Jess Michaels Read Free Page A

the silk she had been cutting. Pretending to bebored with him, she began to drape the fabric over the model beside her table.
    “My schedule is quite full at present, my lord. I have no time for any additional work.” She refused to look at him, even though she wanted desperately to see his reaction. “Now, you have seen me and vented some of your anger. I don’t think we have anything else to discuss. Please go.”
    “No.”
    His answer was so quiet that Cassandra couldn’t help but turn back toward him. He stood exactly where she had left him, his arms folded across his muscular chest, his bright eyes piercing through her as though she were the only person in the world.
    She shook her head in disbelief. This dark and angry man was nothing like the one she had known four years ago. Nathan didn’t even resemble the lovesick boy who had declared he would give up anything to be with her. He wasn’t the gentle lover who had carefully introduced her body to pleasure.
    And despite herself, she was even more attracted to him now than she had been before. Her body reacted to his overpowering presence of its own accord; her nipples tightening to almost painful sensitivity beneath her fitted bodice, her thighs wet with her arousal.
    Suddenly a small smile quirked his lips again, almost like he could read her desires as plainly as she could detect his. And it was clear that her undeniable attraction was a triumph to him, as much as his was to her.
    The air between them grew even more sexually chargedand she gasped for breath as her thoughts spun out of control. Even though it was utterly foolish and inappropriate, every part of her wanted to bare her body to him and dare him not to touch her. If she did, would he surrender to his own desire, to the lust that was nearly as obvious as his anger?
    “You won’t leave?” she asked, hating the tremble in her voice.
    He shook his head slowly.
    She gripped her hands into fists at her sides. “Why not?”
    “Because I am not finished ‘venting my anger,’ as you called it, not by a long run. No, I’m not going to leave here—leave you alone—until I have every question answered to my satisfaction. The first of which being, is this what you left me for? This life, is it why you threw me aside like I was garbage? Truly, I want to know.”

Chapter Two
    T he moment he asked the question, Nathan wished he could take the words back. Oh, he did want to know the answer to his query, there was no denying that even to himself, but asking Cassandra so bluntly about her reasons for leaving him only made him seem desperate and needy. The fact that those out-of-control emotions were exactly what he felt was not something he wished to examine too closely.
    And there she stood like an ice queen, her expression totally unmoved by him. That made everything he felt all the worse. He so wanted to move her, to make her quake, to make her show him the emotions she had when he first entered her chamber. He wanted to make her hurt and long the same way he did.
    “I have no idea what you mean, my lord,” she said softly.
    He frowned. “Yes you do. Of course you do. Did you abandon our plans to marry so that you could go to London and become the whore of a few rich men? Did you so desperately want to work in trade as a seamstress? Or were the depraved little toys you design your real goal? Was all this,” he made a jerky motion around the room with one hand, “worth giving up becoming a countess, and eventually a marchioness?”
    “I wasn’t with you so that I could be a countess or a marchioness,” she hissed. The anger he had been craving lit up her eyes for an all-too-brief moment, and then she stuffed it down, shooed it away. “What is the point of this, Nathan? You shall believe exactly what you wish, you always have.”
    Nathan frowned, confused by her turn of phrase, but before he could address that, she shook her head.
    “It is best to leave the past in the past.” She let out an