Chapter Three: The Morning-After Pill

Eveline pinched the card between her fingers as she spun around, hiding it behind her back. Her heart thumped behind her ribcage, and from the way he was staring at her, she was almost certain he could hear it.

Lucien’s lips twitched with a flat smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s not how you hide the evidence of snooping, Eve. You’re like a child, with chocolate smeared across your mouth, insisting you didn’t touch the chocolate bar.”

He clicked his tongue, taking a step closer as she tried to unscramble her thoughts…make sense of what she’d just seen.

“What did you find?” he asked quietly.

That she’d done the most horrific thing ever. That it just so happened—the one night she thought to do something reckless, it turned out to be with the wrong person. She didn’t know how to say it, or if she should at all.

“My card?” he continued, a gleam flashing briefly in his eyes. Something about it, almost smug and knowing, had Eveline’s brows furrowing. “You might as well address the elephant in the room, Eveline Storm.”

Her jaw dropped, and the card fell to the floor.

She didn’t notice it. He knew…her name. “How?” her voice rose. She didn’t remember telling him anything other than “Eve” when he asked last night. It was short enough to forget, and she’d failed to come up with a fake name in time to sound confident.

He slipped a hand into the pocket of the black, baggy sweatpants that hung low on his waist, revealing a glimpse of the toned Adonis line disappearing into a bulge that pressed against his—

She dragged her thoughts back, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Did you go through my things? My pockets?”

She kept her ID in her scrubs’ pants when she wasn’t in the clinic. It was a habit.

“Cleveland clinic?” he said the name casually, tilting his head. “No. But it just so happened that I picked up your phone in time to see a text from my nephew, asking if you’d come home last night.” He said it like they were making small talk. Eveline felt like her heart was about to explode.

Shane.

He’d sent her a message while she was in bed, passed out naked, after having sex with his uncle.

“So…” Lucien drawled, “when were you going to tell me that I fucked my sweet nephew’s little fiancée? After I’d fucked you again this morning, on the kitchen counter? Or maybe in my bathroom?” Eveline’s breathing staggered as he moved closer, his steps measured and deliberately slow, as if testing how far she could take before running.

“You know,” he tutted softly, “I never got to bury my head between your legs. Slip my tongue inside you, watch you writhe and struggle not to scream as I make you come with my tongue.”

Eveline couldn’t breathe. Her body shook with tiny tremors, and her lips parted, useless without the words that failed to form.

“I have some time on my hands,” he continued. “I’m sure we can squeeze in an hour before you go back to playing the dutiful fiancée. I’m sure he won’t suspect a thing while you’re sunbathing on the trip he booked. Or,” he shrugged loosely, “maybe you’ll think about how your legs shook helplessly while I had you bent over.”

“Tell me—” he was standing in front of her now, his smile replaced with a scowl. “Which do you prefer? Lying in bed while my nephew makes love to you or feeling my cock stretch you open?”

Eveline found her tongue as a wave of anger poured through her. “You—” she stuttered, but her voice was clear.

She hated the word “fiancé,” but she wasn’t going to tell this arrogant, narcissistic man that his nephew had been screwing his colleague on the night that was supposed to be their engagement dinner.

As far as she was concerned, they were cut from the same cloth.

She thrust her hands on her hips, meeting his gaze unblinking. She scoffed. “I had no idea who you were until I found your card. Why would I sleep with my fiancé’s uncle? And if I wanted to—even if I was that stupid—why would it be with the family’s black sheep?”

His gaze darkened. “What?”

She stepped away, taking a deep breath where the air no longer smelled like him and the aftermath of sex. She turned. “What I do is my own business. We had a one-night stand. A mutual decision. Now, unless you want to share a cup of coffee, then I should go.”

“What…do you think my dear nephew would think if he found out I was inside his fiancée while he was busy booking a romantic weekend?”

Lucien’s cold voice stopped her in her tracks.

She looked over her shoulder, but he’d already crossed the space between them in strides. He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging in. His eyes were hard. “You know, I almost believed it last night. That this was one reckless decision. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You like to have fun, Eveline. Even if it means hurting a man who cares about you.”

Care?

Eveline was going to reach into her ears and remove her eardrums if she had to listen to him any longer.

She tugged her arm loose, but he held fast, refusing to let her go. He yanked her flush against his chest, his thumb and index finger cupping her cheek. “Did I do a good job, compared to the others? Does sweet Shane…” his thumb traced the outline of her lips, slipping between the seam, “make you come the way I did?”

Eveline hated it. She hated the words that came out of his mouth—she knew he was taunting her, mocking her, and yet her body responded. A soft gasp betrayed her, and her nipples hardened painfully.

He heard it. His brows furrowed for one moment, then he let go the next, leaving her to stumble and almost lose her footing.

“Get out,” he said, turning away.

Get out? He was kicking her out now? She gritted her teeth, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but her phone buzzed. Eveline dug into her pocket for it—and the name that flashed on the screen made her heart drop.

It was the nurse in charge of her father’s care at the hospital.

She only messaged Eveline when something bad happened.