Beautifully Forgotten by L.A. Fiore Page A

conserve resources.”
    “My legs don’t work, you’re going to have to hold me up.”
    He looked positively wicked when he replied, “That’s the whole idea.”
     

L ucien reread the same sentence for the hundredth time and still he had no idea what was on the page because his concentration was shot. Damn it. He was acting like a fucking adolescent with Darcy constantly on his mind. From the moment she’d stepped into his office, she was all he could think about. How he managed indifference, when what he was feeling was quite the opposite, surprised him. Remembering how it had been between them made him ridiculously curious to know just what she had been doing with her life. Was she happy? Was she where she hoped she would be? Did she regret not meeting him that day? He couldn’t bring himself to ask her, though; there was a part of him that wanted revenge even though her offense had happened long ago. But if he was being completely truthful, there was an even larger part of him that didn’t think he would like her answers.
    When Darcy’s headhunter called him about the job, voicing her name, there was no way he wouldn’t have agreed to the interview. Of course¸ he hadn’t handled their first meeting very well because there was still bitterness there. He imagined that meant something, that he still harbored animosity toward her. People say there’s a fine line between love and hate—he was living it.
    His mind drifted to the night at Peacock. Watching her dancing with that secret smile on her face had driven him crazy with the need to touch her. He hadn’t realized his feet had propelled him across the club until he was pulling her into his arms. She was the same and yet different and still her body fit against his as if they were two parts of a whole.
    He felt guilty about kissing Cassandra in front of her, but he had done it on purpose. Holding Darcy made him remember, and remembering made him angry. The look she had given him from across the club, as if she was acknowledging that she deserved the slight, twisted in his gut. Though he wanted her to take the insult, he was angry that she hadn’t stood up for herself and told him to fuck off. He thought about Darcy’s mother and how Darcy was also looking for the good in the ugly there. He didn’t like how that made him feel.
    Seeing her again, all the memories he had pushed into the farthest reaches of his brain came rushing back like a fucking tidal wave. She’d been so awkward when she’d first arrived at the orphanage, a girl who was clearly neglected; but it had been her eyes that first caught his attention, because the twinkle in them hinted at an extraordinary person.
    Her arrival coincided with Sister Anne telling him that she was seriously ill, and there was a part of him that believed Darcy was sent to him to help him get through what would be the worst and best two years of his life.

    Sixteen years earlier . . .
    Lucien sat in the dark corner of the room that served as the dining hall. Meals at St. Agnes were often quiet affairs since food was so efficiently handed out. Just like any good prison, you were given three squares, and if you missed mealtime, you went without. He was grateful for the silence—hearing laughter, when he felt so empty inside, made the anger that was always just under the surface break free from the tenuous hold he had on it.
    Sister Anne was sick, apparently had been for some time, but now she was no longer responding to treatments. She was dying. How long she had, he didn’t know, but there was going to come a time when she would be gone.
    He didn’t understand how the God that she worshiped could be so cruel. She gave her life to Him and, in return, she got an early death. And what would happen to him? He’d leave, because with her gone there was nothing there for him. He felt the tears, hated feeling weak, and tried to push Sister Anne from his head.
    He felt eyes on him; he had for most of the meal, and turned