When I'm With You: The Complete Novel Read Online Free Page A

I don’t need you adding to the mix.” Her heartbeat escalated. Was he suggesting he was attracted to her? Or was he referring to that overheard conversation she could make no sense of whatsoever? Elise couldn’t decide if she should be flattered or offended by his declaration.
    “I’m not going to distract you. I came to Chicago for one reason and one reason alone—to get the training I need to be an excellent chef. I’m very good at what I do.”
    “I have no doubt of it. But you’re forgetting one thing—there’s no longer a chef here to train you, ma fifille .”
    “I don’t care. I’ll find another chef in this city. I came to this place to start a new life, a fresh start, and I won’t let anyone—not even you, Lucien—set me off track. And I’m not a little girl,” she added fiercely, referring to the French endearment he’d given her as a child.
    His nostrils flared slightly as he shoved himself off the bar with a graceful, sinuous movement. Her heart started to throb in her ears as he reached for the silk wrap she’d draped over a stool earlier. He was going to send her away. Again. She remained frozen in place when he held up the garment, a challenge in his gray eyes.
    “You are a child. A beautiful, stubborn one, but a child nonetheless,” he said. “It’s time for you to go, Elise.”
    Fury ripped through her like lightening. “You bastard,” she hissed. She grabbed the wrap out of his hands. “I should have known you’d never help me. You’re as selfish and narcissistic as your father . . . as any of our darling, beloved parents.”
    He caught her arm in an iron grip as she stormed past him toward the doors. “I’m not like my father,” he grated out. Elise balked at the evidence of his sudden, potent anger, but she rallied. She jerked at her arm, but her reaction was just for show. Lucien’s restraint triggered a completely different response than Mario’s had.
    “Let go of me,” she said shakily, not sounding convinced it was what she wanted, even to her own ears.
    “You should be glad I do let go and worry about the day I don’t.”
    Her chin went up, pride and anger and hurt battling for room in her consciousness. “I’m not afraid of you.”
    He pulled on her, drawing her closer, so that her body brushed against his hard length and the fullness behind his fly. He scorched her with that almost otherworldly stare. She waited on a sharp ledge of anticipation, her breath burning in her lungs, when he lowered his head until their mouths were just inches apart.
    “You’ve always tested me. You’ll always be that girl I remember, foolishly poking at a sleeping snake. You’d better get out of here. You’ve been begging without words to be disciplined since you were a girl, and you have no idea how much I’d love to give you what you so richly deserve . . . what you need .”
    He noticed her wide-eyed, shocked expression and smiled grimly. “Not so sure of yourself now, are you?” he asked, his voice a low, purring threat. “What do you say? Do you want to stay with me and get what you need, ma chère ?”
    Something in his low, rough voice made her flesh prickle with excitement and adrenaline to run in her blood, but mostly she was confused. Hating to show vulnerability in front of a man like Lucien, she fell back on the brittle armor of pride.
    “I said to let go of me,” she repeated.
    When he released his grip, she staggered several steps in her heels, not because he’d pushed her, by any means—he’d actually been quite gentle—but because her mind was reeling. Something had happened to her at Lucien’s touch. His words. It was like a sealed door inside her had been thrown wide open, and what she saw in the depths of her being had excited and bewildered her in equal measures.
    Discipline. Need.
    Her heart raced faster yet as she recalled the words uttered in Lucien’s low, silky tones. She headed toward the doors. Out of pure habit, she threw a