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Jesse backed away out of the kitchen and Luc’s voice was scathing. ‘That’s very mature, Jesse. Are you going to hide in your room for another twenty-four hours?’
Jesse turned and fled, her emotions in turmoil. She was seriously tempted to go up to her room, but his caustic words made her go out through the front door instead. Impulsively she took the key to the Jeep from its secret spot a
nd started it up with a shaking hand. She headed down the drive and through the gates, clicking the button to make sure they were shut again.
And her dominant feeling as she drove away from the villa, leaving Luc behind, locked in, was one of searing guilt.
She finally got to the edge of the airstrip and stopped, pulling over at a skewed angle. She all but fell out of the Jeep and stood in the bright morning sunlight, breathing deeply. Her heart was still hammering. It was as if Luc had reached inside her and effortlessly tied her insides into a knot, while at the same time making her melt as if she were made of nothing more than putty.
The truth was, right now she didn’t know if she could last another week with Luc tormenting her. He had no idea how close he was to the truth of how much she wanted him to touch her … it was getting worse with every moment spent in his company. Once again she was feeling more like the prisoner.
Why couldn’t she be immune to him? Why was he proving to be the one man on the planet who made her feel anything but cold inside? It was so demoralising to be one of the legion of women who fell at his feet in sighing ecstasy. And why had he had to tell her about his vulnerable younger sister with special needs, and how his mother had become ill after his father’s death?
She thought churlishly that he would make a good model for one of those posters of men holding tiny vulnerable things like babies … or kittens.
Immediately Jesse felt trembly again. And emotional. She’d been blocking out emotions for so long now she almost didn’t recognise the tight feeling which got tighter and tighter until she felt moisture running down her face and recognised tears.
She hadn’t cried in years. Not since she’d retreated to a numb place where nothing could hurt her after her mother died. The same numb place her ex-lover had failed so spectacularly to melt. And yet within days of spending time with Luc Sanchis she was blubbing uncontrollably and melting all over.
Jesse fiercely wiped the tears from her cheeks and blew her nose. She had to get it together. This was exactly what he was trying to do—make her crumble so that she’d give in and send for the plane to take him back. She was so close now to her goal. She couldn’t fall at the final hurdle.
Resolutely, after a few shuddering breaths, Jesse got back into the Jeep, turned it around and went back to the villa.
Luc had finished a punishing round of lengths in the pool and was walking back up through the garden, a towel slung casually around his waist. He tensed when he saw Jesse sitting cross-legged in the distance, just outside the kitchen doors, playing with the kitten. For a second he was almost tempted to laugh: his gaoler could hardly present a more benign image. And then he scowled. Because she was all too effective as a gaoler.
He came closer and saw the unmistakable lines of tension come into her body. He cursed inwardly. He didn’t know why it was, but he’d felt like a heel when she’d all but run from the kitchen earlier. She’d seemed genuinely upset. But he knew he had to knock these weak impulses on the head. It was all an act, designed to keep him off balance. The woman had kidnapped him to further her own nefarious ends. She was about as vulnerable as a poisonous cobra!
When he reached her she said, without glancing up, ‘Is our milk okay for Tigger?’
He reacted inexplicably to our. Her voice had sounded husky, reminding him of how his sister’s voice sounded after she’d been crying. Had she been crying? Luc tensed at the hollow feeling in his belly.
‘It isn’t ideal, but it’s all we have … He looks too small to eat anything solid yet.’
The kitten at that moment scrambled out of Jesse’s hands and bounded over to Luc’s bare foot. He reached down and scooped it up in one hand, aware of Jesse valiantly ignoring him and fixing something in the box nearby.
Eventually, giving up on Jesse actually looking up at him, and aware that her proximity even in that shirt and jeans was having an effect on him, he handed the kitten back to her, holding out his hand.
She reached up, slightly akwardly because she wouldn’t meet his eyes, and took the kitten. An electric shock zinged between them when their fingers touched and Luc’s jaw tensed. He quashed any weakness at hearing her husky voice.
Ignore that at your peril, he told her silently in his head, and finally went back into the villa, thoroughly irritated by everything about Jesse Moriarty.
Jesse breathed a deep sigh of relief. She’d emerged from that encounter relatively unscathed, thanks to the fact that she just hadn’t looked at Luc. But she couldn’t very well behave like that for the rest of the week. She had to keep drumming it into her skull that he was out to get her and to torture her. She had to resist him at all costs.
Feeling sticky and hot in her jeans and shirt, Jesse decided to have a swim too. At least the pool would be safe now that he’d finished. She carefully put Tigger back in his box and watched him curl up into a tiny ball of fluff, envying him his ease at being able to shut out the world and depend on the kindness of strangers.
Jesse went upstairs to get her swimsuit, and was passing Luc’s bedroom door when she heard a sound. Without thinking, she glanced in. She could see right through the open door to his bathroom, where his tall and tautly muscled form was stepping out of the shower. Completely naked.
Jesse stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his body. She’d never seen anything so perfect. Water droplets clung to taut muscles. Not an ounce of fat marred the lean lines. He had stopped too, and was looking right back at Jesse, totally unselfconscious in his nudity.
After a long moment, during which Jesse forgot how to breathe, Luc casually reached for a towel and held it over his penis, doing little to erase the image of the dark thatch of hair which cradled his impressive masculinity. Jesse knew it would be burnt onto her mind like a tattoo for ever.
When she noticed her lungs screaming she took in a deep breath and then, issuing a strangled sound, she reached for Luc’s door to close it.
Just before she did, she heard him say mockingly, ‘You’re the one who stopped to look, Jesse.’
She slammed the door on his incendiary image and was out and down by the pool before she realised she’d never picked up her swimsuit. Beyond angry with Luc, and herself, and everything at that moment, Jesse rebelliously stripped off completely and dived into the pool.
She realised her folly only when her limbs were shaking with exhaustion and she stopped to come up for air—and saw Luc hunkered down by the side of the pool. He looked very fresh, with his damp hair slicked back, and was dressed in chinos and a shirt. He had a towelling robe in one hand.
