Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) (25 page)

“Time to wake up, sleepyhead. I’ve brought you breakfast in bed.”

Nicky wasn’t sure whether she was dreaming—the breakfast, and that deliciously sexy voice whispering in her ear—but if she was then she really didn’t want to wake up just yet.

“Nicky?” Lucien crooned in her ear now, followed by teeth gently nibbling on her earlobe.

She wasn’t dreaming. Lucien really was still here, in her bedroom, and she could smell coffee too. “If you’re a hallucination could you leave the coffee before you disappear?”

He chuckled softly. “There are also croissants, and some of the fruit we didn’t eat for dinner.”

“Tempter!” She opened her eyes and looked at him, drinking in how good he looked, his face relaxed and smiling, his hair in that wonderfully messy style, morning stubble visible on his jaw. “Have you ever wondered why there’s no specific male equivalent of ‘temptress’?”

“No,” Lucien chuckled as he straightened. “But I think you need to drink some of your coffee!”

“I do, too.” She pulled the sheet over her bared breasts as she moved up the bed to sit back against the pillows. “You’re very bright and cheerful for...” she glanced at the bedside clock, “seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?”

He placed the breakfast tray across her knees before sitting down beside her on the bed. “I just spent the night with my beautiful and sexy lady, and now I get to bring her breakfast in bed; what’s not to like?”

Nicky felt a warm glow inside at hearing Lucien call her ‘his beautiful and sexy lady’. It wasn’t quite on par with girlfriend, or a declaration of love, but it would do until Lucien got used to the idea. All of this was still new to him—

What was she thinking? She wasn’t Lucien’s girlfriend. And expecting him to return the love she felt for him wasn’t sensible either. He wanted her, he desired her, he didn’t love her. Which was perhaps as well, when she wasn’t even sure she would be able to stay in London after today.

At the moment it was a little difficult to think of anything else but this gorgeous—and immediate—sexy man, sitting on the side of her bed...

After such a shaky start, last night had been...wonderful.

They had wandered back to the kitchen after making love that first time, Nicky wearing Lucien’s T-shirt, Lucien only in his jeans, as the two of them prepared a late supper together. They hadn’t bothered with the food Nicky had bought for their starter or main course, or even the fruit, instead making do with just the cheese and crackers.

That appetite satisfied, they had gone back to bed and made love again, finally settling down to sleep with Lucien curled spoon-fashion against Nicky’s back, his arm about her waist, the softness of his breath against her nape.

It had been too perfect a time for Nicky to want to waste a second of it by falling asleep.

And yet that appeared to be what she’d eventually done; she hadn’t even been aware of Lucien waking up and getting out of bed, let alone heard him making her breakfast.

“Mm, perfect,” she murmured after sipping the coffee.

“But how’s the coffee?” Lucien quirked teasing brows.

“Are you always in this much of a good mood in the morning?” Nicky frowned. “Because if you are, that could be a problem. Not that I’m not bright and cheerful inside, I’m just a little...quiet, until after the caffeine kicks in. Do I have serious bedhead?” She grimaced as Lucien just continued to smile at her.

“You look fine.” Lucien liked Nicky this way: newly awake, her eyes still sleepy, her face flushed and bare of makeup, her hair in wild red curls.

“Seriously?” She didn’t look convinced.

“Seriously,” he assured indulgently. “How are your feet this morning?”

Nicky wiggled her toes beneath the covers. “They’re okay.”

“Good,” Lucien nodded as he stood up. “Do you need the bathroom?”

“Not just yet, no.” She settled back comfortably.

“Then I’ll go and take a shower while you finish drinking your coffee and eating your breakfast.”

And then the two of us will have the conversation we avoided having last night.

Lucien didn’t say those words, but Nicky heard them anyway.

She also knew what the ‘conversation’ was going to be about. And it was enough to rob her of her appetite.

“I’ll expect to see the croissants and fruit eaten by the time I come back,” Lucien seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, and feeling.

“It looks delicious.” Nicky gave him a beaming smile, that smile remaining on her lips only long enough for Lucien to disappear into the bathroom, at which time she sank weakly back against the pillows, knowing the time for prevaricating and procrastinating was at an end.

Lucien knew his last comment, before going into the bathroom earlier, had to have been responsible for the return of that wariness in Nicky’s expression when he joined her in the kitchen twenty minutes later. But if she wouldn’t go away with him, even for a few days, then they would have to have this conversation here and now. He couldn’t protect her if he didn’t know what he was protecting her from.

“I’m not going to judge, Nicky,” he assured her as he bent to give her a lingering kiss. “God knows—and so will you very shortly—I’m the last one who should ever do that!”

“You really are going to tell me your secrets too?” Nicky turned to watch him as he replenished their coffee cups before sitting down opposite her.

“Well, not all of them. For instance, I think we can give exchanging our sexual histories a miss, don’t you?” He grimaced self-derisively before sobering. “But I need to tell you some of the things about myself, yes.” He nodded seriously.

“Are you sure you should trust me with your secrets?” Nicky eyed him uncertainly. “Not that I’ll ever tell anyone,” she hastened to reassure him. “But once you’ve told someone else then it isn’t a secret anymore, and—” She broke off as Lucien reached over and placed his hand over hers. “I’m just delaying, aren’t I?”

“You are,” he confirmed softly. “Would you like me to go first?”

“No, I need to get this over with, if I’m going to do it at all.” Nicky looked down into her coffee mug as she drew in a deep breath before beginning to talk, not wanting to see Lucien’s expression—disgust? contempt?—when she told him about her father.

Lucien was silent for so long after Nicky finished speaking that finally she couldn’t stand the tension any longer and raised her eyes to look at him.

He looked extremely calm, even expressionless, for a man who had just been told that her father had been an accountant who laundered money for his clients, until he had decided to steal ten million pounds of that money for himself. For which he had paid the ultimate price of his life.

Nicky gave a shake of her head. “I never realized what my father did for a living. I thought he was just a boring accountant, not some—some sleazy person who laundered money for criminals!” She chewed on her bottom lip as Lucien still remained silent; had she shocked him so much that he was speechless? “Lucien...?”

“So your name is Felicity but you now prefer Nicky?”

She gave a pained frown. “I’ve just told you that my father was as much of a crook as his clients, and that he was murdered for stealing
ten million pounds
from one of them, and that’s all you have to say?”

No, of course it wasn’t all Lucien had to say.

He simply didn’t know what else
to
say right now; Nicky’s ‘secret’ was so much more than he had expected.
 

Than he could ever have guessed.
 

Or wanted.

And he was too stunned as yet to know how he was going to deal with that knowledge.

He frowned. “If your father was murdered then the police must have been involved?”

“Of course.” Nicky sighed. “Neil and I had a visit from—from some threatening men, on the morning of my father’s funeral, and Neil and I left London straight after the service. But I continued to follow the story in the newspapers. The police never found the person, or persons, that did it. Which they wouldn’t, because the man responsible is just too powerful to ever allow himself to be implicated in murder himself.”

“What happened to the money?” Lucien enquired mildly.

Nicky gave an impatient shake of her head. “If I knew that I would have given it back to him, and maybe then he would have left us alone.” One thing she hadn’t yet told Lucien was the name of the man her father had stolen the money from.

There were secrets, and then there were things that just couldn’t be spoken out loud, and Jack Montgomery’s name was one of those things.

“It’s probably in an offshore bank account somewhere,” Lucien murmured distractedly.

She sighed. “If it is then I don’t know where, let alone the account number.”

“Your father never—no, obviously he never talked to you about any of this, if it all came as such a shock to you and your brother,” he accepted ruefully. “I’m going to need a name, Nicky.”

She frowned her puzzlement. “I just told you my father’s name was Michael Bennett.”

Lucien gave a humorless smile. “I wasn’t referring to your father’s name.”

“I don’t—no, Lucien,” she protested as she realized exactly what he was asking her. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

She gave a sigh. “Believe me, the less you know about this man the better.”

“How can I help you if you don’t tell me the man’s name?” he reasoned in that mild voice.

A voice Nicky found as unsettling as his calm demeanor. “I don’t want you to help me.”

Lucien frowned his displeasure. “That’s ridiculous, Nicky, and you know it.”

She gave a shake of her head. “You can’t fix this, Lucien. No one can,” she added heavily.

“I can,” he said with certainty.

Nicky stood up, far too agitated to remain seated any longer. “This man is just too dangerous, Lucien. He had my father killed, for goodness sake! But not until after he’d had him tortured to try and get him to tell them where he put the money,” her voice broke emotionally. “And his goons threatened to do the same to Neil and me, the morning of the funeral, if we didn’t cooperate.”

“That will stop once he has his money back—”

“I told you I don’t have it!”

“But I do,” Lucien reasoned.

Nicky gave him a startled look. “What...?”

“We’ll just give him back his ten million pounds.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from, only that it’s returned, and I wouldn’t miss it—”

“No!” Nicky protested loudly. “Absolutely not!”

“Pride is all well and good, Nicky—”

“It has nothing to do with pride, and everything to do with the fact that I don’t want that sort of help. That I don’t want your money.” Nicky didn’t know why she hadn’t seen this coming. She should have. Lucien had already dealt very effectively with that situation regarding Lionel Jenkins, and the two of them were so much closer now than they had been then.

Even so, ten million pounds was…well it was an obscene amount of money.

She gave a shake of her head. “I’d need to live to be a thousand years old to ever be able to repay all that money.”

Lucien’s expression softened. “I’m not expecting you to repay me—”

“I told you, I don’t want your money!”

He shrugged. “My money. My choice.”

“My debt. My—”

“My
lady
.” Lucien stood up to take her in his arms. “Nicky, we’ve come a long way in the last few hours, don’t shut me out now,” he urged huskily.

She held out against his closeness for several seconds, and then relaxed against him with a sigh, the love she felt for him at that moment totally overwhelming. “I really don’t want you to be involved in any of this.”

“I’m already involved because you’re involved. Anything that threatens you is my concern now.” And Lucien had no intentions of allowing Nicky to continue carrying this burden alone. Or to continue living in fear for a day longer than she needed to.

No matter what the personal cost might ultimately be to him.

A cost that had absolutely nothing to do with money...

Nicky’s tears began to fall as she clung to him, her head against his chest, and her arms about his waist. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you because of me.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me—”

“You don’t know that.” She gave a frantic shake of her head. “I have no doubts you’re a rich and powerful man, Lucien, but this man—his power has nothing to do with his wealth and everything to do with the fact he’s a very dangerous man to cross.” She gave an involuntary shudder.

“I need his name, Nicky.”

“No,” she refused stubbornly.

Lucien’s arms tightened about her. “Dimitri Markovic or Jack Montgomery?”

Nicky tensed in his arms before pulling back slightly to look up at him, her eyes wide with shock. “How—how is it you even know the names of men like that?”

He shrugged. “Anyone who wants to stay in business in London needs to know the names of the two men who really run this city.”

Nicky moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “How well do
you
know them?”