The Arrangement by Thayer King Read Free Book Online Page A

different girl hanging on his arm. Simply put, he was a bad boy. And she wasn’t the clichéd good girl looking for a bad boy.
    Her opinion of him hadn’t changed much over the years, but then, she’d actively avoided him. This past week was the first time she’d spent more than a few minutes in his company since high school.
    She was still struggling to fall asleep a half an hour later when a knock sounded at her door. She was almost relieved for the interruption. She sat up in bed. Before she could ask them to enter, the door opened and she knew it was Ash even before she saw his dark head pop around the frame. She’d thought it might be Erika, but then she would have waited to be invited.
    Arranging the sheet so that it covered her collar bone, Ariadne drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. She wore a thin white tank top with no bra and pair of shorts. Given Asher’s tendency to turn her on with a laugh, she thought it best to conceal her breasts.
    “Can I come in?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you already in?”
    He shrugged bare shoulders and closed the door behind himself. He wore jeans that hung low on his lean hips and nothing else. She hoped he wasn’t here to offer himself up on some sort of sex platter again.
    Ash sat on the end of her bed and drew the ankle of one leg beneath the knee of the other. “We should discuss where we go from here. Naturally, we both need to return home, but it would be best that I move in with you as soon as possible. It will seem strange if I don’t.”
    Her hands clenched at the thought of him invading her personal space. But there was no helping it. He was right. They couldn’t very well claim to have had a whirlwind romance so intense that they got married and then blissfully go back to living separate lives. So she nodded. “That’s fine.”
    “Do you have family over often?”
    “Just my mother and my cousin Sierra.” And her mother would be trouble enough. Aurora tended to drop by when the mood struck her. Ariadne had given her a spare set of keys as a security measure, but her mother had no qualms using it anytime she so desired.
    “Is she likely to notice anything amiss between us? Like us sleeping in separate bedrooms?”
    She shrugged. As much as she loved her mother, she was weird and just plain flighty. “Maybe,” she admitted, “but you’re still not sleeping in my bed.”
    He grinned. “Then I’ll store my belongings in your room and sleep in the guestroom. If anyone notices, we can say that you snore.”
    “I don’t snore.”
    “How would you know? You’re sleeping.”
    “Could we stay on topic , please?”
    “Where is this family reunion taking place?”
    “This year we’re all going to a lodge in Virginia. There will be a picnic in the park the first day. It’ll be a casual get together. That will more than likely go on all day. The second night, there’s a ball and catered dinner. After that, we’ll board a yacht to view fireworks.”
    “We’ll be staying at this lodge?”
    “No. My Aunt Rebecca offered to let some of us stay with her. My mom, a few of my cousins, and I-” She broke off, realizing that if she took Asher with her to the reunion, she couldn’t very well ask for a separate bedroom for her husband. “Oh, crap.”
    Asher laughed that husky laugh of his, putting her on edge. She clenched her knees tighter together. “Ash, nothing is going to happen between us. Get that through that thick skull of yours right now. I didn’t agree to this to become your latest bed buddy.”
    “What? I didn’t say a word.” He stood and stretched, putting on such a fine display that she swallowed. He had just the right amount of hair on his chest. Not so much that he reminded of an ape, but enough to let her know that he was a man. His grin was too self-satisfied for her liking. “See you in the morning.”
     

Chapter Five
     
    The three story brick mansion his father lived in with his wife Terri was