Who he had been.
Because he wasn’t Lucien Montgomery anymore, and he hadn’t been for a long time.
Having Nicky launch into a verbal attack the moment they were shown into his father’s inner sanctum had taken him by surprise.
Nicky hadn’t spoken a word since Lucien had explained that the people she had sensed following her were Jack Montgomery’s men, and they hadn’t been following her because she was Michael Bennett’s daughter, but because she was involved with Lucien.
Dair had told Lucien a couple of years ago that Jack’s men were watching him, but as long as none of them approached either one of them, they had decided to let the situation be. Dair’s questioning of one of those men, earlier today, had revealed that Dimitri Markovic’s men were also watching him.
They had been watching Nicky too.
Jack merely looked amused by Nicky’s outburst, damn him. “Quite the fiery one, isn’t she?” he drawled mockingly.
“Don’t you dare talk about me as if I’m not in the room!” Nicky struggled to be free of the steel band of Lucien’s arm that curved tightly about her waist.
Lucien gave his father a narrow-eyed glare. “I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Got you pussy-whipped, has she, boy?” His father moved to stand in front of his desk before leaning back against it, arms folded across his muscled chest.
An older version of Lucien, it was impossible to miss the family connection between the two men. The years hadn’t been kind to Jack, though, as his hair was now completely iron-grey rather than just that distinguished sweep at his temples, and there were deep lines grooved into his cheeks and about his eyes.
Lucien’s mouth thinned. “I prefer it to being pistol-whipped any day.”
Nicky looked over her shoulder at him. “Did this monster beat you when you were growing up?” She gave Jack a scathing head-to-toe glance. “Not that I’m surprised, when he’s responsible for making my brother’s and my own life a misery for so long!”
The amusement had disappeared from the green eyes so like Lucien’s own. “I’ve never laid a hand on that boy in anger in his life,” he rasped harshly. “If he’s told you otherwise—”
“He didn’t tell me anything about you at all until half an hour ago,” Nicky assured him hardly.
Jack arched dark brows. “That was a bit remiss of you, Lucien.”
“Tell me about it!” he muttered gruffly.
“—nor,” Nicky continued determinedly, “did I need to know in order to be aware of what sort of monster you are. You had my father tortured and killed! You have been relentlessly searching for his two children ever since, because you want your laundered money back. And, like I said, your own son employs people to protect himself from you,” she repeated challengingly.
Jack eyed her for several long seconds. “I’m only going to say this once—out of consideration for the fact that my son appears to be in love with you. One, I did not have your father tortured or killed. Two, I would hardly be searching for you when I had no idea of your existence, until my son took such an intense interest in you a couple of weeks ago. And three, Lucien doesn’t need to employ people to protect himself from me—”
“Your son is not in love with me!” Nicky had been so stunned by that announcement that she had only been half listening to the rest of Jack Montgomery’s statement.
“Yes, he is.” She turned sharply to look at Lucien as he continued to hold her in his arms, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the love shining unconditionally in his eyes as he steadily returned her gaze.
“Lucien, I—” She gave a shake of her head as she glanced pointedly at the older man in the room. “This isn’t the place for this conversation—”
“No, it isn’t, so could you two love birds finish it some other time, preferably once you’re far away from me?” Jack Montgomery cut in hardly.
Nicky gave him a censorious glare. “If you wouldn’t mind; your son has just told me that he loves me!”
“She reminds me of your mother, Lucien,” the older man acknowledged gruffly. “If so, you’re going to have your hands full for the next thirty or forty years.”
“I’m counting on it.” Lucien looked at Nicky questioningly, searchingly, as she turned in his arms.
She reached up and touched the hardness of his cheek. “We can talk about this later.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “But just so that you know, I’m not letting you go.”
“Pussy-whipped,” Jack Montgomery muttered disgustedly.
“Stay out of this!” Nicky and Lucien spoke at the same time.
His father gave an unconcerned shake of his head. “That’s really no way for either of you to talk to the grandfather of your future children.”
Nicky was stunned for several seconds. At the thought of Lucien loving her. Of having his children.
At the thought of Jack Montgomery being the grandfather of those children.
It was an utterly ludicrous idea after all these years of living in fear of the man.
And yet Lucien had just admitted to loving her. And she already knew she was in love with him. Nothing had happened today to change that. Which didn’t mean Lucien wanted to marry her, or have children with her, but it was still more than she had ever hoped to hear from him.
She had been shocked at Lucien’s revelation earlier—so much so she had fainted for the first time in her life—but knowing he was Jack Montgomery’s son didn’t change who he was, or the fact that she had fallen in love with him. She had just needed a little time to come to terms with that.
Arriving at this Regency-style mansion, and coming into this elegantly appointed study, and seeing Jack Montgomery, sitting so relaxed and sure of himself behind his desk—and his unmistakable likeness to Lucien—had finally brought Nicky out of her stupor.
Her chin rose. “That’s a definite disadvantage to any woman contemplating marrying Lucien.”
“Son of a bitch, but she has a mouth on her!” Jack Montgomery rasped tensely.
It was perverse, Lucien knew, but he was actually enjoying this exchange between his father and Nicky; she was refusing to back down by an inch, and his father—he would swear his father hadn’t been challenged like this by a woman since Lucien’s mother died twenty years ago.
He also felt buoyed up by the fact that Nicky hadn’t run screaming into the night when he admitted to loving her. That she had touched his face with gentle fingers, and with an as of yet undefined emotion shining in her eyes.
But it gave him hope, at least, where before he’d had none.
“He didn’t do anything to me, Nicky,” Lucien answered her gently. “I’d just had enough after Dair was shot, and almost died—”
“The scar on his temple...”
Lucien nodded grimly. “We both knew that if we wanted to get away from this life, then it had to be a clean break. No connections to the past. And that included any contact with our family.”
“Your aunt Beth is likely to skin Dair alive when she sees him again—”
“If she sees him again,” Lucien corrected his father firmly. “Any decision like that will have to be made by Dair himself.”
“And what about you?” Jack prompted gruffly. “Are you just going to disappear again and leave me worrying for another eleven years as to whether you’re dead or alive?”
He looked at his father quizzically. “You knew exactly when I came back to London?”
“Nothing escapes me in this city, Lucien, you should have known that.” His father shrugged unapologetically. “Or Dimitri Markovic,” he added grimly. “Which is why I had my own men watching out for you as well as Dair.”
“You were protecting him from Dimitri Markovic?” Nicky sounded astonished.
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“I— Well— No.” She looked totally disconcerted. “It just doesn’t seem— Well, it’s—”
“Paternal?”
“Well, I ju
st wouldn’t have expected—”
“You should stop while you’re not ahead, love,” Lucien advised softly.
Nicky had drawn the same conclusion as she saw Jack Montgomery’s face darken with displeasure. Even so, that sort of paternal protection didn’t quite fit in with the man she had been running away from all these years. But perhaps gangsters loved their children too?
Although knowing who Lucien was, who his father was, did explain why Lucien lived his life in seclusion, to a degree that he refused to be photographed and emptied restaurants before eating in them; Lucien would be Jack Montgomery’s Achilles heel, a fact his rival Dimitri Markovic would no doubt have taken advantage of if given the chance.
“Dimitri Markovic is the man who had your father killed and has been looking for you, and his lost money, ever since,” Jack Montgomery bit out impatiently.
Nicky gave a shake of her head. “That’s not what those men said to me the morning of my father’s funeral—”
“It’s called a slight-of-hand.” The older man eyed her pityingly. “Or, blame someone else and then you don’t get caught. If you had gone to the police with that information, then the suspicion would have fallen on me and not Markovic,” he added impatiently when Nicky still didn’t look convinced. “One of Markovic’s men was seen entering and searching your apartment last week. I’m presuming to look for clues as to where that money might be?”
“It really wasn’t you?” Lucien was almost afraid to hope.
“It really wasn’t me,” his father confirmed dismissively.
“Nicky doesn’t know anything about the money,” Lucien stated firmly. “She never has.”
The older man grimaced. “That would appear to be hard luck for Nicky.”
“Possible mother of your future grandchildren, remember?” she reminded in a small voice.
For a moment there was silence—and then Jack Montgomery began to chuckle, and then he laughed outright, his resemblance to his son overwhelming in that moment; even if Nicky hadn’t already known of the family connection she would have guessed it then. The two men had the same build, the same eyes, the same utterly charming smile.
Under other circumstances she might even have liked Jack Montgomery.
“I like her, Lucien,” the older man had obviously come to the same conclusion about her. “She’s a bit mouthy, but no doubt she’ll learn some respect in time.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Nicky dismissed under her breath.
Lucien could see that Jack was having difficulty holding back another smile.
Instead his father settled for shooting Lucien a sympathetic grimace before moving to sit back behind his desk. “We call Markovic now and settle this once and for all.”
“Dimitri—”
“On his deathbed even as we speak,” his father bit out evenly; the two men may have disliked each other intensely, and been rivals for the past thirty years, but they were peers, and had also developed a healthy respect for each other during those same thirty years. Lucien had no doubt that his father would mourn the passing of Dimitri Markovic. “Gregori has already let it be known that any old scores or grudges held by his father will die with him.”
“Does that mean I don’t have to give back the ten million pounds I don’t have?” Nicky put in hopefully.
“It means,” Jack drawled, “that Gregori will accept payment of the money stolen from his father, and forget any further repercussions to the perpetrators.”
“That hardly seems in keeping with the forgive and forget—”
“Nicky.”
She turned to look at Lucien, grimacing as she saw the gentle reproach in his expression. “Well it doesn’t,” she muttered.
Lucien gave a rueful shake of his head. “I’ll pay Gregori back his money—”
“I told you—”
“Not this time, Nicky,” he cut in determinedly. “This time, right here and now, we’ll do things my way. We can argue the details later.”
The ‘details’ as Nicky saw it, were Lucien paying out the ten million pounds stolen by her father...
“Your father is...”
“Larger than life and twice as lethal,” Lucien finished grimly as he and Nicky sat in the back of the car together, the privacy glass up between them and Dair as he drove them both back to Lucien’s apartment.
Nicky gave a rueful grimace. “I was going to say surprisingly normal. Apart from the crime boss thing, and probably having people tortured or killed occasionally.”
“I’m sure he tries to keep that to a minimum,” Lucien drawled.
Nicky looked searchingly at Lucien. He had been in a grim mood ever since they left his father’s mansion home—who knew that crime bosses liked Regency-style mansions and all the elegant furnishing to go inside it? And had his men keep a protective eye on the son who would have nothing to do with him…
Which wasn’t helping to break the tension between her and Lucien. “I don’t know how to say thank you for all that you just did,” she spoke huskily. “The relief, of not having to constantly look over my shoulder, of Neil finally being able to have a normal life, is just unbelievable.” The telephone negotiations with Gregori Markovic had gone exactly as Jack Montgomery had said they would. Lucien had paid the man back the money her father had stolen, end of problem.
Except that Nicky now owed Lucien ten million pounds.
And they still had no idea what had happened to the original money. No doubt it was moldering in a bank account somewhere, unclaimed, and would remain so.
“Lucien—”
“Could we have this conversation once we’re back at my apartment?” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
“If you would rather I just went back to my own—Lucien?” Nicky suddenly found herself flat on her back on the back seat of the car, with Lucien on top of her.
And it felt glorious. Absolutely glorious.
“You aren’t going anywhere without me,” he rasped. “My father’s right about you,” he mused as he looked down at her, “you just never know when to hold your tongue, do you? I was trying to wait until we were back in my apartment before I touched you again, because I knew what would happen if I did—so let’s find another use for that wicked tongue of yours, hmm?” he groaned as his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers.
Nicky gave a groan of approval, her arms going up about Lucien’s shoulders as she wholeheartedly returned the kiss.
A kiss that involved both her tongue and Lucien’s, the two of them hungry for each other after the tension of the past hour.
“I love you, Nicky,” Lucien murmured some time later, his forehead resting against hers. “I love you so much, and it’s driving me crazy just thinking of trying to protect you. From yourself, if necessary.”
Nicky smiled up at him. “I have a feeling your father might be helping you out with that in future. He likes me, you know,” she added ruefully.
Lucien chuckled. “He likes the idea of grandchildren more.”
Her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. “About that...”
Lucien tensed. “Yes?”
She moistened her lips with that ‘wicked tongue’. “I really think, if I’m going to be the mother of his grandchildren, that you ought to marry me first.”
His brows rose. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
She gave the question some thought. “Well I love you every bit as much as you say you love me, and Jack expects me to be the mother of his grandchildren, so—”
“Jack?”
Nicky nodded. “He asked me to call him that before we left, remember?”
Lucien remembered a lot of things, but the only thing that mattered to him right now was that Nicky had just told him she loved him.
She loved him; in spite of everything, she loved him!
His hands came up to cradle either side of her face. “Will you marry me, Nicky? Be my wife? The mother of my children? I want it all, Nicky. Every single bit of you there is to give, I want it.�
��
Nicky gave a shaky smile at his intensity. “We may have to be a bit—a lot—economical with the truth when we talk to the children about their grandfather—”
“To hell with their grandfather!” Lucien stared down at her intently. “Just tell me you’ll marry me?”
“Of course I’ll marry you.” Nicky’s arms tightened about him as she gazed up at him lovingly. “I love you, Lucien. I love you!”
“I love you too, so much,” he breathed shakily. “And I intend to tell you, and show you that, every day for the rest of our lives together.”
No one could ask for more.
Chapter 16
One month later.
“Mm, that feels good,” Nicky groaned as Lucien smoothed sun-cream onto her back.
Whoever would have thought, even six months ago, that she would be lying here on a sun-lounger, on a beach of white-golden sand, on her husband’s—their—Caribbean island?
Certainly not Nicky. In fact, every morning, when she woke in her husband’s arms after a night of spectacular lovemaking, she pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
Their wedding, a quiet ceremony for just family and friends, had taken place just two short weeks ago. They had decided on a private ceremony because of the identity of some of their unorthodox wedding guests.
Nicky smiled now as she thought of Chrissie and Fleur’s faces as they first goggled at Finn Devlin and his wife Eva as they arrived at the church—Nicky and Lucien never did get to the other couple’s wedding a month ago.
But Nicky’s two closest friends had become completely dumbstruck by the presence of Jack Montgomery, accompanied by several of his bodyguards.
Neil had looked handsome in his morning suit as he gave Nicky away, and Dair had made a pretty impressive figure as Lucien’s best man too.
But what had really made it the strangest wedding of the decade had been the arrival of Gregori Markovic, along with two of his own bodyguards. As a sign, Lucien had quietly explained to Nicky, that Gregori intended to continue the longstanding truce between the Montgomery and Markovic family.
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