The Devil's Touch by Vivien Sparx Page A

she had read in a particular novel.
    She was wearing a simple blue tank-top and black lace panties. She wore no bra, and her hair was bundled atop her head so that Lucien had an unobstructed view of her breasts and hardened nipples as she moved about the room. The panties were brief, the fabric sheer, and he watched her covertly, surprised at the clench of arousal he felt at the end of such a long day.
    He caught her arm as she came past his chair and she stopped instantly, a small knowing feminine smile touched at her lips.
    “You’re very beautiful, Angel,” he said. “Do you take after your mother?”
    Angelica turned to him. He pulled her down on to the chair’s leather armrest and his hand fell possessively across her thighs.
    “I don’t know,” Angelica said softly. She looked down into his face and shook her head. “She died when I was four. I never really knew her.”
    “Your father raised you?”
    “Yes. I’m originally from New England. My father and I moved here after mom died. He sold electrical goods. He worked himself to death so I could get an education.”
    Lucien frowned. “You have no family?”
    “No.”
    “How did you get involved in this business – and how did you get involved with someone like Duncan Charleton?”
    Angelica made a sad, pained face. “I was doing temp secretarial work for a company. When the bank needed additional staff, the agency sent me. Once I started there, I never left. The work kept on coming and so I was offered full time employment.”
    “Working for Duncan Charleton?”
    “Yes. He was my boss – but it wasn’t what you think. It didn’t happen that way.”
    Lucien went to the bar and poured himself a drink. He was starting to come off the adrenalin high that followed a full day of tense negotiations. Now, quite suddenly, he felt tired and lethargic. He crossed to the windows and stared down at the city far below. He could still see the soft smudge of one of Angelica’s palm prints on the glass from where she had stood the night before.
    Angelica watched him in silence for a long time. He was an impressive man. His presence was almost a physical thing. She’d never known a man like him.
    “What about you, Lucien? Are you like your father?”
    He turned back to her then, and there was a reply on his lips but he paused, and instead of speaking immediately he sipped at his drink, swirling the whisky.
    “No,” he said at last.
    Suddenly Angelica regretted the question. He had come home happy and vital, and now she had stirred regrets and memories within him and she wished she could take the moment back. She sat motionless and saw a haunted look pass like a shadow across his eyes. Angelica felt suddenly chill.
    “My father was a big man,” Lucien said. “When I was a boy he was larger than life. I idolized him. He was tough as teak. Some of the stories he told me…” he broke off for a moment and shook his head ruefully. “And I believed everything he said. The Old Man’s word was like the Gospel. Then, when I was older, I woke up one day and suddenly, somehow, he seemed to have changed. I didn’t understand at first. He looked the same, but he wasn’t the same. Finally I realized that I was the one who had changed. I’d grown up. That’s when I realized the Old Man wasn’t tough, he was weak. He wasn’t strong, he was weak. He wasn’t always right – he was weak. Loneliness made him that way. It destroyed him. It destroyed Lance Corporation. The Old Man’s loneliness was his weakness. He couldn’t stand on his own, so he bought friendship and companionship – and paid for it with everything we owned.”
    “Is… is that why you are the way you are? Is that why you’re so driven? Why you became a Master?” Angelica whispered.
    Lucien stared back down into his glass for a long time as though the answer might be there. “Perhaps,” he said without looking up.
    There was another long silence before he finally lifted his eyes to