He reached for her wrist, curiosity getting the better of common sense.
‘Is this the one I bought you?’ It was only a cheap turquoise bead bracelet with a dainty seahorse charm hanging from it. So unlike the diamonds and pearls her mother had favoured on occasion. He was surprised it had stood the test of time, even more so to find she still wore it.
A trace of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. ‘Yes. From the day at the aquarium.’
The day things had changed between them for ever.
‘You were fascinated by those damn seahorses.’
She’d stood for ages watching them as if she’d found her peace there and he’d wanted her to have a souvenir of that summer afternoon together. He hadn’t known it would be their last.
‘They’re just so...serene. I envy the simplicity of their life. And, of course, it’s the male who gives birth. The female seahorse has a much freer life than most women, she transfers her eggs and goes back to her own place—the onus isn’t on her to carry on the family line.’ It was a tragic narrative of Violet’s childhood when she’d been jealous of a fragile species trapped in a tank. At least now she was free of some of her burden even if it had cost Nate a piece of his heart in the process.
He flicked the charm up with his thumb so it rested on his nail. So small, so inexpensive, so evocative. If that day had meant nothing to her, if he’d meant nothing to her, why would she still be attached to it now? He felt her pulse quicken beneath him, met her eyes with his, and they were back in that bubble where nothing mattered except the chemistry.
He didn’t know who’d leaned closer to whom but suddenly they were no more than a breath away from kissing. Violet’s eyes fluttered shut, her lips were parted and waiting for him. There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to give into temptation. Despite how much she’d hurt him in the past, he’d wanted to do this the minute he’d seen her again but this was typical Violet behaviour. She couldn’t drop him and pick him up when the mood took her. Not any more. Especially when she still hadn’t done him the courtesy of an apology or an explanation, never mind simply acknowledging what she’d done to him.
Unfortunately physical attraction couldn’t always override common sense. A kiss was much more than that when it was with your first love, the woman who’d broken your heart without a backward glance.
He let go of her wrist and stepped away from temptation. As he began to collect his thoughts away from her lips, the Earl’s collection of antique clocks chimed the late hour and sounded the death knell for this...whatever the hell it was.
* * *
When he didn’t swoop in and ravage her, Violet was afraid to open her eyes and face him. She’d done it again—gone with her heart instead of her head. Thank goodness one of them had been thinking clearly this time. She shuddered at how close she’d come to making another monumental mistake when she’d yet to address the last one she’d made with Nate. Her world was complicated enough now without resurrecting old emotions like zombies wandering through her life with no real purpose except causing eternal misery for everyone in their path. She needed to remember that every time she was tempted to lose herself in his embrace, that one place she was able to forget her troubles.
In her defence she’d been under a lot of pressure today and Nate had been her one source of comfort, the only familiar thing from home that didn’t make her want to run screaming. Even in his current indifferent state. She blamed her faux pas entirely on stress. Apparently making moves on hot doctors was a side effect of tangled emotions no one had warned her about. They hadn’t covered that in her course. Then again, Nate was the professional—he should’ve known he was in danger simply by being in the room with her.
In fact, he seemed to have found the best treatment for her particular case by continuing to pick up the debris around them and ignoring the latest addition to the elephant herd now parading around the room.
‘No wonder Mum was so frantic about getting this place tidied up before you set foot inside. I guess they just locked up the house once the ambulance left.’ Nate in cleaning mode was as efficient as his mother and Violet decided to follow his lead. Time and distance hadn’t made this any more feasible.
They worked quietly together, sifting her father’s correspondence into manageable piles. The quicker they got this sorted, the easier it would make it for Nate to leave. She knew him well enough to know he’d see this out until the end, when he’d fulfilled his obligation to her and his parents.
‘Violet?’ After some time he drew her attention to a stack of letters headed with bold red lettering.
‘Mmm?’
‘These are all bills. Most of them final demands.’
‘Let me see.’ She snatched a few from his grasp and confirmed it. All correspondence, most of it threatening action against him, was leading to the conclusion her father was in dire financial trouble.
She collapsed into the chair with such force she almost toppled it over again. This was too much for her to handle on top of everything else today. Somehow she was going 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.’
