Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

last time the two of us were together, and the way in which we parted—”  
    “When you walked out on me, you mean?”
    Nicky nodded. “I wasn’t even sure you would even agree to see me again and—I’m just making this worse, aren’t I?” she groaned.
    Lucien raised dark brows. “Not at all. I’m just surprised that any woman might consider me as being her champion: the White Knight, riding to the rescue just in the nick of time! The novelty value alone is amusing.” He didn’t look particularly amused. “Or perhaps it was just a case of ‘the devil you know’?” he drawled mockingly—no doubt as another reference to the remark she had once hurled at him.
    Nicky studied him for several seconds. “You’re still playing games with me, aren’t you,” she realized flatly. “There is no real job. There never was. You’re all the same, aren’t you? Rich, powerful bastards who treat the rest of humanity like cattle, to be played with for your amusement?”
    “Because you’re obviously upset, I’m going to ignore those last insulting remarks—”  
    “Don’t bother; I’m leaving,” Nicky assured him scornfully as she gave a toss of her head and looked around the beautifully appointed and yet somehow sterile office. As cold as the man it belonged to. “Don’t you ever get lonely, locked away up here in your ivory tower? Don’t you ever want to feel , to be a part of what’s going on out there?” She nodded towards the huge picture windows where the London skyline lay stretched out before them.
    Lucien felt a chill travel the length of his spine. “I assure you, I know better than most exactly what goes on ‘out there’.” He stood up restlessly before walking over to the wall of windows and looking out at the huge sprawl of buildings that made up England’s capitol.
    From up here on the tenth floor it looked almost magical; Big Ben, the slowly rotating London Eye, the historical buildings, the gentle flow of the Thames under the ornate bridges.
    From way up here, it wasn’t possible to see the drug dealers, the pimps and prostitutes, and the underworld violence.
    But Lucien knew they were all there. He had always known they were all there. He had spent the last fifteen years trying to escape them and the memories associated with them.
    “Lucien...?” Nicky wondered if she had gone too far with that last comment. The stiffness of Lucien’s shoulders, as he stared grimly out of the windows, seemed to say that she had.
    Besides, who was she to criticize the choices this man made about his own life, when she couldn’t even claim her own name? “I’m sorry, that really was incredibly rude of me, when you’ve been completely honest with me from the beginning as to exactly where your interest in me lies.”
    “An interest you still claim not to share?” His smile was mocking as he turned back to face her, all evidence of that bleakness having disappeared as he looked across at her in challenge.
    Nicky would be lying to herself, as well as him, if she claimed not to have thought of this man—often—since she last saw him. Impossible not to think of the man who could arouse her so easily she had been begging for his touch in a public restaurant, albeit an empty one.
    A man who’s piercing eyes seemed able to see into her very soul. To see and know her physical longings. To be able to see every shocking fantasy Nicky had ever had.
    Most of which he had featured predominantly in since they last met.
    She would also be lying if she said she hadn’t been tempted by Lucien that night. As she was tempted by him again now. Knew that if he had kissed her today, just once, then she would have capitulated and kissed him back. That a part of her longed, ached, to be desired in that raw, all-consuming way. To lay aside, if only for a short time, the burden of responsibility she had carried with her for the past six years.
    That of keeping her brother and herself alive.
    But she couldn’t do