AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘But that day I went berserk.’ Her voice was shaking now in spite of her efforts to control it. ‘Really berserk. I flew at him, hitting him, punching him, and he struck me back so hard I lost consciousness for a time.’
‘Hell, Kim.’ He knew she probably didn’t want to be touched, not in view of what she was reliving, but Lucas couldn’t see her sitting there, so small and slender and broken, and not hold her. He lifted her up to him, and as she stiffened, her body tensing, he said softly, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right; I just want to hold you as one human being comforting another, that’s all. Nothing more, Kim. I swear it.’
He would have given the world for five minutes alone with Graham Allen if the dirty swine hadn’t been dead. And he would have made him suffer. An artery pumping out his life blood had been too quick an end for the so-and-so.
‘When I came to he was sitting in front of me with Melody on his knee,’ Kim whispered against his shirt, her head still hanging limply. ‘He told me if I ever confided in a living soul, told them anything of what had gone on, he would kill her, and then me. I believed him, Lucas. He was actually capable of that when the mood took him. He said it was important for the business he was seen as an established family man and that if I tried to leave him he would find us. He did promise he’d never hit me again, though.’
‘You should have left him. There are places—’
‘No. He’d have found us.’ Kim raised desolate eyes, her lashes starred with tears. ‘But from that day I moved into Melody’s room on a camp bed. I couldn’t bear for him to touch me. Something died for ever that day, Lucas. I know it. I could never trust any man again.’
‘I’m not any man,’ he said grimly, seating himself on the sofa with Kim on his knee and holding her when she would have struggled away.
‘Things got worse and worse,’ Kim continued, her body tight and rigid. ‘He…he became like a devil. And then, the night after the shopping incident, when he’d broken his word and hit me again, he found me looking at flats in the paper. He attacked me, said I was withholding his conjugal rights so he’d take what was rightfully his by force if he had to. But I fought back, hit him over the head with a saucepan in the end and locked myself in Melody’s room. I thought he might try to break the door down but in the event he went off on a drinking binge, and the rest you know.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Except that he left debts, huge debts—for me, that is—and I was stupid enough to have signed documents that made me as responsible as Graham.’
‘Hence you jumping at the job at Kane Electrical,’ Lucas said softly, his voice shaking a littl
e with what he was feeling. ‘And here was me thinking you had fallen for my irresistible charm.’
He was trying to lighten things, Kim knew that, but his closeness was too much to cope with. ‘Please let me go, Lucas,’ she said tremblingly. ‘And don’t feel sorry for me. I didn’t tell you about Graham for that.’
‘Listen to me, Kim.’ He lifted her chin so that she had to look into his face, and she saw fierce anger was battling with a tenderness that made her want to howl like a baby. ‘I can’t deny I want him to suffer the torments of the damned for what he’s put you through, and if he were alive I’d find him and teach him a lesson that would mark him until his dying day. That’s the way I’m made, I’m afraid. But you’ve got to put that maniac behind you. He’s history, dead, gone—and I don’t mean in just the physical sense.’
She was dazed and shaking, as much by their intimacy as the terror she had relived.
‘If you let him shape your future he’s really won, don’t you see that?’ Lucas urged huskily. ‘And you’re worth more than the dregs he’s left you, and so is Melody.’
‘Melody is one reason I don’t want a relationship with anyone, ever,’ Kim said tightly, afraid the pull of his magnetism was going to convince her black was white. ‘We’re safe as we are, Melody and I, and that’s all I ask of the future, Lucas. To be safe.’
‘The hell it is.’ It was a growl, and immediately he added, ‘I’m sorry. Don’t look like that; I’m not going to hurt you, for crying out loud. But, like I said before, I’m not anyone, and what’s between us is something outside the normal realm of things. Of course you want to be safe, but there’s more to life than just that, my love. Don’t throw all your hopes and dreams and aspirations on the funeral pyre of that rat. I can make you alive in a way you’ve never dreamt of.’
My love. Kim couldn’t speak at all, she could only look at him, but her eyes were huge with distrust and fear and he read the panic and denial in her face with deep and silent frustration.
‘I want you, Kim, but not for a night or a week or a month,’ he said very softly.
‘No.’ Before he could say any more she jerked herself away from him, sliding to her feet and shaking uncontrollably as she said, ‘You have to understand, Lucas, please. I can’t… I don’t want commitment.’
How many times had he said exactly that to some beauty or other he was inviting into his bed? Lucas’s thoughts were self-derisory and caustic. And now he was being hoist with his own petard. But he was damned if he was going to let her go. She was his, in her heart. He just had to convince her of it. But she had had enough brute force and manipulation to last her a lifetime and he wasn’t about to indulge in more of the same. If he took her she would capitulate in seconds; he had no doubt about that. But he wanted more than her body and a momentary acceptance in her emotions. Much more.
‘Okay.’ He stood up slowly to face her, thrusting his hands into his pockets to remind himself not to touch her. How he wanted to touch her…
‘Okay?’ The tears were still sparkling on her white cheeks and Kim took a shaky breath. ‘What do you mean okay?’
‘I accept your proviso that we’re just friends,’ Lucas said evenly, ‘and I appreciate that you trusted me enough to tell me about your past. That’s the first requisite of friends, trust.’
Kim stared at him, feeling she was entering an Alice in Wonderland experience. She hadn’t mentioned anything about being friends, had she? she asked herself bewilderedly. And where had he got this idea about her trusting him?
‘So, we’ll go on from here with no bad blood between us, yes?’ Lucas’s tone was soothing. He had noted the brittle stance of her body, her chalk-white face and agonised eyes, and it had warned him she was at the limit of her endurance for one day. He also knew he wanted her more than ever.
‘I…I don’t know,’ Kim stammered defensively, suddenly unsure of exactly what was being said.
‘Kim, you’ve told me you need to work to pay off Graham’s debts,’ Lucas said calmly, ‘and surely you want to provide Melody with the best standard of living in the meantime? That taken as read, you working as my secretary is a good deal for both of us. I get someone who is completely trustworthy and willing to give the job her all; you get an excellent salary with no strings attached.’
‘But…but what you said…’
‘About loving you, wanting you?’ Lucas expelled a quite breath. ‘That still stands, I’m afraid, but I’m no callow youth in the grip of adolescent urgings he can’t control. And life goes on, even in the midst of my bruised ego. I’m a businessman first and foremost, Kim. You should know everything comes second to that.’ And the funny thing was, he would have meant that last sentence at one time, Lucas admitted with bitter self-mockery.
