Chapter Thirty Three

What the hell do you think I’m going to do to her?’ Roth had exploded. ‘Take her to bed and...?’

‘Is it really so impossible that you might be tempted to?’ lucas had asked him quietly. ‘I’m not criticising or condemning, Roth; physically she’s mature and she loves you—or believes she does—’

‘She’s got a crush on me that she’ll soon grow out of,’ Roth had interrupted him grimly. ‘That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it? And I should keep my hands off her until she does grow out of it...out of me... But what if I feel differently, Lucas? What if I want...?’ He had shaken his head, angry with himself

as well as with lucas. More angry with himself than he was with lucas who he knew was only doing what he saw as his duty by his stepsister.

‘You’re right, she’s a child still, and the sooner she grows up and forgets all about me the better,’ Roth had told him hardily. ‘And as for taking her to bed,’ he had thrown at lucas as he turned to leave, ‘well, there’s always a cure for that.’

A