AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jesse stood up, holding her dress. She felt ridiculously vulnerable. Luc was acting like a cold stranger. ‘I just … You’re going …’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I didn’t come for cosy catch-ups and chats, Jesse. I came for one thing.’
Jesse fought not to wince. ‘Sex.’
He shrugged minutely. ‘In a word … yes. But not quite just sex.’
Jesse struggled to retain her dignity, even though it felt as if it was crumbling all around her. ‘What else?’
He came close and ran a finger around the line of Jesse’s jaw, and then his eyes rose to meet hers. ‘Revenge, Jesse. You didn’t seriously think you’d get away with what you did, did you?’
‘What are you talking about?’ It was a struggle to get the words out. Jesse’s chest felt tight.
Luc’s jaw clenched and he dropped his hand, but he didn’t move back. ‘What I’m talking about is retribution. A rebalancing of the scales, if you will. You single-handedly disrupted the course of my life and ruined plans I’d been working on for years.’
‘But you know why that was,’ Jesse reminded him painfully.
‘Yes … just as you know what my reasons were for wanting the same outcome. But you didn’t seem to think them compelling enough to take me with you when you left like a thief in the night.’
Jesse looked away, guilt lancing her. ‘I’m sorry for leaving you on the island like that … but I couldn’t afford to trust you.’
Luc’s hand forced her face back to him, and she shivered at how stern he looked.
‘Trust?’ he spat out, as if it were a dirty word. ‘Trust never came into it. Trust would imply that there was a relationship of some sort.’
Jesse’s heart squeezed painfully, as if a vice were closing around it. She could feel her own anger rising at Luc, for being so cold and remote. Cruel.
She jerked her chin out of his hold and jabbed a finger towards his chest. ‘You seduced me just so that you could manipulate me into letting you go. I had no idea what your motives were.’
Luc smiled, and it was utterly bereft of emotion. ‘I may have seduced you, Jesse, but it didn’t take much persuasion …’
If Jesse hadn’t been afraid of her dress falling down she would have hit Luc. He stepped back and turned to walk out of the room. Jesse rushed after him, anger boiling over and mixing with hurt.
‘It’s true what they said about that poor woman you ruined, isn’t it? You weren’t happy just to see her destroyed professionally. You had to make sure she had a breakdown because she had the gall to get one over on you.’
Abruptly Luc stopped, and Jesse almost ran into his back. He turned around and she stepped back. The fact that he was so emotionless was worse than if he’d been breathing fire.
Icily he said, ‘You know absolutely nothing about that woman or what happened at that time.’
Jesse ignored the voices in her head urging her to be quiet. She tossed her head and goaded him. ‘So tell me—what do you have planned for me, Luc? Some similar dastardly fate for daring to cross you?’
Luc came towards her, menacing, until Jesse felt her back hit the wall. He loomed over her, and then Jesse felt him grab her dress in one hand and pull it down. She gasped but much to her shame and horror it wasn’t fear she felt but a wild excitement. She tried to grab the dress back, but Luc was remorseless. He easily swatted her hands away and cupped her breast, his thumb lazily teasing the peak to embarrassing stiffness. Jesse fought back a moan and willed the heat in her body down.
‘What I have planned for you, Jesse, is to be my very public companion, mistress, lover—whatever you want to call it—until such time as this annoying lust between us is burnt out and I’m satisfied. I’m going to take great pleasure in disrupting your life as much as I can.’
Jesse managed to pull Luc’s hand off her breast and haul her dress back up. ‘No. Tonight was a mistake and it won’t be happening again. I can’t believe that I was duped into thinking you were something different. That you were—’
Luc laughed out loud, throwing his head back for a moment. He looked down at her, ‘What, Jesse? The besotted fool of the island?’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘So naive it’s almost cute …’
Jesse managed to slither out from under his arm and stand apart from him. She was beginning to feel seriously undone, and she was afraid if he didn’t leave right now
she’d start crying or something equally pathetic.
She couldn’t help blurting out, ‘It’s true, then? It was all an act—a grand seduction to try to force my hand.’
To her horror Luc merely started to look around her apartment, taking in the various furnishings and things.
Then he turned around and said coolly, ‘What else could it possibly have been, Jesse? I had to use whatever means I could find, and I merely used the convenient chemistry between us. Any fool would have taken the same advantage.’
