Page 37 of Is This Real or Just Pretend?

Lucien stared up at the top floor of Atkinson Enterprises.

It was well after six and only Alex’s office window flickered with dim light.

He had made it through a long, excruciating week without coming here.

Every time he felt the urge, he set his thoughts to something else.

Anything else. But now he had a reason. A very good reason.

Chisolm had sent Alex his contract two days ago.

She should have returned it by the evening.

And yet, she still had it. At first, Lucien had worried.

Perhaps Alex had fallen ill. Or maybe someone in the family was in distress.

But now that he was here on the street corner seeing the evidence to the contrary before his very eyes, Lucien felt only anger.

She was the one who had orchestrated this deal. She was the one who had insisted that Chisolm was Lucien’s best, nay, only option. And now she kept him waiting. But why ? Lucien couldn’t fathom the reason. Simply because she could? Because she enjoyed toying with him? How dare she. How dare she.

He would march up there and give her a piece of his mind.

That was not how you treated someone. Even someone you hadn’t been intimate with.

But the fact that they had and yet she still treated him with such utter indifference only made his blood run hotter.

Lucien had just stepped off the curb when a man came out of the shadows and slipped into the building.

Lucien stopped short. He hadn’t gotten a good look, but the man seemed strangely familiar.

Frowning, Lucien continued across the street and tried to place him.

It wasn’t until Lucien entered the deserted lobby that it came to him: It was the large, shifty-looking fellow he had seen at the theater.

And again at the Royal Geographical Society.

And now he was here, long after the rest of the staff had gone home for the day.

Everyone except Alex.

Concern blunted his anger and Lucien moved faster, his heels clicking along the pristine marble floors.

He reached the bottom of the staircase and spotted the man just as he disappeared down the hall on Alex’s floor.

Lucien’s stomach turned as he raced up the stairs, determined to catch up, and was suddenly very thankful that London’s omnibuses were so unreliable that he had taken to walking most of the time.

He was only slightly out of breath when he reached the top and entered the hallway.

The man was a dozen paces ahead of him but immediately turned around.

Lucien paused and swallowed. The intruder was much taller than he had appeared from across the street.

And far larger. He had a bulbous crooked nose and scarred cheeks.

It was the face of a man who had seen more than a few fights.

But Lucien only lifted his chin. He wouldn’t back down. He couldn’t. “What are you doing here?”

The man cast an apprising look over him, then smiled.

It called attention to a long, ugly scar that ran diagonally across his mouth.

Lucien didn’t even want to know how someone got a scar like that.

Or how they survived. Rather than answer his question, the man clenched his fists by his side, cracking each knuckle as he advanced on Lucien.

Lucien took a step back and held up his hands. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, hoping to distract the man for as long as possible.

“Leave now,” he growled. “Or else you will indeed find more trouble than you can handle.” Lucien responded by putting up his fists. The man’s ugly smile only grew. “Fancy yourself a hero?”

“Something like that.”

The man scoffed. “Never did care much for the heroes. Always preferred the villains, myself,” he said before throwing the first punch.

Lucien neatly ducked out of the way. He was absolutely no match for this man, but he had learned a few things about fighting from his burly French cousins. The first was to run away—but barring that, one must avoid being hit for as long as possible. Let the aggressor tire themselves out.

“Alex, get out of here!” Lucien shouted as he moved nimbly out of the man’s reach.

The next was to shout for help. Loudly and often.

“Shut up,” the man growled as he lunged for him again.

Lucien spun back. “Alex! You’re in danger,” he shouted again, even louder. God, he hoped she could hear him.

After avoiding and shouting, there was nothing left to do but throw a punch. Ideally, to the soft parts of the body. Lucien quickly ran his eyes over the man’s towering form. The bastard didn’t seem to have any soft parts. Lucien raised his fists once more and resumed a fighting stance.

“That’s it, boyo,” the man growled. “Show us what you got.”

Lucien took note that the man spoke with an Irish brogue. It seemed like an important detail, if he survived.

He threw a false punch with his left and rammed his fist into the brute’s stomach.

It was a perfect execution of the maneuver.

Under different circumstances, Lucien would be quite proud of himself.

However, the man’s torso appeared to be comprised entirely of solid muscle.

He let out a soft grunt but otherwise seemed unaffected.

Damn.

The man grinned and crooked two fingers at Lucien. “Come on, lad. Let’s see you try that again. But give it some heft this time.”

Lucien rolled his shoulders. He had used all the heft he had. “What do you want with Miss Atkinson?” he asked. Time to employ a little distraction.

“Not your concern.”

“Wrong.” Lucien punctuated this with another punch that clipped the man’s jaw and quickly stepped back. “She is my concern.”

The man shook his head and gingerly touched the spot. “You’re not half bad for a runt, but you’ve wasted enough of my time.”

Lucien’s eyes went wide as the man advanced on him. He had clearly just been toying with him. Lucien backed up a couple of steps before the man landed a solid punch to the gut that brought him to his knees.

“ Alex ,” he called out again, far weaker than before. The man then hit him square in the jaw and Lucien saw stars. He fell heavily onto the carpet and blinked. After a moment he tried to push himself up.

“Stay down, boyo,” the man said before delivering a swift kick to his side.

Lucien coughed as a fierce pain bloomed across his middle.

“Stop fighting it or I’ll kick you again,” he growled.

But Lucien wouldn’t give up. Not while Alex was in danger. He would push through the pain for as long as he could. Just as Lucien managed to roll onto his back, someone shouted at them from down the hall.

“Get away from him.”

Slowly, he turned his head just in time to see Alex marching toward them with a dark look on her face and something in her hand. Like some avenging queen. Lucien smiled weakly at the thought. She had come to save him. Then everything went black.

Alex had forgotten about the pistol in her desk.

When she first started staying late, her parents had practically forced the weapon on her.

She refused right up until they made it a condition of her employment, so she grudgingly learned how to use it from a retired army friend of her father’s.

Then she separated the bullets from the pistol and safely locked it all away in her drawer.

Until she heard Lucien shouting her name.

Alex would have come sooner, but her hands were shaking as she loaded the gun and it took a few tries. But as soon as she set eyes on Lucien laid out on the carpet, his face twisted with pain, a strange kind of calm took hold of her.

She raised her arm and pointed the pistol at the large, ugly man standing beside Lucien’s crumpled form. “I told you to get away from him,” she said coolly.

The man puffed out his sizable chest and looked her square in the eye, but Alex didn’t even blink. She had absolutely no qualms about shooting this great brute, and as she cocked the pistol, he seemed to realize that.

Rather than challenge her, he bolted down the stairs. Alex was momentarily stunned. “That coward .” She had half a mind to run after him if not for Lucien.

Alex rushed over and knelt beside him. She gently placed her palms on either side of his battered face. His cheek and lips were already starting to swell. “Lucien, look at me.”

He groaned and opened his eyes. It wasn’t ideal, but at least he was awake. “Oh, you great fool. Look at you,” she chided.

Lucien gave her a bloody-lipped smile. Then he mumbled something that sounded like “My heroine.” Alex’s heart lurched but now was not the time to indulge in maudlin emotions. He needed medical attention immediately.

“Wait here. I’m going to call for help.”

Lucien mumbled something in the affirmative and tried to nod before closing his eyes once more.

Alex hurried over to the telephone booth behind the main reception desk and demanded the operator send the police and a doctor. Then she returned to Lucien’s side and cradled his head in her lap. She began to brush her fingers lightly through his hair and he nestled even deeper against her.

“What were you even doing here?” she whispered, not expecting an answer.

But his eyes slitted open for a moment. “To see you,” he murmured. “I came to see you.”

Alex let out a sigh as guilt filled her chest. Guilt mixed with anger. She hadn’t listened to Inspector Holland’s warning and now her stubbornness had hurt Lucien. For that, Alex could not forgive herself.

“I’m so sorry.” As she bowed her head, a tear slipped down her nose and landed on Lucien’s bruised cheek.

“Please, don’t cry,” he said as she wiped it away. Then he grasped her hand. “It’s rather terrifying.”

Alex laughed despite herself. “Is it, now?”

“Unnatural, really,” Lucien continued as his eyes fluttered closed once more. “Like seeing a dog riding a bicycle.”

Alex laughed louder through her tears. “Or the queen in her dressing gown.”