Penmort Castle (2 page)

She looked down
on him. “It was a pleasure, Mr. Fraser,” she stated however the way
she said it he knew it most definitely was not.

This amused him
and Cash smiled.

She glared.

This amused him
more.

She turned to
leave when he stood quickly and his fingers wrapped around her
upper arm, halting her retreat.

He pulled her
to him gently and his mouth went to her ear where he murmured, “Two
hundred thousand.”

Her body jerked
then froze and she hesitated, indicating to Cash indecision.

Finally her
neck twisted so she was looking at him before she said, “Two
hundred thousand and we don’t consummate this part of the
arrangement until we go to the castle.”

Cash was
impressed.

She was very
good.

She’d started
at ten thousand and finished getting twenty times that.

“I like you,”
he told her.

“Well, I don’t
like
you,
” she snapped back.

This made him
smile again which also made her eyes drop to his mouth.

He decided he
liked her eyes on his mouth. He liked it a great deal.

Cash ignored
his body’s pleasant reaction and commented, “That should make your
job more difficult.”

Her gaze
returned to his and she replied coldly, “Don’t worry, no one will
suspect.”

“Including
me?”

Her brows
snapped together. “Pardon?”

“I’m not paying
you not to like me. I’m paying you to like me.” He hesitated and
his voice dipped lower when he finished. “I’m paying you to like me
a lot.”

She stared at
him a moment and he wondered what she was thinking.

Then she moved.
Her upper body swayed into his and her hand touched him at his
waist. She leaned up and her mouth brushed his softly as her
breasts swept his chest.

His body
reacted pleasantly to that too.

Not moving her
mouth from his, her eyes open, she murmured, “You won’t suspect
either.”

Then she moved
back, only inches, her hand went from his waist and she did
something that surprised him yet again.

She lifted her
hand and used her thumb to wipe her lip gloss gently from his
mouth, the whole time she watched her thumb’s movements.

It surprised
him because it was not something a woman did to a man she’d only
just met. It was also not something a woman did for a man she did
not like.

It was
something a man’s woman did for him.

Before Cash
could react, she was walking away, swinging her coat on as she
went, yanking her hair out of the collar with a casual movement of
her arm.

He watched her
hair tumble down her back as she walked out the door.

Yes,
Cash thought as he reached for his own coat,
she’ll do.

Abby’s
Reason

“Are you
nuts?
” Jenny shrieked after Abby told her the unusual turn
of events that occurred at the pub an hour before. Abby watched as
her friend shook her head forcefully before shouting, “I didn’t
sign up for
this!
”

Abby pulled her
bare heels up to the edge of the couch she was sitting on and
wrapped her arms around her jeans-clad legs (she’d changed out of
her Ice Queen outfit upon arriving home). The whole while she did
this, she kept her eyes on her irate best friend.

Jenny was
probably right, she
was
nuts.

She had to
be.

What was she
thinking, agreeing to have sex with someone for money?

It wasn’t nuts,
it was
insane
.

However, there
was the not-so-insignificant fact that she was going to be two
hundred thousand pounds richer.

Two hundred
thousand
pounds.

She still
couldn’t believe it and when she thought of it she wondered what on
earth Cash Fraser was thinking.

Cash Fraser,
the man, the legend.

He’d become
known to the human populace just over a year ago when someone
leaked that he was the real man behind the story of a box-office
topping action movie about a brilliant industrial spy ring breaker
(who even knew there
was
such a job in real life) that all
the big multinationals turned to and paid millions upon millions of
pounds (so they could save billions) when they had a problem.

It was then
that the dangerous, thrill-seeking,
gorgeous
Cash Fraser was
uncovered.

Once he was
exposed the media went nuts.

This was mainly
because he looked like a movie star but also because he acted like
a dangerous action man.

Uncommonly
tall, dark and handsome, standing at six foot four (and she
discovered this afternoon that was
tall
) with a lean,
muscled, broad-shouldered body and a thick head of
so-dark-brown-it-was-nearly-black, almost-but-not-quite curly hair
he wore in a way that was far too long for any other man but looked
messy and sexy on him. He had the most unbelievable black eyes
she’d ever seen. They were liquid black, their colour shocking in
its depth and intensity.

And he had a
way about him that translated in print when some journalist
described it (and she’d witnessed it firsthand) and in pictures
when the paparazzi captured it. This was probably due to the fact
that he was not the kind of man who wanted people to write about
him and take photos of him and print them in papers and he made
that pretty clear in a variety of dangerous, action man ways.

This behaviour
only threw fuel on the fire.

For instance, a
couple of times he made it clear by ripping a camera out of some
photographer’s hands and destroying it (and, on one occasion,
giving the photographer a broken nose).

He’d had some
trouble with that, something about which he also didn’t care.

He had enough
money to pay fines and attorneys and buy new cameras. His job, due
to its rarity and danger, paid well. At least it did in the movie
and if the way he dressed (the navy suit with the deep lilac,
expertly-tailored shirt and expensive tie he wore that afternoon
was
lush
) and the easy way he could spend a couple hundred
thousand pounds on a pre-paid girlfriend proved this as fact.

There were
probably some women out there (maybe not just some, maybe scores,
maybe
thousands
) who’d pay Cash Fraser that amount of money
for just one smile directed at them (Abby had already had two,
she’d counted, and they were
good
).

And, Abby
figured, these women would no doubt pay a whole lot more to have a
shot at servicing him in his bed.

The very idea
of Cash Fraser paying
them
wouldn’t even be considered.

And she had to
face it, the bottom line was, Abby needed the money.

Further, she no
longer had anything to lose. Jenny knew that. Everyone knew that.
Even her neighbour, nosy, crazy, maddening “keep your cat out of my
garden” Mrs. Truman knew that.

Yes, Abigail
Butler had a lot to gain from this deal – two hundred
thousand
pounds to be exact.

At least this
was what she preferred to focus on, not the fact that she’d just
become a very highly paid prostitute even if it was to a
good-looking, wealthy, industrial spy ring breaker who had an
action movie based on his life.

Abby pushed
these thoughts aside and said softly, “Jenny, calm down.”

Jenny’s dark
brown eyes grew wide.

“Calm? You want
me to be calm?” she asked then yelled, “You just agreed to sleep
with a man for money!”

Abby let her
legs go and stood, taking a quick step across her living room to
get close to her friend. “Be quiet!” she snapped. “Pete’s
here!”

“I don’t care!”
Jenny snapped back but thankfully quieter this time. “Since you’ve
apparently lost your ever-loving mind, I’m considering this a
one-woman intervention. If Pete wants to join in all the
better!”

Abby had known
Jenny since they met as roommates their freshman year at university
twenty years ago. Over the decades, even when there were sometimes
thousands of miles between them, they’d stayed very,
very
close.

Regardless of
her auburn hair, Jennifer Kane was usually pretty mellow and laid
back.

Unless she was
inebriated or angry, then she was pretty crazy and very loud.

Like, for
instance, now.

Abby tried to
use logic. “Tell me what’s changed since Kieran went to James and
offered my um…” Abby hesitated then forged on, “services.”

“Well,” Jenny
started, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “when I overheard James
talking to Cash Fraser at that party and came up with my wild
scheme to pretend you were a high-class, very discreet escort after
thinking about my stubborn, silly, stupid best friend not letting
me and Kieran help her, even though we can, even though we don’t
mind, even though we both love her like crazy and we
want
to
help, I thought my
brilliantly stupid
idea may be a good way
for you to earn some quick money to get you out of a pickle. At the
time I talked you and Kieran into the idea, and Kieran into
approaching James, which I’ll remind you he really didn’t want to
do, as in
really
–”

“Jenny –” Abby
began with a warning in her voice that her friend was digressing to
oft-gone-over ground.

“At the time,”
Jenny continued, ignoring Abby’s warning, “you were just going to
be a paid escort, wearing fancy clothes and eating fancy dinners
and being on the arm of a hot guy. So you’d have to pretend to be
his girlfriend and sleep in bed with him at a spooky castle. It was
supposed to be platonic! It was supposed to be easy money! It was
supposed to be a reason for us to go shopping for fancy clothes!
But
no
…” Jenny drew out the “no” with exaggeration, “now,
you’ve agreed to have sex with him while in said spooky, haunted
castle where, I will remind you, over the centuries five, that is
five
…” she held up five fingers, “women, all of them blonde,
which you also are in case you hadn’t noticed, and all of them the
lovers of the man of the house, which you will be if you go through
with this, God help you. And all of them were murdered by a
malevolent ghost!” she finished on a shout.

Abby had heard
the story of the famously homicidal ghost of Penmort Castle.
Everyone had, it was lore. Though many people had claimed to see
the ghost of the raven-haired woman floating around doing nasty
things to guests and servants but never to family, unless that
family happened to be sleeping with the man of the castle, as in,
say, his wife (which it was always his wife, only on one occasion
was it his mistress), no one had proof that she actually killed
anyone.

Of course, all
the possible witnesses were dead.

“There’s no
such thing as ghosts,” Abby told her friend.

Jenny threw up
her hands, stared at the ceiling and exclaimed, “Huh!” Then her
eyes moved back to Abby. “Excuse me, but weren’t you with us when
we used that bizzar-o board with the magnifying glass in a plastic
heart to call up the ghost of Wendy’s grandma our sophomore year?
Wendy’s grandma knew Wendy had slept with Kathleen’s boyfriend
Brian! Who would know that but Wendy, Brian and a being from beyond
the veil? Kathleen
freaked
when Grandma spilled the beans.
You believed in ghosts then!”

Abby had to
admit, Jenny wasn’t wrong. Everyone had freaked. Though it had to
be said, no one had freaked more than Kathleen that was an
interesting night.

Abby tried a
different tactic. “Cash Fraser isn’t the man of the house.”

“No, he isn’t,
officially
. What he
is
, is the illegitimate son of
the now-dead man of the house. If things were different, if Anthony
Beaumaris had married Cash’s Mum, that castle would be his. I don’t
know if ghosts can tell the difference but you probably won’t have
the opportunity to explain this detail before she pushes you down a
stone stairwell, plunging you gruesomely to your death.”

After that
dramatic statement was uttered, before Abby could get a word in,
they heard a throat being cleared.

Both women
turned to the door and Pete, Abby’s handyman, was standing
there.

Since Abby
returned to England Pete had been a fixture in her life. She liked
Pete, she liked him a lot.

She still
wished she didn’t see so damned much of him.

On the wrong
side of fifty, Pete was stocky and medium height. He had a
weathered face, a shock of dark hair peppered with grey and a
gentle manner.

He’d been a
trusted friend of Abby’s grandmother’s and now he was a trusted
friend of hers.

“Abby love,
sorry to interrupt but…” he hesitated and Abby braced for bad
news.

For the last
year Pete had been the bearer of many a bad tiding. The roof needed
to be re-tiled. The windows needed to be replaced. The insulation
needed to be ripped out and re-installed. There was mildew and
damp. It never ended.

Now he was
there looking at the bath for every time Abby took a shower it
rained in the vestibule. This, Abby, even not being very
au
fait
about such things, didn’t think was a good sign.

“Just sock it
to me, Pete,” Abby encouraged on a pretend smile.

He shifted on
his feet. “I think I’m gonna have to bring a man in.”

Abby
sighed.

It was
never
good when Pete had to bring a man in.

“Or two,” Pete
finished.

Abby’s stomach
clenched, she turned and looked at Jenny, an
any more
questions?
expression on her face.

She looked back
at Pete and said, “Call them in.”

Pete looked
uncomfortable. “We’re talkin’ plumber and electrician. They might
be pricey, but I’m not qualified –”