His Perfect Partner. Laura Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ on legs that felt like jelly. ‘Would you please leave?’ She wondered if he could see the glistening of tears in her eyes from this distance, and decided that he probably couldn’t. ‘I don’t think we have a great deal to say to one another!’

      ‘So polite, Miss Shaw.’ Jean-Luc’s voice was deliberately heavy with mockery. ‘I see those beautiful English manners that I remember so well haven’t entirely deserted you.’

      ‘I don’t want to talk to you!’ Rachel’s restraint was slowly beginning to give way. ‘I don’t see what possible reason you have for coming here.’

      ‘This estate is deeply in debt. You are in very real danger of losing everything. That is correct, isn’t it?’ His crisp tones cut through the atmosphere which lay heavy between them.

      ‘How clever you are!’ Rachel retorted harshly. ‘So my financial position is common knowledge, then?’

      ‘No, it is not. I have just made it my business to find out what is happening here, that’s all.’

      ‘Oh, really! And why is that?’ Rachel asked frostily. ‘Am I supposed to feel flattered you’ve taken such an interest?’

      ‘Flattered?’ He made her suffer by pretending to be dense, and threw Rachel a look of puzzlement that made her want to curl up and die right in front of him, making him almost hate himself. ‘I do not think flattery enters the equation. Oh, I see,’ he added cruelly, ‘you maybe imagined that I had kept some sort of a tab on the place because of old associations?’ There was a cutting smile, the flash of even, white teeth. ‘Sentimentality.’ He arched a dark brow. ‘Never my forte.’

      Rachel placed a hand to her brow. She was having trouble coping with all of this. It was bad enough that she should be losing her home, but even worse to have Jean-Luc by her side, pointing out the awful fact. ‘So…what do you want?’ she asked unsteadily, eyeing him with obvious dislike.

      ‘I can help.’

      Rachel looked into the enigmatic dark eyes. ‘Help me? Are you crazy?’ She inhaled, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible. ‘Do you honestly believe that I would want any help of yours?’

      ‘Whether you want it or not—that is immaterial,’ he replied coolly. ‘You need it. You have found debts every which way you turn because of your aunt’s inability to take financial advice, and tomorrow the bank will foreclose. Isn’t that correct?’

      ‘I…I have some money of my own,’ Rachel informed him unsteadily. ‘I’m not wildly rich, but I have some resources to call upon.’

      ‘Enough to retrieve this place from the impatient hands of the bank?’ Jean-Luc shook his head. ‘Stop fooling yourself! You might have scrimped and saved every penny for the past few years, but it would be chicken feed compared to what would be needed to get yourself out of debt and pay for the upkeep of such a large estate.’ He crossed the room towards her, standing close.

      ‘Are you prepared to lose this place just because you’re too stubborn to listen to what I have to say?’ His tone was harsh and full of derision. ‘I can’t believe you’d be that foolish.’

      ‘Believe what you like!’ Rachel replied shakily. ‘After all, I was foolish enough all those years ago to allow a smooth-talking Frenchman to get me into his bed!’

      Silence. The room seemed still suddenly—even the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to suspend its ticking.

      ‘As I recall, we first made love on the grass,’ Jean-Luc replied quietly.

      ‘How dare you?’ Rachel continued shakily. ‘How dare you march in here, telling me that I must listen to you? Just who do you think you are?’

      ‘I know what I was.’

      Rachel gasped as Jean-Luc snaked out a hand to prevent her from flouncing off towards the door. He pulled her close and suddenly it was like six years ago as he looked down into her trembling face, except that this time there was an element of punishment and force in his expression, along with the compelling tension and the supreme sexual vitality which was so much a part of him. ‘This place means something to you. Don’t be a fool and allow old prejudices to cloud your judgement just because we were once—’

      ‘Let me go!’ Rachel struggled free. She didn’t need to be reminded what they had once been to each other. Every nerve end in her body tingled with recollection—with a dreadful and intolerable yearning that had sparked into life the moment she had set eyes on him. ‘You think you can return after all these years and presume to tell me about the way I feel!’ she retorted angrily. ‘You, of all people!’

      ‘I don’t presume—I know,’ Jean-Luc informed her with disconcerting arrogance. So this was how it was going to be, he told himself—acrimonious, bitter. And to think that he had once been fool enough to imagine she’d loved him as much as he’d loved her.

      ‘Now.’ He kept his voice hard. ‘I have come here with a genuine business proposition. Are you prepared to stop acting like a petulant little girl and listen, or do you want to lose everything?’ Dark brows were raised questioningly. ‘Think carefully, Rachel, which is it to be?’

      CHAPTER TWO

      RACHEL wanted to run away. She wanted to scream and cry with anger and frustration—yell at Jean-Luc who was nothing but a cold-hearted, unfeeling swine. He had devastated her life. How dared he come back and open up all the old wounds? How dared he speak to her this way? How dared he?

      But she didn’t move. Instinct told her that he would surely get the better of any scene she chose to make, just as before, just as always. And, besides, to display the way she felt would be to indicate that everything mattered—that he mattered—and that was the last thing she wanted.

      ‘OK.’ Rachel inhaled a steadying breath. ‘Say what you’ve got to say.’

      ‘Not here.’ He dismissed her offer without the slightest hesitation, pulling back his cuff to glance at the watch on his wrist. ‘Not now. I’m already late for another appointment. It will have to be later.’

      ‘How much later?’ Rachel struggled to keep the fury out of her voice. ‘I haven’t got that much time. I have an appointment with the trustees of Aunt Clara’s estate and the bank manager first thing in the morning.’

      ‘We’ll talk this evening—over dinner.’ Jean-Luc surveyed her with a cool expression. ‘Then I will arrange for my accountant and solicitor to meet with your financial advisers so that things can move as swiftly as possible. My car will pick you up at eight.’

      ‘What if I don’t want to have dinner with you?’

      Dark eyes scanned Rachel’s flushed face. ‘It’s part of the deal—besides, that is the only time that I have free.’

      ‘My, my! What a busy person you are!’ Sarcasm hardened Rachel’s voice, and she turned away towards the window.

      ‘Eight o’clock.’ Jean-Luc’s voice was brisk and businesslike. There was a slight pause. Rachel had to summon all her will-power not to turn and look at him at the sound of the drawing-room door being opened. ‘Au revoir.’

      Rachel watched through the СКАЧАТЬ