A Perfect Storm (31 page)

Then he groaned and tried to grab his head, but his arm wouldn’t move.
What the fuck
? He yanked at his arm again with no success. With a splitting headache but wide awake now, Lucien looked down and found his wrists bound to his desk chair with white rope.

“Just think”—Sophie held a glass of water to Lucien’s lips—“if you hadn’t assigned me a room with my very own set of bondage paraphernalia, I wouldn’t have known where to find the ropes so quickly. Not that it mattered,” she added, her voice just a tad too chipper for Lucien to deal with right now, “because I had a heck of a lot of time to kill all alone in this castle while you drank yourself to the point where you passed out. You snored the entire night away after that.” He followed her glance to the right, to murky daylight fighting to brighten the study through the windows.

Even though his tongue felt like a desert had taken over his mouth, Lucien turned his lips away from the glass. Twitchy as hell with her proximity, her seeing fucking everything, he twisted his wrists under the ropes, and the left one gave a bit. “I don’t snore,” he snarled and worked at his left arm some more.

Sitting on his desk, one leg crossed over the other like she owned the space, Sophie grinned while plopping her chin in her hand. “I hate to tell you, but when you’re drunk, you do.”

When his right wrist wouldn’t budge, Lucien’s core temperature rose, and he took it out on Sophie with a growl. “What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to leave.”

She only grinned at him bigger. “And I didn’t listen. Thought you might want to know”—she tapped her bare foot against his knee—“the Web site isn’t live. At least not yet.”

“What are you talking about?” His heart slammed up into his throat. “I saw it.”

Sophie shook her head. “Not quite. Royce was already upset when he got the text, so he didn’t realize the link was to view a Web site still under construction. And you were so shocked to see Royce, and so intent on covering your ass like you knew what was going on, you didn’t process what it meant when Magnus so quickly volunteered to pull up the site himself.” Capturing his stare, Sophie didn’t blink. She looked right into his soul. “You didn’t put me on the Internet, Lucien, and now we both know it.”

With fiery heat blanketing his flesh, Lucien threw his head back and barked with laughter. “You’re so fucking naive.” He burned her with a glare, daring her to get closer. “You think I won’t destroy you in a second?” Cruelty slashed his throat on the way out. “When I get loose”—he tugged again, praying for the same give around his right wrist he steadily worked around his left—“I’ll do it the first chance I get.”

While pursing her lips, Sophie tapped her trim fingernail against her cheek. “Yeah, the more I thought about that”—she quirked a brow at him—“the more I don’t think you will.”

Her calm shoved at Lucien’s sense of feeling trapped in a corner, and he immediately slipped back into the skin he most easily wore. “Come now, Miss Emerson.” His voice dripped with superiority she already knew so well. “You’re smarter than that. You don’t actually think deep down I’m too noble to plaster you in flagrante delicto all over the Internet just because I stuck my cock in you a few times, do you?” Studying her, he pushed into a slouch as best he could and spread his legs. “I told you to never assume you know anything about me.”

Planting her feet on either side of him on the desk chair, Sophie gave him smooth and casual right back in spades. “Here’s the thing, though.” Confidence brightened her ocean gaze, and in doing so flooded icy adrenaline through Lucien’s system. “You’re not just putting me on the Internet.”

His heart pounding much too fast, Lucien laughed again, the scratchy sound slightly insane to his ears. “You think I give a shit that people will see me fucking you?”

“Not especially,” Sophie replied, still no hint of hurt or betrayal misting her eyes. “But I do think you care about Owen enough not to splash his mother all over that Web site just to stick it to my brother.” Finally something deeper darkened Sophie’s gaze, and her voice got softer and huskier too. “I think you care about Emma, Jade, Cale, and Magnus enough not to ruin their futures along with mine.”

Clutching the arms of his chair, Lucien leaned forward, inches from her face. “Try me.”

She leaned back to stretch her arm across the desk, and Lucien tried to block the image of her lithe body from stirring up memories of the night they’d shared just twenty-four hours ago.
She’s not special
. Lucien chastised his cock for getting hard and his heart for getting soft.
You haven’t fucked in a long time. She could have been anybody, and you would have reacted the same
. Acute pain lanced through his chest, denying his mind its futile grasp at rationalization.

As full of life as ever, after grabbing a laptop, Sophie brought it back to him, plopped it on his lap, and said, “Go ahead.”

With his mind and body out of sync, a shot of impending victory sharpened Lucien’s focus. “You need to untie me so I can type.” He subtly wiggled his right hand more than his left.

Sophie took a moment, but she eventually nodded and hopped off the desk. “I’ll give you one hand.”

Yes
. He quirked the smirky grin she was used to seeing. “That’s all I need.”

Making a face right back at him, Sophie bent over to work the tangled knot at his right wrist, and Lucien bit back a groan as her intoxicating, clean scent filled his system. He could not fathom that she had remained at Ravenstoke after everything she’d learned—the Web site actually live or not—and poisonous talons questioning her presence began to claw deeper into his psyche and soul, tainting Lucien’s blood.

I have to get away
. The sane part of Lucien’s mind knew Sophie could not hurt him; everything he’d ever cared about was already gone from his life. But as Sophie struggled to undo the sloppy knot she’d created, Lucien fought an internal battle not to shove her away and rub his wrists raw against the ropes himself in an effort to hide from her scrutiny.

Combating the elemental desire to cover himself up, as if he wore no clothing and his skin had been flayed open for all—her—to see the secrets within, Lucien forced himself to breathe along with a silent reminder to redirect his focus toward slipping his left hand free of the looser binding.

Sophie finally freed his right arm. She rubbed her fingers gently over his wrist, during which Lucien gritted his teeth to suppress a tremble.
What game is she playing with me?

“There you go,” she added and then put his hand on the keyboard. “Get to it.”

Lucien’s fingers hovered over the first letters he needed to type in order to get to the Web site host, but he couldn’t command his hand to click a key. Thoughts and images punched at his brain, paralyzing him. At the forefront lived the sight of Sophie’s sweet, trusting face crumbling as she watched herself on the computer screen yesterday as understanding of her purpose at Ravenstoke had kicked in. At the same time, other pictures he couldn’t afford to see etched themselves in his mind’s eye too. Magnus’s disappointment in him every time he couldn’t make Lucien see reason. And the future sadness of a kindhearted, older Owen when he discovered how Lucien had used the loyalty of his parents to get them to participate in this scheme each stabbed equally at Lucien’s eyes. Each fought valiantly against the last images of Josh vowing to Lucien with his final breaths that Royce had wanted him dead and had tried to kill him. Josh’s face filled every corner of Lucien’s mind, but this time Lucien remembered a different kind of death in the young man’s eyes, and the sight of the cruelty there crushed the air out of Lucien’s lungs, stealing his breath.

Right then Sophie tapped the top of the laptop. “Having second thoughts?” she asked, her bright tone pushing at his exposed buttons. “I can understand that. I don’t want you to ruin Emma or the others either.” She bounced off the desk once more to kneel next to him. “How about I show you how to blur out their images? That way you just kill my career and love life, as you intended.” She shifted the computer on his lap and started clicking away, adding, “You’ll notice this is my laptop, so I have the capability to conceal their faces easily enough. In fact, oh, look at this”—she tipped the screen back to show him the site again, every scene playing in full color and sound—“I already did.”

Lucien’s focus narrowed on the already blurred faces of everyone but Sophie’s in those videos. The fact that she was the only one clearly visible, so seemingly unaware and alone among the now-faceless others, roiled sickness and bile in Lucien’s stomach.

From her position on her knees, Sophie looked up at him. The light in her eyes was softer now, and the sight of it nearly undid him. “Like I told you”—her tone gentled as well—“I had a lot of time on my hands. Magnus was very helpful with providing me all the information I needed to get into the guts of the site. So go ahead.” She nudged the computer back toward his hand. “Do what you need to do to send that Web site live. I’ll live with whatever happens.” Knowledge, certainty, saturated the deep blue of her stare. “I don’t think you can say the same.”

No
. Rearing into the leather of his chair, Lucien clenched his jaw. His heart rate kicked up, and his throat went even drier, but he managed to say in his throwaway tone, “You’re a fool if you think I care about you enough for your downfall to destroy me.”

Still looking at him, not wavering, she replied, “Then I guess I’m a fool.”

For the second time in as many minutes, the air whooshed out of Lucien’s lungs.
Stop
. His eyes slid closed, and he flattened his lips to a thin line so that nothing stupid slipped out—ridiculous things he had no right to speak and definitely not to feel.
Not for Sophie.

Once Lucien got his breathing under control, at least as much as he could hope for right now, he opened his eyes and faced this petite, sunny, diabolical woman again. “What is your plan here?” He used the cover of the open laptop to twist at his left wrist, loosening the knot some more. “To enact your own brand of revenge for what I’ve done to you?”

Empathy from Sophie washed over Lucien like a tidal wave, flowing from every pore in her being. “I don’t have any nefarious plan for revenge.” She rubbed his leg with her thumb and forefinger, back and forth slowly, and he frantically struggled harder against the rope binding his left arm to the chair. “This is about getting you to face the truth. About everything.” Looking up at him from her position on the floor, Sophie dipped down to kiss his hand and softly added, “Including Josh.”

A rumble erupted from deep within Lucien. He surged upright, finally breaking free of the ropes. “You don’t know shit about Josh!” Chaos swirled terribly inside him, and the more he looked and listened to this woman, the worse the confusion grew. “And you don’t know shit about me.” Leaving her kneeling, he rushed past her with big strides out of the room. “Get the fuck out of my house.” Still moving, halfway down the hallway, he shook the castle walls with his command.

Lucien had long legs, and he moved with speed; all the while his heart raced, and perspiration coated his skin as if he were fighting to finish the final mile of a marathon. Josh filled his head; the face of his brother had been Lucien’s constant companion for almost eight years. Right now that image pushed him to bring order to the insanity that had taken over his carefully laid plans. Battling against those pictures—everything he’d known for so long—was the energy that crackled around Sophie. Its constant sparks nipped at Lucien’s heels, heating his flesh, and he knew with a gut-clenching certainty she would not let him have his peace.

Desperate for freedom, anything to escape Sophie’s knowing eyes, desperate for time to cool his system, Lucien stormed down the grand staircase and straight out the front door into the nasty winds, spitting rain, and ominous black clouds that made it look as if it were nearing nightfall rather than day having just broken through the dark. His thin knit sweater and jeans quickly clung to his skin, but Lucien did not feel the damp or cold. Nothing could overpower the fire of destruction, failure, and loss scorching through his body.

As Lucien reached the bottom of the first set of steps and veered for the ones that would take him down to the rocky beach, Sophie yelled, “What are you going to do?” The slap of her bare feet in the wet grass signaled her closeness more than her voice. “Do you plan to swim for the mainland?”

Lucien whirled and stalked Sophie, looming over her smaller frame to the point that he pushed her back a few steps with just his presence. Dipping down to get right in her face, he uttered in a viciously soft voice, “Do you think you can talk me out of what needs to be done?” He got so fucking close to her she took another step back. The first strains of victory thrummed through him, and he added, “This is not over. I will find another way to destroy your brother. He will pay.”

As Lucien turned and started walking away again, Sophie called out, “Crushing Royce won’t make you feel better. You’ll still feel sick inside.” Then in a softer voice that somehow carried across the wind like a shout, she told him, “What you don’t want to face is that deep down you think it was you.”

His heart suddenly seizing, Lucien stumbled.
No
. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His response whisper-soft, he couldn’t make himself turn around.

It didn’t take Sophie but a second to get in front of him and to force him to see her pretty, earnest face. “Royce is a distraction. You have to blame him because you need it to be somebody. You can’t face letting my brother off the hook because that would mean you have to assign someone else the blame. You can’t bear to do that because annihilating you every day is the secret belief that you are in fact the one responsible for Josh’s death.” Wetness welled in her eyes, and Lucien knew it had nothing to do with the light rain falling around them. “You can’t let yourself see the truth in Royce’s innocence because facing what that means in your most secret, broken soul would kill you.”

Shaking his head, his heart lurching up into his throat to steal his response, Lucien croaked in a voice that barely held sound, “You’re crazy.”