The Aviator Read Online Free

lessons she’d taught so well, manifesting in his quick anger, his skepticism and distrust—attributes once so unfamiliar to the hopeless dreamer his mother had raised.
    A loud thump issued outside his door, followed by a bright spill of laughter, its tone giddy and drunk.
    He let his hands fall from his eyes.
    “Mr. Lanchard,” Gilda’s voice rose from the other side of the door, her tone as sweet as an angel’s. “I suppose you’re hiding in there, sulking the night away. You’ve become a terrible boor. Did you hear me? You did. I know you did. A boor! You refused to even say hello to the Duke, and I object very much to that, because he is such a dear friend. He and I get along famously and I think he would order an airship just to please me. He concerns himself with pleasing me, not like some boors I know, who insist on sitting in the dark and crying themselves to sleep—”
    He cursed in disbelief and rolled off the bed, swinging the door open in anger. Gilda fell through the doorway and landed at his feet. Her hair was loose, the onyx buttons of her jacket undone at the collar, leaving a pale slip of her neck exposed. She looked up at him in surprise, her blue eyes widening, her lips parted and shining. “Good Lord, Nate, when did you start sleeping nude?”
    Nathan slammed the door shut, pitching the small, windowless room into darkness.

    He was absolutely stunning. A shadow image of him remained standing, burned in her mind, even as the light disappeared. She hadn’t held his gaze for more than a second, her attention straying from the angry green of his eyes to the lean muscle in his shoulders, following his long, tight waist down to narrow hips and strong, well-formed legs…the full and heavy cast of shadows between them nearly breathtaking.
    She still couldn’t quite believe it. Nathan was always dressed in a dark suit, a drab mechanics outfit, or other horrid use of fabric and thread, only to suddenly appear far superior to the most impeccably dressed men she’d ever known while caught in the act of trying to sleep.
    “You demanded an audience,” he said coldly.
    “And I forgot to recommend attire?”
    “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
    “Not entirely true. The last time I saw you, sans garments of any kind, you were…smaller.”
    “Younger.”
    “And also smaller, university bound, as my father’s favored pet, a skinny boy with charcoal stained fingers and sleek, alabaster skin.”
    “Irresistible, in other words.”
    “Oh come now, you act as if you were the one who was ruined.”
    Nathan swore under his breath and walked past her, a looming shadow outlined by the thin light filtering under the door. He sat on the bed and leaned forward, slow with exhaustion as he collected his clothing from the floor. His hair was loose, sable strands of it brushing along his neck, adding a darker dimension to an expression she couldn’t quite make out.
    Not that it mattered. He was simply brooding again, unhappy for a myriad of Nathan-esque reasons she would never completely understand. Had she abused him over the years? Well, slightly perhaps, but he’d been rewarded for all his discomforts, hadn’t he? He’d received the best education money could buy, studying at the best university, under the Great Inventor himself, at her father’s insistence. He’d received a fine estate, and wealth beyond the dreams of most men, simply because he modeled himself as the perfect son, and his mother had been younger and prettier than her own.
    God knew, beauty was the true strength of the Lanchard family, and the son certainly resembled the mother, with the same striking green eyes and dark, lustrous hair. It had been beauty enough to steal a kingdom, destroy the love of a lawful wife and cast a rightful daughter in shadow.
    She glared at him, searching for the slightest hint of remorse and finding no sign of it. “So this is how you’ve decided to repay the old man? Discard everything he built,