AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded. ‘Me, too. I mean, if my baby is going to know his half-brother and sister, then we can’t screw this up.’
Desperate desire was one thing. But they needed still to be able to be friends when that faded.
If it faded.
That seemed pretty impossible right now.
She clenched her jaw and forced herself to push aside the thoughts that had been crowding her head since Cal had first kissed her. The thoughts that told her she was getting into something far deeper and far more dangerous than just a fling with her boss, or Ross’s brother.
She was falling in love.
Heather knew better than to expect too much from Cal in the way of emotion. Lust he understood, clearly, but this was the man who hadn’t even known how to love his niece and nephew. Expecting any romantic declarations from him was a disaster waiting to happen.
But even knowing that that wasn’t enough to scare her off.
She’d deal with it all later, Heather decided. Her growing feelings for Cal could wait. There were too many other pressing things to worry about right now. Like the baby. Daisy and Ryan. Boarding school. The castle. The world... Not to mention her own future, her dad, her job, her home...
She should be using this time to plan, to figure out what the right thing to do by everybody was. But instead all she could think was Eight days is too long.
Far too long.
Pulling back ever so slightly, and feeling Cal’s arms tightening around her automatically as she did so, Heather tilted her head to meet his gaze.
‘She’s not here until Monday?’ she asked.
After all, today was only Saturday.
Cal nodded, apparently unable to look away from her eyes.
She knew how he felt. Whatever had brought her to Lengroth Castle in the first place, she knew that it was Cal who was going to keep her there. The thread that joined them now was too strong for her even to imagine it breaking.
‘Not until Monday...’ Cal repeated, his words barely a whisper.
‘Then maybe we don’t need to worry about what she or anyone else will think just yet.’
Heather pushed herself up until her lips brushed against Cal’s again—the lightest feather touch, just a hint of what they could have.
Cal’s eyes fluttered closed as he swallowed. ‘You are temptation incarnate.’
‘I thought you Bryce men liked that sort of thing?’
His eyes flashed open again, and the depth of lust and want in his amber eyes caught her by surprise.
‘Oh, we do,’ he said, with a wicked grin.
And then he kissed her again, and Heather decided to stop thinking about the right thing to do for a while and just do it instead.
* * *
Later—much later—Heather kissed Cal’s bare shoulder and slipped out of his bed, her whole body still humming with pleasure.
‘Where are you going?’ Cal asked, his voice muffled by the duvet.
‘Back to my room, before the kids wake up and come looking for me.’
Ryan in particular had developed a habit of waking her up by jumping on the end of her bed in the mornings. Heather quite liked it, really. It showed how comfortable he was with her now. But if she wasn’t there when he came looking...
‘Okay,’ Cal said, pulling her back for another kiss all the same.
‘Cal, I need to get back.’
He sighed, resting his forehead against her shoulder. ‘I know. I just don’t want to let you go when I’ve just got you here.’
She couldn’t help but smile at that.
One last, swift kiss and she was on her way, padding down the stone corridors in bare feet, her shoes dangling from her fingers. The ultimate walk of shame, she supposed.
Suddenly she blinked as a figure appeared at the end of the corridor. Too tall for Daisy or Ryan, she realised quickly.
‘Mrs Peterson?’ she called, trying to smile.
The old housekeeper would expect an explanation, and Heather wasn’t sure she had one just yet. She was a terrible liar, apart from anything else.
But then the figure turned, and although Heather couldn’t quite make out her face she knew in her bones that it wasn’t Mrs Peterson.
It wasn’t anyone living at all.
Then the Lengroth ghost disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared, leaving Heather shivering in the stone-walled passageway of the castle, hoping this wasn’t some sort of sign of things to come.
