Exposed: Laid Bare (9 page)
“Yes?”
Shifting from foot to foot, I said softly, “I thought we were done, Lucien. I never heard from you after you got the picture back. I figured that was it. It’s been more than two months, and I know you’ve been with other women.” I gasped in a breath, the air a cold knife in my lungs. “There’s no use pretending. I know you’ve moved on.”
Lucien touched my arm gently. “Dahlia, Dahlia,” he murmured.
“What?” I looked up at him. “Did you even hear a single word I just said? You’ve given me every indication to think we are over and done.”
“Yes, I suppose I have.”
“Two months,” I stressed. “And not one word.”
“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I suppose I view time differently. And maybe that part of us, those few days we shared,
is
over.” He smiled, as radiant as ever. “But no one ever said there can’t be a new beginning, right?”
With that possibility out there, I smiled back at him.
We resumed walking, walking toward his home, walking toward a new, undefined future. Where it would take us, I had no clue.
But it didn’t matter.
I was with Lucien now. And whether it was for an hour, a year, or an eternity, I was game for whatever length of time we might have together. Together—as we were meant to be.
Or so I hoped.
Read on for a preview of the next installment of the
Laid Bare
novellas,
Unveiled: Laid Bare (Laid Bare Volume #2)
Unveiled: Laid Bare
Dahlia
L
ucien Chambers led me along the icy trail back to his mansion, a Tudor monstrosity that loomed like a ghostly specter on this cold March day. I shivered and quaked in my winter boots. I hoped Lucien couldn’t feel my uncertainty, my fear, as it was certainly possible with my arm looped through his.
Whether my sudden trepidation was brought on by anticipation of what would come next, or by outright terror, I couldn’t be sure. See, the problem was for as much as I longed to be with Lucien—and oh, did I ever—a part of me feared him. I feared the unknown surrounding him, I feared not knowing
what
he really was, and I feared just how insanely connected to him I felt.
This might not end well
. I had to accept that possibility.
A shudder ran through me, prompting Lucien to ask, “Are you having second thoughts, Dahlia?”
I shook my head firmly. “No,” I replied.
Lucien slowed up. He spun me to him and cocked his head, assessing me. I smiled up at him. Damn, he was tall.
I guess he saw through my forced ease…or maybe he read my mind, since he said, “We can always turn around, you know.”
His voice was smooth and low and I couldn’t discern how serious he was.
“I’ll walk you back to your car if you want,” he continued. “You can return to your apartment, continue on as you have. It will be as if we never came upon one another over by the lake. Whatever you want, Dahlia, I will do…for you.”
He gestured to the frozen body of water now in the distance. We’d walked quite far already, closer and closer to the point of no return. “Do you want to go back?” he asked once more, this time only as a whisper.
Lucien clearly wanted me to stay, continue on with him. Swallowing hard, I replied, “I can’t go back, Lucien. You know I can’t just turn around and leave.”
He had this hold over me, and it felt stronger than ever now that we had reunited. He knew this, he had to.
“I do,” he replied softly, a response to my thoughts that he could hear when he so desired.
I started to turn away, but I wasn’t sure which way to go—back to the car, or to Lucien’s.
He grabbed my hand, making my decision for me. I was going nowhere until he’d said his piece.
“Listen to me, Dahlia,” he implored. “I can do more than make it as if you never saw me out here today.” He lowered his voice and his slight British accent became more pronounced. “I can give you a memory that will leave you thinking you drove up to the park to get away for an afternoon. You’ll forget you ran into me, you’ll forget all of this. But more than that, I can remove every memory you have of me.”
“What?” I was horrified. I wrenched my hand from his, and gasped, “Why would you offer to do such a thing, Lucien? Is that what
you
really want?”
“No,” he said, his angry dark eyes meeting my own unhappy stare. “If
I
wanted that I would have left you be over at the lake.”
“So, why are you giving me an out? You sought me out.”
His eyes penetrating, he murmured. “Yes, I did seek you out. I sensed your presence, and I came to you. And that is precisely the reason why I am now giving you, as you so eloquently put it, an out.”
I smiled, this time genuinely. But Lucien’s frown remained, furrowing his raven brows. He had no idea how unearthly beautiful he was, especially at times such as these, when he allowed me to see his vulnerability, his frustration. Usually Lucien was well-aware of his effect on the people around him, particularly me, but I could see how in this moment he had no idea just how incredibly appealing he was.
“What?” he asked, head cocked slightly to the right.
I reached up and swept back an unruly lock of raven-black hair that had fallen to his forehead. “You’re beautiful,” I said, smiling. “And your accent, it becomes more pronounced when you’re worked up over something.”
Sighing, he said, “Well, you certainly have the ability to work me up, Dahlia. Don’t you?”
Lucien’s momentary lapse of control, so unlike him, betrayed how frazzled he was. It was uncharacteristic of him, but so very endearing. His frailties, if you could call them that, made him more human-like. Quite a feat, considering I
knew
he was something far more than merely human.
“I do work you up,” I teased, nudging him with my shoulder as I slid my hands into the pockets of my coat. “But I don’t do it on purpose.”
Lucien had once told me I was his weakness. Now I clearly saw that was true. There was some part of him, like in me, that could not bear to let go.
Knowing that made it easy to say, “I don’t want to go back to my car, Lucien. I don’t want you to make me forget about anything that happened today. And I definitely don’t want an out. I want to remember everything that has ever happened between us.”
His brow shot up. “Everything, Dahlia?”
His tone was light. Lucien Chambers was actually engaging in flirtatious banter. I knew then that we had a real chance at something special.
“Yes. I wouldn’t give up a single memory, not one moment we’ve shared.”
“Good,” he replied, shooting me a dashing smile. “Since I never had any intention of letting you go so easily, anyway.”
“Oh, really?” I took a step back.
He took a step forward, and retorted, “Yes, Dahlia,
really
.”
I gestured to the trail. I was intrigued, I was thrilled. I threw caution to the wind. Living recklessly had never felt so good as I said, “Let’s get going then.”
Lucien took my hand. “Wise choice,” he murmured.
We began to walk again toward the mansion, and the craziest thing was I could have sworn I heard Lucien mutter under his breath, “Although a choice was never an option anyway.”
What that meant, I couldn’t begin to imagine.
But I couldn’t wait to find out.
Unveiled: Laid Bare (Volume 2)
~ available June 2015.
Unveiled
will contain Dahlia’s point-of-view, and due to popular demand Lucien will be heard, as well.
Read other books by S. R. GREY
The biggest “thank you” goes out to the readers. Thank you for taking a chance on this departure for me. I am learning novellas are their own brand of special. It’s fun to dole out a little bit of a larger story one bit at a time. I hope you’ll be brave and stick with me throughout Lucien and Dahlia’s story. I think you’ll enjoy their journey.
As always, thank you to family, friends, bloggers, and the most awesome street team ever. Much appreciation also goes out to Hot Tree Editing, Cover It! Designs, and the formatting team at E.M. Tippetts.
Thank you!!!
S.R. Grey is an Amazon Top 100 and Barnes & Noble Top #1 Bestselling author. She is the author of the popular Judge Me Not series, the Inevitability duology, A Harbour Falls Mystery trilogy, and the new series of Laid Bare novellas. Ms. Grey’s works have appeared on Amazon Bestseller lists and Barnes & Noble Bestseller lists in multiple categories.
Ms. Grey resides in Pennsylvania. When not writing, Ms. Grey can be found reading, traveling, running, or cheering for her hometown sports teams.
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Read the first chapter of S.R. Grey’s newest New Adult/Romantic Suspense novel,
Inevitable Detour
Inevitable Detour
Chapter One
I
stare at the computer screen. It’s my last exam of spring semester, and there are only five questions left on the Strategic Management final before me.
My eyes are glued to words, forming a single question. I know the answer. Yes, I do. But then my vision blurs, and I think,
ugh, whose idea was it for me to major in business
?
Not mine.
The cursor on the screen blinks over answer choice B. Like I said, I know the correct answer, and it sure as hell isn’t B.
What to do…what to do…
With a sly grin, I choose
B and hit next.
I am feeling particularly defiant today. My parents left me a voice mail this morning, telling me in no uncertain terms that any thoughts of heading up to New York City this summer with my best friend and roommate, Haven Shaw, are best put to rest. So much for thinking it’d be fun to hang out in the Big Apple with Haven while she worked on finding an agent, making acting contacts, and generally just doing whatever it is a person needs to do when preparing to land a part in a play someday.
And not just any play.
“Broadway, here I come,” Haven said the other day when we were discussing her big-city dreams.
She’s a bit theatrical, but that’s to be expected. She’s a theater major, after all. Her goal is to eventually make it as an actress on the Great White Way.
Conversely, my dreams are much smaller. My primary longing lately is for something—
anything
—to happen in my mundane life. I thought New York would be a promising start. Guess not. Thanks to my parents and their aversion to anything fun for Essa, there will be no excitement in my life this summer. Nope. Just like the two previous summers, I’ll be lulling away the time here at Oakwood College. Excitement for me will consist of chilling in the coffee shop on the edge of the tiny Pennsylvania town my small college is located in. My after-class afternoons will include exciting activities like staring out at cows and farmland, sipping on a mocha, and wishing and hoping for something more.