Page 47 of Dark Soul

She shouldn’t be here.

Dark was on holiday with friends.

They were probably busy.

Normal people didn’t pop in to see people they’d basically just met.

But she didn’t feel like they’d only just met.

And it was too late to leave, anyway. Someone was looking at her from their living room window.

She pushed her hair back, drying the sweat from her forehead. She’d taken the bus, but had ended up having to walk almost a mile uphill to get to the house. That was one of the problems in Gstaad—at least for the few souls who, like her, didn’t own an enormous gas-guzzling vehicle—almost everything was up or down the hill, while buses stuck to the main roads.

Before she had a chance to ring the doorbell, Ash opened the door.

He must have been the one watching.

The scar bisecting his eye stood out in stark relief, white against his otherwise tanned face.

“Alexia,” he said. “Hello.”

“Hi. It’s … Ash, right?”

“That’s right,” he said, standing to the side to let her through. She squeezed by his tall, imposing form, not half as scared of him as she’d been the first time they’d met. She walked past him and into the kitchen, eying the tap. She could do with a bit of water. He seemed to read her thoughts. “I’ll go tell Dark you’re here. Can I get you something to drink first?”

“A glass of water would be great, thank you,” she said, taking off her puffy coat.

“You walked here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Bus. Then walked.”

Ash reached over with a tall glass of water, just as Dark walked up the stairs from what she assumed was the basement, wearing black workout clothes and wiping his face with a small white towel. As he got closer, she saw the bruise on one side of his jaw.

“Dark? What happened to your—“

But Dark wasn’t even looking at her. His expression was fixed on Ash, and on the way their hands almost touched around the glass of water.

“Get away from her,” he growled.

Ash waited until he was sure she was holding on to the glass, then took a step back. He looked at her with a strange expression in his eyes—almost apologetic, it seemed to her—then disappeared up the stairs.

Whatever it is between them, they clearly haven’t solved it.

“Dark? What was that about?” Alexia asked. “I don’t understand—“

His voice was softer now that the other man was gone. He took a step closer. “Is everything okay, Alexia? What are you doing here?”

“I … yes …” She shook herself. “Where are the rest of your friends?”

“Downstairs, in the games room. Working on the script.”

His gaze ran down her body, starting with her thick cream sweater, down her dark jeans and chunky brown boots. She wished she were wearing heels—something to elongate her figure, make her taller, but even in heels she’d be half a head shorter than him.

Heat shone in his blue eyes.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

He was close enough now that she could smell his clean, masculine scent. He smelled as good as she remembered. Good enough that it made her forget everything.