Catherine Spencer Tempting Lucas (pdf)

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person s illusions with your choice of words. You might remember that
night as nothing but one big, ugly secret but I have quite a different
perception.
He leaned toward her. You had a crush on me and got carried away by it.
I blame myself for not seeing that things were headed toward disaster and
steering you clear of it. My only excuse is that I really thought, with all the
talk about Sydney coming to Roscommon to meet Beatrice, that you
understood how things stood between me and her.
All I knew about you and Sydney was that you were both medical
students. I thought he was a man, Emily said, long past the point of caring
that her voice and demeanor betrayed the anguish consuming her. It never
occurred to me that you d make love to me one night and then introduce
some other woman as your fianc�e two days later.
I didn t make love to you! Lucas whispered, suddenly furious enough
to have no trouble at all speaking plainly. We rolled around between the
sheets and ended up having sex. There was no love involved, not on your
pan, not on mine, and if you remember it any differently you re lying to
yourself.
Am I really! she spat back, lashing out at him now for the pain she d
suffered then. Well, tell me this, Dr. High-And-Mighty-Know-It-All: was
the rabbit also lying when it died?
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR a stunned moment, neither of them moved or spoke. Lucas seemed
paralyzed, and as for Emily-she had done the unforgivable. She had taken
the one secret she d sworn to protect and cherish at any price, and flung it
into the arena just to punish him. She d left behind her pride and self-
respect that awful night, and now she d tossed aside the only thing of
worth she d brought away with her: the unborn child who had been hers to
know and love for such a short while.
And the disgraceful part of it was, she couldn t be sorry. Instead she
dissolved into giggles. She couldn t help herself because, as the import of
her words finally, sank home, Lucas s reaction was just too priceless.
At first, he simply stared at her, as if she d grown three heads, then, You
were pregnant?" he said, his tone all hushed, the way people s were at
funerals.
What did you think I meant? she taunted him between snickers. That I d
gone into the fur coat business?
At that, he dropped his fork, he dropped his jaw, and he dropped his I m
in charge and this is the way things are going to be done around here act.
Dropped all three so damned fast that she split her sides laughing.
So did everyone else in the restaurant. Through the tears gushing from her
eyes, Emily saw the faces turn her way. Saw, the hesitant smiles, heard the
uncertain titters.
I won that round, didn t I? she wanted to crow. I shut him up fast!
But every time she opened her mouth to speak she broke out into a fresh
spate of giggles. They rolled out of her mouth and across the patio like one
of those Slinky toys she d played with as a child, undulating up and down
and around corners until the whole place was rocking with her merriment,
and, try though she might, she couldn t stop it.
Lucas, though, didn t like being made a fool of. There was no missing his
sudden scowl or the way he flung aside his napkin and shoved back his
chair so abruptly that it fell backward and just about knocked a waiter off
his feet.
That really set Emily off. She fairly screeched with laughter. Her
grandmother wouldn t have approved at all. She didn t hold with ladies
behaving like peasant washerwomen gathered around the village well. But
then, Grand-mere wouldn t have approved of a Lamartine giving birth
before she got married, either, so of the two the first was definitely the
lesser sin.
We re getting out of here, Lucas growled, throwing down a whole mess
of money on the table.
Emily mopped her eyes with her napkin and hiccuped. But I haven t
finished my chowder, a whiny little voice that she recognized as hers
protested.
He didn t care. Grasping her by the arm, he escorted her across the brick-
tiled patio and out into the street with the dispatch of a sheriff marching a
dangerous offender to the paddy wagon.
You ve got other things to finish, he said darkly, strong-arming her
around the comer to where his car was parked under the shade of a tree.
Wrenching open the front door, he shoveled her in to the passenger seat,
locked her in, then raced around to the driver s side.
I have? she gasped, between titters. Like what?
"Like explaining what the bloody hell you were hinting at, before you
decided to put on a floor show for the whole restaurant, he snapped,
climbing in behind the steering wheel.
Although he drove a station wagon, it wasn t a very big car. No more than
a few inches and the gear shift separated her from him. If he d wanted to,
he could have closed both hands around her throat and strangled her
without having to bestir himself very much at all. And, from the expression
on his face, strangling her was just about what he had in mind.
All at once, things weren t so funny any more. The farce had played itself
out and left her with the same old tragedy. The laughter dried up as
suddenly as it had spurted forth. Oh, dear!" she whispered, aghast at what
she d done.
I m waiting, Lucas said.
He looked formidable, his eyes blazing and the line of his mouth so sternly
unyielding that she almost felt afraid of him. There was nothing left of that
laughing, handsome youth she d fallen in love with, nor even of the
irresistibly aloof young man she d so inexpertly seduced. This was a
stranger bent on exacting a terrible price for what she d done to him.
Good gracious, she quavered, grasping at the only straw to present itself,
don t tell me you were taken in by my little joke?
He moved then with the swiftness of a very lethal animal pouncing on its
prey. His fingers closed again around her upper arm and yanked her around
so that she was hauled half out of her seat and held so close to him that she
could feel his breath winnowing over her face. Spell it out, Emily Jane. I
want to know about the rabbit.
What rabbit? Did I mention a rabbit? She raised her eyebrows and tried
to look guileless. Dear me, did the waiter perhaps spike the iced tea with
vodka, do you think?
He shook her then, a sharp little jolt that snapped her face up to meet his.
Tell me, you little witch, or so help me I ll. . . ! '
She knew then that she d spilled too much of the truth to back away from
the rest, but she would not let him see how intimidated she was, nor would
she tolerate his manhandling. Drawing on her shriveled courage, she
attempted to stare him down. Why, Lucas, I had no idea you hid such a
violent streak under all that saintly professional politesse. Unhand me at
once.
It was a wasted effort. He simply drew her so close that he could have
kissed her had he felt so inclined. But acting the lover now was even
farther from his mind than it had been eleven years earlier.
If this is your idea of paying me back for that one time we were. . . an
expression of distaste flitted across his features as he searched for the right
word to describe their lovemaking . . . together then you re going to have
to come up with something more original than the old pregnancy number.
Because if you d had a baby the Lamartine outrage would have echoed
clear around the world. And we both know, don t we, that not a whisper of
any such scandal made itself heard?
Relax, Lucas; you re not a father, she said, fury and the mourning, regret
she d never quite managed to leave behind rising up to choke her at the
ease with which he disclaimed the child she d conceived.
He went limp with relief and slackened his grip on her. I didn t really
think I was. But that was a dirty trick to play, Emily Jane. You really had
me going for a while.
I miscarried in my ninth week.
If vengeance had been her intent, she knew at once that she d succeeded
better than she could possibly have hoped. Her words hung in the air [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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