Lacybourne Manor (Ghosts and Reincarnation #3)(39)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Well, that didn’t go very well,” she whispered to her dog brokenly.

And then, for what had to be the hundredth time in a week and a half, she cried.

It was then she realised that she’d agreed to five months of Colin and not only that, he wanted five months of her.

And she didn’t know what to make of that at all.

* * * * *

Colin was still furious with Sibyl when he parked in front of her house that evening.

He was angry because he didn’t like hearing her call herself a whore, in fact, he loathed it. Even though, for all intents and purposes, that was what she was, he vastly preferred not thinking about it and he certainly wasn’t going to allow her to throw it in his face.

It annoyed the hell out of him that she took his fifty thousand pounds and managed to make him feel guilty about it.

And he didn’t like that, in listening to her affectionate but obviously frustrated phone conversation with her mother, he became even more intrigued at the puzzle that was Sibyl.

Not to mention, he had the bizarre desire to meet her mother.

He didn’t like that she’d announced she “needed the money” which made him wonder what the money was for in the first place. She didn’t appear to lead a life of luxury and didn’t look or act the sort of woman who aspired to it. So, why did she need it?

He further didn’t like that after only one (albeit satisfyingly active) night, he, apparently, couldn’t get enough of her. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her and her incredible body all day. Even so, she wanted nothing to do with him and he had to take further advantage in order to force her to spend more time with him.

This, particularly, was a concept with which Colin was unfamiliar and he detested it.

What he did like was that he’d succeeded in securing three more months of last night out of her very poorly controlled temper.

He wasn’t entirely up on the code of practice of con artists and mercenaries, but he couldn’t imagine it included throwing enough attitude at your mark to make them want to toss you screaming from a window.

But Colin wasn’t about to argue with something that worked in his favour.

He knocked on the door and, within five seconds, heard Mallory careening towards it. Colin also knew when the dog arrived because he heard the loud thud and saw the door shake when the dog smashed into it.

This was so ridiculous, and humorous, it nearly made Colin smile.

However, he was so annoyed, he did not.

“Mallory! You’ll give yourself a head injury!” He heard Sibyl shout and, again, he nearly smiled. The dog was a menace (to himself) and Sibyl’s affectionate acceptance of it was one of the many pieces of what Colin considered Sibyl’s mystery. An mystery he spent a great deal of his day attempting, and failing, to solve.

The door swung open and she stood there not made up like last night but wearing a pair of tan cowboy boots, brown tweed trousers, a cream, long-sleeved, scoop-necked t-shirt, some kind of elaborate silver necklace, complicated, dangling silver earrings and her shining hair was tumbling about her face.

And she was just as stunning as she was in the magnificently sexy silk camisole and dramatic makeup of the night before

He looked at her carefully and couldn’t read her mood, her eyes were simply hazel.

“I’ll need a key,” he said by way of greeting.

What he wanted to do was scoop her in his arms and carry her up to her bed but he felt the need to control himself, felt the inexplicable need to control the situation in its entirety which included controlling Sibyl. He felt unprecedentedly out-of-control when it came to Sibyl and he wasn’t used to that.

At all.

And he didn’t like that either.

She stood, her hand on the door, regarding him warily. Then she nodded.

Then something perverse, something that didn’t even feel a part of him drove him to make that demand, “And I expect you to greet me with a kiss when you see me.”

Her mouth parted slightly in surprise and she hesitated a moment as mutiny played about her face and the hazel started to shift to the warning shade of green. Then she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.

Before she could pull away, the devil that was controlling him made him say, “I know you can do better than that.”

Her head came up with a snap and he watched in grim fascination as her eyes, in the soft illumination from the lamps lit in the house, lost all hint of hazel and became blazing green.

Something about that pleased and irritated him at the same time.

She moved into him, her body touching his slightly then more as one hand came up to rest on his chest and the other hand slid into the hair at his nape. She tipped her head back and pressed her lips against his, he felt them open and he opened his in response. Then the tip of her tongue came out softly and touched his own.

He felt heat sweep through him at the touch of her tongue but before his arms could close around her, she ended the kiss and moved her head away.

Her hands still on him, her voice managing to be both warm and cold, she asked, “Is that better?”

In answer, he ordered, “Get your coat.”

She blinked at his sudden change, her hands falling away. “What?”

“Your coat,” he repeated.

He hadn’t even crossed the threshold. Nevertheless, she stepped away and grabbed a scarlet-coloured trench coat from a peg by the door and pulled it on. As she did, Colin turned on his heel and walked to his car.

He heard the dull thud of the heels of her cowboy boots as she rushed to catch up to him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He didn’t stop as he strode purposefully to the car and jerked open the passenger side door to help her inside.

“Dinner,” he answered curtly.

They didn’t say another word until after they were seated at the seafront restaurant in Clevedon and he ordered a gin and tonic. She ordered the extraordinary drink of vodka lemonade with a dash of lime cordial, a maraschino cherry and ended this litany with the instruction, “And lots of ice.”

Then she smiled at the waiter and Colin felt his chest seize.

She’d never, not once, smiled at him, except that very first moment where their eyes met in the storm while she was acting out Beatrice’s portrait.

Her smile, he noted in a vaguely dazed way, was arresting, sensational and the waiter nearly tripped over himself in a rush to do her bidding.

When her gaze slid to Colin’s he glared at her and didn’t know why. He knew he was still furious but why her smile would cause such a spectacular reaction made no sense to him.