Harlequin Presents January 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Sheikh's Desert Duty\Nine Months to Redeem Him\Fonseca's Fury\The Russian's Ultimatum (21 page)

“Twelve?” I said dubiously. “Physical therapy isn't an all-day kind of endeavor. We'd work together for an hour a day, maybe three at most. Not twelve...” I tilted my head. “What is your work?”

“I'm CEO of a global financial firm based in London. I'm currently on leave but a sizeable amount of work from my home office is still required. I'll need you available to me day or night, whenever I want you. I need you to be available for my therapy without question and without notice.”

Dead silence followed, with only the crackling of the fire. Caesar the Sheepdog yawned.

I stared at Edward. “It's a completely unreasonable demand.”

“Completely,” he agreed.

“It would make me your virtual slave for months, possibly, at your beck and call, with no life of my own.”

“Yes.”

Considering the mess I'd made of my life myself, maybe that wouldn't be all bad. I looked at his leg, propped up on the stool. “Will you quit on me when it gets difficult?”

His shoulders stiffened. Putting his foot down on the floor, he used one hand to steady himself on the back of the chair, and slowly rose to his feet. He stood in front of me, and my head tilted back to look him in the eye. He was a foot taller. I felt how he towered over me, felt the power of his body like a broad shadow over my own.

“Will
you
?” he said softly.

I shook my head, looking away as I mumbled, “As long as you don't flirt with me.”

“You have nothing to fear. My taste doesn't run to idealistic, frightened young virgins.”

I whirled back to face him. “How did you—”

“I know women.” His eyes were mocking as he looked down at me. He bared his teeth in a smile that glinted in the firelight. “I've had my share. One-night stands, weekend affairs—that is more my line. Sex without complications. That is how I play.”

“Surely not since your accident—”

“I had a woman here last night.” He gave his one-shouldered shrug. “An acquaintance of mine, a French lingerie model came down from London—we shared a bottle of wine and then we... But Miss Maywood, you look bewildered. I guessed you were a virgin but I expected you'd at least have
some
experience. Should I explain how it works?”

My face was probably the color of a tomato. “I'm just surprised, that's all. With your injury...”

“It's not difficult,” he said huskily, looking down at me. “She sat on top of me. I didn't even have to move from my chair. I could draw you a diagram, if you like.”

“N-no,” I breathed. He was so close. I could almost feel the heat from his skin, the power from his body. He was right, I didn't have much experience but even I could see that this man was dangerous to women. Even idealistic young virgins like me.

Edward St. Cyr was the kind of man who would break your heart without much bothering about it. Casually cruel, like a cat toying with a mouse.

“So you agree to the terms?”

Hesitantly, I nodded. He took my hand. I nearly gasped as I felt the warmth of his skin, the roughness of his palm against mine. A current of electricity went through me. My lips parted.

“Good,” he said softly. We were so close, I smelled his breath, warm and sweet—like liquor. I saw his bloodshot eyes. And I realized, for the first time, that he was slightly drunk.

A half-empty bottle of expensive whiskey was on the table by his chair, beside a short glass. Dropping his hand, I snatched them up. “But if I'm going to stay and be on call for you every hour of the day, you're going to commit as well. No more of this.”

His dark eyebrow raised. “It's medicinal.”

I didn't change my tone. “No drugs of any kind, except, if you're very nice to me, coffee in the morning. And no more late nights with lingerie models.”

Edward smiled. “That's fine.”

“Or anyone else!” I added sharply.

He scowled, folding his arms like a sulky boy. “You're being unreasonable.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “So that makes two of us.”

“But if you take away all my toys, Diana,” he looked me over, “what else will I have to play with?”

My cheeks burned at his deliberately insulting glance. “You'll have hard work,” I said crisply, “and lots of it.”

Edward leaned back, his handsome face cold. “You still yearn for Jason Black.”

The cruelty of his words hit me like a blow. With an intake of breath, I looked towards the window at the deepening night. I saw my plain reflection in the glass, against the red-orange glow of the fire.

“Yes,” I whispered, and was proud my voice held steady.

“You lo-ove him,” he said mockingly.

My throat choked. Madison and Jason were probably making love right now, in their elegant suite at a five-star Parisian hotel. I said in a small voice, “I don't want to love him anymore.”

“But you do.” He snorted, looking over me with contemptuous eyes. “You'll probably forgive that stepsister of yours, too.”

“I love them.” I sounded ashamed. And I was. What kind of idiot loves people who don't love her back? My teeth chattered. “People...can't choose who they l-love.”

“My God. Just look at you.” Edward stared at me for a long moment. “Even now, you won't say a word against them. What a woman.”

Silence fell. The wind howled outside, shaking the leaded glass in the thick gray stone.

“You're wrong, you know,” he said quietly. “You
can
choose who you love. Very easily.”

“How?”

“By loving no one.”

At those breathtakingly cynical words, I looked at his powerful, injured body. The hard jaw, the icy blue eyes. Edward St. Cyr was the master of Penryth Hall, handsome and wealthy beyond imagining.

He was also damaged. And not just his body.

“You've had your heart broken too,” I whispered, searching his gaze. “Haven't you?”

Edward looked me over in a way that caused my body to flash with heat. He took a step closer, and his muscular, powerful body towered over me in every direction.

“Perhaps that's the real reason I wanted you here,” he murmured. “Perhaps we are kindred spirits, you and I. Perhaps we can—” he brushed back a tendril of my hair “—heal each other in every way....”

Edward pulled closer to me. I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin and shivered all over. My heart was beating frantically. He started to lower his head toward mine.

Then I saw the sardonic twist of his lips.

Putting my hands on his chest—on his hard, muscular, delicious chest, warm through his shirt—I said, “Stop it.”

“No?” Taking a step back, laughing, he mocked me with my earlier words. “Too soon?”

“You are
a jerk,
” I choked out.

He shrugged his one-shoulder shrug. “Can't blame me for trying. You seem so naïve, like you'd believe any line a man told you.” He considered me. “Kind of amazing you're still a virgin.”

Outrage filled me, and new humiliation. “You claim you're desperate to be healed—”

“I never used the word
desperate.
”

“Then you fire your physical therapists, and waste your days getting drunk—”

“And don't forget my nights having sex,” he said silkily.

“You're already trying to sabotage
me.
” Narrowing my gaze, I lifted my chin. “I don't think you actually
want
to get better.”

His careless look disappeared and he narrowed his eyes in turn. “I'm hiring you as a physio, Miss Maywood, not a psychiatrist. You don't know me.”

“I know I came a long way here to have my time wasted. If you don't intend to get better, tell me now.”

“And you'll do what? Go back home to humiliation and paparazzi?”

“Better that, than be stuck with a patient who has nothing but excuses, and blames others for his own laziness and fear!”

“You say this to my face?” he growled.

“I'm not afraid of you!”

Edward stared at me blankly.

“Maybe you should be.” He fell back heavily into the chair and stared at the fire. The sheepdog lifted his head, wagging his tail.

“Is that what you want?” I said softly, coming closer. “For people to be afraid of you?”

The flickering firelight cast shadows on the leatherbound books of his starkly masculine study. “It makes things simpler. And why shouldn't they fear me?” His midnight-blue eyes burned through me. “Why shouldn't you?”

Edward St. Cyr's handsome face and cultured voice were civilized, but that was a veneer, like sunlight over ocean. Beneath it, the darkness went deeper than I'd imagined. In spite of my earlier brave words, something shivered in my heart, and I suddenly wondered what I'd gotten myself into.

“Why should I be afraid of you?” I gave an awkward laugh. “Is your soul really so dark?”

“I loved a woman,” he said in a low voice, not looking at me. “So much I tried to kidnap her from her husband and baby. That's how I got in the accident.” His lips turned flat. “Her husband objected.”

“This is why you wouldn't allow the agency to give me any details,” I said slowly, “not even your name. You were afraid if I knew more about you, I wouldn't come, weren't you?”

His jaw tightened.

“Was anyone hurt?”

His expression suddenly looked weary. “Only me.”

“And now?”

“I've left them to their happiness. I've found that love, like
dreams,
” he said the word mockingly, “offers more pain than pleasure.” He turned to me in the firelight, his expression stark. “You want to know about the depths of darkness in my soul?” His lips twisted. “You couldn't even see it. You, who are nothing but innocence and sunlight.”

I frowned at him. “I'm more than that.” I suddenly remembered my own power, what I could do. The glimmer of fear disappeared. “I can help you. But you must promise to do everything I say. Everything. Exercises, healthy diet, lots of sleep—all of it.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Think you can keep up with me?”

His lips parted. “Can
you
keep up with me? I've broken a lot of physiotherapists,” he said dryly. “What makes you think I can't break you? I...” He suddenly scowled. “What are you smiling at? You should be afraid.”

I
was
smiling. For the first time in three weeks, I felt a sense of purpose, even anticipation as I shook my head. The high-and-mighty tycoon didn't know who he was dealing with. Yes, I was a pathetic pushover in my personal life. But to help a patient, I could be as ruthless and unyielding as the most arrogant hedge fund billionaire on earth. “You are the one who should be afraid.”

“Of you?” He snorted. “Why?”

“You asked for all my attention.”

“So?”

My smile widened to a grin. “Now you're going to get it.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Y
OU
CALL
THIS
a workout?” Edward demanded the next morning.

I gave him a serene smile. “Those were just tests. Now we're about to start.”

We were in the former gardener's cottage, which Edward had recently had converted into a personal rehabilitation gym, complete with exercise equipment, weight benches, yoga mats and a massage table, with big bright windows overlooking the garden. I had him lift his arms slowly over his head, saw the pull in his muscle, saw him flinch.

“Okay.” I squared my shoulders. “Let's begin.”

Then started the stretches and small weights and balancing and walking and then driving him to the nearest town recreation area so he could swim. I nearly brought him to his knees, literally as well as figuratively. I think I surprised him by pushing him to his limit, until he was covered with sweat.

“Ready to be done?” I said smugly.

Now he surprised me, by shaking his head. “Done? I'm just getting started,” he panted. “When will the real workout begin?”

Leaving me to grit my teeth and come up with exercises that would continue to strengthen him, or at least not cause him injury.

As the afternoon faded into early evening, he never once admitted weakness or exhaustion. It was only by the grip of his fingers and the ashy-pale hue of his skin that I knew.

On the second day, though, I knew he'd be sore. I expected him to plead the demands of business, and spend his day with ice packs on his aching muscles, relaxing in his home office and talking on the phone. But when I told him to meet me in the gardener's cottage after breakfast, he didn't complain. And when I went down to set up, I found Edward already at the weight bench, lifting a heavier weight on his shoulder than he should have.

“Linger over your kippers and eggs, did you?” he said smugly. And then the second day went pretty much like the first, except this time it felt like he was a step ahead.

So the third day, determined to regain a sense of control, I had an early breakfast and went down to the gardener's cottage, at nine. I was able to greet his surprised face when he arrived five minutes later.

The fourth day, he was already there stretching when I arrived at eight forty-five.

We fell into a pattern. Any time Edward wasn't working in his home office, on his computer or the phone at odd hours talking to London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo, he demanded my full attention. And as promised, he got it. Each of us trying to prove we were tougher than the other. A battle of wills, neither of us willing to back down.

And now, almost two months into our working together, it had come down to this.

I'd woken up at five this morning, cursing myself in the darkness, when any sensible person would have drowsed in bed for hours longer. I'd been woken by Caesar, who'd trotted into my bedroom to heft his huge fluffy body at the foot of my bed. The sheepdog had become my morning alarm, because he only came to visit me after Edward was gone. When the dog woke me, I knew the day's battle was already half-lost.

Now, snow was falling softly outside as I hurried toward the gardener's cottage. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt more tightly over my head, shivering as the gravel crunched beneath my feet. It was still dark, as was to be expected at five o'clock in December, the darkest day of the year.

I'd thought I could bring Edward St. Cyr to his knees? Ha. I'd thought I would make him beg for mercy? Double ha.

I'd worked with football players, injured stuntmen, even a few high-powered corporate types. I thought I knew what to expect from the typical arrogant alpha male.

But Edward was tough. Tougher than I'd ever seen.

Shivering down the garden path in the darkness, I pushed open the cottage door to discover that, just as I'd thought, Edward was already there. Doing yoga stretches on the mat, he looked well warmed up, his skin glowing with health, his body sleek in the T-shirt and shorts as he leaned forward in Downward Dog. My eyes lingered unwillingly on his muscular backside, pushed up in the air.

“'Morning.” Straightening, Edward looked back at me with amusement, as if he knew exactly where my eyes had been. I blushed, and his grin widened. He stretched his arms over his head, then spread his arms and legs wide in Warrior II Pose. “Enjoy your lie-in, did you?”

“I didn't sleep in,” I protested. “It's the middle of the night!”

He lifted his eyebrows and murmured, “If five is too early for you, just say so.”

I glared at him. “It's fine. Happy to be here.” I'd come at four tomorrow, I vowed privately. Maybe I'd start sleeping in the gym, instead of the beautiful four-poster bed down the hall from Edward's master suite on the second floor of Penryth Hall.

Edward looked at me with infinite patience. “Whenever you're ready....”

Scowling, I stomped to the equipment closet, where I yanked out a stairstep and some resistance bands. The bands got caught, so I yanked even harder.

“Maybe you should do some yoga,” he observed. “It's very calming.”

My scowl deepened. “Let's just get started.”

I supervised his stretches, rotating his foot and his arm and shoulder, before we progressed to squats and knee lifts on the step, then thirty minutes on the exercise bike, then stretching again with the resistance bands, then walking on the treadmill, then lifting weights—carefully, with me spotting him. I helped him stretch and strengthen his muscles, stopping him before he could do himself another injury, or dislocate his shoulder again. But it was a constant battle between us. He worked like a demon at it, and his determination showed.

After nearly two months, he no longer wore a sling or brace. In fact, looking at him now, you wouldn't see a sign of injury. He looked like a powerful, virile male.

And he was.

Damn it.

Don't notice. Don't look.

We'd become almost friends, in a way. During the hours of physical therapy, we'd talked to fill the silence, and prove that neither of us was winded. I'd learned that his financial firm was worth billions, was called St. Cyr Global, and had been started by his great-grandfather, then run by his grandfather and father, until Edward took it over at twenty-two with his father's death. He'd tried to explain what his company did precisely, but it was hopeless. My eyes glazed faster than you can say
derivatives
and
credit default swaps
. It was more interesting to hear him talk about his cousin Rupert, whom he hated, his rival in the company. “That's why I need to get better,” he said grimly. “So I can crush him.”

Seemed a strange way to treat family. When I was ten, my beloved father had died, which had been gut-wrenching and awful. A year later, my mom had married Howard Lowe, a divorced film producer with a daughter a year younger than me. Howard's outlandish personality was a big change from my father's, who'd been a gentle, bookish professor, but we'd still been happy. Until I was seventeen, and my mom had gotten sick. Afterward, I'd realized I wanted a career where I could help people. And patients never died.

“You've never lost a single one?” Edward said teasingly.

“You might be the first,” I'd growled. “If you don't quit adding extra weights to your bar.”

But there were some topics we carefully avoided. I never mentioned Madison, or Jason or my failed movie career. We never again discussed Edward's car accident in Spain, or the woman he'd loved and tried to kidnap from her husband. We kept it to two types of talk—small and smack.

We'd become coworkers, of a sort. Friends, even.

Friends,
I thought mockingly.
He's a client. Not a friend.

So why did my body keep noticing him not as a patient, not even as a friend—but a man?

Beneath the rivalry and banter, I felt his eyes linger on me. I told myself not to take it personally. I'd cut him off from his sex supply. It was like denying gazelles to a lion. He was hungry. And I was handy. He couldn't help himself from looking, but I wouldn't fall prey to it.

And so I kept telling myself as we worked together in near silence, till the sun rose weakly over the horizon. Then I heard his stomach growl.

“Hungry?” I said in amusement.

Straightening from his stretch, he looked at me.

“You know I am,” he said quietly.

I turned away, trying to ignore the sudden pounding of my heart. I tried to think of what Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley would say. Looking at my watch, I kept my voice professional. “Time for breakfast.”

But I couldn't stop looking at him beneath my lashes as we left the cottage to go back to the hall. Edward was so darkly handsome. So powerful and dangerous. So everything that Jason was not.

Stop it. Don't think that way
. But I shivered as we tromped through the snowy garden, beneath morning skies that had now turned sodden violet in color.

A full English breakfast, prepared by Mrs. MacWhirter, was soon ready for us in the medieval dining hall. As I sat beside Edward at the end of the long table, I watched his hands pour hot tea into his china cup. I felt hyperaware of his every movement as he served himself bacon and eggs and toast. I felt him lift the fork to his mouth. I could almost wish I was bacon, feeling the caress of his breath and tongue.

This was getting ridiculous.

Shaking myself angrily, I dumped a bunch of cream and sugar into my coffee.

I couldn't let myself linger over the face and body of my handsome, brooding boss. But I couldn't stop. For weeks, my eyes had lingered over his chiseled jawline, often dark with five o'clock shadow. Lingered over the curve of his cruelly sensual lips. Over his wicked smile. Over his large hands, the thickness of his neck, his muscled forearms, dusted with dark hair.

And his eyes. When they met mine, I lingered there most of all.

As I sat next to him now at the breakfast table, pretending to read the newspaper, I couldn't stop being aware of everything about him. Every time he moved, every slight vibration from his direction amplified in waves. When the waves hit my body, they could have been measured on the Richter scale.

Sadly, there was no chapter in Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley's book about how a nurse should quash her own lust.

Lust. I shivered. Such an ugly word, without love to make it pretty. Because I knew I didn't love him. I saw the darkness in his soul too acutely. He trusted no one, cared for no one. Especially not the women he'd taken to his bed. If he had cared for any of them, he would have written or called her. Instead, there was nothing. If he couldn't take a woman to bed, he wasn't going to bother with her. It was despicable, really.

But my hand still shook as I held my coffee cup. If he knew how easily he could seduce me...

Edward St. Cyr was a powerful man accustomed to satisfying his every desire. Sex-starved as he was, he might make short work of me right here, on this table. He'd lick me like salty bacon, pull me into his mouth like the sweet, plump imported strawberries. He'd satiate himself quickly with the offered treat—my body—and forget me an hour later. Just like what he was eating now....

Desperate for distraction, I snatched up the London newspaper he'd just finished. Edward looked up with a frown. “Wait—”

His warning was too late. As I opened the page, I saw a picture of Madison on a red carpet, smiling in a glamorous sequined gown as she attended the premiere of her latest blockbuster in Leicester Square. At her side, slightly behind her in a tuxedo, was Jason.

“Oh,” I breathed, and even to my own ears it sounded like a choked, bewildered wheeze, the sound someone makes when they'd just been punched.

Something grabbed my hand. Blinking hard, I saw it was Edward's hand, holding mine tightly over the table. Was he trying to comfort me?

Abruptly, he dropped his hand. Lifting a sardonic eyebrow, he looked at the photo. “He looks like a trussed duck,” he observed.

“She's dragging him behind her like a baby blanket.”

“You're wrong,” I said automatically, then looked more carefully. Hmm. Now that Edward had pointed it out, Jason did look rather like an accessory, rather than a man, as Madison clutched his hand, dragging him behind her.

“And that white toothy smile of his,” Edward continued, rolling his eyes. “How much did he pay for those?”

“His smile is lovely!” I protested.

“The white hurts my eyes.” He briefly covered them. “I've never seen anything so fake.”

“Shut up!”

“Right. I forgot he's your dream man.” Leaning back in the chair, Edward took a gulp of his black tea as he rolled his eyes. “See where love gets you.”

For about the hundredth time, I wondered about the woman who had broken his heart in Spain. The one who'd made him care so much that he'd actually tried to kidnap her. What had been so special about her? I looked back down at the photo of my stepsister and Jason, beaming at the camera.

See where love gets you...

I set down my fork. “Let's get back to work.” I tilted my head and said challengingly, “Unless you need a longer break...”

Edward's cup fell with a clatter against the saucer. His eyes were gleaming with the joy of the fight. “I've been ready for ten minutes. I was waiting for you.”

An hour later, back at the cottage, he was walking on the treadmill at the slow speed he hated.

“This is boring,” he grumbled.

“It's fine,” I insisted.

“No.” He turned up the treadmill speed.

“Don't!” I said sharply.

He turned it up even more.

“You're going to kill yourself!” Then my eyes went wide as I drew back, watching him—this man who at the beginning of November had walked with a cane—now jogging forcefully on the treadmill. Edward had improved more rapidly than any client I'd ever seen.