Page 44 of Naughty or Nice

‘Lucas, I...’

This isn’t getting the right answers—this is getting into us, and ‘us’ isn’t going to help me get my family straightened out, end their feud and bring me the decision I need to make for my business.

‘I wanted you, Evangeline. I wanted to drag you off to a quiet corner, ride that dress up your hips and take all that you were offering me.’

My heart rises in my throat. I can’t breathe past the desire and the bigger emotion that’s holding my lungs tight. ‘Then why...?’

It’s a whisper so quiet I can barely hear it above the racing pulse in my ears.

‘I told you that night—because of Nate.’

He says it so fiercely, his body rigid as he considers me.

‘He told me to keep away... What? You didn’t believe me?’

‘No. Yes.’ I shake my head. I can’t believe Lucas would give up on us because my brother had ordered it so. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He left me in no doubt as to what would happen if I went there with you.’

I flip. The pain I suffered, my heart ripped in two. ‘He was your best friend—not your keeper! Christ, you even went out with his exes and vice versa. Why was I so different?’

‘You were out of bounds. You were his little sister.’

My scoff is more of a snort this time. But this is madness. I won’t believe it.

‘You can’t blame him for wanting to protect you. My reputation with the opposite sex didn’t exactly work in my favour.’

No, I remember his reputation well enough. It made it all the more painful when he rejected me—as if I didn’t come up to scratch.

‘Look, Eva, he was my best friend—the closest thing to family. You all were. Why is it so hard for you to believe I didn’t want to jeopardise that?’

I can read the truth in the softening of his eyes. I want to scream that I should have been more important, that I wanted him, loved him, but it all seems so selfish now.

And ultimately it didn’t matter. He lost it all anyway. Nate, their friendship, my family...

‘Fat lot of good it did you.’

I neck my beer, washing down the bitter bite of my words.

&nb

sp; ‘Believe me, I’m more than aware of what I gave up then.’

I ignore the flare to my heart his passion instils. His old feelings towards me don’t help now. If I was out of bounds before, when my family loved him, I’m on another playing field now.

He reaches for me, his fingers brushing the hair behind my ear. ‘Evangeline, I am sorry.’

I risk a look and butterflies flutter in my throat at what I see—his sincerity, his intensity. He’s so close. I’d only have to lean a little to meet him, to kiss him. And I want to so much. To drown out the pain with the crazy passion that simmers just beneath the surface.

I know he’s thinking the same—I can feel it in the touch of his fingers still stroking at my skin, see it in the parting of his lips, the darkening of his eyes.

‘I really am sorry...’

He’s closer—too close. I have a second to stop this, before it goes too far, and I almost don’t. It would be too easy to forget it all in his kiss.

I suspect he knows it—that he’s doing it on purpose—and it’s that which has me pushing at his chest, straightening my body and forcing his hand to fall away.

I need answers. I need to know.