to have to fix this. She just had no idea how.
‘You had no clue this was going on?’ Nate spoke softly, as if he was afraid of spooking her even more.
The façade her father had presented to the world all these years had duped many into thinking their fortune was never ending. She’d known differently.
‘The place has been leaking money for years but I didn’t know things were this bad.’ Her father’s spending and refusal to admit they were in trouble had been the source of many an argument in the house before her mother died. The worry and uncertainty about the future had certainly contributed to her mother’s fragile state of mind but he hadn’t taken any responsibility then and he wasn’t likely to do so now.
‘What? There’s no magical pot of gold hidden under the floorboards?’ Nate pretended to be surprised the place didn’t run by reputation and superiority complexes alone.
‘Unfortunately not.’ She lifted the stack of bills and slammed them back down on the table. This wasn’t his problem. Hell, it wasn’t even hers.
Whatever happened to her father, Violet knew she was going to have to be the one to sort this out. She should have known better than to come back. It had been inevitable that she’d get sucked back into her father’s delusions of grandeur and the repercussions of stark reality. Perhaps she should have done as she was told at seventeen and agreed to marry Lord Montgomery’s son. At least she might’ve been in a position now to help financially, possibly with her mother still around too.
This new discovery threatened to undo all the progress she’d made in her new life. Nothing had changed in her absence, she’d simply avoided dealing with it. She was back to being that frightened girl, lonely and overwhelmed by the burden her father had put upon her.
She wanted to confront him, scream and cry, and walk away for ever. Now she could do none of those things. She was stuck here. Again.
‘I’ll worry about these tomorrow, as soon as I know he’s made it through the night. Then I might go up there and kill him myself.’
Nate arched an eyebrow at her with a smirk. ‘Now, I know you don’t mean that. I told you, there’s help available. It’s a shame you Dempseys are too damn stubborn for your own good. You don’t have to do this on your own.’
Deep down she knew he was talking about his parents or some other official source of financial advice but it gave her more comfort to imagine he was still in her corner. ‘You’re the only person who was ever there for me, you know.’
Reuniting with Nate was the only light in this darkness and she wanted to run towards the safety she knew was there. For a little while she didn’t want to think about tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. He could help her forget, take her to that happy place away from all of this mess. What was one more mistake when her life was crumbling around her? All she had to do was convince him, and herself, this wasn’t the big deal it had been when they were teenagers.
Suddenly she was tired of being strong, of bearing the weight of Strachmore on her shoulders alone.
‘Stay with me tonight, Nate.’
Nate’s body reacted to the invitation before his brain kicked in and listed all the reasons this was a bad idea. He ignored all parts of him straining to make the decision for him, knowing Violet would regret this in the morning, as he would. For altogether different reasons. This was his chance to exorcise that painful rejection for good, but he knew her well enough to understand what this was really about. Her way of dealing with difficult matters had always been to divert her attention elsewhere, put off tackling the hard stuff for as long as possible. Violet was the Queen of Procrastination and he’d always been the Fool, keeping her entertained and distracting her from the hardships within the castle walls.
Not any more. He’d made certain he was King of his own castle since those days.
‘I think it would be better if I went home.’
She’d let him know he wasn’t good enough for her before and he wasn’t going to be the consolation prize now.
She stood up so she was close enough to invade his personal space and trailed a fingertip down the front of his shirt. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this, about us—’
She didn’t need to say any more. He was already picturing them together in bed, giving into that chemistry he’d never been able to forget.
He took a deep breath to purify his thoughts and make sense of hers. She’d taken an emotional battering today and he’d never take advantage of her when she was so vulnerable. Lord knew he wanted her and it was an ego boost to know it was reciprocated this time but it didn’t change circumstances. Friend or lover? He reminded himself he couldn’t be both and remain sane. He’d breached the professional boundary long ago and only friendship had remained before he’d ended up in no-man’s land—a minefield he had to tiptoe through, full of the sort of explosive situations he’d happily avoided since he was nineteen.
‘We’re both adults, single, with no illusions this would be anything more than sex. I need the distraction.’ It was confirmation of exactly where he stood with her and that wasn’t any place of importance. She might as well have been hiring an escort for the evening for all the emotional significance she afforded him.
Normally that kind of detachment wasn’t a problem. In fact he welcomed it. It stopped things becoming too messy. However Violet wasn’t a faceless one-night stand. Uncomplicated sex should never involve the woman whose rejection had made you so cynical about relationships in the first place.
‘Unfortunately, sharing a bed is not the modern-day equivalent of hanging out in the boathouse pretending real life isn’t happening around us.’ His heavy dose of honesty transformed Violet’s coquettish eye-fluttering into a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, I’ve-just-been-slapped-in-the-face expression.
He was pretty sure he’d worn that same look once before and he took no satisfaction in being the one to cause it this time.
‘You’re right. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.’
He could see the shame clouding her eyes already. That wasn’t what he wanted either.
‘There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than taking you to bed right now, but I think it would be a mistake. For both of us. Get some sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.’ He knew she didn’t want to be alone, but he didn’t intend falling into that old pattern of being at her beck and call again. He’d invested too much in that before and paid the consequences.
‘You always were the sensible one.’ She gave him a wobbly smile and Nate knew he had to get out of here before the tears really did fall. When she finally did give into the real emotions she was trying to hide from, he knew he’d never be able to leave her.
‘And you always were the impulsive one.’ He’d lost count of the number of times he’d had to talk her out of doing something stupid—like running away or sabotaging her father’s dinner parties with laxatives. It was probably the reason she hadn’t confided in him about moving to London. She hadn’t wanted to be talked out of it.
This proposition was most likely a cry for help rather than an unyielding need to have him in her bed, but it didn’t make it any easier to resist.
‘Goodnight, Violet.’
He wondered if she’d ever regretted walking away as much as he did now.
THE TROUBLE WITH the countryside was the quiet. There was no traffic noise to drown out Violet’s thoughts and nowhere to go to escape her shame. She’d spent most of the night replaying the moment she’d made a complete fool of herself with Nate. Lord knew what he thought of her throwing herself at him like some nympho desperate for a quick lay. She shuddered, the cringe factor at an all-time high as she recalled