Dark Bargains 3: Dark Bargains, #3

By Olivia Blake

It's time for the secrets to come out

The specter of Lucas's dead wife now haunts them both. Was Diane's vision real, or had she only dreamed it? Lucas intends to find out, but as with the other incidents of the past days it proves easier said than done. While he doesn't want to believe that Diane has had any part in the incidents which have plagued him since his return from Macau, does he dare to trust her? He still doesn't know what mysterious hold his brother Marcus has on her.

What if Marcus had planted her with Lucas at the house to fuck with him, knowing he wouldn't be able to refuse her?

With Marcus gone back to Louisiana for a few days, Diane finally has a chance to recover some measure of her balance—and sanity. More than that, it allows her to spend time alone with Lucas. Her attraction to him is growing stronger every day, and she wants so badly to tell him the truth about her bargain with Marcus. But she has seen how his father treated Lucas's sisters, and knows first hand how ruthless Marcus is. Does she dare trust him with the secrets that could undo her entire family?

The only thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn't trade these brief, precious hours she'd shared with Lucas for anything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pink Parts Press
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386657972

Book preview

DARK BARGAINS

PART THREE

OLIVIA BLAKE

Dark Bargains: Part Three

Copyright © 2018 Olivia Blake

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Summary

It’s time for the secrets to come out

The specter of Lucas’s dead wife now haunts them both. Was Diane’s vision real, or had she only dreamed it? Lucas intends to find out, but as with the other incidents of the past days it proves easier said than done. While he doesn’t want to believe that Diane has had any part in the incidents which have plagued him since his return from Macau, does he dare to trust her? He still doesn’t know what mysterious hold his brother Marcus has on her.

What if Marcus had planted her with Lucas at the house to fuck with him, knowing he wouldn’t be able to refuse her?

With Marcus gone back to Louisiana for a few days, Diane finally has a chance to recover some measure of her balance—and sanity. More than that, it allows her to spend time alone with Lucas. Her attraction to him is growing stronger every day, and she wants so badly to tell him the truth about her bargain with Marcus. But she has seen how his father treated Lucas’s sisters, and knows first hand how ruthless Marcus is. Does she dare trust him with the secrets that could undo her entire family?

The only thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t trade these brief, precious hours she’d shared with Lucas for anything.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dark Bargains 3

Bonus Material

The Winter Billionaires

With One Word

Lessons in Love

About the Author

Dark Bargains 3

DIANE’S SCREAMS JERKED LUCAS OUT OF A VIVID NIGHTMARE where he was reliving the awful night in the arroyo with Sandy. He awakened thoroughly disoriented from the dream and it took a couple of seconds before he realized where he was. When his head cleared his eyes focused on Diane, who was huddled in a ball on the couch and shaking like a malaria patient. He sprang across to her and pulled her into his arms.

It’s all right, he murmured. I’ve got you.

She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face against him. There’s someone in the house. A woman.

What? Marcus’s woman?

No! Someone else. In the atrium.

Lucas looked up and scanned the windows facing towards the pool. The lights were off and he saw no sign of anyone there.

Stay here. I’ll be right back.

He almost had to pry her fingers loose so that he could go investigate. Pale blue eyes with terror looked up at him. Whatever it was had scared her half to death. She had seen something—but what?

Cautiously he opened the atrium door and stepped through. The great room was silent except for the low gurgling of the pool, but it was oddly cold and he shivered. Shadows danced on the wall, cast by the flickering lights beneath the water, while deeper patches of darkness obscured the alcoves and stairways. Lucas’s nerves jangled on edge as he walked around the end of the pool. With each step he imagined movement at the corners of his eyes, and he shook his head to clear it of the cloying fog of sleep.

Nothing was there. Although he walked deliberately around the entire course of the pool, the atrium was completely empty. He checked the door that led out to the deck, but it was locked and the security system still armed. It was almost impossible that anyone could have gone out that way between the time Diane had screamed and he had opened the door. With a frown he glanced up at the walkways and balconies ringing the atrium. Maybe someone could have run upstairs or ducked into the other side of the house, but the only way to know for sure would be to go from room to room.

The state Diane had been in when she fell asleep discouraged him from making a more thorough search. Wasn’t it much more likely that her outburst had been provoked by a nightmare made worse by far too much vodka?

She was sitting huddled inside her afghan on the couch and started at the sound of the door when he returned. Eyes still round with fear stared at him from her pale face.

I don’t see anything, he told her. The door was locked and the alarm set. If anyone had gone in or out...

When he sat down beside her on the couch she swarmed on top of him and held him tightly, still shivering.

I saw her, she insisted. She was right there.

Are you sure it wasn’t a dream? he asked her gently. You had a rough night.

Diane shook her head and pointed towards the window. She was standing there looking inside, and she pointed at me.

You’re sure it wasn’t that girl Marcus brought home?

The last blood drained from Diane’s face. No. She looked... She gulped and resumed in a hoarse whisper. "She looked like me."

Lucas’s blood turned to ice. Like you?

Yes, sort of. Her hair was like mine, and I think she had blue eyes.

What else? he demanded.

She was very pale, and wearing a white dress. I think it was white. It’s hard to be sure because of the lighting. But it was some kind of lace cocktail dress.

While she spoke, Lucas’s stomach threatened to tie itself into knots. Diane was settling down now, no longer shaking and her voice steadying, but Lucas’s own hands had begun to tremble.

You’re sure she looked like you?

Not exactly like me—like looking into a mirror or anything. But close, yes. It wasn’t a dream, I swear. Taking his hand, she looked into his face and for the first time realized how shaken he was. Lucas, what is it?

I think I know what you saw.

Gently he set her back onto the couch and got his phone from the table by the other couch. He pulled up the photos and skimmed through them until he found one in particular and showed it to Diane.

Was that her?

She peered at it closely. I think so.

With sickness roiling in his stomach he closed the photos and dropped back onto the couch next to her. His heart struggled to beat as he fought against the implications of her acknowledgment.

Who is she? What is she doing in the house? When he didn’t answer, her hand went to her mouth. Sandra? she whispered. Lucas, no! It can’t be.

She was right about that. It couldn’t be. But he had never told Diane what Sandra looked like, and he had certainly never mentioned the dress she’d been wearing at the party the night that she had died.

What in the hell was going on? He couldn’t suppress the sharp pang of suspicion which stabbed at his heart. She might have learned any of those things from Marcus. There was certainly no lack of pictures of Sandra. As for the dress, while he hadn’t been there that night, it wouldn’t have been difficult for Marcus to find out from someone who had been and then pass the details on to Diane. Wasn’t that far more likely than what she was telling him?

After all, what did he really know about her, except that she had left her whole life behind her to run off with Marcus? She refused to tell him why, and he