His Cinderella Houseguest by Charlotte Hawkes

Author:Charlotte Hawkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-06-13T12:41:31+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

PIPER WAS STILL processing the revelations of the previous evening as she first paraded the helicopter the following morning. Hardly surprising, since she’d also been thinking about it all night; barely able to sleep.

They’d eaten at the finest restaurant Piper thought she’d ever been to. A ten-course tasting menu fit for the lords and lady that Linc and his siblings were.

But between the glazed scallop with salt-baked parsnips, nasturtium, and crisp pork belly starter, and the rich, mirror-glazed cocoa delight with edible gold leaf flecks for dessert, they’d also talked.

Linc, the man she’d known for years—the army doctor she’d served alongside on multiple tours—was a lord? It still seemed too crazy to be true.

He’d talked to her about his family’s Oakenfeld Industries, and shared inheritances, he’d explained to her about Raf being the new Duke of Stoneywell, and given her a brief outline of the board members who were trying to topple his brother, but she still wasn’t entirely sure that she understood all the facts, even now.

She hated his guilt that his abandonment of the family business had led to such instability, and a part of her could now begin to understand what his sister meant by using the optics of her wedding to make it appear that Linc was finally ready to settle down and return to the family fold.

But Piper couldn’t shake the feeling that he was leaving out something more to the story. She couldn’t escape the idea that there was a vital piece that he wasn’t sharing.

Perhaps it was to do with the way his siblings had seemed much more open and receptive towards Linc than he had to them. As though there were a sheet of one-way glass between them, and Linc were on the protected side of it.

Five years ago, he’d given her the impression he would have moved heaven and earth for his brother and his sister. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Part of her felt as though he wanted to...it was simply as though there was a wall stopping him. A wall that only Linc himself had built. She wished she understood it.

It all made her wonder if she’d ever really known him at all.

She’d been about to sleep with him—well, perhaps not sleep, precisely—and she hadn’t even known the truth. Worse, she wasn’t even sure a part of her cared. She, who had always told herself that she would never give herself to a man she couldn’t be completely honest with.

Yet here she was, still wondering whether she was imagining something between herself and Linc, or whether it really existed. Even lying in that luxurious guest bed last night, still reeling from the revelations, it had been like some form of exquisite torture—knowing that Linc had been only metres away, at the other end of the penthouse.

How could it be that he was sending her out of her mind on so many different levels?

It felt as though the more time she spent at his home, the more she wasn’t sure she understood herself at all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.