The Marriage Demand

And yet when she walked into the kitchen and discovered that it was empty of Nash’s presence her predominant feeling was one of…of what? she asked herself sharply. Not disappointment…no way. No, she was glad he was at least giving her the privacy to eat alone, without his tormenting presence.

But as she opened the fridge she realised she was wrong, because Nash was walking into the kitchen.

‘Asparagus and salmon,’ Faith murmured as she saw the food that had been left for them. Her eyes filmed with tears, forcing her to keep her head down so that Nash couldn’t see them whilst she blinked fiercely to disperse them.

Philip’s favourites.

Suddenly Faith knew that despite her hunger the food would taste like sawdust to her.

Shakily she closed the fridge door.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she told Nash. ‘I’m not hungry.’

The look of male incomprehension he gave her might have amused her under different circumstances, but when she headed for the kitchen door she saw it change to frowning anger as Nash moved lithely past her to stand between her and her exit.

‘I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing—’ he began ominously.

Faith felt her self-control starting to fray. It had been a long day, beginning with her being buoyed up with excitement and pride at the knowledge that Robert had entrusted her with such an important project, then going from that to deep, numbing shock when she had first seen Nash. Then had come the trauma of reliving searingly painful memories—and that was without taking into account everything she had experienced when Nash had kissed her.

‘I’m not the one who’s playing games,’ she refuted fiercely, her voice trembling with the intensity of her feelings. ‘You’re the one who’s doing that, Nash. Why have you come here? Why are you staying here? That wasn’t part of the arrangement Robert made with the trustees of the estate.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about his business for a relatively new employee,’ Nash countered smoothly, and Faith suspected that despite her anger he could tell that underneath it she was feeling very vulnerable. ‘But then, of course, you aren’t just his employee, are you, Faith? Why the hell do you think I’m here?’ he demanded with an abrupt change of tone. ‘Do you really think for one moment that once I learned you’d be here I would allow you to stay on your own?

‘This house is full of almost priceless architectural features—panelling, architraves, fireplaces, to name just a few items that would fetch thousands if they were removed and sold to some unscrupulous builder who wasn’t worried about checking where they’d come from.’

Faith knew that what he was saying was true, but it appalled her that he should actually consider her capable of perpetrating such a crime. Before she could defend herself Nash was attacking her again, although in a very different way this time.

‘Are you going to tell Robert that you asked me to kiss you?’ he asked with acid softness.

‘What? I…I did no such thing,’ Faith denied with vehement indignation, her face pink with anger.

‘Liar,’ Nash taunted her. “‘Kiss me”—that’s what you said to me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Although of course it’s typical of you that you should deny it.’

Her face was now scarlet with mortification as she had a sickening memory of actually thinking those words. Surely she hadn’t…couldn’t have said them out aloud? But she must have done—unless Nash had read her mind, which in truth she wouldn’t entirely put past him.

‘The next thing you’ll be doing is trying to pretend that you didn’t enjoy it,’ Nash goaded her tauntingly.

Now Faith really had had enough.

‘I didn’t,’ she denied flatly.

‘No? Well, there’s one very sure way to prove whether or not you’re telling the truth, isn’t there?’ Nash retaliated.

The way he was watching her, looking at her like a hungry lion eyeing up its prey, made Faith wish with all her heart that she had never become involved in a verbal battle she knew Nash would not allow her to win.

‘Fortunately for me Hatton doesn’t have a torture chamber,’ she told him with angry scorn.

‘I don’t need a torture chamber to prove you a liar,’ Nash told her smoothly. ‘This is all it’s going to take…’

Faith’s eyes widened in disbelief as he took hold of her, imprisoning her against his body and holding her captive there as he bent his head.

Grittily she closed her lips tightly together, fiercely refusing to close her eyes, letting them tell him all that her lips could not as they glittered with angry contempt and female pride, daring him to do his worst.

‘Open your mouth.’ Nash seemed impervious to the intensity of the rage and hostility emanating from her tense body. ‘Open your mouth Faith,’ he repeated as he drew his tongue-tip oh, so lightly across the closed line of her lips.

The sensual way in which the warm, wet tip of his tongue was stroking almost lovingly against her lips was so shockingly distracting that Faith found her thoughts releasing their hold on her anger and sliding with shaming wantonness to concentrate instead on the sensations Nash’s expertly seductive attack was having on her.

If she closed her eyes that sensation magnified a hundredfold, and that surely must be the reason she was starting to tremble as treacherously as a young girl experiencing her first real awareness of what a kiss could be. But Nash wasn’t even kissing her yet—not really. He was just playing with her, teasing her, tormenting her. She could feel his breath against her skin, smell the unique Nash smell of him, feel…

On a low moan of defeat Faith didn’t even know she was making, her lips started to part.

Achingly Faith clung to Nash, her mouth moving eagerly against his, her hand sliding behind his head so that she could hold him close to her.

Nash, Nash…Silently she breathed his name in a sharp female cry that held all the pent-up longing of her teenage desire, of the nights when she had lain awake aching for him without knowing exactly what it was she was aching for. She had known about the mechanics of sex, of course, but the actuality of it had still been a mystery to her, and she had passionately believed Nash was the only man who could ever hold the key to unlock that mystery for her.

Had been a mystery?

Faith shuddered and felt the sharp intake of breath Nash made, as though somehow that fierce reaction of her body had affected his.

They were kissing as she had so often imagined they might, their mouths clinging, stroking, tasting, caressing, feasting, and the little murmurs of appreciative pleasure she could hear herself making were running through their kisses in a soft, disjointed paean of pleasure.

Then, abruptly, shockingly, Nash was pushing her away from him, his chest rising and falling sharply as he demanded in a voice that grated against her ears, ‘How much more do I have to do to prove you a liar, Faith? Take you to bed? You’d certainly have let me.’

Appalled, sickened, disbelieving, Faith could only stand blank-eyed and shamed as he denounced her. She could offer him no defence nor any explanation. White-faced, her eyes huge and dark with pain and humiliation, she didn’t know which of them she hated the most. Him or herself.

Nauseously she waited for the blow to fall, for Nash to tell her that he fully intended to reveal to Robert what she had done, but sinisterly he made no move to do so.

Faith could feel her anxiety start to increase. Her stomach was churning, her head ached and her eyes felt gritty and sore from the tears she refused to allow herself to cry.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Nash demanded as she turned on her heel and hurried blindly towards the kitchen door.

‘My room. I’m tired and I want to go to bed,’ Faith told him shakily. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours, Nash. I’m not answerable to you. You don’t have any control over me.’

There was the smallest pause before he responded, his voice silken with a menace that made the tiny hairs lift on the back of Faith’s neck.

‘No? Oh, I think you’ll find that you are very much answerable to me, Faith, and that I have a great deal of control over you. If, for instance, I were to tell Robert what you had just done…’

‘If?’ Faith couldn’t manage to keep the note of soft pleading out of her voice as she turned round to confront him.

‘I thought you wanted to go to bed,’ Nash taunted her smoothly.

He was enjoying this, Faith recognised. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of pleading with him…begging him…

‘I do,’ she agreed fiercely, turning her back on him, walking determinedly towards the door and opening it.

As he watched her departing back Nash finally let out the pent-up breath he had been holding.

Where the hell had she learned to kiss like that…and who with…?

No other woman had ever kissed him like that, as if he was their life, their soul, their one desire. Their soul mate for this life and every life to come, their world…their everything. She had kissed him as though she had waited out an eternity for him…as though she had been starving for him…as though she loved him and only him.

A woman like Faith was a living, breathing mortal danger to a man when she kissed him like that. A woman like Faith…

Angrily Nash tried to dismiss her from his thoughts. Hadn’t what she had done to his godfather taught him anything? Of course it had! What was she trying to do? Offer him sex to prevent him from telling Ferndown about her?

Alongside his anger and contempt Nash could feel the sharp savage heat that burned through his body. How could he possibly want her, given all that he knew about her? He had never merely wanted a woman for sex. Never. And he didn’t want Faith—not really. It was just his mind playing tricks on him. Some bizarre and treacherous effect of seeing her here at Hatton and reactivating memories of the past. A past when he had wanted her.

How many men had there been in her life since then? How many men had experienced the dangerous witchery of her? If that kiss she had given him was anything to go by…no wonder Ferndown was so besotted with her!

But he had come here to finally put the past to rest, Nash reminded himself savagely—not to reactivate it.

Upstairs in her room Faith sank down onto her bed, wrapping her arms protectively around her body as she rocked herself helplessly to and fro.

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