Exquisite Revenge (16 page)

Jesse looked at him for an unguarded moment. Did he really see it as just that? She answered herself. Of course he did.

She tried to get out of it, sorry she’d opened her mouth. ‘I just meant you seem to have been … going out …’

‘With a lot of women?’ he supplied helpfully.

Jesse flushed.

Luc reached across the divide and ran a finger down the line of one bare shoulder. Jesse could feel herself responding, melting.

‘Jealous, Jesse?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped, and moved back so his hand dropped.

But she was. She was piercingly, achingly jealous. Jealous of any moment another woman got to spend alone with this man, talking just to him, having him look at her as if she was the only one there. Kissing her. The pain was so acute that Jesse curled right back into the corner and turned away
from Luc. She shouldn’t be jealous, because this wasn’t the Luc she’d fallen for …

She forced out more forcibly, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

L
UC
looked at the tense line of Jesse’s shoulders and fought the urge he had to snarl at his driver to raise the privacy division. He wanted to take her right there and then, sliding her onto his lap. Her dress was so short all he’d have to do was unzip his trousers.

Luc ripped his eyes off Jesse and beat back the waves of heat consuming him. Damn her for having this effect on him so easily. He might have imagined that in the civilised surroundings of a city he wouldn’t want her so badly, but he wanted her even more …

A little later, when they were in the gallery, Luc looked around with irritation.
Where was she?
He’d never known a woman not to cling on to him like a limpet in social situations, but as soon as they’d arrived Jesse had shown a genuine interest in the paintings and moved off to look at them on her own. Luc did not like to analyse how that made him feel.

He went into the other room, where the auctioneer for the artists was shaking Jesse’s hand effusively. She was putting what looked like a credit card back into her bag.

Luc came alongside her and she looked up and blushed. ‘I just wanted to pay for the paintings.’

‘You bought some?’

She nodded, her eyes gleaming for a moment. ‘The big one of the reeds on the canal and a couple of smaller ones.’

Luc observed dryly, ‘Your apartment does seem somewhat bare …’

Jesse blanched a little and mumbled something like, ‘I’m buying more stuff for it now.’

He caught her arm and made her look up at him. ‘Why is it so bare, Jesse?’

For a long moment she just looked at him, and then she said huskily, ‘Because for a long time I haven’t cared about much else.’

Luc was sorry he’d asked, because his chest felt tight. He should have known not to expect a glib answer from Jesse. Wordlessly he ushered her back into the main gallery, but his mind was in a tumult and he felt something like panic rising up to strangle him.

When they got into Luc’s car a short time later Jesse immediately took off her sandals with an appreciative groan. She didn’t care at this stage what Luc’s usual women might do. She was in agony. She was also feeling mildly merry after a couple of glasses of wine, and buoyed up from buying those paintings. She realised that she’d actually had a nice time this evening, despite the tense undercurrents. She turned to tell Luc, but closed her mouth abruptly. He was looking stonily out of his window, his profile harsh and forbidding.

Jesse wanted to reach over and touch his face, and before she knew she’d even moved she found herself kneeling on the seat next to him. He turned and looked at her and she reached out to cup his jaw, her heart beating fast. If he was cruel now, or said something … But he didn’t. He put his hands on her hips and brought her round to straddle his lap, her legs either side of his powerful thighs, and all she could see was Luc …
her
Luc … with those dark, fathomless molten eyes.

Jesse could feel where his hardness pushed against their clothes and liquid heat surged between her legs. She put her
hands around Luc’s face and bent down to kiss him, feeling as if she were falling into a dark chasm.

He cupped her head, his other hand on her bottom, urging her even closer to him. The kiss rapidly got out of control, flames licking around them. Jesse found the buttons on his shirt and opened them, wanting to feel his skin. Luc was pulling down her dress so that one breast was bared …

She barely heard him give curt instructions to the driver, and then urgency overtook them. His mouth was on her breast, sucking her nipple deep, rolling his tongue around the hard tip. Jesse was desperate to feel him inside her and had reached down between them to find his belt buckle, almost sobbing with frustration when she couldn’t get it open immediately.

Luc made fast work of freeing himself. Jesse wrapped her hand around him and stroked him, and Luc’s face tightened with a need that looked feral in the dim light. He took her hand away and found her knickers, drawing them to the side before he stroked one finger along her cleft. Jesse moaned softly, dizzy with need.

And then Luc positioned her and brought her down on top of him, slowly and inexorably, until he was buried in her. With a rocking movement Jesse clenched and unclenched her muscles in a completely instinctive rhythm. They both climaxed within minutes.

It was silently intense. Jesse collapsed against Luc, and after a moment could feel his hand come to her back, holding her. She felt tears prick her eyes at the gesture, but was very afraid that he wouldn’t relish her feeling so emotional right now.

After a minute Jesse was feeling increasingly exposed and vulnerable. She extricated herself from Luc’s embrace and sat on the seat, pulling her dress down. She felt cheap. It was hard to believe the car was still moving.

‘Where are we going?’

Luc’s voice was sterile. ‘I’m taking you home.’

She looked at him and he turned to face her. She nearly recoiled at the harshness of his expression. She’d thought him cold before, but she could barely fathom that this was the man who had just brought her over the edge in his arms. She had to remember that it had been she who’d climbed all over him, pathetically convincing herself she’d seen something in his eyes.

Mortified, she turned away. ‘Thank you.’

To her surprise she felt Luc’s hand on her jaw, turning her back to face him. She steeled herself.

For a long moment he said nothing, and Jesse recognised with a jolt that they were already pulling up outside her apartment. That had been the guttural instruction to his driver.

‘Luc …?’

She had no prickling of foreboding, no idea of what was coming. And when the words were delivered, Luc’s voice was so flat he might have been talking about stocks and shares.

‘We’re done, Jesse. Our little interlude is over.’

Luc’s hand dropped from her jaw and he sat back. Jesse just stared at him. All she could think about was that he’d held her aloft again for a brief moment and was now letting her smash to the ground.
Revenge. Retribution
. Such ineffectual words for the feelings blooming inside her like blood spreading on the ground.

Pathetically, it had to be the quickest revenge in history—a mere couple of days and nights. A maelstrom was erupting in her chest—so many emotions that she didn’t know which was uppermost. Hurt. Anger. Pain, yes. That was there more than all of them. Pain because she’d been so weak. She’d lain down and let him take her when all he’d wanted to do was punish her. It had only taken a quickie on her bedroom rug and another in his car for him to become bored.

Incensed, and galvanised by a force greater than she’d ever
felt, Jesse reached over and slapped Luc across the face. It was awkwardly delivered, but he didn’t move or flinch. She wanted to hit him again so badly she shook with it.

‘You bastard,’ she said shakily. ‘You absolute bastard.’

And then he said, ‘Just go, Jesse. Get out.’

Jesse didn’t need any encouragement. She scrambled out of the car and slammed the door, standing on the pavement and fighting down the tremors starting to rack her body with shock and pain. She wanted to watch him drive away, etch it onto her memory so she would never be so duped again.

The door opened. Luc was holding out her shoes.

Jesse spat at him, ‘Keep them. You bought them anyway, and if you can find a mistress with the same shoe size you can use them again—impress her with your recessionary scruples.’

Luc just dropped them to the gutter and the door closed. The car pulled away. The back wheel drove over one of the shoes, crushing it. Jesse stood at the side of the road, barefoot, and her heart splintered into a million pieces, each one cutting her like glass.

As his car drove off, all Luc could feel was a dull ache. Not even the tingling of his cheek where Jesse had slapped him. He closed his eyes, but he could still see how she’d looked just now—as if he’d slapped her. Then all he could see was the intent expression on Jesse’s face as she’d come over to touch his face, effortlessly sensing his black mood. And then the expression on her face as she’d slid onto him, taking him into her tight, silky embrace.

His eyes snapped open again. He’d set out to get revenge, but within just thirty-six hours things were already derailing fast. Again. It had happened on the island and now here. The woman seemed to have some innate ability to burrow under Luc’s skin and lodge there like a thorn, sending him spinning in a million different directions at once.

On some level he’d been confident that Jesse would instantly morph into a woman he knew how to handle, but she hadn’t. And she couldn’t. Because she was utterly different. She was achingly sexy and vulnerable. Yet stronger than anyone he’d ever known. And the truth was she made him feel weak.

As he’d held her on his lap just now, in his arms, something soft had been cracking him open all over again, making him as vulnerable as he’d been on the island.

In the aftermath of that shattering climax Luc had seen only one possible outcome. She had to go. His very life depended on it—the life he knew, the life he’d built up around himself and his family with ruthless intent. Jesse threatened the equilibrium he’d worked so hard to achieve every time he looked at her, smelled her scent.

He should have just ignored her the other evening. That would have been revenge enough. But he’d been weak. He’d had to have her. He wouldn’t be so weak again. It was over. His and Jesse’s lives had entwined for a brief moment in time. That was all it was and all it ever would be.

He didn’t want her in his life. It was that simple. He needed to feel in control, and control was in very short supply around Jesse Moriarty.

As Luc’s car cut through the light night-time London traffic he relished the prospect of his life finally returning to normal and ignored the dull ache in his chest. A dull ache was nothing. He could cope with a dull ache over the almost painful intensity Jesse threatened him with …

Two Weeks Later …

Luc sat on the edge of the bed in his New York apartment’s bedroom. Downtown Manhattan was laid out before him. Usually it inspired him with an incredible sense of energy. Except energy was in short supply, and had been for two
weeks now. He felt nothing but numb—as if something had died inside him when he’d driven away from Jesse that night.

She was everywhere. In his thoughts, in his dreams. Only yesterday he’d stepped out of his offices and a woman had careened into him, small with short strawberry-blonde hair. Luc’s heart had spasmed so violently he’d felt dizzy as he’d reached out to grab her shoulder. The woman had looked back. She wasn’t Jesse. Nothing like Jesse, and she’d shouted an expletive to Luc, telling him to keep his hands to himself …

Biting back a groan, Luc stood up and noticed that he’d left the TV on all night on mute. He grimaced at this evidence of his sleeplessness, and was about to turn off the rolling English news channel when his hand stilled on the remote and his breath dried in his throat.

It was Jesse, and this time she wasn’t a mirage. She was struggling through a mob crowd outside her apartment, with only a security guard to help her, and she looked tiny and defenceless.

Suddenly the numbness disappeared and feeling rushed back into Luc’s body with such force he almost staggered. In that moment his heart cracked into two pieces and he knew he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.

Jesse was trying very hard not to let terror grip her into a state of paralysis.

The security guard on the phone sounded weary. ‘They’re still here, love. Looks like they’re settling in for the night too.’

Jesse put down the phone and blinked back the onset of weak tears. If anything had shown her the depth of hatred and resentment Luc felt for her this had. She’d been under siege in her apartment for two days now—ever since someone had leaked to the press who she was. The disgraced JP O’Brien’s daughter.

She found it easier to keep the incredible hurt and pain at bay if she focused on hating him.

Her phone rang and she picked it up, saying automatically, ‘No, I’m not interested in giving a—’

‘Jesse … it’s me.’

For a second she was in shock, and then Luc’s deep voice lanced her like a poison arrow. She laughed and it verged on hysteria. ‘Tell me, did you come up with this plan as a little something to keep you occupied because you had no one else to torture?’ She shouted down the phone. ‘Just stay away from me, Sanchis!’

This time after she put the phone down she pulled the cord from the wall.

After a few minutes she heard an e-mail ping in on her home computer and went and sat down.

She opened it up and the first words she saw were:
‘Jesse, don’t stop reading this, please.’

Tigger had somehow got onto the table. Almost absently Jesse scooped him onto her lap. Against her best intentions she read Luc’s e-mail. He claimed not to be involved in leaking the story to the press and said that he’d only just seen the news in New York, that he would come over as soon as he got back to see if she was all right. He also went into a lengthy explanation of what had happened all those years ago with his ex-lover.

Jesse was dangerously close to unravelling at this e-mail. ‘Why does he care what I think anyway?’ she muttered to herself, looking at his e-mail again. He felt guilty. That had to be it. Guilty—and perhaps he pitied her too.

She got panicky when she imagined him arriving at her door, ordering her to open up with that deep voice, threatening to kick it down if she didn’t. She couldn’t forget the devastation
she’d felt when he’d thrown her out of his car and his life. The devastation that still lacerated her insides.

She replied:

Don’t write to me again. Don’t come near my apartment. Leave me alone or I will call the police.

Two days later Jesse sent up silent thanks that she was due to go to Oslo for a few days of meetings about investing in one of their biggest gaming consortiums. She was escaping the intense press interest, that was the main thing, and also escaping the endless round of thoughts that seemed determined to circle on Luc Sanchis.