Penmort Castle (Ghosts and Reincarnation #1)(18)

He did mind.

Further, he minded that she obviously didn’t.

Now it was a quarter after nine and it sounded like she was having a blowout party attended by rock stars, groupies and their various and assorted roadies and hangers on.

He made it to the garden level of his three-story townhouse to see, thankfully, she was not having a party.

Instead she was reading a magazine.

When he bought his house in Bath and started renovations, he’d had this level torn out so most of it was open plan. Then he’d hired an interior designer who designed the space for him.

Against the back wall there was a modern, black, chrome and stainless steel, state-of-the-art kitchen that several women he’d brought to his home had been in gales of ecstasy about but Cash, himself, rarely used.

At the foot of the stairs separated from the kitchen area by a wide counter with tall stools was a comfortable seating area he never used.

Across from the stairs and extending from the kitchen there was a modern, black-lacquered dining table that seated twelve that he sometimes wondered why he’d purchased because he’d never sat there.

There was a cloakroom under the stairs and the only interior door, off the dining area, led to a workout room with a rowing machine, elliptical machine, weights and weight bench that, outside of his bedroom, was the room he used most in the house.

The wall to the garden shared by the kitchen and seating area had been fitted almost entirely with floor-to-ceiling windows including a set of French doors.

Abby was lying on her stomach on his enormous, scarlet red couch.

She was, he was surprised to see, wearing a pair of bottom-hugging jeans, high-heeled shoes with what looked like a number of thin, sexy straps at the ankle and a taupe jumper woven in such a way that it was see-through and visible underneath was a creamy camisole.

Her back was to him and her hair was in a ponytail at the back of her head. She had her knees bent, ankles crossed, feet swaying in the air and she was flipping through the pages of a magazine.

She looked like the stereotypical American teenager and if he heard her snap some gum in her mouth, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

His hand went to the knot in his tie and pulled while he called, “Abby.”

He watched as her body jerked.

Then her head twisted around, ponytail flipping over her shoulder, and her eyes locked on him in stunned surprise.

She regarded him as if she was house sitting and expected him at that moment to be in a business meeting halfway around the world, not in his house as he told her he’d be.

“You’re home,” she announced unnecessarily.

“That and I’m starving,” he replied.

“You’re late,” she told him, not moving from her position.

“I called,” he informed her, yanking off his tie, walking deeper into the room and tossing it on the large grey chair that sat perpendicular to the couch.

“You called and said you’d be here at nine. It’s not nine. It’s after nine,” she returned.

Cash shrugged off his suit jacket, it joined his tie and he unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt.

He was not in the mood for this.

He planned to have been there the last two and a quarter hours, eating the food she’d cooked for him and exploring the sexual boundaries of their arrangement.

He had not planned to be as tired as he was as hungry as he was and as late as he was. Further, he had not planned to come home to smell something nearly as enticing as her ass in those jeans, enter into a loud conversation with her so he could be heard over her music and have her behave like she was his actual girlfriend, something which, for many years, he avoided having.

This was one of the reasons he did not approach any of the women of his acquaintance to perform the duties he was paying Abby for as he had no desire to give them any ideas. And they’d get them, he was certain.

“Abby,” Cash stated wearily, “I’m shattered. I need a drink, food and bed in that order.”

She studied him calmly for a moment then put her hands in the couch and lifted in a push up, twisting her h*ps into a sitting position. She rose to her feet and went to the stereo, turning down the music to a decibel level that was almost, but not quite, normal.

“What do you drink?” she asked, her spiked heels sounding on the wood floors as she walked to the kitchen.

“Tonight, whisky,” he answered, watching her move through his house.

She went directly to the cabinet where his housekeeper stored the liquor and opened the door.

Obviously she’d become acquainted with his kitchen.

“Water?” she asked.

“No.”

“Ice?”

“No.”

“How many fingers?”

She was also obviously acquainted with whisky.

“Two,” he answered.

She took down the whisky and a squat glass and poured two fingers while he went to the stereo and turned the music down passed normal straight to old woman.

When he turned away from the stereo, she was in front of him with his glass.

“I think it might be illegal in a few countries to play Foreigner that low,” she declared in her soft voice.

“I doubt England is one of those countries,” Cash returned.

“I bet Scotland isn’t,” she replied and seeing her mischievous grin, suddenly, he wanted to kiss her.