The Devil's Touch Read Online Free PDF

boyfriend and I split up this afternoon and I’m angry. I spent hours crying, feeling sorry for myself, and then I decided I was going to find a man – a dangerous sexy man – and give myself to him for one night. I went to the function because I had been invited. I didn’t know who you were, but when I saw you I knew you were the one.”
    Lucien felt the shock of her words leap along his nerves, drawing them tight. He leaned forward in the seat and stared at Angelica.
    With a sense of foreboding, Lucien realized there was more she had not told him and he waited while she bit her lip guiltily before turning in the seat to face him.
    “I came home early from work today. I had errands to run, and I needed time to prepare for the function. When I walked in the door I found my boyfriend writing me a letter. It was a goodbye letter, and it wasn’t a nice one.”
    “Did you see it coming? I mean, was your relationship in trouble?”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    “But he did?”
    “Yes – apparently. He told me he had been thinking about leaving me for the last month, ever since he started having an affair.”
    Lucien didn’t say anything. It was what he had been waiting for, he had known there was something else. He was beginning to understand the girl’s reasoning for revenge.
    “It was another girl from our bank. Duncan is my boss at Guthrie and Jensen, and he had decided that I was no longer enough for him.”
    “Duncan Charleton?”
    “Yes,” Angelica said. “Do you know him?”
    “I’ve heard the name,” Lucien muttered, suddenly thoughtful.
    “He left me for this girl. She only started at the bank six weeks ago. When I came home today he confessed. It wasn’t in his note and he wasn’t going to tell me. But when I asked him why, and when I kept asking, he finally told me the truth.”
    Lucien had heard enough. He pitied her then, for now he accepted the circumstances that had affected her behavior.
    Angelica faltered for a moment, taken aback by the look of genuine sympathy in Lucien’s expression. She shuddered, turned away to look back out into the night, and when she turned back again there were tears in her eyes and her lips trembled as though she were unable to form words.
    Lucien touched her cheek. “It’s okay.”
    She shook her head. “No. It’s not.” And then she told him everything in a rush of words that spilled out, some of it drowned and incoherent with tears. “He told me he was leaving me because I wasn’t beautiful enough. He said that I wasn’t sexy and alluring. I didn’t arouse him the way this other woman does. He said I wasn’t as attractive as his new girl – and then he told me it wasn’t his fault at all. He said it was natural for him to be more attracted to her.”
    Lucien brushed at her tears with his thumb, but now they fell like rain, and he took the handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.
    “He said I wasn’t sexual, and that I was bland. Then… then he said he needed a woman who was exciting and willing to try new things in bed.”
    She slumped against Lucien, her whole body overtaken by racking heavy sobs. Lucien slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to him and she curled up against the warm muscled strength of his chest and cried.
    It lasted for a long time and when she was spent – when there were no more tears – Angelica eased herself back into the corner of the seat and dabbed ineffectually at her swollen red eyes.
    “So now you know everything,” she said. “Do you despise me?” Her face was stricken, pale in the soft gloomy light, her voice muted and toneless.
    Lucien reached out to her and cupped her face gently in his hands, gazing into her eyes so she could see the sincerity in his expression. “I don’t despise you at all,” he said softly. “I understand. I really do.”
    She nodded and smiled, but it was a pathetic lop-sided little thing that made her lip quiver. “I thought if I could spend one night