about your folks.”
Cash didn’t hesitate. “My father’s dead, no one knows how. Mysterious circumstances.”
Her face gentled. “I’m sorry, Cash.”
“Don’t be, I never knew him.”
He saw surprise flash in her eyes before she said, “I’m sorry about that too.”
He moved to put his dishes in the sink. “Don’t be sorry about that either, from what I know, he was a twat.”
When he turned from the sink, she was watching him and, gently, she repeated, “I’m sorry about that too.”
At her words, instead of walking to her, forcing open her legs and pulling her into his arms, moulding her body to his, crotch to chest, so he could kiss her like he very much wanted to do, he leaned his hip against the sink, crossed his arms on his chest and replied, “I’m sorry about it too.”
She took another sip of wine, tilted her head and asked, “Your Mom?”
“Suicide. I was fifteen.”
Her eyes got wide and she breathed, “Bloody hell,” she shook her head and went on, “oh my God.”
“I found her,” Cash, likely suffering from guilt for forcing her to talk about her own dead parents, found himself sharing a piece of information that he rarely shared with anyone.
“Oh my God,” she repeated.