The Heir's Proposal. Raye Morgan

he couldn’t imagine. He didn’t want to believe what that pointed to—that she was just as bad as he was. Or at least, willing to tolerate his badness.

      But never mind. It wasn’t as if he was falling for her or anything. It had been a long time since a woman had really yanked his chain and he thought he’d been pretty much inoculated against it.

      He was a Navy SEAL for God’s sake. He’d been out and seen the world and the world had done it’s damndest to him. He’d been shot at, he’d been attacked by a man with a knife and a deadly grudge, he’d been in bar fights. He’d been loved by some beautiful women and hated by others. He’d lived, and he planned to live some more.

      But what he hadn’t planned for were the feelings, the emotions, that coming home had delivered like a blow to the gut. Coming back to Shangri-La, seeing its majestic beauty again, remembering his life, his father, his brother, and all that they had meant to each other—those emotions had surged through him and pierced his heart, cutting to the soul of who he was and where he came from.

      His gaze kept shifting back toward Torie. He liked the look of her. There was love and laughter in that face, and a lively intelligence. Most women he’d known had one or another of those qualities. But she seemed to have them all in spades.

      But there was something else that teased his imagination. Every now and then when he looked at her, he caught an expression in her eyes that he couldn’t quite analyze. Was it sadness? Regret? Or fear? She was always quick to erase it with a smile and he hadn’t had time to get a fix on it yet.

      But he knew one thing about her for sure—she wasn’t in love with Carl. That was clear. She might be in love with someone, but this guy wasn’t it. A little part of him felt a twinge of jealousy.

      He grimaced. Ridiculous. He could admit she attracted him, but even that was off limits. She was married, and even if she didn’t love Carl, that was a situation he would stay a million miles away from.

      At the same time, he didn’t trust her. How could he? She lied every time she spoke to him. Why didn’t he hate her for it?

      No. He couldn’t hate her. Even her lying was cute, like a kitten who couldn’t help but bite you.

      Whoa. He seemed to be about to hand her carte blanche for anything. This was ridiculously dangerous. He had to get out of this mood and fast.

      He shifted his gaze to his mother. Except, she wasn’t really his mother. It had been drummed into his head that he had to call her that, but it had never penetrated his heart. She wasn’t his real mother. She was his stepmother. She and her daughter Shayla had come into his father’s life after his biological mother had died. Now she ruled the roost here at Shangri-La, and that was just wrong.

      He and Shayla had always been at daggers drawn. But Shayla was older and his brother Ricky had been forced to deal with her. Marc had flown under the radar, staying out of Shayla’s way and pretending she didn’t exist.

      Poor Ricky had been battered daily by the attacks Shayla dealt out. Now that he looked back, he wondered how his brother had put up with it. If only he’d been there for Ricky more often. If only he’d taken some of the blows himself, maybe Ricky would still be alive.

      Maybe. Sure. It was no use thinking ‘maybe’.

      So he’d come back to his ancestral home to find his stepmother and his stepsister about to throw away the Huntington legacy that was over a century old. No one could pay enough to make the sale worth it. At least, that was the way it seemed to him. They wanted to sell the place and go live it up in the Bahamas. As if money could make up for losing their heritage.

      This was a no-go as far as he was concerned. It was not going to happen. This property belonged to generations of Huntingtons and these interlopers were not going to be allowed to ruin that. He was the only real Huntington here, and he was going to have to put a stop to it.