The Reluctant Duke Read Free Page A

‘I accept that we got off to something of a bad start earlier, Miss Hamilton, but let’s get one thing clear, shall we?’ He looked down at her coldly. ‘Namely, for the moment,
I
am the employer and
you
are the employee!’
    Dark brows rose over those deep, and perhaps deliberately innocent, blue eyes. ‘I am?’
    ‘For the moment, yes,’ he repeated harshly—warningly.
    Lexie shrugged. ‘Can I take it from that remark that Premier Personnel have confirmed that my replacement will arrive in three days’ time?’
    ‘You can,’ Lucan confirmed tightly. ‘It would appear that we are stuck with each other until then.’
    She smiled slightly. ‘My sentiments exactly.’
    Lucan scowled darkly. ‘Tell me, Lexie, is this tendency you have to be less than respectful to your employers also the reason that you find it easier to work for an agency rather than attempting to find a permanent position?’
    Two bright spots of angry colour had appeared in the delicate cream of her cheeks. ‘I don’t believe my reasons to be any of your concern, Mr St Claire!’
    He shrugged broad and muscled shoulders beneath his tailored jacket. ‘I was curious. Nothing more,’ he dismissed coolly.
    As Lexie had long been curious about all of the St Claire family…
    ‘I assure you, Mr St Claire, there is nothing about my personal life that would be of the least interest to you.’ She looked up at him challengingly.
    He raised dark brows. ‘You sound very certain of that.’
    ‘I am,’ she came back evenly.
    What would this man do or say, Lexie wondered, if hewere to learn that her grandmother was none other than Sian Thomas—the widow that his own father, Alexander St Claire, had fallen in love with over twenty-five years ago? The same woman all the St Claire family had treated with such contempt for those same many years… If he were to realise that Lexie’s own full name, Alexandra, had been chosen in honour of ‘Grandpa Alex’, as she had called
this
man’s father for the first sixteen of her twenty-four years…!

CHAPTER TWO
    L EXIE had been in complete ignorance for most of her childhood as to exactly who her Grandpa Alex was—apart from being her step-grandfather, of course—but once she’d reached her teens her mother had quietly and calmly sat her down and explained the situation to her.
    It was then that Lexie had learned that Alexander St Claire was actually the Duke of Stourbridge, and had been virtually disowned by his three sons after his divorce from their mother, Molly St Claire.
    Lexie had instantly decided that all three of the St Claire brothers had treated their father abominably—simply because he had fallen in love with her gentle and beautiful grandmother. A woman none of the brothers had even attempted to meet, let alone get to know. If they had then they might have realised how far removed Sian was from being the
femme fatale
they so obviously believed her to be. They would also have seen how much she had loved their father. How much their father had loved her in return.
    As it was, despite the fact that their father was now her Grandpa Alex, Lexie hadn’t so much as set eyes on any of the three St Claire brothers until Alexander had died eight years ago, when they had dutifully arranged and attended their father’s funeral at the village church in Stourbridge.
    Lexie had attended the funeral, too, out of sheer bloody-mindedness,after it had been made clear that her grandmother’s presence would
not
be welcomed there by the St Claire family.
    Out of sheer stubbornness she had decided to represent her own family that day, standing at the back of the church to mourn her Grandpa Alex. Unacknowledged and thankfully unnoticed by any of the St Claire family.
    The coldly remote Lucan St Claire had been easily recognisable from the photographs Lexie had deliberately looked out for over the last few years in the business pages of newspapers and magazines. She had also known the youngest St Claire