Escaping The Beast: A Darkhills Romance (The Darkhills Series Book 2) by Elizabeth Greene (young adult books to read TXT) 📕

we are not careful,” he smiled a brilliant smile at her and suddenly her heart was back to skipping a beat. He really was so handsome when he smiled. “You are welcome to come back here anytime, Katherine, my doors are unlocked so feel free to come and go as you please.”

“Won’t I be waking you if I want to visit during the day?” Katherine asked as she ascended the stone steps back towards his suite.

“I do not usually need much sleep during the day, and I don’t mind if you wake me.”

“I’ll try to be quiet enough that I don’t,” Katherine smiled, secretly looking forward to the opportunity of sneaking a peek at him while he slept.

“I’d prefer it if you did, otherwise the moment you pulled back the curtains I would be woken with an excruciating case of sunburn,” Lucian said wryly.

“Oh my God, I didn’t even think,” Katherine gushed. “OK, I’m definitely not coming in here during the day again.”

“I’m glad I said something then,” Lucian chuckled. Actually chuckled. “Perhaps you should knock first to be on the safe side.”

“Do that again,” Katherine turned and faced him on the balcony.

“Do what again?”

“You laughed.”

“So I did.”

“Do it again, it sounded so different, it was nice. Natural,” Katherine blushed as she realised she was telling him she liked the way he laughed.

“I can’t do it on command, that wouldn’t be natural at all.”

“OK, but I want to hear it again. So now I know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, aside from working on my presentation, I’m going to be coming up with ways to make you laugh.”

“A presentation?” Lucian asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Yeah, it's for my degree, no big deal,” she bluffed, waving her hand in front of her to dismiss the topic.

“What’s the subject matter?” Lucian persisted.

“Oh it’s boring, I’m going to present an outline for my thesis.”

“What is your thesis?”

“It’s an argument that we should review the wording of some of our criminal laws that relate to sexual assault because a lot of the time it can be inferred that the victim is not entirely faultless,” Katherine explained as they walked down the dark stairwell that led back into the great hall.

“That doesn’t sound in the least bit boring to me,” Lucian said as he lifted the tapestry aside and offered her his hand to lead her towards the table.

“Really? I think you are just trying to be nice,” Katherine screwed up her nose at him.

“Why ever would I need to be nice?”

Katherine scoffed.

“And yes, I really do find that interesting. Please take a seat and I will bring your dinner, I don’t want you to fade away on me before you have a chance to tell me more about your hypothesis,” Lucian pulled out the chair at the head of the table and saw her seated. “I’ll be back shortly, in the meantime I have a question I’d ask for you to consider before I return.”

“I see you’re back to being bossy,” Katherine smirked.

“I never stopped,” Lucian corrected, making her roll her eyes at him, “my question is, should we be suggesting a full review and rewording of these laws, or should we take a more moderate approach and make interpreting these laws in the correct manner, a professional standard?”

“Well, without-”

“Uh-uh,” Lucian held up a hand, “think on it and we can debate this over dinner.”

With that Lucian turned and strode purposefully away towards the stairwell that led to the lower level. Katherine shook her head and watched him go, chuckling when she was certain he was out of earshot. She placed the light pink rose down beside her on the table and smiled at it. Admiration. Before she could stop herself she sighed happily.

Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to like him.

Chapter Twelve

Lucian

Lucian smiled as he walked away from Katherine’s room, not purely because she had bid him goodnight with a small, sweet kiss to his cheek, but he couldn’t deny how the small genuine gesture made his heart feel warm.

Over the past few days, he had made progress with Katherine. Each morning he ensured she had breakfast delivered with a single rose, a different colour each time, knowing she would ask him about it later that night. He had also been delighted that the gifts he had been leaving for her were being well received. The new desk and office equipment had arrived first and she had enjoyed laughing at his attempts to build the furniture and fit the lock for her door. His ego may have taken a bruising, but the sound of her laughter was worth it.

The next day he’d given her a new exercise watch to help her track her runs that she made each morning, that, along with the Bluetooth headphones and five new running outfits meant he was forced to go for a nighttime run with her. She had laughed at him again for his lack of casual sports clothes, despite him explaining that he didn’t need to work out so there was no reason for him to own such things.

The home cinema system he had set up in one of the guest rooms had resulted in one of the happiest nights in his life. She had leaned against him on the sofa while they watched an animated movie about a Viking boy who trapped a dragon and then formed an unbreakable friendship with the beast. Katherine had smacked his chest when he had suggested that Etienne would likely burn the boy to a cinder should he have tried that with him.

He felt as though she were beginning to enjoy his company, it gave him hope that she would stop seeing her time with him as a prison sentence, and perhaps would let her guard down and trust him with her hidden vulnerabilities. Each gift had been given to show her he cared about what was important to her, but he was most excited about the gift she would