Page 23 of Alpha Bait

"Yeah. Whatever."

She stormed down the beach and I thrust my hands into my pockets watching her go for as long as possible. She might not have wanted me to be a gentleman but I couldn't watch her disappear into the night without the slightest concern for her safety.

Once she was out of sight, I picked up a rock and threw it into the sea as hard as I could.

Shit.

Out of all the women in the world, all the smart, sexy women, I had to end up stumbling across Indie Holloway. I should have known. She was too elegant, too decorated in diamonds, too damn beautiful for me to have thought she was anything other than a princess.

Revulsion should have tormented me but as she wandered out of sight, all I could feel were pangs of regret. For the first time in months, I hadn't been thinking of work or Natalia. She'd swept me up at the moment with her beautiful brown skin, her long dark hair and her athletic physique. Her looks weren't all that drew her to me.

She possessed an air of strength about her. She didn't need me. Her independence had been sexy to me.

She's Kendrick's heir. If she's anything like her brother, she's a stone-cold bitch.

I tried to convince myself as I walked home along the beach alone. Yet every time I thought of her, I couldn't see a Holloway. I only saw a woman, a beautiful woman who had roused more than my primal desires. She'd awakened desire in its purest form.

If Ames found out, he'd kill me. And Selena? She'd make me pay.

I wanted to find an excuse to see her again but I knew she couldn't. She was a Holloway, I was a Carmichael. Never in a million years could we ever have something between us without sending the entire world into chaos.

I was too loyal to my family to allow that to happen. And I was certain, so was she.

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