Free The Most Expensive Lie of All by Michelle Conder Page A

could run a property the size of Ocean Haven in their places. And it would mean that for the first time in her life she would be free and clear of a dominating man controlling her future. That alone would be worth a little embarrassment with the Latin bad boy she had once fantasised about.
    It was a thought that wasn’t easy to hold onto when the plane landed on a private airstrip and a blast of hot, humid air swept across her face.
    Cruz’s long, loose-limbed strides ate up the tarmac as if the humid air hadn’t just hit him like a furnace. He stopped by a waiting four-by-four and Aspen kept her eyes anywhere but on him as she climbed inside, doing her best to ease the kinks out of shoulders aching with tension.
    Still, she noticed when he put on a pair of aviator sunglasses and clasped another man’s hands in a display of macho camaraderie before taking the keys from him.
    He was just so self-assured, she thought enviously, and she hated him. Hated him and everything he represented. Yesterday she’d been willing to greet him as a friend, had felt sorry for the part she had played in his leaving The Farm. Now she wished her grandfather had horsewhipped him. It was the least he deserved.
    But did he?
    Just because he wanted to buy her farm it didn’t make him a bad guy, did it? No, not necessarily bad—but ruthless. And arrogant. And so handsome it hurt to look at him.
    ‘You know I hate you, don’t you?’ she said without thinking.
    Not bothering to look at her, he paused infinitesimally, his hands on the key in the ignition.
    ‘Probably,’ he said, with so little concern it made her teeth grind together.
    He turned the key and the car purred to life. Then his eyes drifted lazily over her from head to toe and she felt her heart-rate kick up. He was studying her again. Looking at her as if he was imagining what she looked like without her clothes on.
    ‘But it won’t make a difference.’
    His lack of empathy, or any real emotion, drove her wild. ‘To what?’
    ‘To this.’
    Quick as a flash he reached for her, grabbed the back of her neck before she’d realised his intention and hauled her mouth across to his. Aspen stiffened, determined to resist the force of his hungry assault. And she did. For a moment. A brief moment before her senses took over and shut down her brain. A brief moment before his mouth softened. A brief moment before he pulled back and looked at her with lazy amusement. As if he was already the victor.
    ‘He won’t sell to you,’ she blazed at him.
    His smile kicked up one corner of his mouth. ‘He’ll sell to me.’
    Aspen cut her gaze from his. She hated his insolent confidence because she wished she had just a smidgeon of it herself. ‘How long till we get there?’ she griped.
    He laughed softly. ‘So eager, gatita ?’
    ‘Yes,’ she fumed. ‘Eager to get out of your horrible company. In fact I don’t know why we didn’t just do this on the plane. Or at The Farm, come to think of it.’
    His head tilted as he regarded her. ‘Maybe I want to woo you.’
    Aspen blew out a breath. ‘I wonder what your mother would have to say about your behaviour?’
    ‘Damn.’ Cruz forked a hand through his hair, his lazy amusement at her expense turning to disgust.
    He cursed again and gunned the engine.
    ‘Problem?’ she asked, hoping beyond hope that there was one.
    ‘You could say that.’ His words came out as a snarl.
    She waited for him to elaborate and sighed when he didn’t. This situation was impossible. There was no way she would be able to relax with this man enough to have sex with him. Which was fine, she thought. It would serve him right, all things considered.
    Switching her mind off, she turned her attention outside the window. From the air Mexico was an amazing contrast of stark brown mountains and stretches of dried-up desert against the brilliant blue of the Pacific Ocean. On the ground the theme continued, with pockets of abject beauty mixed with states of