The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

stared at him for a long moment before grinning. “My hero.”
    His heart swelled. He should have laughed it off. She probably hadn’t meant it as any more than a joke. But instead, those two simple words ricochetedaround inside Simon’s chest until they pinged into his heart and heated him clear through. He’d never been anyone’s hero before and damned if he didn’t like it. “Your father’ll get over it, Megan.”
    She shook her head, but she was still smiling. “No he won’t. But it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’m just glad the confrontation’s done. I do want you to know though, that I could have handled him. I’ve been doing it on my own for years.”
    “I know,” he said and shifted his grip on the pizza box. He’d seen her gearing up for the argument. Had witnessed her putting up defenses she’d no doubt spent a lifetime designing. And he couldn’t really explain what had driven him to step in. Couldn’t even explain it to himself. All he knew for sure was that the driving urge inside him that had demanded he defend his wife had been the most overpowering sensation he’d ever known. “I just couldn’t stand there and let you take the hit for a marriage that was all my idea in the first place.”
    She laughed shortly. “You didn’t exactly drag me to the altar by the hair, you know. Like I just told my father. I make my own choices, Simon. If I hadn’t wanted to marry you, I wouldn’t have.”
    He inhaled sharply as she moved in closer. The scent of Italian spices and tomato sauce was thick, yet he managed to catch a whiff of the jasminescented bubble bath still clinging to her skin. Instantly, his body hardened at the reminders of whatthey’d been doing upstairs just a few short minutes ago. And the images of what he’d like to be doing right now.
    “I just wanted to help,” he said, forcing the words past a knot the size of a football lodged in his throat.
    “I know,” Megan said and moved even closer to him, looking up at him through wide green eyes that looked as clear and sharp as the first grasses of summer. “That’s why I’m saying thank you. I’ve never had anyone stand beside me like that before. I liked it.”
    She smiled again and his heart turned over. He wondered how in the hell a simple smile could pack such a punch.
    Simon’s throat was tight. “I won’t let him—or anyone else—talk to you like that.”
    “I know that, too,” she said and reached up to cup his cheek in her palm. “And it feels really… good, to have someone with me. To not be on my own. I mean, I didn’t actually need the cavalry, but I was really glad when it—you—arrived.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.” Then she went up on her toes, slanted her mouth against his and kissed him hard enough and long enough to make his knees shake and his blood boil. When she was finished, she stepped back, grinned up at him and grabbed the pizza box. “C’mon hero, let’s eat.”
    He watched her walk down the hall toward the kitchen. His gaze dropped to the curve of her behindand everything in him tightened to the point of pain. But if she wanted a hero, then he’d be one. Even if it meant eating pizza when he’d rather be devouring her.
    The next few days rushed past and the end of their first week together was looming. Megan’s nerves were already stretched to their breaking point. She was hardly sleeping anymore. She worked all day at the estate, then came home at night to an empty house.
    Since that night when they’d shared the bubble bath, the night he’d faced down Spencer at her side, Simon had kept himself at a distance. It was as if he was suddenly regretting their standing together as a team. Regretting making himself into her momentary hero.
    He worked late every night and when he did come home and slip into their bed, he kept to his side of the vast mattress—driving her crazier than when he’d been sneaking up on her. He was up with the dawn and out of the house before she’d had her shower.
    Megan threw a quick, anxious look at the closed front door, then turned and stalked down the long hallway, her heels clacking on the shining wooden floor.
    “And now this.” Her stomach jittered and her mind raced. She’d been thinking all day. Thinking about what she’d seen, what she’d heard and what she’d done. Now, she had to think about how she was going to tell Simon.
    “Darn it, he married me to avoid a scandal. Now, he’s going to be dragged through one.” Oh,