Let the Night Begin Read Online Free PDF Page A

“This is not the place to discuss this.”
    She was almost amused. He would fuck her in a stranger’s home, but not talk to her candidly? How delightfully male. How very him. But then, he always had been a master at getting his own way. And she usually gave it to him. Let him think this time was no different. “Where then? When?”
    â€œBelgrave Square,” he replied. He was going to make her return to the house that should have been hers. She had been so excited about picking out new draperies and furniture. So excited about her new life with the man she loved so much. “Go, and I’ll make excuses to the lady of the house.”
    A mocking smile twisted her lips. “Yes, wouldn’t want to have to introduce me, would you?”
    He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. In fact, he looked bored, both with her and their situation. “You are more than welcome to accompany me if you wish to waste time with introductions and explanations as to why the wife no one knew I had has suddenly appeared.”
    â€œYou are right,” she conceded, hating him all the more for it. “I will wait for you at your home.” She couldn’t bring herself to call it theirs, even though by rights it was.
    Of course he never spoke of her. Why would he? But if she’d harbored any hopes that he still mightfeel some tenderness for her, some emotion other than lust, she now had her answer.
    It would make betraying him all the easier.
    Â 
    He couldn’t trust her. That went without saying. And that was the only thing Reign knew for certain as his carriage pulled up in front of his home in Belgrave Square. He lived on the eastern side of the highly fashionable property, having taken a lease fifty-two years earlier. As with all of his property, the lease had already passed on to his “heir” once and would again in a reasonable amount of time.
    That was the one hardship of being immortal, he reflected as he climbed the shallow steps of the freshly whitewashed town house. He could never settle in one place for an indefinite amount of time. He always had to move on. He didn’t mind the travel so much, and wouldn’t mind relocating at all if he had someone to share it with.
    The only person he had ever found that he could entertain spending eternity with had shoved a dagger into his chest thirty years ago. She might be in London to finish the job for all he knew. Maybe he deserved it, but he had no regrets save that he had handled it poorly. Olivia had left and he had let her, foolishly thinking that she would be back once her temper settled.
    If the facer she’d given him earlier was any indication, her temper had yet to settle at all.
    Which begged the question, just what the hell was she doing in London? And claiming to need his help? He had never met a woman more capable than Olivia. She didn’t need his help.
    But she wanted him, he thought with a smile as he gave his butler his outerwear. Just as much as he wanted her. He hadn’t ruined that, and it was something he could use to his advantage. Because unlike his absent wife, he had meant his promises. As far as he was concerned, Olivia was his until one of them ceased to exist, and even then he wasn’t certain he’d be prepared to give her up.
    Clarke came toward him as Reign walked down the hall. Olivia was there. He could smell the amber scent of her perfume on the air. It would linger for days, damn it. Just like the memory of the fire in her eyes when she told him he could fuck her if he wanted to, but only face-to-face.
    He had been so tempted to do just that. And not with anger or with violence, but with regret and thirty years of bitterness and longing. For the first decade he’d been so certain that he had been the victim of their wedding night, but then uncertainty set in, and with it came guilt. He would not feel guilty now.
    â€œWhere is she?” he asked before the other man