Cash stopped them dead on the landing and for a moment Abby feared an army of malevolent ghosts would descend.
Then she realised it was just her usual bad luck, bad timing and wiring that was likely laid during World War I.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Cash muttered angrily in the dark.
“It’s probably just a fuse,” Abby replied with more hope than certainty.
She felt rather than saw Cash turn to her. She did this because his arm never left her shoulders and she found herself pressed to him, breasts to chest.
“In all the shit we talked about in Germany, I forgot to ask about this fucking house,” he commented, his tone bland, his use of the f-word a huge, waving red flag.
“It’s just old,” Abby tried.
“It’s old,” he agreed and continued. “It’s also a money pit and likely a fire hazard.”
“It’s not a fire hazard!” Abby felt the need to defend even though the report the surveyor gave her indicated differently, mainly due to the wiring and, perhaps, some of her appliances. Then she went on to semi-lie, “It’s fine. Solid. It can just be cantankerous on occasion.”
Or, more to the point, weekly.
Cash moved into her, his hand curling her back to his side as he reversed directions.
“Where are we going?” Abby asked as he started to guide them back downstairs.
“My place,” Cash answered.
Abby halted, too tired to remember she didn’t want him in her house.
“But it’s late!” she exclaimed.
Cash pressed her to moving again. “It is, darling, but I’m not fucking around with a fuse box at midnight. Furthermore, I like you just the way you are. You’d be far less attractive burned to a cinder.”
“I’m not going to get burned to a cinder,” Abby declared crossly.
“No. You’re not,” he agreed and proved himself right by guiding her firmly to the entry, helping her on with her coat, grabbing his bag and using his other hand to propel her to his car.
Then he drove them to his house.
Chapter Seventeen
All the Time in the World
Cash woke on his back, his arm outstretched and Abby was in another unusual but exceptionally sweet position. The curve of her spine was pressed against his side, the heels of her feet against his leg and her temple was resting on the back of her hand, which was curled around his bicep.
He turned into her, sliding his hand along the silk at her waist.
She was wearing one of the nightgowns he bought her the day before, a sexy, short, revealing, grey-green silk that complimented her eyes. The clerk in the exclusive boutique in London where he’d ordered the dressing gowns and, on Monday, seven nightgowns, had done her job well. Cash had told Moira to describe Abby’s appearance and have them send nightgowns which would suit.
They didn’t disappoint, sending Cash’s request by same-day courier as they did with the dressing gowns, each one was perfect and Abby had loved them. Not as much as cashmere but, she’d informed him, silk and satin (“the real kind”) were close seconds.
The nightgowns were an answer to Abby’s pyjamas which she’d unveiled Sunday night after he’d forced her, and her cat, to move in with him. Although he had to admit she looked cute in the striped, drawstring bottoms and fitted t-shirt, Cash found later when they were in bed he didn’t like the obstacles they presented.
Unlike getting her presents, it was safe to say she hadn’t been pleased at his demand to move in even though she didn’t utter a word. Cash had felt actual physical pain at his effort not to laugh in the face of Abby’s obvious struggle against her desire to argue.
However, Simon’s full report, e-mailed to Cash while they were in Germany, stated that Abby’s house was what, after close scrutiny of the report, Cash considered a health hazard. It needed new wiring, new plumbing, new appliances and new bathrooms. The carpeting was frayed in places, making it easy to trip, especially if one insisted on wearing high heels as Abby did, and needed to be replaced.
The list went on.
Simon had noted that a good deal of work had already been done, the roof, windows, chimneys and repairs to damp and dry rot. But there was still a good deal left to do to make it, what Cash would deem, habitable.
About five seconds after the lights failed Saturday night, Abby, Cash decided, was definitely not going to live there while he saw to restoring it.
She was going to live with him and therefore, likely, not return home for some time.
On that thought, he buried his face in her hair and fitted his body to the length of hers, breathing in the scent of her.
Last Wednesday Cash had discovered Abby’s secret.
She was not, as she wished him to believe, an escort for hire.
She was, instead, a woman who desperately needed money.
The day after they had dinner with his uncle, he’d investigated this himself and within hours put the pieces together.
Until he transferred the money into her account, her balance was naught. She was overdrawn and had substantial credit and loan debt. Her banking history exposed enormous expenditures which were likely repairs on her home. She’d had a job at one point but her salary was unbelievably low and that regular deposit had stopped some time ago. This indicated she’d lost her job and hadn’t had steady employment for some time, although she’d taken intermittent contract work.
Further investigation uncovered the fact that she’d amassed considerable debt in DC. It didn’t take close scrutiny to see that she should have sold the house she shared with her husband and further she had continued a lifestyle she could no longer afford on her salary alone. This left her in relatively dire financial straits when she left that life behind, which meant she was ill-prepared to absorb the expenses she couldn’t know she’d face, from what he could tell, upon arrival in the UK.
Why she sold herself rather than some of the valuable pieces of furniture and art in her home, Cash had no idea.
But he intended to find out.
He felt her nestle deeper into him in her sleep and he smiled into her hair.
He enjoyed this time, early in the mornings, before he woke her. This was when he had her, when she was sleeping. He also knew he had her, all of her, when he was fucking her.
The rest of the time, she was on guard.
He’d had her once, their first weekend together.
And he fully intended to have that again.
Her being on guard started the day of their fight and he hadn’t done himself any favours by punishing her that evening. She’d forgiven him, this he knew, but something had changed, that was clear.
She was trying to hide this from him. What she didn’t know was there was a big difference between Abby being Abby and Abby being the Abby she wanted him to think she was.
There were times when she came through. For example, when she hilariously repacked her heels after he’d unpacked them; when she first laid eyes on her Bavarian torte; when she panicked at the thought of him entering her house when there was a possibility of intruders; and when she’d received the nightgowns the day before.
But mostly she maintained a cautious distance, erecting and consistently fortifying walls that kept him out.
Cash intended to break down those walls. He intended to force her to admit her secrets. He intended to find out why she’d sold herself to him. Lastly, he intended to have all of her again, no holding back.
And he didn’t care how long it took.
His strategy was to be patient until the time came when that was no longer working. She was coming out more and more, fitting naturally into his life, letting that guard down more frequently, and he was carefully pressing this advantage.