Free Sweet Seduction Sacrifice by Nicola Claire Page B

company was out of this world. For so long I have had one dream consume me. I had set a goal and I achieved it, all the while enduring a relationship that was not in any way sweet or fulfilling. I had decided that one dream was it. I'd dreamt it, I'd accomplished it, there would be no more. Yet as I sat there, staring into the amazingly blue-blue eyes of Dominic god-like Anscombe, I felt I was living a dream.
    For the most part I went with it, but there was this niggling thought that simply would not go away. That this wasn't meant to be my dream at all, this sort of thing didn't happen to Kiwi girl Gen Cain. I was usurping someone else's dream, I was an interloper, a fake. There was no way this would last.
    But as Dominic traced patterns over the back on my hand as it rested on the table between us, I decided that whilst whatever this was with Brett played out, I'd take this chance offered me. I'd enjoy this dream, this someone else's dream, and pretend - for however long this lasts - that it was mine. I knew I shouldn't, I knew I should be protecting myself, preparing for the worst, but looking at the man beside me, the incredibly handsome, accomplished, amazingly gorgeous, intelligent man, I couldn't say no.
    I just simply could not say no to him.
    We finished dinner and took a longer route back to the loft, down to Quay Street and the wharves, and then back up Britomart. A stroll, hand in hand, as the sun began to set. The word surreal was becoming a permanent fixture inside my head.
    We'd just left Britomart and crossed over to Emily Place when his cellphone rang. He didn't release my hand, simply pulled his phone out of his suit jacket and flipped it open one handed. I chose to use the moment to prepare myself for what was going to happen next. Did I invite him in? Was that wise, with the way things were progressing at lightning speed? Did I let him kiss me at my doorstep? Could I kiss a man on the first day I met him? Could I not? This was god-like Dominic Anscombe, in little more than twelve hours I was losing myself to him.
    The implications of that thought were impossible to digest.
    We were getting close to my apartment building when I felt Dominic stiffen. I wondered if he'd seen something or someone, maybe one of the very bad men who wanted Brett and now knew I belonged to him. But it became clear he wasn't stiffening at a threat approaching, but at whatever was being said to him over the phone. He'd barely said a word, just his name on answering the call and little else. The conversation was definitely one-sided, and the longer it progressed the more uptight he got.
    Dominic may have acted like he had known me for years, but I was still trying to piece together the man at my side, so I'm not sure why I could tell that something had made him mad. He didn't look mad, he looked cool and calm and collected. But I felt something in the air between us, something tangible and heavy. And it scared the crap out of me. It was as though I could literally feel his anger washing off him and I was just enormously happy it wasn't directed at me, but whoever was on the phone.
    "All right, I'll be there in ten minutes," he finally spoke into the phone, in clipped, angry words. He may have been able to hide his anger in his expressions, but he wasn't inclined to when he talked.
    We stopped in front of my apartment as he finished the angry-inducing call, with a repeated, "Ten minutes," and a firm slamming of the phone shut.
    He took two long breaths in before he turned to face me. I almost didn't want to look up and see what his features would show, but forced myself to confront the angry bear beside me.
    "Sweetheart," he said in a soft voice, so at odds to the anger still rolling off him. "I'll see you to your door, but something has come up I must attend to. I am sorry. I had hoped we'd share a nightcap together."
    For some reason I was thinking he was using "nightcap" as a metaphor for something else. I was suddenly relieved he