The Sweetest Taboo (A Modern Vintage Romance)

Chapter 6

”Jesus H Christ, Rowan, you”re an asshole,” Clay muttered. ”What in the God”s green earth is wrong with you?”

”That”s Ace”s girlfriend,” I bit back.

I”d lost my head. I saw Clay half naked, and her hands, those beautiful brown hands on his skin, and I wanted to kill someone. How dare she touch him?

”I don”t care if she”s the Queen of fuckin” England. She saw I was injured she helped me. What the fuck is goin” on in your head? She wasn”t fuckin” me.”

Clay and I had been working together for years, and he was more of a brother to me than Ace had ever been. Our relationship had never been boss to foreman. We both respected each other.

”I didn”t like her touching you,” I told him.

”It was physical therapy, dumbass.”

Clay put on his chambray button-down on top of his t-shirt.

”I didn”t like it.”

”I don”t get you, boss. You want to get rid of her because you think she”s after Ace”s money. And now you”re behavin” like I touched your woman.” Clay put on his Stetson and walked out of the bunkhouse with me following him.

”I didn”t like it.” I grabbed his arm and made him face me.

”Are you out of your mind?” he asked. ”She”s Ace”s girlfriend, like you just said. I can”t believe you”re into her. And if you are, then why the fuck would you call her a whore?”

Because I was jealous.

”Stay the fuck away from Isha, Clay.”

I pulled off my Stetson and ran a hand through my hair. This woman was tying me up in knots. I couldn”t fucking believe it. I hurried to the main house and went straight to her room. Her door was closed. I opened it without knocking. Thankfully, it wasn”t locked, but I was prepared to break it the fuck down.

”Do you have any room on the flight from JFK tomorrow?” Isha was saying.

Fucking hell. I banged her door shut behind me, and before she could ask me what I was doing, I pulled the phone away from her and ended the call. I threw her phone on her bed, and it bounced on the mattress before settling down.

”What was that?” she demanded.

”Are you fucking Clay now?” I asked. I”d come in to say I was sorry for the whore remark, and for some reason, the words that came out of my mouth were not in the apologetic vein.

”Are you out of your bleeding mind?” She shook her head. ”I…what kind of people are you? Between Ace, your mother, Caitlyn, and you, I don”t see anyone who has any decency. You”ve all treated me like I”m trash.” She held up her hand before I could say anything, ”And I am not trash. Living, breathing human being here with feelings and all that shite.”

”Are you into Clay?”

”What? No. He has an injury, and I helped him.”

”He had his shirt off.”

”Usually, during physiotherapy, that can happen,” she retorted sarcastically.

”Don”t fuck my foreman, Isha. Especially since you”re fucking my brother.”

She shook her head, her eyes closed. ”Get out. I”m leaving. I”ll be on a flight tomorrow. It”s costing me a fortune, and trust me, I don”t have the money, but I”m dipping into my college fund to get out of here. I made a mistake coming with Ace. I didn”t know how terrible you people are.”

”Oh, you thought you”d swing your ass over, and we”d just roll over and hand over the keys to the family safe?” I brushed up against her, invading her space.

She smelled like something exotic. Jasmine. Yeah, that”s what she smelled like, that and some French designer perfume.

”I have never asked you or Ace or anyone else for anything.” There was fear in her eyes, but she stood her ground.

My respect for her went up a notch. When I was angry, most people around me gave me a lot of space because I could get vicious.

”No, you get things by not asking, don”t you.” I put my hands on her shoulder, looking into her beautiful, expressive face. ”The way you look, men probably are ready to lay their lives for you; forget their wallets.”

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, pain ran through them. I lifted my hands away from her like she”d scalded me.

”Is that all you see when you look at me? Pounds and dollars?”

I couldn”t breathe. How and why this woman had me open and bleeding for her, I didn”t understand. She”d put some kind of spell on me, and if we were living in the olden times, she”d be branded a witch.

”I see a woman who wants me.” I pulled her into me so I could rest my erection against her and find relief somehow. ”I see a woman who is aching for me.”

”You”re wrong,” she breathed.

”I see a woman who”s stringing my brother along, throwing herself at my foreman and now me.” I pushed her away harshly and she fell on the bed.

”Stay away from my foreman. If it”s fucking you want, my bedroom is three doors down from yours.” I”d stopped by her room every night since she”d been in my house. She”d slept alone. Ace hadn”t spent a complete night with her, though I”d seen him go in and out.

”Please leave,” she said with such dignity that I felt shame. I was a Ledger. I did what I pleased and how I wanted it. I”d never indulged in either regret or shame. I was an entitled son of a bitch.

”Why aren”t you sleeping with Ace?” I demanded.

I watched her emotionally gather herself. My God, she was twenty-one years old, and she had the ability to pull herself together after what I”d been throwing at her.

She rose and stood to face me. ”My relationship with Ace is none of your business.”

”It is.”

”No.”

”Yes. And you know why?”

She cocked an eyebrow, and I wanted to laugh because I hadn”t met a woman like her before, so strong and yet so vulnerable. Calculating and na?ve at the same time. ”Oh, you”re still under the misconception that I”m attracted to you?”

I smiled. ”Baby, don”t make me prove you wrong.”

”Hell, I”ve been throwing myself at your foreman, you, Ace. Do you think a woman like me, a whore, is really attracted to any man? Isn”t my kind of woman too capricious for one man?”

Her gray eyes were darker, her pupils dilated, and they spit fire.

”Either way, darlin”, ridin” you is going to be a ride for the ages.”

”You”re disgusting. I grew up in a home, and I have never met people as obnoxious as you and your family. I wouldn”t have anything to do with you, no matter that you think you have a magic cock in your pants.”

She wasn”t wrong. We were all behaving insufferably toward her. But she was an interloper, here to upend my brother”s life and my business with the Masons. No fucking way I was going to allow either to happen.

”Say what you like, Isha, I can see you want some of my magic cock.” It wasn”t in my nature to back down; to allow someone else to take the parting shot, even though I knew I deserved their contempt.

Ace walked in then and looked at both of us. ”What”s going on here?”

”Your brother here was telling me that I am a whore, and I should leave.” She didn”t look away from me when she spoke.

”What the fuck, Ro.”

Ace came between us and pulled Isha to him. ”God, sweetheart, I”m so sorry.”

She looked at him with some of the same scorn she”d shown me. She pulled away from him so he couldn”t touch her.

”I”m booking my ticket to—”

”No,” Ace said firmly. ”Come on, we have the fair this weekend. It”ll be fun, Isha. Ro, don”t be an asshole.”

She was standing so still and stiff that she was almost vibrating. Her rage was palpable and met mine. How the fuck was this woman pushing my buttons? Why was I letting her?

I took a deep breath. ”Stay the weekend. I”ll make sure you get home next week. I”ll even buy your ticket.”

”No thanks. I can buy my own ticket,” she seethed.

”Come on, Isha. I promised you that I”d buy your ticket back home. And you were supposed to be here for four weeks, and you”re leaving after just one. Has it been that bad here?” Ace was smiling at her, unaware of the tension between us. That boy couldn”t read a room even if it was on fucking fire.

Isha closed her eyes. ”I”ll stay, but I”ll buy my own airplane ticket.” She then looked at me. ”I don”t need money from any of you.”

”Isha, trust me, buying you a plane ticket will not put a dent in the Ledger fortune,” Ace joked. ”Am I right, brother?”

The man was a moron. He was her age, and yet she was more mature, more aware…just more. Deb was wondering how Ace found her interesting, whereas I couldn”t believe she wanted to have anything to do with this idiot.

”Ace, let me talk to Isha.”

Ace looked at Isha, and then at me for a long moment. He kissed her on her cheek and left.

”I need to be alone,” Isha murmured softly and walked to the door in her room that led into the garden. She opened it and stepped outside as the sun dipped behind the mountains. She hugged herself.

I came up behind her and slid my arms around her. She stiffened but didn”t protest. I rested my chin on her head.

”Stay the weekend,” I coaxed. ”I”ll buy—”

”You”ll not buy me anything, period.”

I kissed her hair, feeling, for some reason, an urge to console her. This woman was tearing me apart. I wanted to protect her and take care of her, and I wanted her gone because she was not good for my self-preservation. I”d gone off on Clay half-cocked because I was jealous. I”d never felt this way before, especially over a woman. I didn”t give a fuck what any woman I was with did. It used to annoy women I was with that I wasn”t possessive. But with Isha, a woman I barely knew, seeing another man close to her ignited the raging bull within me.

I turned her to face me. Her face was impassive.

”I”m sorry,” I finally said.

Her eyes narrowed.

”I”m jealous of Clay…of Ace. I”ve never felt like this before, and I”m not handling it well.” I”d never revealed this much about myself to anyone. That the words slid out of me with such ease was a warning sign that being with this woman was like playing with fire.

”You have no right to be jealous.”

I leaned to brush my lips against hers, softly, a whisper, barely there, and felt my entire being still with the rightness of the gesture. I wanted to claim her mouth, her, but I knew I wasn”t ready for that. If I took this woman, I was afraid I”d combust.

She pushed me away from her with a strength that surprised me.

”Don”t ever do that again.”

”I am sorry…not for kissing you, but for what I said. I never apologize, Isha. And I just did twice.”

She looked at me for a long moment. She licked her lips and turned her back to me. I thought I”d lost her until I heard her quietly say, ”I”ll see you at dinner.”