Free His Captive Lover (The Thorpe Brothers Series) by Elizabeth Lennox Page B

loaning her for the night, but she paused.  “Thank you very much,” she said with one hand on the steel bar that acted as a railing for the architectural-like stairs, staring back at him from the distance for a long moment. 
    She walked slowly up the stairs and turned down the hallway, feeling like it was a march of shame.  She should have just stayed away.  Why had she silently begged him to kiss her?  Was she slowly losing her mind?  Today had been horrible, she thought as she brushed her teeth and slid into the bed.  In fact, of all the bad days she’d experienced in her life, this one ranked just below the day her parents had died.  She missed them terribly right now. 
    She pulled off her clothes, refusing to let the tears flow.  She just had to get through this day one moment at a time.  She should listen to Ash’s advice because she knew he was the best.  Financial issues aside, he was right.   She should figure out how to save herself before she worried about how she was going to pay for him saving her. 
    With a sigh, she slunk down under the covers, impressed by how comfortable the bed was and how soft the sheets were.  His housekeeper had good taste, she thought as she stared up at the ceiling.  And he even knew how to cook!  She smiled at his worried expression earlier when she was able to eat only a quarter of the enormous amount of food he’d given her.  But she’d continued to sip the wine, downing a whole glass tonight.  The alcohol had helped her relax and she definitely felt better with the extra carbs from the pasta. 
     

Chapter 4
     
    Ash heard the door click closed and was instantly awake.  It was just after midnight!  Where could the woman be going at this time of the night?
    Several ideas occurred to him, one of which was to hide any evidence in her home that the police hadn’t yet discovered.  He probably should have been more concerned with her breaking the law to save herself.  But the only thing he thought in that moment was to stop her from going home, because the police were surely there, waiting for her to come home.  He couldn’t let that happen!
    Sitting up in bed, he listened carefully for a long moment but when he didn’t hear anything else, he cursed under his breath and threw the covers off.  Pulling on a pair of jeans and some old running shoes, he only took another second to grab a shirt,  pulling it over his shoulders before sprinting down the hallway.  He glanced in her bedroom and sure enough, the covers were pulled back and the bed was empty.
    With another curse, he raced down the hallway, hoping he didn’t break his ankle or trip over anything in the dark house.  The building was only four stories so, instead of waiting for the elevator to come back up, he took the stairs down, hopping from level to level.  If she was going out meeting with someone, trying to hide evidence or even out killing someone else, he was damn sure going to stop her.  He dismissed from his mind the fact that he’d assumed she was innocent.  He’d told people over and over again that looks could be deceiving and he wasn’t going to let his libido control this situation.  Just because he wanted to bed her didn’t mean she was automatically innocent.  No one was as innocent as Mia appeared to be.  No one was that naïve either! 
    Damn her!  She’d half convinced him that she was all that and a cupcake and here she was, sneaking out at midnight going who knows where.  No one snuck out at midnight to do anything innocent which meant he was going to somehow stop her from committing whatever crime was on her mind now.
    It only vaguely occurred to him that he was going to chase her down and stop her, only to drag her back to his place.  A reasonable man would just leave her alone, let her fall down and make her mistakes, but something urged him forward, determined to save her, even if it was from herself. 
    He caught up with her just as she was exiting the