Read Resisting Nick (Wicked in Wellington) for Free Online Page B

wine. It slid down her throat like a blessing. Why was she talking babies with him? “I might have that wrong about the blue eyes, but—”
    “No, I get the picture. Same with body types. We get people at work who have a real hard time bulking up no matter what we do for them, and then we find their parents and siblings are the same build. ‘Slow gainers’ we call them.” He rasped a hand over his chin. “Sure we can tone them and reshape them to some extent, but if they’re naturally lean they can’t grow muscles like watermelons. One of my brothers...” He stopped. Sipped. Started again. “Someone who I thought was my brother until Friday is like that.” He shot her a direct anguished look. Pain blazed hot in his dark eyes.  
    “What do you mean, your brother until Friday?” Had he died? Somewhere along the way she’d lost the direction of the conversation. Could sense something huge was wrong, but had no idea what.  
    Suddenly big confident Nick looked sixteen again. Even less than sixteen.
    His glass made a faint clatter as he set it down on the hard table with an unsteady hand. He dragged in a deep breath, trembling, obviously affected by some intense emotion, and directed his next words at the floor. “I’m just on thirty, Samantha. Doing okay businesswise. Nice car. No trouble getting money or women.”
    “I’m so glad,” she needled.
    He glanced across at her. The corners of his beautiful mouth pulled down in a tight line. “Yeah—sorry. But you get the drift. Life is fine and then everything explodes.”
    “On Friday?”
    He reached again for his glass and took another swig of wine. His Adam’s apple convulsed and then settled back into place as he put the glass down yet again. He drew another deep, deliberate breath. “I found out on Friday that my parents aren’t my parents and my brothers aren’t my brothers, and my name is not my name.” He swallowed again. Sammie suspected he’d gulped back tears.
    “Adopted?” she whispered.
    “Adopted and never told. Fucking cruel—because where does that leave me now?” He buried his head in his hands for a few seconds, dragging his fingers to and fro through his hair until it was thoroughly mussed and tousled.
    She set her wine aside and turned. Slid an arm over his chest, around his shoulder, and pressed herself against him in a comfort hug. His arms came around her in return, and deep tremors of desperation racked him as he gripped her.
    “Who the hell am I?” he rasped in her ear. “How can I find out thirty years later when the trail’s gone cold?”  
    “Ssshhhh,” she murmured, rocking him as though he was a child. There was relief in not having to look into his wounded eyes, but his grief burned so strongly there were tears in her own now. She’d be no help to him collapsing in a sobbing heap. She nestled her face a little closer, tucking her cheek against the strip of warm skin above his T-shirt. His scent was salty, earthy, ocean-fresh.
    “Wasn’t going to do this,” he muttered. “Just wanted to talk about it with someone who can help me look at it from a bit of distance.”  
    He tensed against her, almost as though he might throw her aside.  
    “Sssshhhh,” she said again, clinging tighter.
    “But shee- itt! It matters more than I thought it possibly could. My bastard of a father’ll be behind this. No-good scum. Twisted as a damn corkscrew.”
    He dropped a kiss onto her hair. Did he even know he’d done it? She let him talk on to see if she could find something to respond helpfully to.
    “It’s like I’m suddenly no-one. Now quite a few things make sense. They always treated my brothers differently from me. Softer.” His hard chest rose and fall against her as he sighed.
    “My ‘so-called’ brothers. Jesus!”
    She rubbed to and fro over his tense shoulder, willing him to relax and let her comfort him. “How did you find out? Are you really sure?”
    “Straight from the doctor’s mouth. Same guy