Her eyelids grew heavy as she breathed in the pleasant scent of new leather that permeated the car. She stretched as a huge yawn overtook her. The outpouring of emotion had drained her.
‘I’ve hit the wall.’ She yawned again, all the activity of the last twenty-four hours catching up with her in one energy-sapping rush.
‘Tilt the seat back and get some sleep,’ he said, switching the radio back up and adjusting the station until an old reggae song crooned gently out of the speakers. ‘We’ve got hours yet.’
Fatigue tugged at Ruby’s limbs making them feel weightless as the quiet hum of the powerful engine lulled her into sleep. Her lips tipped up as she floated on a wave of exhaustion. Incredible to think she’d laid eyes on Callum Westmore for the first time only yesterday morning. The man certainly knew how to make an impression on a girl. In more ways than one.
Cal’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as he flashed the car ahead of them in the outside lane, which was poking along at a sedate ten miles under the speed limit. The surge of adrenaline that coursed through him as he pressed his foot on the accelerator and flew past it made the anger in his gut harden.
Right about now he’d like to take a horsewhip to Nick Delisantro.
Ruby’s big brother sounded like a self-serving, self-absorbed son of a bitch. Maybe Cal was never going to be a candidate for the Brother of the Year Award, but he’d never treat Maddy with the cold, careless contempt this Nick guy had treated Ruby.
Hearing the hitch in Ruby’s voice as she’d talked about the phone calls, he knew what it must have cost her—his proud and passionate Ruby—to watch her father die knowing she hadn’t been able to fulfil his dying wish. Nick Delisantro’s selfishness beggared belief, the guy needed to be…
Whoa there. ‘What the…?’ The whispered curse burst out.
His Ruby. Where the hell had that come from?
He slanted a sideways look at the woman curled up in the passenger seat, her wildly curling hair framing high cheekbones, the dusky skin a pale gold in the sunlight. Drawing a deep breath into his lungs—he let it out gradually. Relaxing his death grip on the steering wheel, he glanced at the speedometer and slowed the car.
Ruby Delisantro was not ‘his Ruby'. Not even close. He hardly knew her.
All right, maybe he’d had some of the best sex of his life in her company.
Heat swelled in his groin as he thought back to what she’d done to him that afternoon.
Make that the best sex of his life. And he planned to have more before the weekend was over. But come tomorrow evening, when they got back to London, their fl
ing would be over.
She was not his. And she never would be.
He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. Spotting the sign for the M5, he merged into the inside lane to take the exit signposting The South West.
He didn’t do long-term relationships. He didn’t like getting that involved in other people’s lives, because he hated the lack of privacy, and the breaking down of personal boundaries that always came with it.
As the car accelerated back into the outside lane, the screaming tension in his shoulders finally started to subside.
That moment of possessiveness, of connection between him and Ruby, had been nothing more than fatigue. They’d been up most of the night, spent several hours walking the Heath and then jumped straight back into bed for an encore as soon as they’d returned to his flat. When you factored in the long drive and the unsettling prospect of spending a weekend with his sister’s family it was probably no wonder he’d let down his guard.
From now on he’d be more careful. And if he got curious about Ruby and her past again, he’d bite his damn tongue off before he gave in to the desire to know more.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘GOOD GOD.’ Ruby tilted her head back to gawk at Trewan Manor as Cal turned the car into the hedge-lined driveway.
With its towering gables and ramparts and the huge mullioned windows, the stone mansion looked like a cross between Cinderella’s castle and the feverish imaginings of some mad Victorian architect. Ruby had first spotted the place as they wound their way up the coast road. Perched on the cliff, the gothic edifice looked dramatic and forbidding. But up close, Ruby noticed the welcoming touches—the flower-drenched boxes on the sills, the red glow of the dying sun sparkling on the sandstone, the fresh scent of sea salt and newly mown grass, and the Barbie scooter discarded on the front step—that turned the fairytale castle into a family home.
‘How long has your sister lived here?’ she asked as she stepped onto the gravel.
‘Since she met Rye,’ Cal remarked as he yanked their bags out of the back seat.
‘And that would be when?’ Ruby prompted.
‘A few years ago.’ He slammed the car’s back door.
Ruby waited for him to say more. But he skirted the car in silence.