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‘And we will always be here for you. But I have to tell you how I feel. I have to tell you I… I…’ My voice cracks and I curse the show of weakness.
‘Don’t, Evangeline—don’t say it.’
His words are a warning that I can’t abide, and it’s the push that I need.
‘Why?’
‘Because it will change everything.’
‘And why is that so bad?’
He takes a breath and it shudders out of him, but he says nothing.
Now. It has to be now.
‘Lucas.’ I slip my hands over his shoulders, feel him tense beneath them, but there’s no going back. ‘I love you.’
He squeezes his eyes shut, closing me out, and when he opens them again they’re blazing. His hands are reaching out, tight on my hips as he forces me away.
‘I love you too, but not—not like this. I can’t.’
He turns to leave and I move, stepping between him and his escape, so swift that he ends up pressed against me, my back against the door as my lips part on a gasp.
It’s not just surprise—it’s the strange frisson that runs right down my front as my body absorbs his heat, the very hardness of him.
His eyes drop to my mouth and there’s no need for words. His intent sears me seconds before his lips claim mine.
Christ, I’m in heaven.
He isn’t soft, tentative, uncertain. He’s hard, determined, his tongue forcing my mouth apart, demanding entry, coaxing me into doing the same.
I’ve been kissed before, and I’ve kissed boys before, but I’ve never been devoured—not like this.
My body thrums, my breasts prickle against his chest, and the dull ache in my gut swells and throbs with mindless need. My hands are in his hair, clinging him to me, his own rake over my body, feverish, trembling. I can’t believe this is real. I feel drugged, dreaming.
And then he groans into my mouth, pressing me back harder, and I know it’s real. I know this is happening…my dream is coming true.
His fingers drop to my naked thighs, encouraging my dress higher. I don’t know whether I lift my leg to hook it around him or he does, but the hard swell of him inside his jeans presses at the throbbing heart of me and I moan my pleasure.
He curses, his teeth nipping at my lip as he shakes his head once more. ‘I’ve wanted you, so long.’
His confession jerks me alert. I want more of it. More words. More to affirm how he feels.
‘How long?’
‘Too long.’
Happiness bursts within me. Everything’s falling into place.
I find his lips again, desperate to seal his words with my kiss. ‘And you can have me. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.’
There’s a strange knocking sound—one that doesn’t compute with the whirlwind that is my mind—and suddenly I’m thrust away from him. I try to focus through the haze. I see his widened gaze, his alarm clear.
‘Lucas? You in there?’
The handle shifts with my brother’s voice, but the door doesn’t budge. I realise Lucas has turned the latch. It fills me with hope, but hope dies just as swiftly. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost as he stares at me in horror.
‘Lucas! Come on, man. Someone said they saw you head in here… Eva too.’
Oh, God.
He was pale before. Now he looks deathly. His eyes leave me, his head shaking.
‘I’m an idiot. A fucking idiot.’
He says it under his breath and I tiptoe towards him, my hand reaching out. But he moves away from me just as quickly, his eyes throwing daggers. ‘Don’t.’
There are footsteps down the corridor and then my father’s voice. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing… I’m just getting Eva. Mum wants her to cut the cake.’
‘The last place Eva will be is in my study, son.’
Nate gives an awkward laugh. ‘Sure…of course. I’ll check upstairs.’
They move off, their voices growing distant, and I know my brother is protecting us. But I don’t want protection. I don’t want to hide any more.
‘Lucas, please don’t push me away. I don’t want to deny this any more. I know you feel the same. I know you—’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘You want me—’
‘Yes, I want you.’ He launches the words at me, so certain. ‘But that’s not love.’
‘It is—because I love you.’
‘You don’t love me. You’re infatuated, confused, doped up on hormones.’
My heart starts to split in two, ice running through the middle. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about…’
‘I know you and your family are all that I have. That without you I have nothing.’
I don’t know what to say to that. I know the truth of it. But it makes my reasoning all the more valid. It’s so simple.
‘Then accept that we love one another and that my family will be happy for us. Once they adjust.’
His head shakes violently. ‘No, they won’t. Don’t you see? Nate was banging this door down to stop us. He knows.’
‘But—’
‘No, Eva, he’s already made it clear you’re off-limits and, hell, he’s right. What happens to me a year or two down the line when this…whatever this is…fizzles out?’
‘It won’t.’
‘You can guarantee that, can you?’
‘I… I…’
He rakes both hands through his hair, his torment written in his haunted brown eyes. Eyes I’ve dreamed about for so long.
And then he’s turning away and heading for the door.
‘Please,’ I hear myself say. ‘Don’t go.’
He doesn’t even pause—doesn’t even look back as he unlocks the door and slips away. Leaving me standing there, my heart in tatters, as I realise he means it.
That no matter how much I love him he can never be mine.
CHAPTER ONE (#u53309a19-af23-5c53-ab06-1388d2b89c0a)
THIS IS MY MOMENT. For the first time in my life I know that I’ve made it. That I stand apart. My family name hasn’t handed me this. Aside from a small investment from dear old Ma and Pa, this is all me.
My baby is finally ready, and companies are clambering over themselves to head up its manufacture, its distribution, wanting to join forces, to conquer the field.
But I have weeks to decide.
Tonight is about enjoying the buzz…feeding it.
The room is fit to bursting with prospective producers and vendors alike. And here’s me, confident in a festive red silk dress that just sweeps the floor, my blonde hair knotted up high, sophisticated, yet softened by the loose locks that fall free. The delicate bubbles of the champagne in my hand are feeding my ego and my mood to perfection.
‘Well, you did it, angel.’
I turn and lift my chin to meet my father’s eye. I can see the admiration in his gaze—something I’ve hungered for since I found I could outrun my brother at fourteen.
It’s not that I’m naturally competitive, but when you’re always deemed the less capable, the girl, it can happen. Even more so when your brother can apparently do no wrong, when in truth he does plenty wrong, and still has admiration dished out in spades.
‘I know.’
He tenses, and I fear he’s read the bitterness in my tone. But, no, his eyes leave me and narrow. Something else has caught his attention.
‘What the hell…?’ he mutters.
I follow his line of sight, but already my nerves sizzle. My father doesn’t ever show unease—he doesn’t do emotion, particularly in a business setting like tonight’s launch party. My launch party.
‘Did you invite him?’
‘Wh—?’ The word dies and my entire body draws tight.
I see him. I see the exact cause of my father’s unease and feel it seep into my very skin. My mood dies with it. The champagne flute trembles in my hand and I know I should look away, but I can’t.
Ten years and still my eyes are hooked on him.
Lucas Waring.
My family’s nemesis.
My heart’s downfall.
‘No,’ I manage to say.
I shouldn’t be surprised—not when the room is full of his peers.
Peers? Are you dreaming?
They’re not his equal. No one is. Waring Holdings has it all and now here is Lucas, wanting…what?
‘He can’t possibly think you’ll be interested in working with him.’
My father speaks my mind exactly. He can’t. But what else?
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
I’m not the eighteen-year-old girl I once was, and I’m not the woman I became soon after that, determined to evade him. I am in control now. This is my night. This is work.
‘Excuse me.’
‘No.’ My father steps into my path. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’
I hold his eye as my lips twitch. What I want to say is Stop treating me like a child, but in my mind that sounds petulant and childlike in itself. Instead I smile up at him. ‘He’s made the effort to come. I should at least see what he wants.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing, Dad. Giving someone as powerful as Lucas the cold shoulder tonight of all nights would send the wrong message to the room.’
My father grunts and swigs his champagne. He knows I’m right. He didn’t get where he is today by letting personal differences get in his way. But then it’s the first time I’m aware of that Lucas has dared venture near any of us in five long years.
Ever since my family shut him out and the blame for the demise of the company he co-owned with Nate seemed to land firmly at his feet.
I questioned it at the time. I continued to question it each and every time Nate screwed up after that. It couldn’t have been down to Lucas—not entirely. But it seems Lucas has suffered the same as me.
Nate’s golden halo failed to shift.
I can’t deny I’m curious as to what truly went down. And I also can’t deny that his presence here tonight only serves to help my cause, my product. It’ll feed the frenzy already taking hold as companies vie for my business.
Or it’ll send them running, because they’ll think there’s no chance in hell you’ll look anywhere else but him.
Not him—his business, Eva!
