The conversation was like listening to an uninterested child practising the violin: one minute flowing and easy, the next halting and grating. Nobody seemed to know which topic of conversation to stick to.

Even worse, Cruz’s mother kept throwing guilty glances his way, while treating him like a king. Cruz either didn’t notice, or pretended that he didn’t, conversing mainly with his brother about work issues.

It made her think about what Mrs Randall had said the day before. He missed his family terribly, that boy.

Ironically, Cruz didn’t look as if he had missed them at all, and yet Aspen sensed from his intermittent glances along the table that Mrs Randall had been right.

What had it been like for him? she wondered. On The Farm, all alone and cut off from his family? And how did one reconnect after that?

Bizarrely, she started to feel sorry for him, and found herself wanting to break through the solid barrier he seemed to have erected around himself.

Thankfully one of the older boys brought out the new basketball Cruz had bought and called for everyone to play Four Square. Gabriella jumped up and mercifully asked Aspen to join in. It was the only time Cruz wasn’t asked if he wanted to partake.

One of the children quickly drew out four squares and Aspen patiently waited for a cherubic-looking boy with a mop of curly black hair to explain the rules while his ten-year-old sister tapped her foot impatiently and said, ‘We know...we know.’

Before long there was a mixed line of adults and kids and Aspen found she was enjoying herself for the first time that day, laughing with the children and jockeying for position as king of the game.

When one of the older children tried a shifty manoeuvre the ball went spinning off towards the stone table. Cruz deftly caught it and threw it back to Aspen.

Some devil on Aspen’s shoulder made her toss the ball straight back at him. ‘Come and play.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘He never plays games when he comes,’ Gabriella whispered.

Aspen gave her a half-smile, knowing exactly how it felt to hanker after the affection of someone who wouldn’t give it. She remembered that her grandfather and her uncle had been far too serious to play games with her and she’d very quickly learned not to ask.

Sensing that Cruz was far too serious as well, and that if he just lightened up a little everyone else could start to as well, she bounced the ball back in his direction.

‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ she challenged lightly.

He stood up from the table and placed his beer bottle down with deliberate restraint.

Every member of his family seemed to hold their collective breath—even the two men tending the sizzling barbecue—waiting to see what he would do. If a tree had fallen in Africa they would have heard it.

Aspen saw the moment Cruz became conscious of the same thing and the smile on her lips died as he stared at her with a dangerous glint in his eyes. He came towards her slowly, like a hungry panther, his black hair glinting in the sunlight just as she remembered.

A shiver of awareness skittered over her skin. Her mind told her to run, but her body was on another frequency because it remained rooted to the spot.

Towering over her, Cruz took her hand and carefully placed the ball in it, as if he was handing back a newborn baby—or a bomb about to go off. He leant closer, and Aspen forgot about their audience as his gaze shifted to her mouth.

‘I said no.’

When his gaze lifted to hers there was an implicit warning for her to behave deep within his cold regard. Then without a word he spun on his heels and stalked towards the garden.

Aspen released a shaky breath and heard Gabriella do the same.

‘Doesn’t he scare you when he frowns at you like that?’

His sister was right. His anger should have scared her. Terrified her, in fact. Her grandfather had wielded his temper like a weapon and when Chad had been drunk he had been volatile and moody. But Cruz didn’t scare her in that way. Other ways, yes. Like the way he made her feel shivery and out of control of her senses. As if when he touched her he consumed her, controlled her.

That scared her.

Pushing her troubled thoughts aside, she sought to reassure Gabriella. ‘No, he doesn’t scare me that way. I think his bark—or his look—is more ferocious than his bite.’

The sound of the back door opening drew Aspen’s gaze from Cruz’s retreating figure and she watched Ricardo back out of the doorway, an elaborate birthday cake resplendent with pink icing and brightly coloured flowers held gingerly in his arms.

‘Where’s Cruz?’ he asked, casting a quick glance at the now vacant chair.

Tags: Michelle Conder Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net