At first she’d been cold, and Ashford had delightedly watched the idiot continue to fall over himself, hoping for once he would crash and burn.Really, the man had gone much too far in his attempt to win back her favor, from his long winded apology for the way he’d acted before, to flowery declarations of not being able to go a day without thinking of her, to just plain ridiculous compliments. But, then again, Matilda did seem to love a compliment. Why hadn’t he gone along with her earlier and told her one more thing he found enchanting about her? It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a mental list stored up of the things he admired about her. Her bantering tone at the time had thrown him, and he’d been afraid she was teasing him somehow. Her laughter rang out across the room at some supposedly hysterical thing that Nick said to her and Ashford’s stomach clenched along with his fists. He didn’t know if he was disgusted with Nick for doing what he always did around a pretty woman, or with Matilda for falling for it.
