Time To Heal [COMPLETED]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE FUNERAL

There she was. Finally! Bloody stupid woman! To have reached on time, she must have left at twilight, and must be wired from the long drive. What kind of woman refused the luxury of his private jet to face the rough ride of the road? A foolish one? Or one who wanted to avoid his company at all cost, a conniving voice inside him taunted.

What the hell had taken over him to suggest that she flew with him anyway? He was supposed to be keeping his distance, bid his time until he got back his due, not warming up to her like old times. That era of sham was gone, their enmity no longer masked, and he knew better than to expect mercy from her. Wasn't that what he'd wanted after all? That she hated him with the same ardor as him? For someone who was supposed to hate her, he was clearly not excelling at the job.

Unwillingly, his eyes darted in her direction yet again trying to seek her out from the crowd. Last night, having inhaled the subtle scent of her floral perfume, he'd been doomed to realize that he still desired her but equally ecstatic to discover that she was not as immune as she was letting on. Her pupils had dilated with desire when he'd closed on her, her lips parted automatically in reaction to his closeness. It had been a mistake on his behalf, but nobody needed to know that. He wasn't here to reconcile with her, far from that.

Not that she would forgive him even if he begged, of that he was sure that Anastasia would never relent, being the kind of person who hated even more passionately than she loved. It had been after all what he'd intended when he'd left her behind without a backward glance. When his perfectly well-laid plan had fallen apart, he'd seen no other way than to tear her apart, trying to lash out in the dark like a wounded animal.

What surprised him was that she did not appear to be forlorn at the death of her father, just an unwavering presence standing ramrod straight among the crowd, almost like she was performing a duty. He was not here to mourn the dead person as well. God knew he hated the man enough to have murdered him with his bare hands had it not been considered a crime. But he would have expected Anastasia to have broken down by now.

Instead, she stood regal in her pristine black dress, which instead of toning down her beauty somehow managed to accentuate it. Black had always been her color, emphasizing the white perfection of her skin, and highlighting the cyan blue of her eyes. Not that they were visible under the huge shades she was wearing, the rest of her face rigidly stony so that he was unable to make out whether she was actually indifferent about her father's demise.

Apart from the family lawyer Miller, Anastasia had not even bothered to greet anyone, not even her half-sister. From the few information he'd managed to extract from her, he knew she was not close to her sibling, but aside from that he'd never been able to gather more material about her family. Even Melissa had been kept from him, like he was someone she'd guarded with fierce protectiveness, and to some extent he'd understood her reluctance when the half-sister had tried to seduce him, something which had not gone too well with him.

Eventually, frustrated from her reticence to share information, Dev had to hire a private investigator to achieve his objective. To get information about his ancestor's house, the one Alastair Forrester had stolen from his mother. Ashford mansion had been a family mansion belonging to his maternal parent for centuries, and he wanted it back at all cost, not for its monetary values, but because of the sentiments attached with the house.

No, he wasn't here to grieve the dead man, he was here to finish what he'd started five years ago. Extract his revenge for his mother. Maybe, then he would find some sort of reprieve from his sordid past, which would empower him to move on in life instead of being surrounded by so many nightmares.

The shocking truth of his life was that his mother Eleanor Ashford Crighton had had an affair during her marriage with Ana's father Alastair Forrester. He'd been only twelve when the fling had started, behind both his and his father's back to only end in tragedy. With tight lips, he remembered the lies which had inexorably been woven, the way he'd been neglected as a child, and the only reason behind was that his own mother had been so enthralled by her lover that she could no longer see sense.