Those were the arms she’d planned to spend the rest of her life in, and his kiss was the only one she’d ever wanted on her lips.

Tears dampened her cheeks, and a great sob wrenched itself out of her body. Knowing about Dan’s affair was one thing. Having images of it forever burned onto her retinas was another. She dropped her face into her hands and cried her heart out.

Lucien closed the screen slowly and placed the laptop back on the table beside him. Watching Sophie cry was excruciating. His every instinct was to reach out and hold her. “Sophie… Princess… I’m so sorry.” She flinched when he touched her, and the look in her eyes when she raised her head chilled him to the bone.

“You’re sorry? Which bit are you sorry for, exactly, Lucien? The bit where you stalked my husband, or the bit where you used my marital problems to get me into bed? Christ, you must think I’m so stupid.” Her words came out in a jumble of tears and shaky breath, but anger held her frame ramrod straight. “You planned this. You knew Dan was cheating, and you saw an opportunity to take something that wasn’t yours.”

Lucien’s mind scrambled to keep up with Sophie’s train of thought. She’d got it all very, very wrong.

“Sophie, no.” He reached for her hands but she wrenched them away. “That isn’t what happened…”

“Really? Because that’s exactly what it looks like from where I’m sitting. Why, Lucien?” She dragged her hands furiously across her cheeks, smearing mascara tear tracks into zig-zags on her face. “Don’t even bother to answer. You’re no better than Dan. You’re worse in fact, because you’re fucking sanctimonious with it.” Sophie’s lip curled. “Is that your thing? Lucien Knight, honourable Viking seducer, ready to swoop in and rescue damsels in distress? Is that it?” Her fists were balled so tightly that her knuckles gleamed white. “Is it?”

“Yeah. Because I’m a regular Thor.” Lucien’s attempt at levity fell on stony ground. He paused, sighed. “I just wanted to make it better for you, Sophie.”

Her bitter laugh echoed around the cabin.

“Well, guess what? I didn’t need your fucked up version of a fairy story to save me.”

Desolation settled on his shoulders like a weightlifter’s barbell. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t say that something about her brittle, defensive answers about her husband at her interview had rung alarm bells in his head, or that he’d been operating on pure instinct when he’d given the order to have Daniel Black investigated. He couldn’t tell her that she’d given him so much more than he’d bargained for over the last week, or that she’d changed his life just as much as he’d changed hers.

So he shrugged instead, retreating into his habitual cool demeanour. “It’s better that you know. Best that you hold all the cards.”

“Best?” She sprang out of her seat, backing away from him. “Best?” her voice shook as she opened the bedroom door. “Fuck off, Lucien. I don’t need lessons in love from someone who knows nothing of it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sophie stared fixedly out of the window as Lucien eased his car to a stop outside her house. It looked somehow unfamiliar and ominous rather than like the haven it used to be. It was a little before ten, and thankfully the street seemed to be treating itself to a Sunday morning lie-in, curtains resolutely closed against the inevitably grey morning. Sophie was grateful. The last thing she wanted was an audience. Lucien in his Aston Martin stood out like a flashing beacon amongst this suburban landscape of paunchy men walking their dogs with family saloons parked on their drives.

She had no clue what to say to him. The latter part of the flight home had been hellish. After she’d seen the photos of Dan with his mistress, all she’d wanted to do was to run away and scream: instead, she’d been trapped. Lying huddled on the bed, she’d turned the events of the last week over and over in her mind. Everything she’d come to think she knew about Lucien had been wrong. He’d used her. He’d identified her as a vulnerable target and taken advantage of her to get his own sexual kicks.

“Sophie, I really am sorry.” Lucien’s voice was low and loaded with regret. “Upsetting you was the last thing I wanted to do.”

She closed her eyes against his empty words. How could he have expected those photos to do anything but hurt her? Except it wasn’t just the photographs of Dan that had hurt. Now, the fresh pain of Lucien’s deceit hurt like hell on top of it all. She’d been a prize fool to let him flatter her into bed. Any last vestige of self-esteem she’d managed to hang onto had dissolved at the thought of how easily she’d been corrupted, of the things she’d allowed to happen.

“I thought it would help you.”

“Help me?” She repeated his words slowly, turning them over in her mind. Because they made no sense. “Tell me, please - because I’m dying to know - how did you think showing me pictures of my husband with his mistress would help me, Lucien? Don’t you think that knowing he’s been seeing someone else hurts enough already?”

He sighed heavily and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I made a mistake.”

“No, I made the mistake, and I’m sorry.” Sophie heard the quake in her voice but she couldn’t hold it steady. “I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you.” She shook her head in disgust.  “As if it wasn’t bad enough that my husband is having an affair. Now I’ve lost the only advantage I had. I’m as bad as he is.”

A bitter laugh rattled through her chest. “And you know what makes it even worse, Lucien? At least Dan looks as if he has feelings for her. He might even love her for all I know.” Her voice cracked and fresh tears tumbled uninvited down her cheeks. “What I’ve done is far, far worse. I’ve let some cold, calculating stranger screw me out of revenge.”  She choked the words out. “Screw me over, more like.”

Lucien stared at her, dull-eyed, his golden skin paler than she’d ever seen it.

“You didn’t do this out of revenge Sophie, you’re so much better than…”

“Don’t tell me what I am, Lucien,” she cut across him. “You don’t really know me at all, not in any way that matters. I did this to hurt my husband. It could have been anyone. It just happened to be you.”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” he said, quietly.