Read Online Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) by Carole Mortimer - Free Book Online Page A

state?”
    Her gaze avoided meeting his. “I don’t have any family.”
    “None?”
    Nicky frowned, remembering Lucien’s claim that ‘knowledge was power’. “You mean you didn’t have me investigated before we went out to dinner eight months ago?”
    “No.”
    She breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Why not?”
    He shrugged. “Why bother, when I had no idea we would see each other again after that evening?”
    As brutally honest as ever.
    She shrugged. “I have a younger brother who’s a student. My parents are both dead.”
    “I’m sorry about that.” Lucien’s regret sounded genuine. “In that case,” he continued briskly, “it looks as if I’m going to have to be the one to feed you.”
    Could that be what he had meant earlier, about what she ‘needed’? When Nicky had thought—
    Her cheeks blazed with color. “I’m not a charity case—”  
    “And I’m not offering you charity. Damn it, Nicky, have you taken a good look at yourself in a mirror recently?” Lucien snapped his impatience.
    “I’m well aware of how I look, thank you,” she snapped. She knew she was the thinnest she’d ever been, and that it didn’t suit her. “What is it, Lucien, don’t you find me fuckable anymore?”
    He stilled. “Is that the reason you’ve lost weight?”
    “Don’t be such a damned egotist, Lucien!” Nicky eyed him impatiently. “The whole world doesn’t revolve around Lucien Wynter, you know, no matter how much you might wish that it did.”
    He eyed her curiously. “Is that what you think of me? That I want to control the world?”
    “I think you want to control your world. And everything in it!”
    “I already control my world and everything in it, Nicky,” Lucien dismissed hardly.
    He was right, he did control his world, Nicky accepted heavily, and right now he could quite easily control her; with her defenses so low, that cocoon Lucien kept between himself and the rest of the world sounded like a very tempting proposition. “That’s still no reason for you to be insulting because I’ve lost a few pounds in weight.”
    “I beg to differ.” Lucien’s anger seemed barely contained as he unfastened the cuffs of his shirt and folded them neatly back to just below his elbows.
    Nicky’s eyes widened as she saw Lucien had now revealed what looked to be tribal tattoos, trailing up from both wrists and forearms before disappearing beneath the turned-back cuffs of his shirt.
    Did those tattoos go up the rest of his arm, possibly across his back or chest? Or both?
    Tattoos that seemed completely at odds with the sophisticated businessman, who wore designer label clothes and ate in exclusive restaurants.
    Who was this man?
    Where did he come from?
    More importantly, who or what had he once been, for him to have those tattoos on his body?
    Lucien looked up from mixing the ingredients in a bowl at Nicky’s continued—and unusual—silence, his mouth twisting as he saw her gaze was fixed on the ink on his arms. Tattoos he’d had for so long he’d forgotten they were even there. “I was once a very bad boy,” he volunteered challengingly.
    The slender column of her throat moved as she swallowed.
    Drawing Lucien’s attention to that gold locket she still wore about her throat. Obviously someone who cared about her, and whom she cared about, had given it to her, or she wouldn’t wear it all the time.
    Was he actually jealous of that nameless, faceless person?
    Of course he wasn’t. He just wanted to see Nicky wearing diamonds. Nothing else, just diamonds.
    She gave a snort. “I very much doubt it was just the once.”
    Lucien grinned his appreciation of Nicky’s attempt to infuse some of her usual sarcasm into the conversation. She failed, of course, but no doubt she would be restored to her usual lippy self once she’d had something to eat.
    “Probably not,” he conceded dryly. “Now sit,” he added grimly. “And after you’ve eaten—just to prove that your loss of weight