Beauty and the Bachelor(31)

Yet Lucas stood at the large bay window in his living room watching Sydney step out of the town car like some voyeur.

If he possessed even an ounce of common sense, he would return to the  office, chalk this up to a moment of lunacy, and forget it happened …

He remained at the window.

Aiden's words haunted him as Sydney waved at James and climbed the front  steps to the brownstone. "She might if you told her the truth. If you  told her about why you've set this whole Machiavellian scheme in motion.  But if you don't at least give her the benefit of the doubt, you're  going to lose her."

He'd never had a woman who was solely his. His mother hadn't been his or  his father's. She'd belonged to any man with a pretty face or deep  enough pockets to keep her in the expensive clothes and jewels she  adored. The women Lucas had been with had been expedient and  expendable-by choice. Not until Sydney had he experienced this … this  nagging persistence to possess, to smash down any wall she erected that  kept him on the outside when he wanted in.

At the end of the year, he would walk away, but during the next eleven months … he wanted in.

"What are you doing home?"

Her surprised question brought him around, and the customary burn of  desire flared to life. To not want her was like ordering his breath to  freeze in his lungs. From the moment he'd bent over her hand at the  auction and looked up into her lovely hazel eyes, lust for her had set  up residence inside him and refused to be evicted.

"How did your lunch go?" he asked, sidestepping the question.

She sighed, untying the sash at her waist and removing her coat. As she  crossed the room to toss the clothing over the back of the sofa, he  dropped his attention to her ass in the slim-fitting black skirt. He bit  back a groan. And made a mental note to buy one of those ass-hugging  skirts in every color of the rainbow and in between.

"It was … interesting." She emitted another weary sigh and dragged a hand  through her curls. "Between my mother calling me on the carpet for my  hair, eating habits, and choice in husband, I ordered a salad I didn't  get to eat. A salad that looked delicious, by the way."

Fury stirred in his gut, poked to flames by Sydney's abridged recounting of her conversation with her mother.

"Why didn't you get to eat it?" he asked, surprised by how calm he sounded.

"Because I walked out." She huffed out a strained chuckle. "I walked  out," she repeated as if in disbelief. He took a step toward her, her  name on his lips, but she shot up a hand, halting him. "No, I walked  out," she said for the third time, stronger, firmer. "But not before  telling her I would no longer put up with her criticism and digs at my  expense. Granted, most of them are not malicious. But I think the  indifference behind them is somehow worse. As if the inventorying of my  imperfections is so common, so natural, it doesn't require  spitefulness."         

     



 

"Sweetheart," he murmured, eliminating the distance between them until her palm pressed into his chest.

"I love her," Sydney whispered, her fingers curling into his shirt. "For  so many years, I tried to be perfect-the perfect daughter, perfect  hostess, perfect socialite-but I always failed. I just wanted them to  love me, accept me, for me."

"Sydney." He brushed a knuckle down the golden softness of her cheek.  "They do. Maybe they're unable to show it, but they do." Part of him  rebelled at the idea of defending her parents, but this wasn't about  them; it was about Sydney. And to erase her pain, he would lie to Jesus  Christ Himself.

"I was afraid," she admitted softly. "Does that make me a coward? At  twenty-five years old, I was afraid to tell my own mother to back off."

"No, that doesn't make you a coward," he assured her, cupping her jaw and rubbing his thumb along the satiny skin.

"But," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "I was more afraid to be  silent. It's like something rose in me and warned me that if I didn't  speak this time, I wouldn't do it again. That if not then, I would have  been silenced for good. And that I couldn't bear."

Gently pushing her arm aside, he shifted, bringing them chest to chest,  thigh to thigh. He cradled her face, grazed a kiss over her lips once.  Twice. And once more. "I'm proud of you, sweetheart. What you did  today … it took courage, not cowardice." He drew in a deep breath, stepped  back, and dropped his arms to his sides. "Will you let me show you  something?"

 …

Sydney focused on Lucas's broad shoulders and how his thick, black waves  brushed the collar of his shirt as she followed him through the house  and down the stairs to the brownstone's garden level and into his study.  Her lips tingled from his barely there kisses, the tender caresses so  different from their usual raw, wild meeting of mouths. She lifted her  fingers and pressed the tips to her skin. As he rounded his desk and  glanced up at her, she dropped her hand as if caught doing something  wrong-or incredibly telling.

He stared at her, that enigmatic gaze touching on her mouth before he  beckoned her closer. Once she reached the massive pierce of furniture he  worked at nightly, he opened a drawer and withdrew a manila folder.  Without a word, he extended it toward her. Curious, she accepted and  flipped it open. On top lay an old newspaper article, yellowed around  the edges and wrinkled as if it'd been handled many times before. She  scanned the headline: BOSTON-BASED FINANCIAL EMPIRE CLOSES ITS DOORS.  BANKRUPT. The clipping, dated fifteen years earlier, contained a grainy  picture of a building and a handsome man with dark hair and piercing  eyes of an indeterminate color in the black-and-white image. Beneath it,  the caption read, "Robert Ellison, CEO and co-owner of the Dighton  Group." She frowned. The name seemed familiar, but it didn't ring any  bells.

The article behind the first snatched the air from her lungs. An  obituary. For a Jessica Ellison. Another picture. This time of a  breathtaking woman whose features bore a hint of familiarity. Again  dated fifteen years ago. No cause of death was listed.

And the last clipping, the blaring headline compounded the ache building  behind her sternum. FORMER BOSTON EXEC COMMITS SUICIDE IN HIS HOME.

"Your father?" she rasped, her brain finally recognizing Robert Ellison.  The man standing several feet in front of her shared the same sharp,  angular bone structure. The mouth had been firmer, not as curved, and  the black hair shorter, but the shape of his eyes, the arrogant slashes  of eyebrows … those had been the same as Lucas's.

He nodded, the motion abrupt.

Lowering to the chair flanking his desk, she flipped back to the  original newspaper article and began reading. Twenty minutes later,  she'd read all three pieces and perused the other items in the file.  Pictures of both the man and the woman-Robert and Jessica Ellison-with a  small boy. More clippings about Jessica from society pages. A death  certificate for Robert-GSW to the head. As an avid fan of CSI and Grey's  Anatomy, she understood the term. Gunshot wound. Legal name change  documentation for Brandon Ellison to Lucas Oliver.

Oh, God.

She lifted her head, met his implacable stare. None of what she'd read  was common knowledge. After first meeting him, she'd scoured the  internet for information about Lucas Oliver. And his father's identity  and suicide, his mother, her death, his real name-oh, God, his real  name-hadn't popped up in any of the results. What … ? Why … ?         

     



 

"Why are you showing this to me?" she breathed, barely able to shove the question past her constricted vocal cords.

He smiled, the gesture humorless. "I was reminded earlier today of  risks. And with your mother, you took the biggest of all. Rejection. If  you can, then so can I." He dipped his head toward the folder. "That's  me in all my ugly, naked truth. It's why I came to Boston. It's why I  am."

Yet the articles were half the story. They told about his parents'  tragedy and deaths. The photos captured moments forever frozen in time.  The documentation revealed impersonal, recorded facts. But they didn't  tell his story.

She set the folder on the top of the desk. "Tell me," she whispered.

He remained standing, propping a shoulder against the window frame, his  bright eyes remote and diamond hard, his full lips firmed into a grim  line. His big body resembled a statue, rigid and unmoving.

"My parents were never what you would call happily married. My father  doted on my mother, loved her to distraction-maybe obsession. But she  didn't love him the same way. He was older than her by over ten years,  and soon she didn't want to stay at home with an old man, as I heard her  put it many times during their arguments. She cheated-it was her  favorite pastime besides shopping. And my father's was turning a blind  eye to her blatant infidelities. Until there was one betrayal he  couldn't ignore."