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

he care if he gained his friend’s displeasure. The man would just need to learn to live with disappointment. Alexander certainly had.
    His footsteps echoed off the marble floor of the entrance hall, mixing with the sound of another crisp knock. He reached for the brass knob, turned it and flung the door open. “I told—”
    The words stopped in his throat.
    “Good evening, Sasha.”
    The shock vanished. He called upon the anger and frustration, held tight to it to cover the sharp lance of pain. How he hated that pain. Hated that it was still there buried deep within.
    Squaring his shoulders, he glared at Thomas.
    To Thomas’s credit, he didn’t avert his eyes but kept his chin up. “I was hoping you would answer the door.”
    “There’s no one else here to see to the task. The servants have already returned home for the night.” He preferred his nights to be free from even the possibility of curious servants, yet he suddenly wished he kept a night butler who could send Thomas away for him.
    “You had said you intended to return to the ballroom, but I didn’t spot you anywhere.” His gaze swept the length of Alexander’s body, settling on his bared throat. His eyes briefly flared. Thomas dropped his voice, yet the low rumble couldn’t hide the censure. “Do you have a guest?”
    He should say yes. The damn prude clearly had not liked the thought of him meeting Radcliffe in the gazebo. But Alexander kept his jaw clamped shut and stared at him.
    Thomas must have interpreted his silence as a no, for he asked, “Will you allow me inside?”
    Hell and damnation, the man had ballocks. “Why should I?”
    “I wish to speak to you.”
    “And I’ve already told you, we have nothing to discuss.”
    “Yes, we do.” Thomas flicked a glance behind him, toward the empty street and the town houses lining the other side of Brook Street. “Please, Sasha.”
    Raw pain skittered along his nerves. Alexander’s hand curled into a tight fist. One more time, and Thomas would get a fist to his jaw, if for no other reason than to shut him up.
    Silence stretched between them. Thomas did not move, did not offer up another plea. He stood there, resolute and unbending.
    Bloody hell. The man would not budge. Alexander knew it without a doubt.
    So tempting to slam the door in his face. To leave him there. Alone. Just as Thomas had left him. Just as Thomas would surely leave him again. To give him a tiny taste of the confusion and anguish that had long consumed him by the time that fateful night had finally given way to the first rays of dawn. But…
    Christ, he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep knowing Thomas stood outside his door. And he wouldn’t put it past him to remain there on the stone step all night.
    Alexander turned on his heel. Best to get it over and done with, and then he could go back to forgetting that he’d ever been fool enough to put his heart in another’s hands.
    Familiar footsteps followed behind him, paused as the front door clicked shut and then continued to follow him up a flight of stairs and into the darkened study.
    Alexander grabbed a candle from the fireplace mantel and stooped down to light it from the still-hot coals in the hearth. The wick flared to life. Keeping his back to Thomas, he set the silver candlestick back on the mantel. As he stared at the flickering flame, the question that had occupied his mind for the past couple of hours, since he had spotted Thomas at the foot of the ballroom’s stairs, popped out. “Why did you come back to London?”
    Thomas had left four years ago. Hadn’t showed up for the next term at Oxford. Had vanished without even the courtesy of a goodbye. It wasn’t until Alexander returned to London after that long, lonely Hilary Term that he had heard Thomas had gone to New York.
    Still, he had waited, broken heart still aching, desperate for some form of acknowledgment from Thomas. Something to show the man had indeed at one point cared for him. Alexander had let