Abby felt her heart start to beat faster.
“You should go to the police,” she encouraged.
Cash shook his head. “The person who Alistair paid to do it is now dead. Died in prison, diabetes. His cellmate is still alive but it’s hearsay. There’s no point.”
Abby put her hands to his neck and asked, “If you know, then how can you be here? How can you sit at his table? How can you –”
Cash interrupted her. “It’s my table, Abby.”
“You know that now,” she returned, “but you just found out Alistair isn’t a Beaumaris.”
“It’s been my table for two months,” Cash replied and Abby’s breath stuck in her throat. “Alistair is in debt up to his teeth. I bought the notes. If he paid the loans he’s taken against the castle, which he doesn’t, he’d be paying me.”
Abby felt her eyes grow round and Cash got closer.
“That’s why you’re here, darling. I’ve been playing with him for a year, making him think I might be interested in one of his stepdaughters in order to keep his attention off the fact I was stealing his house from under his nose. This weekend you’re here to rub his face in one failure, his not securing a Beaumaris to marry one of his stepdaughters, while I rub his nose in the ultimate failure for any Beaumaris, true or not, by informing him he needs to pack his bags and get… the f**k… out.”
Abby stared at him then whispered, “You’ve owned it all along?”
Cash nodded then went on. “I took it and then you gave me proof that it was mine in the first place. Either way, he’s out.”
Abby was stunned. Abby was also worried.
“But, what about Nicola?” Abby asked.
Cash muttered dryly, “She can stay.”
“Fenella? Honor?” Abby pressed.
His head descended and his mouth touched her collarbone. “I’m beginning to like them. You bring out the best in people. They can stay too,” he replied generously, Abby opened her mouth again but Cash beat her to it when his head came up and he stated flatly, “Suzanne goes.”
Abby stared at him a moment then her voice went soft. “So all this time, you knew your Dad wanted to marry your Mom?”
He shook his head, his jaw went hard as did his eyes and he muttered, “That was news.”
“Did you know he wanted you to inherit?” Abby asked.
“I knew he was scrutinising the covenant. I guessed why,” Cash replied.
“You need to talk to Angus,” Abby told him.
“I’ll talk to Angus, after you’re safe,” Cash agreed. “All of this will happen after we know you’re safe.”
“Cash –” Abby started to argue, thinking it was Priority One that Alistair get his due.
“Abby,” he broke in, “after you’re safe.”
Abby didn’t let it go. “You can’t wait! He killed your father, Cash. You’ve been working on this for –”
He cut her off. “After you’re safe.”
“Cash!” she snapped and his face came close to hers.
“After… you’re… fucking… safe,” he enunciated clearly, slowly and more than a little inflexibly.
All right then, after she was safe it was.
All of a sudden, all he said, what he’d done, dawned on her.
And she felt something odd steal over her, odd and thrilling.
She was, she realised, proud of him. It wasn’t her place to be proud but she couldn’t help it, she was.
And, she thought, the man who held her in his lap, in a turret, in his ancestral home, a home he’d been born to but denied and then cheated but he’d won it all the same, that man, Abby concluded, should celebrate.
And she knew exactly how he should do it.
Even though it scared the daylights out of her (for a variety of reasons), since she was living on limited time, she didn’t waste any of it.
Abruptly she asked, “Will you do something for me?”
His eyes moved over her face and she knew he was trying to read her mind.
Clearly failing, cautiously he replied, “That depends.”
She smiled.
When she did, his eyes dropped to her mouth but she pushed him back, slid off his lap, grabbed his hand and pulled him up from the chair. Then she tugged him to the door which she threw open and stepped out of the room.
With a sharp yank at her hand he hauled her back and she looked up at him.
“You’re not leaving this room,” he told her.
She smiled up at him. “I’ll be safe. I’m with you.”
Then she started to move forward again but Cash stayed planted.
She pulled at his arm. He still didn’t move.
She stopped, turned and softly uttered two words, “Cash, please.”
He looked to the side, pressing his lips together then his body came unstuck and he walked down the dark hall with her, down the stairs, his hand in hers, his body close.
She led him to the study and closed the door behind them.
She took his hand again, moved with him through the shadows to the huge desk which had been there for maybe hundreds of years. A desk his father used, his grandfather used, and so on.
A desk that Alistair used.
Abby walked Cash around the desk and pushed back the chair then stopped Cash in front of her, dropped his hand and leaned back against the desk.
“Abby, what in f**king hell –” Cash, she could tell, was losing patience.
Abby interrupted. “Alistair uses this desk.”
“And?” Cash asked irritably.
Her hands went to his waist inside his robe and she pulled him closer. She got up on tiptoe and leaned into him as his hands came to her hips.
“Abby –” he started.
She put her lips to his jaw and muttered, “I’m done with my period.”
She felt him grow still.
Her hands slid up his sides, around then up his back as she pressed against him.
His head tipped down as hers tilted back and she put her mouth to his.
Using every smidgeon of courage she had, her heart beating madly, she whispered, “Cash, I want you to f**k me on your desk.”
Cash’s body went solid.
For a moment.
But Abby didn’t have to ask twice.
His mouth captured hers in a bruising kiss and her robe was off her shoulders in a flash, pooling on the floor at her feet.
All the while kissing her, Cash leaned forward and Abby arched back. He did something and she heard objects hit the floor but she didn’t pay much attention. She was busy trying to pull his robe down his occupied arms at the same time kissing him back.