Notorious in Nice Read Online Free PDF Page B

in fricking hell are you doing here?”
    “Watch your tone,” his father snapped.
    The man hadn’t changed, not a single iota over the years. Terry’s lips curled as he studied his father’s visage, full head of hair, now silver rather than blond, weathered face lined at the eyes and mouth by too much excess, and gray eyes that mimicked the dead of Antarctic winter.
    He’d been lucky to escape.
    A throat cleared behind him.
    Terry’s gaze shifted, and his stomach, always a barometer of his concealed emotions, listed and heaved, threatening to upchuck its contents.
    “Terrence,” his mirror image said.
    “Thomas.” His mind numb, Terry shook his identical twin’s hand. And what was left of his gleeful anticipation for the evening dissipated. “What brings you two to Antibes?”
    “Business. Don’t think of embarrassing me tonight,” his father answered. “How did you garner an invitation?”
    “They’ve chartered my yacht for the next three weeks.”
    Nigel Thomas Jefferson Patrick Gore, the Earl of Arran, flinched and paled. Terry’s eyes widened; for a mere inhale, he thought he saw fear and guilt in his father’s charcoal eyes. He shook his head, lip curling at one corner. The father he knew eschewed any hint of vulnerability. He must have been wrong.
    Leprechauns dogged him.
    Terry downed his glass of scotch, caught both his father and his twin’s disapproving stares, and spun around, headed for the bar, where he ordered a triple shot.
    Jaysus.
    Fricking leprechaun luck. Both his father and his twin when he least expected it.
    Ten years since he’d last seen Thomas, longer for his father.
    Thomas, Thomas.
    Terry found a solitary spot on the starboard, propped one foot on the rail, downed the tumbler of liquor, and flung the glass into the sea. The boa constrictor banding his chest squeezed his gullet, and the scotch traversed his insides one drop at a time, scorching a slow, scalding path.
    Even though the view showed a tranquil Mediterranean, it was not what he saw.
    Rage, bloodied limbs, Thomas’s sad, resigned slate eyes minutes before he slipped unconscious, burned Terry’s pupils. For the past ten years, he’d buried his self-loathing in booze, orgies, drugs, gambling, anything to mask acknowledging the lousy human being he’d become.
    One brief exchange was all it took.
    One glance and their souls meshed.
    He could no longer deny the damage he’d inflicted. His twin’s pain reflected in his eyes like an endless corridor of horror-house mirrors bouncing, echoing, so he couldn’t differentiate the person from the never-ending reflections. He’d become a mirror image -- there only if you happened to catch the muted likeness at the right time.
    Only Thomas could spur such soured introspection.
    Terry shook his head, ordered another scotch, and forged into the throngs cramming the deck. Old habits reared and Terry scanned the crowd.
    A woman, he needed a woman. Sex, a night of thrusting and pounding like an enraged bull, and then he would face reality, deal with the burdens of the past.
    Determined not to be thrown off course, his glance slid left, drawn to Su-Lin like Mars drawn to the sun. To his surprise, she met his gaze and tipped the crystal glass, her full lips curling in a trembling smile.
    His for the taking.
    He forgot his father, his brother, his life, and homed in on a single goal, sheathing himself in her warmth. Trying not to be obvious, Terry wound his way through the crowd mingling on the upper deck until he stood inches away from her. An involuntary shudder sucked his stomach in as his eyes swept the length of her back, delectable ass dimples exposed by the sweeping low-cut jade silk.
    As if sensing his presence, she sidled a corner-of-the-eye glance at him, and her pouty lips parted in a sultry half-smile. She sipped at the bubbling champagne, glancing over one bare shoulder at him.
    “Have you met Lord and Lady…?” He lost the rest of her question, eyes pinpointed on