BTW: I Love You (Mills & Boon M&B) (One Hot Fling - Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

crashed above her head. She flinched as several fat spots of rain splashed onto her chin and cheeks.
    ‘Come back here, you little fool; you’re about to getdrenched.’ The gruff command had her indignation returning full force.
    Swiping the wet hair off her brow, she twisted round to see the stranger standing in the doorway. With his bare legs akimbo and the robe flapping around his knees, he looked as dramatic and forbidding as his house.
    She glimpsed a criss-cross of angry red scars above his left kneecap and quashed a dart of sympathy.
    Don’t you dare feel sorry for him. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.
    ‘Cheers, Grumpy,’ she yelled through the building tempest, ‘but I’d rather drown.’
    He shrugged and lurched back into the shadows of the house. ‘Fine. Suit yourself.’ The door slammed shut with a thud which was promptly drowned out by another crash of thunder.
    And good riddance to you too.
    Maddy had got exactly three metres before the heavens opened in earnest, the deluge soaking through the pitiful poncho and her jeans and trainers in seconds.
    And only two metres more before she realised the back tyre of her bike was deader than Miss Fixit.

CHAPTER THREE
    R YE refused to feel guilty as he snapped the hall light back off and listened to the rain storm attack the house.
    He hadn’t asked her to come. He didn’t want her help. And he wanted her damn pity even less. Maybe a good soaking would teach her to stop sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
    But, as he made his way back down the corridor, even the ache in his lame leg couldn’t stop the stab of guilt, the image forming in his mind of those mossy-green eyes, the long lashes sprinkled with raindrops, peering up at him as the soft downy skin of her cheek connected with his bare chest.
    He stopped and braced his open palm against the wall, stared at the cold marble flooring beneath his feet. A stab of conscience sliced neatly through the temper that had sustained him for months and hit the raw nerve he’d been busy ignoring beneath.
    ‘Blast!’
    When had he turned into someone he couldn’t stand? Someone like his grandfather?
    Self-pity was an understandable indulgence, but letting the accident turn him into the same moody, humourless miseryguts who had greeted him all those years ago when he’d first arrived at Trewan Manor, a grief-stricken child, was not.
    He shook his head and peered at the door, wincing as the rain pelted the small stained glass window above it.
    Damn, if all the women he’d seduced and enjoyed over the years—from Clara Biggs, the Truro barmaid he’d charmed into bed the day after his sixteenth birthday, right up to Marta on the morning before his fateful trip along the A30—could have heard the mean-spirited way he’d snapped at that girl, they would never have recognised him.
    Hell, he wasn’t even sure he recognised himself.
    He’d once adored the company of women. Their soft, scented bodies, the graceful way they moved, their endless talk about nothing, their passion for dumb things like fashion and skincare. He had even enjoyed their flashfire tempers and the hours they spent in the bathroom, or the way they made leaving the toilet seat up a national emergency.
    Sex had never been the only reason he’d liked spending time with women. They’d once fascinated him.
    They didn’t fascinate him any more and he had no desire to spend time with them now—why torture himself?—but that didn’t excuse the way he’d treated the girl.
    Maybe she was a busybody, but he’d seen genuine concern in those sultry eyes. And if she had felt any pity towards him, she’d got over it pretty damn quick.
    He stomped back towards the door. He’d never be the reckless, easy-going charmer he’d once been, but he could at least offer the girl shelter from the storm. He could stand her company for a half hour or so, and be civil to her. She’d pulled him out of the water. He would return the