Stranded for One Scandalous Week
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Natalie Anderson
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CHAPTER ONE
MERLE JORDAN WAS surrounded by bubbles. White frothy ones filled the deep, wide bath, petite ones fizzed from the oversized champagne bottle she’d just opened, while the fragile glass bubbles of a sleek modern light fixture gleamed above her head. The glimmering orbs delighted her starved senses, bringing absolute bliss.
She opened the stunning glass doors which led to the balcony that stretched the length of the building and ended with a curling staircase that led down to the pool below. A massive moon hung in the sky like the biggest bubble of all, casting a rippling sweep of light across the private bay. Merle lit the candle beside the bath and switched off the pretty light overhead, indulging in the soft, muted glow of the large moon and small flame.
With a disbelieving giggle she wriggled out of her underwear. She’d barely sampled the champagne but this decadence wasn’t something she’d experienced and it was heady. Merle didn’t excel at self-care at the best of times and this was beyond beginner level. She’d graduated to expert in one go. Never before had she been in a bath so big, never had she seen a view so stunning, never had she stood naked and sipped champagne from a slender crystal glass. Never had she stolen time for herself.
The summer air was still warm but she couldn’t resist the bubbles of the bath a moment longer. The glistening suds slipped over her like soft strokes of indulgence. Sliding deeper, Merle sipped her drink and breathed in the magnificent surroundings. She couldn’t believe she was living in this ‘holiday home’. She could bathe like this every night for the next six weeks if she wished.
It wasn’t really a holiday home, it was a mega-mansion on Waiheke—an island less than an hour from Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Known as a playground for the wealthy, this property was a perfect example of the luxury homes hidden here. Incredibly private, it overlooked a beach with boat-only access and was furnished with an overflowing wine cellar, stunning swimming pool and spa. There was also a home gym, a cinema room, and even a single-lane bowling alley. The entire property was beautifully decorated with simple yet luxurious style. Richly coloured timber floors provided warmth and white paintwork offered crisp freshness, while soft-cushioned sofas and artfully placed occasional chairs invited relaxation. The gorgeous glazing of the house meant the entire building could be opened up to invite the outside in, and baskets with verdant plants accentuated that coastal, nature-loving style.
The place was ready for a magazine shoot at a moment’s notice, Merle mused. Unusually for her, she liked the dearth of personal items in the decor; it made her feel it was more of a holiday venue and less as if she was encroaching on someone’s private space. Besides, all those personal secrets were waiting to be discovered in the boxes currently filling the triple-car garage. She’d been contracted to sort and list their contents and prepare them either for storage or destruction.
She couldn’t believe that such a property had sat unoccupied for over a year. It seemed wrong when so many people didn’t have a home—including her. But she could hardly resent the obscenely wealthy owner’s abandonment, given that the live-in requirement of the job gave her a roof over her head for a while. And, as it was Friday night, she’d decided it was okay to finally relax. Everyone deserved a treat after a hard week’s work, right?
Sighing with pure, luxurious pleasure, she knelt up to replenish her champagne from the bottle she’d left on the ledge.
‘Oh, hey, darling.’
The low, lazy murmur shocked her.
‘Why are you naked in my bath?’ he asked.
Half kneeling out of the bubbles, her hand stretched towards that champagne bottle, Merle froze, gaping at the man leaning against the doorjamb. For a second she only saw his eyes. They gleamed in the candlelight with an amber, almost animal warmth that didn’t just dazzle, but actually stunned a woman into stillness.
Ashton Castle.
Merle breathed out, relieved because she’d instantly recognised him. He was in a photo downstairs, the one personal item on display in the place. He’d inherited this house when his father, Hugh, had died just over a year ago, but had ignored it since. Ash had been too busy to be bothered, right? He had his hands too full with every socialite or model or influencer who crossed his path. And they all said yes because not only was notorious playboy Ash Castle eye-wateringly rich, he was also appallingly good-looking.
Confronted by the reality, not a decades-old photo, Merle was stupefied. Tall, dazzling, devastating. She stared slack-jawed and wide-eyed at his long, muscular lines and stunningly sculpted face. She knew he also had that other irresistible-to-many facet to his nature—he was reckless. That was catnip to lots of women, wasn’t it? They wanted to dance with danger, attempt to tame the untameable, bring the rich, ravishing, reckless playboy to heel...
But not Merle. She couldn’t think of a worse combination.
She was sure his money, privilege and good looks meant it was too easy for him to get everything and everyone he wanted. That led to lazy arrogance and entitlement that meant the usual boundaries were ignored. She knew those sorts of men well. She’d been burned by one in her youth and she’d successfully avoided all of them since. Until now, when she was confronted with the worst of them all.
‘Sweetheart?’ Ash’s gaze narrowed slightly.
Belatedly Merle realised she was up on her knees and, while there were masses of bubbles in the enormous bath, there weren’t enough to cover her completely. Her breasts were exposed and quite possibly her...
She splashed down into the water so quickly she almost slipped right under. Desperately she threw her arms out to clutch the sides while drawing her knees up defensively at the same time. Another deep breath later, she wiped away the blob of frothy bubbles she could feel sliding down the side of her face.
Of all the people to have arrived unexpectedly. Of all the times. Of all the shocks.
And she couldn’t stop staring. His dark grey tee hugged his broad shoulders and clung to the hard planes of his chest, while his black jeans emphasised the length and strength of his legs. They were faded in the thigh area, the paler patches drawing her eye to the core of his masculinity. She snapped her gaze from his slim hips back up past his broad shoulders, but his face only added to that impression of absolute masculinity. The shadow on his jaw highlighted its sharp, angular line. Beneath his straight nose, his sensually full lips curved into a weary but appreciative smile. And then there were those mesmerising eyes—a warm brown with an almost leonine hint in the amber. Everything about him screamed virile male. And the truly horrific thing was that her body—her weak, treacherous body—seemed to want nothing more than to melt in a purely sexual reaction. It was a primal, utterly basic response that was so new, so surprising, she couldn’t pull her scattered thoughts together enough to scream at him to get out of there.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked negligently, still leaning against the doorjamb, apparently unfazed by her nudity and her panicked slide back into the water.
Of course he wasn’t bothered. He was well used to women baring all around him.
Merle burned, mortified. That should be her question. But she wasn’t great at speaking up, even when necessary. The truth was Leo Castle—Ash’s half-brother and the man who’d confirmed her contract here—had said she’d have the place to herself, that she could take six weeks or more on the project if necessary. The prospect of having a home for that long had been incredible. She desperately needed to recover her affairs. She had no regrets about going into debt for her grandfather’s health, but now that he was gone she had to claw her way out of the deep financial hole she’d been left in.
‘Did someone send you, Miss...?’
Merle stiffened, perceiving slight insolence in his tone and finally found her voice. ‘Leo Castle—’
‘Leo hired you?’ Ashton Castle’s eyebrows rose, as if he was surprised. ‘How did he know I was coming?’ He looked perplexed as he muttered, apparently to himself, ‘But he knows I don’t do prostitutes.’
Merle sat stupefied all over again, suddenly unable to feel whether the water was hot or cold because everything had gone numb. Had he just said prostitutes?
Her heart pounded. Did he think she’d been hired to entertain him? That she was waiting naked in this bath with this champagne, ready to...to please him? A humiliation bomb exploded—bursting every one of her happy bubbles that’d been fizzing only five minutes before. And then a cloud of something else rose inside—something sinful and hot and that she couldn’t bear to define.
‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ she choked, so awash with embarrassment she was unable to continue.
‘Yeah.’ He strolled nearer and picked up the bottle of champagne from the edge of the bath, studying her even more closely, more directly—an open, unashamedly sexual appraisal. ‘But worse ones have been made.’
With a twist of his full lips he cocked his head and cast that searing glance over the champagne label. ‘This was not a mistake, however. This was a nice choice.’ He glanced back at her, laughter glinting in his eyes. ‘At nine hundred dollars a bottle, you’re not afraid to set your value high.’
What? Merle nearly choked again.
‘It cost how much?’ Her voice faded in a welter of shyness.
Ash smiled and Merle just about died. The transformation from serious sex god, to smiling sex god made every muscle inside her squeeze. She could only stare—yet again rendered stupid. He met her gaze square on. But as her brain slowly came back online she registered a tired edge in his eyes that meant that his smile didn’t quite ring true. Drawing in a deep breath, she dragged her gaze back to the bottle and regretted ever thinking it was okay to accept the offer to have anything she wanted from the cellar.
‘I had no idea. I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, even more mortified. Nine hundred dollars? It was incredible to her that a bottle of anything could possibly cost that much. ‘Mr Castle said I could—’
‘Look, sweetheart, you fill your bath with it for all I care,’ Ash interrupted her embarrassed explanation with an almost dismissive boredom. ‘Bathe in every last drop if you want.’
But then his gaze skimmed across her shoulders and something else gleamed again.
She had the scandalous sensation that he was envisaging licking the droplets from her skin. And she wanted him to. Merle—who’d never wanted any man near her—suddenly wanted the biggest playboy of all to do what he wanted with his tongue and her skin, and how was it possible that she was slithering beneath some wordless spell?
Instinctively sinking lower into the water, Merle felt that awful softening deep inside. It was shockingly inappropriate, and she was appalled by herself as much as she was by him. Merle didn’t feel hot and bothered by anyone. Yet she was unable to tear her gaze away from Ash Castle. It was as if she’d met a mythological creature—something rare and impossible. People simply didn’t look like this in real life. Not with glinting strength and sinfully arching dark eyebrows and casually tousled, slightly too long hair that fell just so. Not with sharply defined jawlines, even when masked by the stubble of a long day, not with full, sensual mouths that curved upwards in invitation even when in repose.
But now his expression clouded as he gazed back at her. As she watched—too flummoxed to be able to do anything else—a heated heaviness filled the atmosphere between them. Neither of them moved. Merle didn’t even breathe as his expression intensified. If she weren’t already going crazy, she’d think he was as captivated by her as she was him.
‘Do you like the taste?’ he muttered. ‘Because I like the look. Very much.’
She simply couldn’t reply.
‘And I must be tired,’ he muttered as he lifted the champagne and took a long swig straight from the overpriced bottle, his hot gaze not leaving her face. ‘I’m so tempted—’
‘I’ve been hired by Mr Castle to sort out your father’s collections,’ Merle blurted quickly, knowing her cheeks were blazing with a dreadful blush.
Ash stilled for a second, then slowly set the bottle back down on the side of the bath. ‘Pardon?’
She didn’t believe the laziness in his tone, not when she saw the lethal alertness that had sprung into his eyes.
‘Mr Leo Castle hired me to sort out your father’s things,’ Merle mumbled miserably, barely able to inject volume into her voice and utterly unable to hold his gaze. ‘I’m an archivist. I’ve been staying here since Wednesday. I’m working on the papers in the boxes first.’
‘An archivist?’
She hesitated, taking in a breath to summon the equilibrium to explain further. She hadn’t spoken this much in days. ‘Aside from the rare books, there are several dozen boxes stacked in the garage. I’m also cataloguing the art and the wine collections, though expert valuers will deal with those once I’ve done the detailed lists. I’m only doing the storage and destruction plan for the papers.’ She paused for breath and glanced up to find he wasn’t really listening to her explanation anyway.
‘That’s why you’re in my bath?’
‘I didn’t know it was your bath,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to use the main bedroom. I thought this was one of the guest rooms.’
Something flickered in his expression before he shut it back to bland. ‘I guess in recent years that is what it has been. But a long time ago it was my room.’ He stared at her a little longer. ‘I feel surprisingly disappointed.’
Her jaw dropped. She ought to be outraged, but the awful thing was she actually felt a touch flattered. Maybe the champagne had already had more of an effect on her than she’d realised?
‘How long are you here for?’ His forehead wrinkled.
She had to swallow before she could answer. ‘Six weeks. But it might run a little longer as there’s more than was initially listed...’
He lifted one of the large, fluffy white towels from the rack and placed it beside the champagne bottle. ‘I didn’t realise Leo had got that underway.’
‘Mr Castle seemed to think the place would be empty for the duration of my contract.’
‘Ordinarily he would’ve been right.’ Ash’s mouth tightened. ‘Maybe it’s best if we continue this conversation downstairs. Ten minutes, okay?’
She stared at him, shocked. Wasn’t he going to apologise for thinking she’d been hired as his evening’s entertainment?
He stared back at her, his head tilting as he read her expression, and that wicked smile flashed again, banishing what had barely been a hint of remorse. ‘Unless you’re happy to negotiate terms in here...?’
‘Of course not,’ she mumbled.
‘Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not.’ He seemed amused by the colour she knew was climbing her cheeks again. ‘Sex work is legal in this country.’
‘I’m aware, but it’s not my chosen profession.’ She wanted to slide right under the bubbles, she really did.
He shrugged carelessly. ‘Can you blame me for the mistake? The scene was perfectly set—candles, champagne, and you were beautifully positioned to maximise the effect of your...assets.’
His gaze didn’t waver from hers—didn’t drop to assess those ‘assets’ once more. And right now, those assets felt tight and achy and it was appalling.
‘It’s not unusual for you to find a woman just waiting for you in your bath or bed?’ she asked huskily, shocking herself with the question. She never talked to anyone about such things.
‘Not unusual in the least.’ He grinned, the devilish lights in his eyes twinkling. ‘It’s something I enjoy. A lot.’
But he didn’t pay them to be there. They arrived by choice—because of want.
Merle glared at him, horrified by her own reaction, her own wild thoughts. Since when did she feel anything thing like attraction to someone so...so...smugly sexual?
‘Pleasure is something to be valued and appreciated,’ he added almost piously. ‘Not embarrassed about.’
And, with that pithy piece of sexual arrogance, he left.
Merle waited, almost completely submerged, until he’d vanished. The second he closed the door she scrambled out of the slippery bath. She dressed quickly in loose jeans and a tee shirt and threw on a baggy sweatshirt for good measure, despite still burning from that mortifying moment. She left her hair in its damp twist on top of her head and checked her reflection. For a millisecond she stared at her make-up-free skin and wished she was something she wasn’t.
Fool. Why suddenly think of mascara and lipstick? She did not want his interest. Judging by the pictures she’d seen in the media, she wasn’t anything like the women he usually met and that was a good thing. And, while she’d like a boyfriend one day, Ash Castle wasn’t ever anyone’s boyfriend. He was a lover, a seducer, an unrepentant playboy who doubtless left a mountain of broken hearts behind him. Merle’s wasn’t going to be one of them. As if he’d ever be interested anyway. It was only context that had made that glint flash in his face for those few seconds. She shrank in embarrassment, refusing to think about what he may or may not have seen of her in that bath. Or what he’d have thought.
‘Are you usually based on Waiheke or in Auckland?’ Ash called from where he stood in the centre of the atrium the second she appeared on the staircase. ‘Because it’s late. I’m not sure how we’ll get you back to Auckland now the last ferry has already left.’
Merle descended slowly, stopping three steps from the bottom so she could keep her distance yet be able to look him directly in the eyes. She couldn’t leave here. Not tonight or any other night for the next six weeks.
‘I came here to do some work. I need space and peace,’ he added when she didn’t reply, and his gaze grew pointed.
‘You’ll have that,’ she muttered, hoping to assure him despite the sudden racing of her pulse. ‘You won’t even know I’m here.’
His mouth tightened, then curved into a slow, deliberate smile that yet again didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Won’t I? When you’re naked in my bath and sleeping in my bed?’
She stared, sure he’d worded that deliberately to put those inappropriate images in her mind and unsettle her all over again. ‘I’ll switch to another room, of course.’
She tried to breathe away the blush she felt beating across her face and trained her own gaze a little lower. It wasn’t the wisest move. He had the most perfect cheekbones; they were like blades, angling towards the arrogant set of his chin and his full mouth. And she really shouldn’t look at his mouth. The full sensuality of it made her think of hunger and kisses. She forced her focus back up to his eyes. They were intent upon her, but within their heated gaze there was more than unhappiness growing. There was misery. Why?
‘Delay your work for a week,’ he said abruptly. ‘Head home for a holiday. Full pay, of course.’
She instantly forgot her curiosity. Head home? To where exactly? She stared, unable to think of a reply as her anger built. Why did he need this enormous house all to himself? Why this one, when he had all those others? Aside from being a whizzy finance billionaire in his own right, she knew he was the heir to the Castle Holdings luxury apartment empire in Australia. His father had amassed a huge amount of property over there—where Ash Castle was supposed to be living right now.
But the man standing before her was obviously used to getting everything his way. To ‘full paying’ away any annoying inconveniences. And, not so deep beneath her surface, she smarted from the sting of his rejection. It was stupid, especially given the fact that she was well used to rejection.
For once in his life Ash Castle wasn’t getting everything he wanted. At least, not tonight. He’d arrived on a whim and it was too bad for him that she was already here—under contract and with nowhere else to go.
‘I don’t need a holiday,’ she said stiffly. ‘I need to do my job. Which means I need to stay here.’
‘Until tomorrow.’ He nodded. ‘Then you can go home for a week.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Unfortunately, I’m between residences at present.’ She hated having to inform him of the deeply personal fact.
‘Between residences?’ he echoed bluntly, his gaze sharpening. ‘You mean you’re homeless?’
She tensed even more. ‘As I spend my time going from contract to contract, I’ve no need to set up a permanent residence.’
It was a lie. Very few jobs were live-in and the only reason she’d got this contract was because she’d been able to leap on a plane at short notice. Sonja, the manager of the archival company she worked for, had been going to do it but her early pregnancy had been reassessed as high risk and she’d asked Merle to step in at the last minute.
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 him in a house this size, plus she had all those boxes to bury herself in.
Yet, intriguingly, as he hesitated his expression turned more than serious, more than sombre, more akin to misery. It didn’t suit him. A tinge within Merle tugged her down the stairs towards him.
‘No one knows I’m here,’ he said. ‘Not even Leo. I’d like to keep it that way.’
‘Of course,’ she mumbled.
He didn’t realise she had no one to tell and she was far removed from anyone in his world. But she did need to stay here. Not only did she have nowhere else to go, but this was also an important job for her professionally. She had debt to clear and a future to forge.
‘You won’t even know I’m here.’ But as she earnestly attempted to reassure him, she saw the look in his eyes morph once more.
