Free The Seduction 2 by Roxy Sloane Page A

grabbing my purse and racing back to my car without even
saying goodbye. I start the engine, but I don’t know where I’m
going, so I just drive, aimlessly circling the busy streets, too
caught up in my thoughts to care.
    Ashcroft was my father. All this time, I
never knew the truth.
    I wonder what my mom was thinking -- what
could have possibly driven her to lie all this time? Did Ashcroft
not want me, is that why she never told me the truth? Something
must have happened to make her run like that: move across the
country and start a whole new life with a different guy.
    And dad... My father was a good man. Kind
and patient, funny and loving. I have eighteen years of happy
memories with him, and even though I know this new revelation
doesn’t take them away from me, I wonder if he knew all along. Did
he look at me and see some other guy’s kid?
    Who am I now?
    I gulp back the tears. My heart is breaking.
I’ve been so alone since the car accident stole my family from me
-- but all along, I had someone out there. I just didn’t know
it.
    And now I’ll never have the chance to know
him.
    I think back over my few brief meetings with
Ashcroft. The jokes he cracked, the stories he told me about his
life. I enjoyed our time together, but I didn’t think twice about
it. Now, I ache with the missed opportunity.
    If he’d only told me, I could have known the
truth. We wouldn’t have had long together, but it would have been
something.
    Why did he seek me out after all this time?
What changed? I run through the possibilities in my mind, trying to
make sense of it. Maybe there was a reason things didn’t work out
with my mom, maybe he regrets the way it ended. Or maybe he just
felt guilty after all this time, and was trying to pay me off from
beyond the grave.
    So many questions. I’ll probably never know
the answers now.
    All I’m left with are regrets.
    I look up, paying attention to the road for
the first time. I realize that I’ve driven up towards the Hollywood
Hills. Towards Vaughn’s house.
    I feel a sudden flash of recklessness. I
know I’m all mixed up, reeling from the bombshell news, but
suddenly, I crave him more than ever.
    Time slips away so soon. Anything could
happen. People can be gone from your life in the blink of an eye,
and you never get a second chance.
    I don’t want Vaughn to be just a memory. I
don’t want to regret missing out on this too. Nothing about the
last few weeks has made any sense. But the desire already clenching
in my body, this is something real.
    Something I can hold onto.
    I take the turning up through the Canyon, my
determination growing. I pull into his driveway and hurry around to
the door before I can change my mind. The entrance is set back from
the driveway, off a platform overlooking the canyon. I ring the
bell and wait, my stomach tied up in knots.
    For the first time, I’m the one making the
first move. Tonight, I need to lose myself in him.
    And this time, I won’t hold back.

17
    VAUGHN
    The doorbell drags me away from my computer
screen. Fuck. I slam my laptop shut with a crash and sweep the
printouts into a drawer. I’ve spent long enough on this twisted
trip down memory lane. I need to get it out of my head before I
lose my fucking mind.
    “What?” I demand, yanking the door open.
    It’s her.
    Keely fucking Fawes. The woman I’ve been
trying my best to push away, and she’s here in front of me. Looking
like she wants to rip all her clothes off and spread wide right
there on my doorstep. Biting her juicy lip in a way that makes me
need to drag her inside and fuck that ripe mouth until she can’t
take it anymore.
    “What do you want?” I demand, my cock
already stiff just at the sight of her. I swore I wouldn’t get any
deeper, but fuck, a man can only take so much.
    She blinks, frozen for a moment. Then those
wet lips form in a single word.
    “You.”
    Lust crashes through me. “Don’t test me,
sweetheart,” I force the words through gritted teeth.