Unsurprisingly, Ash Castle stared disbelievingly, making her feel as if yet more mortifying explanation was necessary. She’d spoken more in the last five minutes than she had all week and her voice was still rusty.
‘Archivists don’t get paid incredibly well,’ she muttered.
‘You amaze me.’ That untamed gleam glinted in his eyes and his lips twitched.
An odd little fire in her ignited. There was no need for him to be facetious.
‘Plenty of incredibly important jobs are low-paid.’ Her heart thudded at her daring. Merle didn’t stand up to anyone. Certainly not a man like this. Her grandmother would’ve torn strips off her if she’d seen her even look at him.
‘Is archival work incredibly important? I wasn’t aware.’
She had the feeling there were a lot of important things he was unaware of.
He was watching her closely and his sudden smile was both irreverent and tantalising. ‘Do you think there are things you can teach me?’
With that soft-spoken drawl he revealed himself completely. Jaded. Experienced. Cynical. Incorrigible. Everything she wasn’t. But yes, she could teach him some things. Manners, for a start.
‘It’s not my job to teach you anything,’ she said with a bravery she was far from feeling. ‘You’re a grown man and I’m sure you’ll be able to figure things out for yourself. Eventually.’
For the merest moment Merle basked while he stared at her, his mouth slightly ajar. She ought to be cautious, as if she’d just prodded a sleeping dragon, yet she was strangely exhilarated.
‘If you’re prepared to delay the completion of the archival process and pay for me to stay in a nearby hotel and holiday for the week, while on full pay,’ she said warily, feeling a wholly foreign confidence trickle in her veins, ‘then of course I’ll do as you wish and leave first thing in the morning. However, it’s a weekend in the height of summer and this is a small, popular island with not that many accommodation options. Do you think you’ll find me a place?’
He stared at her for a long second. His mouth compressed. ‘You want me to find you a place?’
‘You want me to leave.’ She couldn’t hold his gaze and found she needed to study the floor intently as that damned fire beat across her face. ‘Alternatively, you could be the one to stay elsewhere.’
‘What?’ He sounded flummoxed.
A hitherto dormant imp of mischievousness took over her mouth. ‘Would that put you out?’ She darted a glance up at him and the rest spilled out softly. ‘Are you not used to working for what you want?’
There was another moment in which he just stared at her. That unhappy emotion had vanished from his eyes, and there was only gleamingly sharp speculation now.
‘Oh, I work hard to get what I want,’ he said pointedly. ‘And I always get it.’
How nice to be him. But as he held her gaze with a fierce intensity, Merle’s bubble of bravado popped. Breaking into a sweat at her temerity, she dropped her gaze and surreptitiously watched him pull a phone from his pocket. It was a latest release, squillion-dollar tech toy. Of course.
‘It’s late to be making calls.’ She worried her lower lip, already regretting her runaway, rogue tongue moment. She should have stayed quiet. She couldn’t afford to lose this job. ‘I—’
‘But not too late to check an online bookings app,’ he interrupted before she could apologise.
Merle watched, partly glad because he didn’t deserve her apology. As he tapped and swiped the screen over the course of the next six minutes, his frown deepened and his jawline hardened. Merle’s heart raced as his expression turned positively rigid.
‘You’re going to have to stay,’ he finally gritted.
Was it bad to relish the fact that the man couldn’t get his way? Doubtless it was a rare occurrence for him. And a very rare victory for her. A thrill shivered through her. She’d stood up to him and she’d won.
‘You stay in my old room. I’ll take the master suite.’ He squared his shoulders and his smile was bitter-edged. ‘Might as well exorcise all the demons while I’m here.’ He lifted his gaze to ensnare hers once more, his lips twisting in a mocking smile. ‘You’ll have to work extra hard now you know I’ll be here watching you.’
Her sliver of success melted in the face of what could only be described as a...promise. A veiled, heated, inappropriate promise.
Her pulse thickened and she regretted his change of mind. Wouldn’t it be better for her to be as far away from him as possible while he was here? What had she been thinking? She’d wanted to win one over on him—the kind of guy who got everything his way all of the time. ‘I thought you wanted space.’
She hadn’t meant to say anything more but somehow it slipped out.
He regarded her beneath half-lowered lids. Merle found she was unable to move beneath the intensity of his gaze. Was this how he did it? Seduction by a simple stare?
‘I thought I did,’ he murmured. ‘But I also enjoy watching interesting things, Miss...’
He didn’t know her name. He’d made all kinds of assumptions and he didn’t even know her name.
‘Merle Jordan,’ she said stiffly. And she wasn’t ‘interesting’.
‘I’m Ash Castle.’ He mock-bowed. ‘But you already knew that.’
She nodded. It had been his arrogant, own-it-all air that had given him away but she awkwardly offered a more polite explanation. ‘Your photo’s in the study.’
A young Ash with his parents, captured on the beach just outside. His eyes widened, exposing a flash of that other emotion before his expression shuttered again.
Inside, she was feverishly panicked about getting through this. She’d avoid him entirely for the next week. Fortunately, she was well used to staying out of sight and silent. All those years of hiding like a mouse in the wings of her mother’s performances would finally come in handy. Not to mention hiding from her grandmother’s shouting. It wouldn’t be hard at all to avoid
