Sinful Revenge. Annie West

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СКАЧАТЬ hands stilled. ‘So … your mother and father had an affair and you were brought up in the house?’

      ‘More or less … except it wasn’t so much an affair as my father using my mother whenever he felt like it.’

      Luc’s voice was cold. ‘He knew he was your father?’

      Jesse nodded and finally looked at him again, not sure how she felt at seeing the condemnation in his eyes.

      Before she knew it the words were tumbling out. ‘I went to him one day when he was in his study … I don’t know where I got the nerve … I must have been about six. I was going through a phase where I was missing not having a daddy. And I knew he was my father. So I went and asked him why he didn’t act like the fathers I saw at school …’

      ‘Jesse—’

      But she held up a hand, stopping Luc in whatever he was going to say, and finished. ‘He said nothing at first. He just got up and went and closed and locked the door to his study. And then he took off his belt. He whipped me with it, all down my back and legs, until there was blood on the floor. The buckle broke my skin …’

      Luc had left the fish and come round to stand in front of Jesse. When he cupped her face in his hands and lifted it up she was surprised to feel tears running down her face.

      ‘He told me never, ever to call him my father again, and that if I repeated what I’d said to anyone he’d kill me and my mother.’

      Luc shook his head. ‘No wonder you have a thing about locked rooms. Was he violent to your mother?’

      Jesse nodded. She felt Luc gather her into his chest and rock her. He felt so solid and strong and warm. Her hands gripped his shirt, holding on tight until she was still.

      When he let her go and gave her a tissue she hiccuped. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve never told anyone about that before … I don’t usually cry.’

      ‘Don’t be sorry. Is he still—?’

      Jesse stopped his words by blurting out, ‘Please—I don’t want to talk about it any more, okay?’

      After dinner, and much later that night in bed, Luc asked softly, ‘Those scars on your legs … are they from that day?’

      Jesse came up on one arm and looked at Luc. She just nodded. And then, to stop him asking any more questions, she bent down and kissed him on the mouth, slid over him so that her thighs were straddling his hips and her breasts were crushed into his chest.

      Luc clamped his hands around her hips and lifted her slightly until she felt him guiding his erection between her legs. And Jesse weakly obliterated everything from her mind except this exquisite moment.

      When the storm had passed Jesse curled into Luc’s side, once again claiming him in sleep in a way which should have had him prising her from him, but which was having the opposite effect.

      Luc felt more than a little pole-axed. When Jesse had told him about her father earlier a tidal wave of anger had come over him at the thought of her being so abused. And also a feeling of pride … that she’d come through something like that and forged such a successful life for herself.

      He sighed deeply and recognised that he was in serious danger of becoming so sidelined by this woman that he’d forget about his primary focus, which was to get off the island and get back in time to deal with O’Brien.

      He had Jesse exactly where he wanted her—literally—but he found that instead of exploiting this intimacy he was intent on seducing her some more … and then some more. She was a fever in his blood, and he was very much afraid he wasn’t ready to douse it just yet.

      Luc felt the old tentacles of vulnerability reach out to touch him with ghostly memories, but he pushed them aside and damned them all. Jesse was different … this situation was different. He would never be led astray again.

      As he fell asleep he reassured himself that he hadn’t lost sight of his goal at all. He was still entirely focused on his endgame, and in complete control of what was happening …

      Jesse was sitting on the couch in the den, feeling more sated than she’d ever felt in her life. After waking late, and a lazy, lingering brunch, which had inevitably ended with them back in bed, she’d left Luc asleep upstairs to come down and see to Tigger. Before she’d left the bedroom, though, she’d spent an indulgent moment watching Luc, his big body sprawled in abandon, utterly self-confident even in sleep.

      She watched Tigger now, who was valiantly trying to unthread the stunning oriental carpet on the floor with his tiny claws, and deftly lifted him out of harm’s way and onto the couch beside her. He promptly went to the edge and looked down the great distance. He miaowed indignantly, and she smiled at his clear frustration.

      She lifted him up and took him into the kitchen saying into his sweet fur, ‘I think it’s milk and nap time for baby cats …’

      It was only when she was tucking him into his box and watching him lap greedily at the milk that Jesse realised with a shock just how far into a fantasy world she’d allowed herself to travel.

      In the past few days, since everything had become physical between her and Luc, she had somehow begun to imagine that perhaps this was real. That this bubble was not some mad aberration. When the reality was that she’d kidnapped Luc Sanchis to stop him from saving her father … which he must still want to do at all costs. She’d conveniently blocked that out because she’d become far more interested in the physical nirvana Luc promised every time he touched her.

      She heard him call her name now, faintly, from upstairs. Galvanised by panic, because she couldn’t have him look at her with that far too perceptive gaze when she felt so exposed, Jesse lurched out of the villa and down a path she hadn’t yet explored. It led to a beautifully soft and sandy private cove. But Jesse was oblivious.

      She hugged her arms around herself at the water’s edge, feeling cold. What had she been thinking, allowing Luc to seduce her like this? She mocked herself. More accurately, what had she been thinking, allowing herself to be a full and willing participant in that seduction?

      The deadline was in three days’ time. Three days and her father would be ruined. She’d almost lost sight of that goal. If Luc had turned to her that morning as they’d lain in his bed and said to her, I really need to get back to work … Jesse would most likely have tripped downstairs and rung for a jet before she’d even realised what she was doing.

      With a little sob of emotion that made her clamp her hand over her mouth, she realised I don’t know who I am any more! The cool shell she’d built up to keep people at arm’s length was well and truly gone. She’d turned into someone who cried at the drop of a hat and was happy to blurt out secrets she’d harboured for a lifetime. Not even the nicest of her social workers or foster parents had managed to get her to reveal what had happened to her, and yet with Luc she’d spilled it all.

      How could she trust anything that had happened between them? She imagined Luc waking and remembering with distaste that he had a job to do: to try to make Jesse believe he really wanted her. This whole environment was contrived and false. From the moment she’d forced Luc onto this island she shouldn’t have trusted anything. Or him. No matter how much the weak part of her believed she could or longed to.

      She’d seen how her father had charmed СКАЧАТЬ