One Night: Sensual Bargains. Maureen Child

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      “You are Edward St. Cyr?” I whispered, unable to look away. I swallowed. “My new employer?”

      “That,” he said coldly, “should be obvious.”

      His face was hard-edged, rugged, too much so for conventional masculine beauty. There was nothing pretty about him. His jawline was square, and his aquiline nose slightly off-kilter at top, as if it had once been broken. His shoulders were broad, barely contained by the oversized chair, his right arm hung in an elastic brace in a sling. His left leg was held out stiffly, extended from his body, the heel resting on a stool. He looked like a fighter, a bouncer, maybe even a thug.

      Until you looked at his eyes. An improbable blue against his olive-toned skin, they were the color of a midnight ocean swept with moonlight. Tortured eyes with unfathomable depths, blue as an ancient glacier newly risen above an arctic sea.

      Even more trapped than his body, I thought suddenly. His soul.

      Then his expression shuttered, turning sardonic and flat, reflecting only the glowing embers of the fire. Now his blue eyes seemed only ruthless and cynical. Had I imagined the emotion I’d seen? Then my lips parted.

      “Wait,” I breathed. “I know you. Don’t I?”

      “We met once, at your sister’s party last June.” His cruel, sensual lips curved. “I’m so pleased you remember.”

      “Madison is my stepsister,” I corrected automatically. I came closer to the chair, in the flickering light of the fire. “You were so rude...”

      His eyes met mine. “But was I wrong?”

      My cheeks burned. I’d been working as Madison’s new assistant, so had been obligated to attend her posh, catered party. There’d been a DJ and waiters, and a hundred industry types—actors, directors, wealthy would-be producers. Normally I would have wanted to run and hide. But this time, I’d been excited to bring my new boyfriend. I’d been so proud to introduce Jason to Madison. Then, later, I’d found myself watching the two of them, across the room.

      A sardonic British voice had spoken behind me. “He’s going to dump you for her.”

      I’d whirled around to see a darkly handsome man with cold blue eyes. “Excuse me?”

       “I saw you come in together. Just trying to save you some pain.” He lifted his martini glass in mocking salute. “You can’t compete with her, and you know it.”

      It had been a dagger in my heart.

      You can’t compete with her, and you know it. Blonde and impossibly beautiful, my stepsister, who was one year younger, drew men like bees to a honeypot. But I’d seen the downside, too. Even being the most beautiful woman in the world didn’t guarantee happiness.

      Of course, being the ugly stepsister didn’t guarantee it either. I’d glared at the man before I turned on my heel. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      But somehow, he had known. It haunted me later. How had some rude stranger at a party seen the truth immediately, while it had taken me months?

      When Madison arranged for Jason to get a part in her next movie, he’d been thrilled. Working as Madison’s assistant, I’d seen them both every day on set in Paris. Then she’d asked me to go back to L.A. and give a magazine a personal tour of Madison’s house in the Hollywood Hills, and talk about what it was like to be a “girl next door” who happened to have Madison Lowe as my stepsister, a semifamous producer as my stepfather, and up-and-coming hunk Jason Black as my boyfriend. “We need the publicity,” Madison had insisted.

      But the reporter barely seemed to listen as I walked her through Madison’s lavish house, talking lamely about my stepsister and Jason. Until she pressed on her earpiece with her hand and suddenly laughed aloud, turning to me with a malicious gleam in her eye. “Fascinating. But are you interested in seeing what the two of them have been up to today in Paris?” Then she’d cut to reveal live footage of the two of them naked and drunk beneath the Eiffel Tower.

      The video became an international sensation, along with the clip of my stupid, shocked face as I watched it.

      For the past three weeks, I’d been trapped behind the gates of my stepfather’s house, ducking paparazzi who wanted pictures of my miserable face, and gossip reporters who kept yelling questions like, “Was it a publicity stunt, Diana? How else could anyone be so stupid and blind?”

      I’d fled to Cornwall to escape.

      But Edward St. Cyr already knew about it. He’d even tried to warn me, but I hadn’t listened.

      Looking at my new employer now, a shiver went through me, rumbling all the way to my heart, shaking me like the earthquakes I thought I’d left behind. “Is that why you hired me? To gloat?”

      Edward looked at me coldly. “No.”

      “Then you felt sorry for me.”

      “This isn’t about you.” His dark blue eyes glittered in the firelight. “This is about me. I need a good physiotherapist. The best.”

      Confused, I shook my head. “There must be hundreds, thousands, of good physical therapists in the U.K....”

      “I gave up after four,” he said acidly. “The first was useless. I hardly know which was thicker, her skull or her graceless hands pushing at me. She quit when I attempted to give her a gentle bit of constructive criticism.”

      “Gentle?”

      “The second woman was giggly and useless. I sacked her the second day, when I caught her on the phone trying to sell my story to the press...”

      “Why would the press want your story? Weren’t you in a car accident?”

      His lips tightened almost imperceptibly at the corners. “The details have been kept out of the news and I intend to keep it that way.”

      “Lucky,” I said, thinking of my own media onslaught.

      His dark eyes gleamed. “I suppose you’re right.” He glanced down at his arm in the sling, at his leg propped up in front of him. “I can walk now, but only with a cane. That’s why I sent for you. Make me better.”

      “What happened to the other two?”

      “The other two what?”

      “You said you hired four physical therapists.”

      “Oh. The third was a hatchet-faced martinet.” He shrugged. “Just looking at her curdled my will to live.”

      Surreptitiously, I glanced down at my damp cotton jacket, sensible nursing clogs and baggy khakis wrinkled from the overnight flight, wondering if at the moment, I too was curdling his will to live. But my looks weren’t supposed to matter. Not in physical therapy. Looking up, I set my jaw. “And the fourth?”

      “Ah. Well.” His lips quirked at the edges. “One night, we shared a little too much wine, and found ourselves in bed in a totally different СКАЧАТЬ