My True Love Gave to Me by Ava March Read Free Book Online Page A

here?” Sasha demanded again.
    “I wish to speak with you, Sasha.”
    Sasha glared at him. A shiver gripped Thomas’s spine. He felt the chill in that stare, even in the darkness of the shadows. A firm reminder Thomas no longer deserved the use of the intimate name, but he couldn’t bring himself to call him by his family name. The man could never be anyone but Sasha to him.
    “About?”
    He shrugged, distinctly uncomfortable in the face of Sasha’s obvious hatred, and well deserved hatred at that. “It has been some time since we have spoken.”
    “And with good cause.” Sasha flicked his fingers, an impatient little motion for Thomas to move aside. “I need to return to the ballroom.”
    He stood his ground. “I wish to speak to you.”
    The shadows from the wooden beams overhead could not mask the way Sasha’s beautiful features hardened. “We have nothing to discuss.”
    “Yes, we do.”
    “No. You left me,” Sasha shot back, the iron in his tone poorly masking the pain behind the words.
    Thomas flinched. Sasha might as well have punched him in the gut, for the effect was the same. The wind knocked from his lungs, his senses left reeling.
    As he stood there, struggling to gather the words within, the ones he promised himself to speak to Sasha, all those apologies and pleas for his forgiveness, Sasha cursed under his breath. With a hand on the rail, he vaulted out of the gazebo, landing on sure feet in the small space between two low bushes.
    A tug on his coat, and Sasha disappeared down the path, without one glance behind him.

Chapter Five
    Alexander drained the last of his glass and poured himself another from the decanter on his dresser. He took a long swallow, but the whisky did nothing to ease the tension in his spine.
    “Goddamn him!”
    Glass in one hand, he tugged at the knot of his cravat with the other. The knot gave way and with a harsh jerk, he pulled the long length from his neck.
    How dare Thomas just…appear like that? After four years?
    He flung the cravat to the floor and took another long swallow of whisky. And why was Thomas back in Town? If he thought he could simply walk back into his life…
    “Bloody fucking—” teeth bared, he let out a low growl, struggling to find the right word, “—damn bastard!”
    Not even close. Doubtful there was a vile enough word that could come close to satisfying the noxious mixture of frustration and fury that churned through his veins.
    There had been a time when he would have given anything for a chance to speak to Thomas. A word, a letter, anything. A time when he would have traded his very soul for the man to return to him.
    That time had long passed.
    Not that Thomas had returned to London specifically for him. Hell no. That would imply—
    He went still and listened.
    There it was again. The muffled sound of a knock on the front door.
    “Damnation.” He had been clear enough with Radcliffe in the gazebo. He was no longer in the mood to suck him off. Any trace of desire to engage in a tryst had died the moment he’d laid eyes on that damn, cold-hearted bastard.
    And why the hell had Thomas returned? Why now of all times? As if he needed a reminder of exactly why he loathed the Christmas holiday.
    He let out another growl, the sound rumbling around him. With a sharp smack, he slammed the empty glass down onto the dresser.
    Stepping over the black coat and pale blue waistcoat he’d earlier thrown to the floor, he left his bedchamber.
    A knock sounded yet again on the door.
    Did Radcliffe intend to wake his neighbors? He quickened his pace as he went down the two flights of stairs that would take him to the entrance hall. But persistence would get Radcliffe nowhere. Alexander dallied with him on occasion, and certainly enough for Radcliffe to have no qualms knocking on his door so late at night. And he did consider the man a friend. A rather good one at that. But tonight… Tonight, he could go bugger himself for all Alexander cared, nor did