would be, the problem between the two of them, Ethan acknowledged heavily. Even if they could have overcome the hurdle of the mistrust Mia felt in regard to him, Ethan still knew that every time Mia so much as looked at him now she was reminded of her mother’s suicide five years ago. Along with the remorseless publicity that had followed because of her father’s relationship with Ethan’s mother.
What would Mia say or do if Ethan were to act on the desire that now raged through his body at the very thought of having all her restless aggression in his bed?
‘Ethan!’ Mia was obviously as irritated with his distraction as Ethan was.
He frowned his impatience. ‘You’ve become quite the little spitfire, haven’t you?’
‘And?’
‘I like it.’ He shrugged.
She seemed dumbstruck for a few seconds, and then she glared at him. ‘I have absolutely no interest in hearing what your opinion is of me now, Ethan!’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Could Ethan possibly be flirting with her? Mia questioned incredulously. After all that had happened, their chequered history, was he actually—? No, he couldn’t be. Ethan had made it perfectly clear that—spitfire apart—he didn’t even like the woman she was now. That he thought she was both cruel and selfish.
When Mia was neither of those things …
Walking away from her father—from Ethan—from the only life and home she had ever known—had been the hardest thing Mia had ever had to do. But to have stayed when she’d felt as if everyone she had ever loved and cared for was either gone or had betrayed her—her mother by dying, her father and Ethan by deceiving her—would have been even harder.
And if Ethan thought it had been easy for her to stay away after she had read about her father’s heart attack in the newspapers, then he was mistaken; if anything that had been more difficult to do than walking away initially.
Instead she had continued to follow her father’s medical progress in those newspapers, to inwardly ache at the changes she saw in him when he was photographed leaving hospital two weeks after his heart attack. Her father’s hair was iron-grey now, and there were lines on his face that certainly hadn’t been there four and a half years ago. She had been pleased to see he looked slightly less strained and ill when he’d been photographed again four weeks later, boarding a plane on his way to recuperate at his home in the South of France. Although that pleasure had been somewhat diluted by seeing a smiling Grace Burton at his side …
‘Could we get back to the reason I came here?’ she prompted testily.
‘Which was?’
‘To tell you to call off your private security company, for one!’ She began to pace restlessly.
‘Already done. Anything else?’
‘I want you out of my life. And I want you to stay out!’ Her eyes flashed in warning.
‘You seriously think, after all these months of searching, I’m now going to just give up on you because you tell me to?’ Ethan raised his brows in derision.
‘Why not? I gave up on all of you years ago!’
Ethan was well aware of that fact. But there were still so many things that Mia didn’t know about the past. Things that William had made Grace and Ethan promise never to tell her …
Such as the fact that Kay Burton had been about to leave both her daughter and her husband for a younger man—her tennis coach; how clichéd was that?—on the day of the car accident that had left her so badly injured and then in hospital for months afterwards. Such as the fact that the man Kay had been leaving her family for had decided he was no longer interested in being with a woman—even one as wealthy as Kay Burton would be after her divorce—who was badly scarred and would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. That had resulted in William feeling duty-bound to stand by the mother of his heartbroken daughter, even though she had been leaving him for another man and there had no longer been any love between himself and Kay.
The tennis coach hadn’t completely disappeared from their lives, either …
The wealthy divorcee Kay no longer being an option, as far as the other man was concerned, he had instead decided to blackmail William in order to keep the truth of her mother’s affair, of Kay’s intention to leave her husband and daughter, from the already traumatised sixteen-year-old Mia. Blackmail that had only come to an end when Kay had killed herself and Mia had disappeared only days after her mother’s funeral.
Not a pretty story, by any means—and certainly not one that William would have confided in his young daughter while her mother was still alive. And he had adamantly refused to tell Mia after Kay Burton took her own life.
Putting Ethan in a very precarious position now he had found Mia again. His respect for William dictated that he couldn’t break his promise to the other man and tell Mia the truth—but, having now found her again, spoken with her, Ethan couldn’t just walk away again either.
Even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t. And not just because of his love for William; this older, self-reliant and more self-confident Mia was even more intriguing than the younger, vulnerable Mia had been …
He straightened determinedly. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Mia.’
‘Pity!’
‘Isn’t it?’ he came back insincerely. ‘So, why isn’t there currently a man in your life, Mia?’
Mia was thrown slightly off-balance by this sudden change of subject. ‘Is there currently a woman in your own life?’ she counter-challenged.
‘No,’ he answered.
Her brows rose. ‘Why not?’
Ethan gave a rueful shrug. ‘Perhaps I’m a little more … discerning about the women who share my bed than I used to be?’
‘You—’
‘Arrogant? Overbearing? Pompous?’
‘Absolute pig!’ Mia completed forcefully.
‘Sticks and stones, Mia,’ Ethan dismissed derisively.
Mia stared across at him for several long seconds. Ethan was so different from the man she remembered from that first meeting nine years ago, and from when they had dated each other—slept together!—four years later. Both in looks and temperament.
She would never verbally admit to it, but she found this more mature Ethan slightly intimidating. Ruggedly handsome enough to set any woman’s pulse racing, with a cool arrogance that attracted as much as it challenged. Quite a heady combination, in fact …
And Mia would be insane to ever allow herself to become attracted to Ethan all over again!
Her chin rose defiantly. ‘I’m not joking here, Ethan; I want you out of my life.’
The previous teasing left his face. ‘Disappear like you did, you mean?’
‘As long as you stay out of
