Page 48 of Tempting the Scoundrel
“I prefer kissing. It improved my day immensely.”
“Alex.” She was quiet once more, and it had him worried. “Something happened. Yes?”
She loosed a breath and grasped his hand in hers, holding it. “My father knows about us meeting here. He told me I’m not to see you again.”
Alexandra won’t be able to resist something I’ve forbidden her from having.
But how far had Kent gone with that plan? He had proven himself ruthless; hiring Thorne was proof of that. It was clear he extended no kindness to his daughter, not in any circumstances.
A thought occurred to him, one he had not considered before. “Did he hurt you?” Thorne’s voice was even, and he was glad of it. Let her think him calm; that was easier than the truth: if that bastard hurt Alex, Thorne would fucking break him, deal or no.
But Alex shook her head. “No. My father has never hit me. He finds it more satisfying to make my life miserable between months of outright ignoring my existence.”
So Thorne wouldn’t have to murder an aristocrat—but there were other things he could do. “Then he threatened you.”
“Yes.” Her hand tightened in his. “He vowed to marry me off to a man without the same qualms about striking a woman.”
So Lord Kent’s plan to push her into Thorne’s arms involved intimidation and threats. Thorne hated thinking of how the earl must have spoken with Alex to upset her so. He’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her. He’d destroy her father if she wanted.
Thorne looked down at their hands. She had laced their fingers together, an intimate touch. He savored this, knowing that once she discovered the truth, he’d never hold her hand again.
“Is this the last time I see you, then?” he asked her.
Alex’s eyes caught his. “Do you want it to be?”
“No,” he breathed, and he meant that answer with his entire heart. He meant that answer knowing she’d come to hate him for it. “Do you?”
“No.” Then she drew his hand up to her mouth and kissed his wrist. “After all, you’ve only just managed to catch me.”
Chapter 15
Alexandra couldn’t sleep.
Rather than make a third attempt at shutting her eyes, she sat at the small desk in her room and attempted to write. Each sentence was more rubbish than the last, and her efforts were rewarded with little more than cramped fingers and an aching back.
“Useless,” she muttered, rising from her desk to pace.
Crumpled paper littered the floor—wasted sentences, wasted ink, wasted time. Suddenly the written word felt like a foul bargain. It took lives, hadn’t it? Three now, by her count. With the stroke of a pen, she’d sealed their fate.
With a surge of anger, Alexandra began to write a letter to her publisher.
Dear Mr. Allendale,
After much consideration, I have decided this manuscript cannot be published. Please accept my—
“Still working?”
Alexandra looked over to see Nick leaning against the frame of their connecting door. After delivering her to the Brimstone, he left to patrol nearby streets for any sign of trouble. He had been gone for hours—another reason for Alexandra’s poor sleep.
She had worried over his safety.
Nick’s countenance was weary, his clothes stained with the mud of the streets. His hair was wind-mussed and damp. Small details that amounted to the same thing: her heart still ached at the sight of him.
Alexandra turned back to the unfinished letter. “Quite the opposite,” she said, picking up her pen again. “I am writing a letter to my publisher and informing him of my intent to leave this work unfinished. Or perhaps I’ll burn it. I haven’t decided yet. I’ll have to come up with another way of dealing with Lord Seymour.”
Clothing rustled. “Why?” His voice came from directly behind her. She felt his presence there like a stroke of fingertips across her shoulder blades. For a moment she imagined they were breathing together, a single set of lungs.
Years of shared memories that hurt.
