Ethan was so immersed in his thoughts as he went down the stairs that he missed the rich French tapestries hanging from the tall stone walls and the lavish new furbishing he had ordered after Sophia had stayed there.

Originally a large and imposing structure that once housed more than a thousand persons inside its defensive walls, Altreck Caisteal had been partially destroyed by many fierce battles over the centuries, but the main building had stood intact. Standing on a peninsula, it was a rectangular-shaped three-floor keep, with four round towers and a preserved dungeon, a walled garden and formal courtyard. When the waters rose very high, the castle could be cut off from the mainland and reached only by a small ferry-boat.

Ethan’s grandfather, Niarchos Angepopoulos, had bought Altreck Caisteal for his English wife, Elizabeth Ashford, who missed the cold and rainy British weather. They had searched up and down the United Kingdom for a place and were about to give up when Elizabeth saw it standing solitary on a small promontory jutting out of Loch Assynt.

Niarchos pointed out that it was too far away from any city or community and that it would need restoring and refurbishing.

Elizabeth had fallen in love with its loch, its ghosts, and legends. The idea of having such a beautiful haunted landscape at which to spend her summer vacations took root in her mind. Niarchos could never deny his wife’s whims and he bought it, then restored it to its former glory and more.

After Elizabeth died, Niarchos didn’t set foot on the property anymore.

Calista had no interest in a place far so from the sizzling metropolises and stayed at the house that had been her mother’s in Chiswick, Ashford Mansion.

Niarchos happily bestowed the castle, and Ashford Mansion—just as a precaution—to his only grandson.

* * *

When Ethan left the master-bedroom dressed to have breakfast with Paola, Barbara kissed him with what he thought was a sad smile.

As he closed and locked the bedroom door from outside, he realized he was keeping her as a prisoner. He knew he was paying her very well and that she liked his company, but somehow, since yesterday, the whole situation started grating on his nerves. Now he had to entertain Paola, whom he was paying, too.

He brooded darkly about the many women but no love in his life. It was all his fault. Both women had tried to entice Ethan but he had kept a polite distance, and unlike Barbara, Paola understood the message.

Paola di Lucca was a young woman who had the potential to be one of the most sought after models in the world. She was perfect for egocentric designers as she was tall, very thin, charming, and stunning. However, what made her stand out from the crowd was her peculiar way of walking and standing which made the eye seek the clothes and not her.

He could choose from several different women to please him. But, no. All he wanted was Sophia, the only one who didn’t want him.

He cursed, then scowled at himself.

Ethan didn’t usually swear because it reminded him of his parents who used foul language for everything.

That day he had already cursed twice.

He was having one of those days when just the sight of a person caused his emotions to flare up without explanation. He disliked it immensely when he behaved unstably, alternating between high, happy positive elation, and dark, heavy disappointment. He also hated it when he was impulsive.

When he was a teenager, one of the many psychiatrists his grandfather took him to said that Ethan idealized or devalued himself and others because he had low self-esteem and a poor self-image; all were caused by repeated and prolonged abuse. He had also often been misjudged as being immature and inconsistent because he wasn’t able to connect with people.

He snorted at the idea as he looked for a book to read. His fingers brushed Machiavelli’s books but he dismissed them as he remembered one of his quotes: ‘Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.’

He walked to the end of the library thinking about how many had known him and the thought dispirited him.

He picked up Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet. He leafed through it aimlessly, back and forth.

The words jumped from the book’s preface and beckoned him.

Unbidden, a hushed, reverential whisper left his mouth, “‘I don’t know how many souls I have. I’ve changed at every moment. I always feel like a stranger. I’ve never seen or found myself. From being so much, I have only soul. A man who has soul has no calm. A man who sees is just what he sees. A man who feels is not who he is.’”

As Ethan sat on the sofa near the French doors that faced the loch, he thought about how his parents’ abuse had affected his life on all levels and whether he had overcome it yet. How solitary like Pessoa, he felt.

What Ethan didn’t know was that the abuse had damaged him in such a deep, permanent way that he had blocked out most of what happened during his childhood and teenage years by choosing unconsciously to compartmentalize.

Even though he was not fully sexually abused, each time his mother or father mistreated him as a child, verbally or physically, a new Ethan Ashford was born. He was each one of them, a mix of them and none at all. He was resilient, but no child or adult escaped such mistreatment unscathed.

Ethan’s emotional state and spiritual being had been so severed, so many times, that he didn’t know how to deal with many of the normal feelings, such as jealousy, anger, and even love, without receding to his dark, warm room, where he loved and hated himself equally.

In all those years, the only reason Ethan hadn’t had an acute psychiatric crisis was because he kept others away, which had not helped much either.

When he let Sophia in, she, unintentionally, had opened up Ethan’s heart, pushing him to walk on the edge of a precipice alone.

For her, Ethan would do anything. Everything.

* * *

Paola stepped out of her shower wondering why a man like Ethan would pay to have her for himself and not take advantage of her body. She removed the towel from her head and her dry long brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and breasts.

She looked critically at her body in the mirror as she dried herself. She knew she had a stunning figure and a ravishing face, a ton-sur-ton colorful figure: huge chocolate-brown eyes and up-turned nose and a heart-shaped red mouth on creamy, flawless skin framed by shiny dark-brown long hair that ended in natural large curls. She was as tall as most men she knew and that didn’t bother her in the least. On the contrary, she liked the advantage of looking at men eye-to-eye.

Paola didn’t understand this complex man. Rich as Croesus, handsome as Apollo, he was weird and lonely. She would dare say that sometimes he was creepy with his detachment.

She didn’t know him that well, but the few times she had been with him he had showed a variability and depth of moods that seemed peculiar to her.

She was almost sure that he was afraid of letting people know him better and she thought that could be the only reason why he avoided sleeping with her, because as her mother had told her so many times, no man could resist her.

Paola didn’t really care. As long as he paid her expensive fees, continued helping her career and giving her those marvelous jewels, he could sleep wherever he wanted.

* * *

As she chose her clothes for the day, Barbara planned ways to seduce Ethan. She was tired of being the receptacle of his sperm without having his love. With care, she picked up a black-and-silver Made by Niki lingerie that was his favorite and paired it with an outfit she had seen Sophia wearing: black flared trousers with a white, short-sleeved T-shirt and a red jeans fitted jacket. It didn’t fit her as well because of her larger breasts and narrower hips, but she wanted to please Ethan.

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” She walked back in the room, talking out loud with herself. “Perhaps if I stop hiding my—”

She sucked in her words as Paola knocked on the door and called Ethan’s name, demanding entrance.

Barbara froze in the middle of the room, her heart beating loudly in her ears, as she couldn’t remember if Imelda, Ethan’s housekeeper, had locked the door or not after leaving with her breakfast tray.

She saw the door knob go down and up again and breathed relieved as Paola knocked again. Barbara approached the door quietly and put her ear against the wood, trying to hear if Paola was leaving or not.

When she heard the feminine footsteps echoing on the wooden stairs, she crumpled to the floor.

She didn’t want to think of what Ethan would have done to her if she had let Paola discover her.

The thought struck her as a punch in the guts and it made her whimper.

She was even more determined to change her status as the ghost of Ethan’s life.