Scarlet Deception 3 - Betrayal by Christina Dodd

Author:Christina Dodd
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: David_James Mobilism.org
ISBN: 9781101579893
Publisher: A Signet Select Book
Published: 2012-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

Noah walked down Nonna’s winding driveway like a man fleeing his demons. But there was no leaving them behind.

He touched the collar that held his doom.

What was he thinking, kidnapping Penelope like a pirate on the prowl? He couldn’t blame alcohol—he’d had one beer, and he hadn’t finished it. Yet as soon as he’d seen her stroll into his family’s kitchen, he had been intoxicated with desire. Not just for sex. That was too easy. But for the years they had lived apart when they could have been together, for the meals they’d missed sharing at Nonna’s, for the children they would have had, for fights and reconciliations and laughter and love.

He had a brain. He had never needed to use it more than he needed to use it now.

Unfortunately, he also had a dick.

And he had only enough blood in his body to supply one or the other.

He could think. Or he could lust. Not both. Not at the same time.

And he desperately needed to think. As soon as dinner was over and he could escape, he was going back home to work on his project. It was delicate. It took every ounce of his attention. His two weeks were flying past. He’d told Penelope there was no time. He meant it.

Liesbeth didn’t know him. She didn’t understand him. She imagined that because he’d been raised in a loving environment surrounded by honorable people, he was not like her.

Yet given the right circumstances, he was like her. The blood of the czars ran in his veins. Could he be cruel? Could he be ruthless? Oh, yes.

Liesbeth didn’t realize that if he didn’t find that bottle, if fourteen days passed and his time was up, he wasn’t going alone. He wasn’t dying and leaving his wacko criminal of a mother and her depraved family to threaten Nonna, and Rafe and Brooke, and Eli and Chloë. And Penelope, who had found a job with Rafe and Brooke.

Noah might go to hell.

But by God, he would have company.

The walk in the late-afternoon sunshine, up and down the hills, past the lawn and the trees of Nonna’s yard, past the vines planted by the original Di Lucas at the start of the twentieth century… it should have soothed him.

Yet frustration sizzled in his veins, and he couldn’t take it in. He couldn’t reminisce about his boyhood spent here in the sunshine. He couldn’t remember the hours spent tagging along after his grandfather, learning to trim the vines. He couldn’t remember days spent with his brothers, climbing trees and playing baseball. He remembered the happy moments of his boyhood through a gray veil of grief: grief that he had taken them for granted, that he hadn’t understood how rare and brief those days would be.

How was it possible that Penelope was here, no longer the girl who had ignited his desire, but a woman, confident and intelligent?

Damn it.

Damn it.

He wanted, he lusted, he longed… and he could not have.

Nine years ago, he had

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