by Abby Green
‘Yes,’ he said flatly, ‘I’m sorry too. I went to see your father once, when I knew he was visiting the factory one day. It was before my father died. I went to beg him for help. He did exactly the same thing to me, Jesse. He took me into his office and locked the door …’
He gave a curt laugh. ‘Not once since we met again has he even remembered the name of Sanchis—or me as that young boy who confronted him.’
Jesse knew her father had been behind plenty of dodgy practices over the years. Dozens of claims had been mounted against him, but all had come to nothing because he was so well protected. Why would he remember the son of one man from one of his many factories dotted around Europe?
Everything urged her to believe Luc, but she felt as if she was being torn in two. She could feel emotion rising, and she wanted to tell Luc to stop—but he wouldn’t. It was as if he was binding her tighter and tighter with his words and soon she wouldn’t be able to walk away … Her heart was too soft. This was when she had to be most vigilant. But it was agony.
‘He told me that if I ever came back saying anything about my father he’d hurt my mother and Eva. He didn’t touch me physically, but he didn’t have to.’
Jesse was shaking her head now, her vision blurring. ‘No. Stop it. You’re making it up. You’ve gone too far, Luc. I won’t stand here and listen to you trick me into believing something like this. It’s too coincidental.’
She turned to rush from the room, but Luc caught her and whirled her around in his arms. ‘Damn it, Jesse, I’m not lying. It’s all true.’
Jesse dashed her tears aside. Suddenly she longed for the cool, emotionless austerity of her life before she’d met this man. ‘Can you prove it?’
The expression on Luc’s face was fearsome, and his hands tightened on her arms. ‘My father was foreman of a lowly construction company in southern Spain. Do you really think it made the papers?’ His mouth twisted when he added, ‘And yet despite that it managed to wreck a whole family.’
Jesse looked up at Luc. She could already feel that intensity reaching out to ensnare her. She was so susceptible to this man.
She pulled out of his arms with effort, and finally he let her go. She backed away from him and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just need to be alone for a while …’
Luc battled the urge to grab Jesse back to him, clenching his fists at his sides and watching her slim back retreat. It was a lot to take in, and more than a little fantastical to discover that they’d both had the same objective all along.
When he’d woken in the bed earlier, to find Jesse gone, it had been as if his brain had been working overtime during sleep. He’d had a dream of Jesse and her father, a faceless threatening presence locking her into a room, and just like that Luc had known. The links were too many to dismiss. Why on earth would someone like her be interested in someone like O’Brien unless it was for some personal reason? He just hadn’t figured that it was for the opposite reason he’d initially suspected.
Luc had so many more questions, but Jesse’s face before she’d left the room, stark with shock and emotion, made him cautious. He’d have to give her some time. But surely now there could be no objection to their returning to England together?
When he thought of that his heart gave an involuntary kick, and for the first time in years Luc knew he was on very shaky ground.
Later that night Luc woke abruptly when he heard a sound that was familiar but unfamiliar, because he’d got so used to the peace and quiet of the island.
He hadn’t seen Jesse again that evening. She’d stayed holed up in her room and Luc had decided to give her more time, resisting his urge to batter the door down and kiss her into trusting him.
He looked at his watch and saw he’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. And then the sound registered fully: helicopter.
He jumped out of bed, pulling on his boxer shorts, and silently thanked Jesse for coming to her senses. He half expected to bump into her when he opened his bedroom door, but the villa was silent. An awful slither of foreboding went down his spine.
He went downstairs and could still hear the unmistakable thwop-thwop of the helicopter. And then he saw the note, and a phone on the hall table. He went over and picked up the piece of paper:
Dear Luc
The phone only accepts incoming calls. If your mother or sister need you they’ll call me and I’ll let you know. I can’t trust that if they call you, you won’t try to get off the island before Friday.
At one p.m. on Friday someone will arrive to take you to the landing strip, where a plane will be waiting with all your possessions. The pilot will take you wherever you want to go.
I’m so sorry.
I hope you can understand why I need to do this. Jesse.
With an inarticulate roar of pure rage Luc stormed over to the villa door and opened it just in time to see the flashing lights of the helipcopter as it rose up into the night sky, banked to the right and then disappeared into the distance.
For long seconds, as the island fell into silence again, Luc couldn’t believe what had just happened. And then it became painfully crystal-clear. Once again a woman had taken his trust and betrayed him—except this time it was far, far worse.
High above the black expanse of sea Jesse sat in the helicopter with tears running down her face. Why couldn’t she stop crying? She struggled to control herself, glad of the sound of the engine and the blades which precluded any conversation. In her lap she held the squirmy bundle which was Tigger, and she stroked him absently, trying to keep him calm.
She’d had to leave because she knew she couldn’t last two more days in that villa alone with Luc. Couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t use everything he now knew about her to wear her down and make her trust him … make her believe him … when he could still turn around and rip her world from under her feet.
Earlier she’d been so close to trusting him, believing him, but how could she? How could she trust him after only a few days spent together? No matter how intimate they’d been?
Trust. It was the one thing she’d never been able to do with anyone after her trust had been so comprehensively eroded at an early age, and then over and over again as she’d grown up.
She had to be strong and remember that Luc’s prime motivation all along had been to get off the island, whether it was for the same reasons as Jesse or not. That was why he’d seduced her in the first place.
Pain, swift and agonising, rose up to clench Jesse’s heart. She’d wanted to trust him so badly. The first time she’d wanted it in her life. And that was when she’d finally had to heed the danger of her situation. If she trusted Luc then she’d learnt nothing. All her years of struggle to prevail would have been for naught.
She simply had to shut down her mind and forget about what had happened. It was a mirage. It had never really existed. Because would someone like Luc ever have really seduced her if given a choice? She went cold. Of course not.
She knew he’d never forgive her for this.
Jesse closed her eyes on the starry sky outside and shut down inside. She retreated back to a place she knew, where she was icy and removed from anything too painful.
When she finally got to Britain, on the plane that had been waiting for her in Athens, the woman at Immigration said officiously, ‘You need a licence for that animal—he needs to be checked and given shots and registered.’
Jesse shook her head, the thought of being separated from Tigger breaking through the ice. ‘I didn’t realise. I’ve never owned a pet before …’
The immigration official looked from Jesse’s red eyes and puffy face to the tiny ball of fur miaowing pathetically occasionally. She sighed and looked at her watch. It was four a.m., and Jesse was the only passenger.
‘I could lose my job for this, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t see him.’ She waggled a finger at Jesse and looked stern. ‘But I’m going to check on the system to make sure you get him thoroughly checked and properly registered, so
make sure you do.’
Jesse started crying all over again at the woman’s kindness.
There was no ice left to cloak herself with; she was a mess.
Two Months Later …
Jesse took a deep breath and looked at herself in the floor-length mirror in her bedroom. The dress was a deep blue colour, and silk. It was a feat of designing that Jesse didn’t understand. All she knew was that it showed far more skin than she was comfortable with. Practically her whole back was bare, apart from one strip of material connecting the front to the back, and it was very low-cut at the front.
Her fingers itched to take it off and put on a familiar dress suit, but then she remembered the spurt of something very illicit when she’d spotted it in the window of the shop in town that afternoon. She’d been trying it on before she’d even registered her intent, and the shop assistant had said, ‘The dress was made for you. You have the perfect figure to carry it off …’
Jesse knew it was just sales patter, but for a brief moment she’d felt something close to how she’d felt when Luc had looked at her naked body: beautiful and sensual.
Luc. Jesse shut the closet door on her reflection with force and hunted for the shoes she’d bought to go with the dress, resolutely pushing thoughts of him out of her mind with an effort. She was going to a charity auction tonight, in aid of a cause she supported. It was her first opportunity to be the kind of woman she’d always envied … And just like that her rebellious thoughts zeroed in on Luc again.
Ever since that Friday, which she’d dubbed Black Friday in her head, she’d been waiting for Luc to appear, thumping on her door or storming her offices. Demanding retribution. But the days and weeks had passed and he hadn’t materialised.
Jesse had battled with a maelstrom of emotions when it had become clear that Luc had clearly washed his hands of her. If she’d needed confirmation of how little he would have cared for her under normal circumstances this was it. He didn’t even care enough to punish her for thwarting his own plans for revenge.
Adding to the mix of emotions was the evidence she’d sought that had confirmed Luc’s story was real. Every word. His father had been the poor but proud Spanish foreman at one of her father’s construction sites and his wife a quiet Frenchwoman. And his sister did indeed have special needs. Jesse had unearthed some pictures of him attending charity functions in aid of research into autism.
As for her father—he was well and truly finished. He was in hock to too many people, and a trial looked increasingly likely as all his various tax and fraud transgressions came to light. Not to mention mounting lawsuits from various employees who’d been intimidated into silence before, and were now coming forward with stories of harrassment, unfair dismissal and worse.
Even his wife was selling her story to the papers, depicting a tale of violent abuse for years. All his assets had been seized, and he was being watched to make sure he didn’t flee the country.
Jesse had expected at least a feeling of euphoric triumph to know she’d finally seen to her father’s end, but since it had happened she’d felt curiously empty and flat. On some level she did finally feel a sense of peace as if all that anger and rage and hurt had dissipated at last and been rendered impotent, but with shameful predictability her mind kept deviating not to her father or to the new lease of life she now faced, but to someone else …
The night after Luc had returned from the island he’d been splashed all over the news, appearing at a royal gala auction in aid of numerous charities with a stunning and recently Oscar-nominated actress on his arm. Since then he seemed to have been wining and dining a steady stream of women, each more beautiful than the last.
The press were in a frenzy. Luc Sanchis had never gone so overtly public before, and they couldn’t get enough of it.
For a second Jesse stopped and closed her eyes, putting a hand to her chest as pain gripped her—she had to stop thinking about him. But it was impossible. She saw him everywhere, but paler imitations of him: today in the shop she’d nearly had a heart attack when a tall, dark, broad man had come in with his lover, a hand low on her back in a sexy caress. But it hadn’t been him.
At night it was worse, when in dreams she relived in lurid detail every moment of those days on the island. She’d told him everything. Nothing had been sacred when she’d been indulging in a fantasy world and had forgotten why they were there in the first place.
Just then she felt a tugging sensation on the end of her dress and looked down to see Tigger about to sink a claw into the material. Jesse caught him up in her hands.
‘Oh, no, you don’t …’
She snuggled her face into his fur, relishing his warmth. He’d already grown and put on weight. She’d taken him to the vet and he’d been microchipped, vaccinated and even issued with his own passport. He was now a fully registered pet.
Jesse did feel pangs of guilt that she’d taken him from Luc, but she’d been in such turmoil that night as she’d got ready to leave that she hadn’t been able to ignore the visceral impulse to take him with her. She needed him.
When he scrambled to be free again Jesse followed him out of her bedroom to the main living area. She took in the couch and table that had been delivered that week. And the TV.
Emotion made her chest tight. Finally she was beginning to move on with her life. She had a level of closure. What she’d always wanted. But, as much as she’d have liked to ascribe this long-overdue metamorphosis to seeing her father brought to justice, Jesse had to face the very uncomfortable suspicion that it had a lot more to do with Luc Sanchis and the change he’d precipitated within her on the island.
She heard the intercom announcing that her taxi had arrived and turned away from her thoughts with relief. She tried to ignore the giant-sized ache of loneliness in her chest. She also tried to ignore the fluttering of anticipation in her belly that just possibly Luc might have been invited to the event …
Luc looked out over the crowd in the thronged room. Men were in tuxedos and women were in long glittering dresses. He wanted to claw his own eyes out rather than be here at this charity auction, but he’d promised his sister he’d bring her and she was here somewhere now, with his mother, ogling as many A-list celebrities as they could.
Jesse. Her name was like a ghostly whisper across his skin and everything within Luc tensed. He could have laughed. He’d been tense since he’d left that island. Since the night she’d left the island. Since the night she’d taken his confidences and trust and ground them beneath her feet.
He was angry. It was like a cold, hard piece of granite in the centre of his chest that had the potential to explode at any moment.
Once he’d known that O’Brien was well and truly finished—news he’d been furnished with on his recently returned phone somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea on that private plane two months ago—Luc had felt something within him shutting down and closing off.
Closing off the memory of standing in front of Jesse and spilling his guts about his sad life story. Closing off the memory of losing sight of why he’d wanted to seduce her, because once he’d tasted the nirvana of her body the last thing on his mind had been getting off that island.
He thought of how he’d assured himself that he knew what he was doing. But all along he’d been deluding himself … weakened by the taste and touch of a woman. Letting her seduce him, fool him.
So he’d closed off those ten days on the island as effectively as if they had never happened.
Luc had returned to Britain and become an icy automaton. Any rogue thoughts of Jesse were ruthlessly crushed at the merest whisper. His frenzy of socialising over the past couple of months had morphed into a blur of faces and places. But nothing had touched him. Nothing and no one had pierced through his shell.
His libido had spectacularly flatlined. But he didn’t care, because the icy cold inside him was keeping his anger from exploding into a terrible fearsome thing.
Jesse. That ghostly sensation again, prickling ac
ross his skin. Luc cursed. It was as if that ice enclosing him was starting to melt away.
And then his eyes snagged on a head in the crowd. Short strawberry-blonde hair. Bare shoulders. A dress.
Jesse. She was no ghost. She was here, feet away. In a dress he’d never seen and holding a glass of champagne. The fact that she was alone and looking as vulnerable as she had the first time he’d seen her in a very similar milieu didn’t penetrate.
All he could see was the pale expanse of bare back and a hint of the swell of her breast at the side of her ridiculously revealing dress. The way the silk clung to those lithe curves.
And suddenly his anger woke from its icy slumber and started to explode. And Luc knew in that moment what he wanted and what he needed.
Revenge.
As if Jesse had heard him thinking, felt the intensity of his gaze on her, she turned and saw him. Her eyes widened and the grey depths immediately darkened. Luc’s libido surged back to life.
Revenge. And it would be sweet.
Luc. Here in this room. Her flutters of anticipation became tremors of reaction. The entire crowd became a blur of faceless people and the chatter a dim hum. All Jesse could see was that arresting rugged face. Unsmiling and more stark than she’d ever seen it. The lines of his body looked leaner, harder. His shoulders looked broader.
She felt weak all over. And emotion was bubbling upwards like a joyful fountain she couldn’t control.
He came towards her and Jesse was rooted to the spot. When Luc was close enough for her to reach out and touch Jesse had to clench her hand into a fist by her side. The other hand was in a white-knuckle grip around a glass of champagne.
The air seemed to quiver with electric energy between them—but just then a young woman came up to Luc, taking his arm. The spell was broken and Jesse blinked. The woman was very pretty, with a long fall of glossy brown hair, dressed in a floor-length dress that was a little more demure than those worn by the other women around them.
She looked at Jesse in a way that wasn’t polite, but wasn’t exactly rude either. It was so open and guileless, almost childlike. And Jesse hadn’t failed to notice how Luc’s hand had come up to the woman’s arm, as if to protect her. Jesse felt a crazy dart of hurt.