Surrender to the Past. Carole Mortimer

      His mouth tightened at the scorn in her voice. ‘No doubt.’

      Mia gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Explain exactly what you thought you were doing by having someone spying on me—taking photographs of me—’ she lifted up the dozen coloured photographs that had fallen out of the brown envelope ‘—like some sort of pervert hiding in the bushes.’

      ‘How else was I supposed to find you?’

      ‘You weren’t.’ She stated the obvious.

      He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘Too late.’

      ‘You had no right spying on me, prying into my private life—’

      ‘I don’t consider locating the daughter of my stepfather to be prying into anything,’ Ethan cut in coldly.

      Mia became very still. His stepfather. Much as she might have tried to forget it the previous day, that did also made him her stepbrother. Oh, God …!

      Ethan took advantage of Mia’s momentary silence to take in her appearance. She was wearing a sweater in the same emerald-green as her eyes beneath a short black leather jacket, along with skin-tight low-rider denim jeans that left little to the imagination in regard to the taut roundness of her bottom and the slender length of her legs.

      Not that Ethan needed to use his imagination where Mia was concerned; he knew exactly what she looked like naked. Or at least he had …

      Mia was so much more slender than she’d used to be, but her skin—always the colour of ivory touched with a light rose, soft as velvet and begging to be touched—was just as appealing as it had always been. The fullness of her breasts would no longer be a snug fit in his hands, but the rounded curve of her bottom would, and he could imagine that softness as he pulled her into him and—

      What the hell was he doing, fantasising about making love to Mia? Present tense, not past …

      Damn it, wasn’t this situation complicated enough already, due to the limited amount of information he felt able to share with Mia, without clouding the issue by resurrecting his desire for this woman that had once been so unrelenting? A desire Mia had made it more than obvious she would never feel for him again …

      Ethan stood up restlessly. And instantly realised his mistake as the pulsing of his erection told him that it wasn’t only his thoughts that had become wayward in the last few minutes!

      He turned away to look out of the window rather than allowing Mia to see the evidence of his arousal. Yesterday he had been certain that he didn’t even like this new tough and forceful Mia. Now his traitorous body had decided something completely different!

      Not just his body, Ethan acknowledged with a frown. He had caught a glimpse of a softer, more appealing Mia just now, when she’d apologised to Trish for her rudeness, and that glimpse, it seemed, had been enough to reawaken the desire Ethan had felt for Mia since he had looked across the room where the company party was being held and seen her in that snug-fitting red dress, her hair a glorious gold tumble down the length of her spine …

      ‘Who took those photographs, Ethan?’

      Get a grip, Ethan, he instructed himself firmly. Stop thinking about taking Mia to bed and concentrate on the here and now. ‘I hired a private security firm six months ago,’ he revealed tautly.

      ‘Obviously a more efficient one than my father.’

      ‘Obviously,’ Ethan said.

      Mia had felt physically sick yesterday as she’d looked through the photographs inside the envelope Ethan had given her.

      Photographs of her opening Coffee and Cookies in the morning. Of her walking alone in the park during her lunch break. Of her loading boxes of cookies into her car for delivery. Another one of her getting into her car and driving off. The list just went sickeningly on and on!

      Someone—some unknown, faceless person Ethan had hired—had been following her, taking photographs of her, and she hadn’t even realised it! ‘Did my father ask you to do this?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Then I don’t understand …’

      ‘Obviously not.’ Ethan turned back to face her, eyes a glittering silver-grey. ‘You already know your father had a heart attack six months ago, Mia,’ he reminded grimly.

      ‘Yes …’

      ‘And the one thing he wanted before he died was to see you again.’

      ‘How sweet!’

      ‘Don’t, Mia.’ Ethan’s warning was icily chill, his eyes becoming like silver shards of glittering glass.

      ‘Don’t what?’ she taunted.

      ‘Don’t mock what you so obviously can’t begin to understand.’

      ‘Are you daring to question the love I felt for my father?’

      ‘Obviously in the past tense,’ Ethan recognised harshly. ‘But, whether you like it or not, whether you accept it or not,’ he added firmly, ‘William will never stop loving you.’

      ‘He has your mother now.’

      ‘Considering what a cold-hearted little witch his daughter has turned into, that’s probably as well!’ He looked at her coldly.

      Mia’s cheeks flushed. ‘You know nothing about me—’

      ‘I know that you have only a few close female friends, that there’s no current man in your life, and that you work twelve hours a day, six days a week in your coffee-shop.’

      ‘Exactly how long did you have me watched, Ethan?’ Mia’s hands shook as she clenched them at her sides.

      ‘It took almost the whole six months and a lot of man hours to find you.’ He shrugged. ‘The fact that you used only the name of a company to buy your coffee shop was what threw us off the scent for so long.’ He looked at her reprovingly.

      Mia’s mouth firmed. ‘And once you had found me?’

      ‘A few days.’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘Five,’ he stated flatly.

      ‘I want any written reports on me given to you by this “private security firm”.’ Mia was breathing unevenly, not sure if she was just furious at having her private life invaded in this way, or if it was the fact that Ethan had instigated the search that made it seem so much more of an intrusion.

      Ethan shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I’ve already shredded them.’

      Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because they weren’t relevant now that I’ve seen you again,’ Ethan dismissed impatiently, before moving to sit back behind his desk; he didn’t need a written report on Mia to remember what was in it. To know there was no current male in Mia’s life …

      ‘It’s relevant to me—’

      ‘It’s gone, Mia.’ Ethan sighed. ‘Destroyed. Unimportant.’

      ‘Why should I believe you?’

      His mouth tightened at her obvious scepticism. ‘Perhaps because I have no reason to lie to you?’

      ‘Did you ever need a reason?’

      ‘Damn it, Mia—’

      ‘Have you told my father yet that you’ve found and spoken to me?’

      ‘Not yet, no,’ Ethan bit out tersely.

      ‘Why not …?’ She eyed him guardedly.

      He shrugged. ‘I didn’t feel able to do that without first speaking to you.’

      ‘And now that you have spoken to me?’

      Ethan