2
“Why wasn’t I told about this meeting?” A voice boomed, drawing everyone’s attention
to the back of the room. Gabriel had sent his men to calm those locked in the foyer, and it
provided the opportunity Lucille needed to slither her way in. The crowd opened a path as the
provocatively dressed woman stormed toward Gabriel. She glared at Jean and Gabriel, then
scanned the crowd and stared down her husband, who seemed to shrink under the intensity
of her dark brown gaze.
“We had our reasons,” Gabriel replied simply, raising a hand to quiet the now unsettled
crowd. “None of which are up for discussion at this time.”
Gabriel glanced at Jean, who had done all she could to breathe new life into his lifelong
vision. She had had but one request—Lucille was not allowed to become one of the women
in The Heaven Project.
Jean moved forward to block her sister’s way, as Gabriel zeroed in on his sister-in-law.
From the looks of her disheveled hair, the flushed skin, the rise and fall of her full breasts,
the satisfied gleam in her eyes—it was evident that she had torn herself from some lover’s
bed. Again.
Gabriel started to signal to Jeremiah to remove her from the room, then halted as Jean
vehemently shook her head. Only then did he realize he could not place Lucille, whose red
dress hugged every imaginable curve, back into the foyer with all of those angry men. They
had already taken a huge risk opening the door in the first place. And if he put her out of the
building right now, she could bring the sheriff, which would spell disaster.
“Well, no matter your reasons for not inviting me,” Lucille snarled at him over her sister’s
shoulder, “I’m here now. And I’m staying.”
Luke followed her gaze to Gabriel, and his eyes narrowed to slits. Gabriel could only
shake his head at the man’s weakness. Lust had gotten him hitched to that hellion. And that
same lust had kept him from leaving her, despite the many times he had found her thighs
spread for one man or another.
“Those who wish to move forward, please stand along this wall.” Gabriel gestured to his
right. “I will escort you to the next room and answer a few more questions before you will
be given one last chance to leave. Then we will enter the final room. The moment you go
48 | NKLC Magazine