Читать книгу One Night: Sensual Bargains - Maureen Child - Страница 12

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU 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.

“It’s almost superhuman,” I breathed. I jumped when I realized I’d said it out loud. Praise wasn’t part of our deal. I blushed. “I, um, mean...”

“No. I heard you perfectly.” Still jogging, Edward turned his head to give me a triumphant grin. “I amaze you with my strength and power. You’re in awe. You’re wishing right now you could give me a big fat kiss....”

“Am not!” I said indignantly, my cheeks on fire.

“I can see it in your face.” His grin widened. “Oh Edward,” he said mockingly in falsetto, “You’re incredible. You’re my own personal hero—”

His sentence ended when his ankle abruptly twisted beneath him. He slammed down hard, cracking his shoulder and head against the treadmill. In a second, I was on my knees beside him.

“Are you all right?” Luckily he’d been wearing the safety, which made the treadmill’s engine stop, or the skin of his cheek would have been ripped raw. “Careful. Don’t sit up so fast—”

Ignoring me, he ripped his arm away with a scowl. “I’m fine.”

“It was my fault—”

“It wasn’t,” he said shortly.

“I distracted you.”

Edward looked even more ticked off than ever. “Stop trying to take the blame. You didn’t do anything.”

“Your head’s bleeding. We might need to take you to a hospital—” But as I started to run my hands along his head, he yanked away.

“Stop bothering. I said I’m fine.” He put his hand to his scalp and his skin was covered in blood as he pulled it away.

Rushing across the cottage, I grabbed a clean white towel. Turning on the hot water in the sink, I got it wet and soapy then brought it back to him. Taking it without comment, he wiped his head. I put my hands over my mouth, almost ill with guilt.

“I shouldn’t have let you push yourself so hard. It’s my job to control you....”

“As if you could,” he gibed. He snorted, and one corner of his lips lifted as he looked at me. “Seriously. Think about it.”

Our eyes met. My shoulders relaxed slightly.

“That’s true. I can’t tell you anything, can I?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing.”

Seeing the blood dripping down his forehead, my smile fell. “But you can’t be strong all the time, Edward.” My voice faltered. “Even you have moments of weakness....”

His smile changed to a glare. “Weakness?”

I recoiled from the blast of cold anger. “From your injury.”

“Ah. Well. That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?” He bared his teeth into a smile. “To wipe every trace of weakness from my body, to make me twice the man I was before she—”

He looked away, his jaw tight.

“Do you miss her?” I said softly.

“No,” he bit out. He pulled the towel from his head. “She was a good reminder of the lesson I learned as a child. Never depend on anyone.”

What had happened when he was a child? I wondered. “You depend on me.”

“To fix me? Yes. To keep my secrets? Yes.”

“That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, looking at me. “That’s something.” He abruptly turned away. Grabbing the handrail of the treadmill, he pulled himself to his feet. “The bleeding’s stopped. Back to work.”

“You’re going to run more?” I stared at him in shock.

“Why not, are you tired?” he said challengingly.

I held up my hands. “Don’t even! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“I know what I can handle.” But as he stepped back on the treadmill, I saw the white of his knuckles as he gripped the handrails.

Edward was used to commanding everything and everyone. He was nearly killing himself to prove his strength. And forget the time a few thousand pounds of steel had crushed him like a blade of grass.

“A body needs time to heal.” I put my hand over his. “Even a body like yours.”

He tilted his head with a mocking smile. “Looking, were you?”

I blushed. “No. That is, yes, of course I was, but—”

“I like it when you blush.” Turning away, he reached for the power button of the treadmill. He really was determined to kill himself.

“No more running for today,” I said desperately. What could I possibly do to stop him? “Um—take off your clothes and lie down.”

He gave a low laugh. “You really don’t want me to run. Very well,” he said gravely. “If you’re determined to lure me away with sex, I accept.”

“Take your clothes off for a massage. I don’t want you to stiffen up....” The corners of his lips quirked, and I scowled. “Shut up!”

“I didn’t say anything,” he said meekly.

I pointed at the massage table. “You know what I want.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.” Stepping off the treadmill, Edward looked down at me with a gleam of light in his eyes. “I’m just surprised it’s taking you so long to admit it.”

He was so close. And looking at me so intensely. My heart was pounding. All he had to do was reach out and take me in his arms.

“Admit what?” I breathed, trying to ignore the bead of sweat between my breasts as heat flashed through me. “Admit you’re a colossal pain?”

“Have it your way.” With a grin, he stepped back and reached up to pull his T-shirt off his body. “So you want me naked, huh? I knew sooner or later you’d be begging me to—” He flinched, and exhaled, dropping his arms. Gritting his teeth, he started to try again.

“Stop. Is it your shoulder?”

“It’s fine,” he ground out, an obvious lie. He must have hit his shoulder harder than I’d thought.

Coming to him, I ran my hands over his shoulder anxiously, then exhaled. “It’s not dislocated.”

“I told you.” He started to reach up to pull off his shirt.

“Stop. Let me do it.”

He tilted his head, his eyes gleaming. “Be my guest.”

My hands shook as I lifted his faded cotton T-shirt upward, trying to ignore the warmth and steel of his tautly muscled chest and shoulders beneath my fingertips. I yanked it over his head, tousling his dark hair that my fingers longed to touch, to see if it was as silky as it looked.

He straightened. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I couldn’t stop my eyes from lingering over his hard-muscled form laced with dark hair. I licked my lips.

Then our eyes met.

Our bodies were still so close together. The upper half of his body was now naked.

And Edward suddenly smiled.

Not a friendly smile. A dangerous one, full of masculine power that threatened all kinds of things. Things I would like. Things that would pleasure my body. Things that would break my heart.

But I’d already had my heart broken once. And if Jason Black had broken it, Edward St. Cyr would crush it, smash it, light it on fire and then laugh, as he watched the ashy remains float softly to the ground.

“Are you going to take off the rest of my clothes, or shall I?” His dark sapphire eyes gleamed. “It might assist in your massage to take off your own clothes as well.”

A selfish man may try to tempt the unwary virgin into sensual pleasures beyond her imagining, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley had warned. There is only one means of resistance. The weapon of icy courtesy.

Coldly, I lifted my chin. “This isn’t a date. Your muscles need to be massaged after all your exercise today, and the fall. Otherwise you’ll hurt.” Grabbing a large white towel, I flung it at him. “Don’t lift your shoulder again today. Let me know when it’s safe to turn around.”

Folding my arms, I turned the opposite direction. Furious at myself.

Why did I let him have this effect on me? No other client, and there had been some good-looking ones, had remotely made me feel like this. Even Jason had never made me feel like this. The times he’d kissed me had been pleasant. But he’d never made me feel so confused, off-kilter, and well, burning hot....

“You can turn around.”

I did so. And wished I hadn’t.

Edward was stretched naked, facedown across the massage table, as I’d ordered, covered only by a white towel across his backside, between his powerful back, his slender hips and thickly muscled thighs. Leaning his elbow against the leather cushion of the table, he propped up his head and looked at me darkly.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he said huskily. “Me naked and at your mercy?”

I opened my mouth for a witty comeback, but only a squeak came out. I coughed to cover, then nervously went to the table. It’s no big deal, I told myself fiercely. I’d massaged him many times over the past few weeks.

But something felt different. Something had changed. My skittish sexual awareness of him had managed to penetrate the gym. Why? How?

Edward lifted a dark eyebrow. “Be gentle with me,” he said mockingly. Closing his eyes, he propped his chin on his folded arms and waited for me to touch him.

Touch him.

I looked down at my hands, which felt suddenly tingly. I knew how to give a professional massage. Why were my hands shaking? I didn’t feel like a competent physical therapist. I felt like what he’d once called me—a frightened virgin.

Edward St. Cyr, my boss who’d inspired me and irritated me in equal measure, who was way out of my league and didn’t see me as anything more than someone he could casually flirt with, and perhaps casually sleep with, and casually forget, was naked beneath my hands. And I feared if I showed a moment of weakness, he might roll over and devour me. I pictured a lion devouring a gazelle in a documentary, the flashing jaws digging into the meat and sinew.

If he felt my hands shaking... All he had to do was turn around on the table and pull me down hard against him in a savage kiss.

Don’t think about it, I told myself fiercely. Flexing my fingers, I poured oil in one palm then rubbed my hands together to warm them. Slowly, I lowered them to his back.

Edward’s skin was warm, like satin. I heard the soft whir of the nearby space heater as I ran my hands down the length of his spine, feeling the smoothness of his skin over hard muscle.

I wondered what his naked body would feel like, pressed against my own.

Muscles. I tried not to think of him as a dangerous man I was longing to kiss, but focus instead on the individual parts of his body, muscles, the tendons, the ligaments. I tried to see him only as a patient.

Yes. A patient. Just a body, like a machine. Tissues connected to ligaments connected to muscles. Cells.

Not an amazing masculine body, rippled with muscles and power, attached to the soul of the man who’d teased and challenged me for the past seven-and-a-half weeks as I lived in his castle. The man I thought of before I slept, aware of his bedroom down the hall from mine.

As I ran my hands down the trapezius muscles of his upper back, I tried to calm the rapid beat of my heart. I looked across the room, past all the shiny, modern exercise equipment and weights and yoga mats. Outside the windows, the noonday sun was peeking through the clouds, a soft pink through the bare black trees, leaving patterns and shadows across the winter-bare garden.

But as I stroked and rubbed Edward beneath my palms, I felt hot as summer. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine what it would be like if he were my lover. How it would feel to sink into the pleasure I imagined he’d give me. Afterward my soul might be ash, but I’d finally know the exhilaration of the fire.

For all these years, I’d guarded both my body and my heart, afraid of ever again feeling the pain of losing someone or something I cared about. But it turned out I hadn’t really managed to shield myself from pain. Could anyone?

Sadness and ash came into life anyway. People died. People broke your heart.

Edward sighed. “That feels great.”

“I’m glad,” I said hoarsely. Dripping more richly scented oil onto his skin, I rubbed the length of his back in silence, the long muscles of his legs, one at a time, to the soles of his feet. Then I lifted the towel a few inches above his body. “Roll over.”

He didn’t move. “It’s, um, not necessary.”

“Of course it is.” It was difficult to stand there holding the towel away from his naked backside and not look. My tone was waspish. “I have to do your other side. Do you want your muscles to be lopsided? Your back relaxed, your front all stiff?”

“Um...”

“For heaven’s sake, just turn over!”

So he did. Exhaling with relief, I gingerly tossed the towel over his front for modesty.

And I saw that his front side was, indeed, stiff. My eyes went wide.

Oh my God, was that—him?

I’d never seen any man naked before. I wasn’t seeing him naked now, just the shape of him jutting from his body, almost pornographically explicit beneath the white terry cloth towel, cylindrical and huge. Were all men that large? My cheeks burned, but I stared down at him, fascinated, unable to look away.

Then I felt Edward’s gaze. “I took you for a virgin, but you truly don’t have any experience at all, do you?”

“I’ve had lots,” I lied. Our eyes met, and my shoulders sagged. “If you mean work. With men—none.”

“Not even with Jason?” he said incredulously. “No experience with sex, of any kind?”

The burn of my cheeks had turned radioactive now, and I couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ve been kissed once or twice.”

“You’re twenty-eight!”

“I know,” I snapped. To hide my embarrassment, I turned away to grab the oil. He’d had a purely physical reaction, I told myself, the automatic response of his hungry male body to the touch of any female. It wasn’t that he wanted me. Not in particular. It couldn’t be.

Could it?

I did a quick comparison between his perfectly chiseled body, his power and wealth and his incredible masculine good looks—and what I had on offer.

Nope.

If you lose an inch of moral high ground, rush back to it as quick as you can, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley advised. Clearing my throat, I said reproachfully. “Keep this professional, please.”

“You first,” he said, sounding amused. Leaning his head back against his palms, he closed his eyes, and I remembered how he’d caught me staring.

Feeling foolish, I tentatively massaged the muscles of his chest, his arms, his shoulders. I was gentle with the injuries that still hadn’t completely healed, but even those were starting to disappear. He was no longer wearing bandages of any kind. There was nothing to keep my hands off his skin as I traced over the twisted muscles, the jagged scars. He was powerful, virile, sexy. He’d nearly vanquished the accident that had devastated his body. Heaven only knew what gaping wound still remained in his heart.

I looked down at him on the massage table. His eyes were still closed, but there was a twist to his lips I couldn’t read.

“What are you thinking?” I blurted out. I bit my lip, but there was no taking it back.

His dark blue eyes slit open infinitesimally.

“A dangerous question,” he murmured. “Better perhaps for you not to know.”

Was he thinking about the accident? The woman? Or something else entirely? “That’s silly.” I gave a stilted laugh. “Knowledge is never bad.”

“In that case...” His lips curved sardonically. “I am thinking, Miss Maywood, that it would be amusing to seduce you.”

A shiver ripped through my body. Wide-eyed, I stepped back from the massage table. “I work for you.”

“So?”

“I’m—in love with someone else,” I said weakly.

He abruptly sat up. “Not that it matters, but...” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

I stared at him. “Of course I’m sure.”

“You saw their picture, two movie stars gleaming together on the red carpet, entwined, stupid with love. He cheated on you, left you months ago, you never even slept together—but after all this time, you still love him? You’re still faithful? Why?”

Yes, why? My body echoed. Swallowing, I looked at the floor. “I don’t know.”

“It’s true what they say,” he said harshly. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

“Really?” I looked at him steadily. “And have all the women you’ve slept with burned the image of her from your brain—the woman you loved? The woman you almost died for?”

His lips curled, and a low growl came from the back of his throat. “Don’t.”

“Love doesn’t just disappear. You know that as well I do.”

“It can. It has. And you’re stupid to let it do otherwise.” Holding the towel around his hips with one hand, he rose to his feet. His eyes narrowed as he went on the attack. “How does it feel, knowing that your stepsister has everything—the career you want, the man you love?” He tilted his head. “And he probably wanted her from the beginning. He was likely using you, to get to her....”

“Shut up!”

“I feel sorry for you. How it must hurt to know they’ll never be punished for hurting you. That while you suffer, they’re making love in oblivious joy.” He snorted, his lip curling. “You’re so meaningless, they’ve forgotten you even exist.”

His face was close to mine, his expression cruel. My heart pounded with grief and pain. Then looking at him, I suddenly understood.

“You’re not talking about me,” I breathed. “You’re talking about yourself.”

The air between us was suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with the wintery bluster rattling the leaded windows, and the weak afternoon sun falling behind the bare black trees. His lip curled. He turned away.

“We’re done.”

“No.” Reckless of the danger, I grabbed his arm. “I’m trying to make you better,” I said in a small voice. “How can I, if I don’t understand the depths of your injury?”

Edward looked at me, his jaw tight. “You can see it. You’ve touched it with your hands.”

“Some wounds can’t be seen or touched,” I whispered. I took a deep breath. “Some go deeper. Let me help you, Edward,” I said pleadingly. “Tell me what you need.”

His dark blue eyes stared down at me, haunted. Then they turned cold and cruel as the Arctic. Still holding the towel loosely over his hips with one hand, he wrapped the other around the back of my head.

“Here’s how you can help me,” he said huskily. “Here’s what I need.”

And he pulled me against him in a hard, hungry kiss.

I didn’t have time to resist, or think; my body tightened, then melted against his. Edward’s lips were like silk, hot and fiery with need, his tongue brushing against mine. He held me against him, towering over me, strong and powerful and nearly naked.

Then his towel fell to the floor, and there was no nearly about it.

I was wearing a zip-up cotton hoodie, a T-shirt and knit workout pants, as always. But his skin scorched right through my clothes.

His hand moved slowly down my back, as the other cradled the back of my head, his fingers moving through my hair. I felt a whoosh and realized he’d pulled out my ponytail. My hair tumbled down my shoulders. He murmured words against my lips, his voice low, almost a growl.

“I want you, Diana,” he breathed, and claimed my lips savagely.

I’d never been kissed like this before. The pallid, tentative kisses of a brief college boyfriend had left me cold. Jason’s kisses, as I said, were pleasant, nothing more. This?

This was like fire.

Edward St. Cyr wanted my body. Not my soul. Not my heart. There was no respect in his embrace, no concern for my feelings. There was no emotion at all—just physical need and reckless desire.

But my hunger matched his. He made me forget everything—the past, my broken heart, my pain. When he kissed me, I almost forgot my name. He brought me to life, like a single hot ember from cold ash. He made my body blaze like the sun.

I gripped his bare shoulders with an answering fervor that belonged to some other bolder woman—someone fearless—and kissed him back. With everything I had.

I heard his low hiss of breath, then a rising growl at the back of his throat as he pulled me tighter against his naked body. His hands ran over me possessively. He kissed my lips hard enough to bruise, then nibbled my lower lip. He flicked his hot tongue in each corner of my mouth before he slowly moved down, kissing my chin. Kissing my neck.

My head fell back, my hair tumbling down my shoulders. The cottage seemed to spin around me, as if I were at the center of a tornado. My skin felt hot, burning like the desert. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t open my eyes. If I did, I’d see Edward St. Cyr—my handsome, arrogant boss—kissing down my neck to my chest. If I saw that, I was afraid my mind would explode—along with my body....

His hands brushed roughly over my breasts, over hard, aching nipples. He cupped them over my thin cotton shirt and bra, stroking the sensitive tips with his fingers. My breathing became ragged.

“Take it off,” he murmured in my ear, and I felt the flick of his tongue against my ear. Prickles of desire, flashing cold then hot, raced up and down my body. Leaning forward to kiss me, he whispered, “Take it all off.”

His hands were insistent against my naked belly as he reached beneath my T-shirt. He reached higher still, toward my thin cotton bra that barely seemed to contain my breasts, which felt strangely tight and heavy, heaving with every gasp of breath. He kissed my lips hard, filling my mouth with his tongue, as he reached to take a breast in his hand. He squeezed an aching nipple.

Sensation ripped through me, and I gasped, gripping his bare shoulders. Electricity coursed through my veins, and blind raging need that frightened me with its intensity.

“I’ll help you,” he whispered, and pulling on my sweatshirt, he started to push me down, back onto the massage table.

Abruptly, my eyes flew open.

I realized he intended to take me right here. In the gardener’s cottage, surrounded by gym equipment and free weights. Against the massage table. He would ruthlessly help himself to my virginity without any more thought than that he had a hard-on, and I was conveniently available to slake it.

He didn’t want me. He wanted a woman. He intended to make use of me, in the same way I’d scarfed a bag of chips, the times I’d come home from work too starving to wait for a proper meal.

When Edward had kissed me so passionately, when I’d felt his naked body hard and powerful against mine, I’d been overwhelmed with the intensity of sensation. I’d been lost in fantasy and need.

In another moment, I would have let him rip off all my clothes, or—if that was too much trouble—simply pull down my stretchy yoga pants and thrust inside me, like an animal grunting as he took his pleasure, until he left me thirty seconds later, sticky and used upon the table.

None of my romantic dreams had fantasized about that.

I pushed on his shoulders. “No.”

Edward’s heavy-lidded gaze suddenly looked confused. “What?”

My hands pressed harder against his shoulders. I stared up at him in the gray, slanted winter sunlight gleaming dully from the window. Outside, I heard the howl of the wind, the roar of the sea. The barking of a dog. I heard my own thin voice. “I said no.”

Looking bewildered, Edward released me, and we stood facing each other beside the table, my clothes disheveled, his entirely absent. I tried not to look down. Tried not to think about how I’d just nearly given him everything—my hungry body and bruised heart—for the sake of blind passion.

But oh, that passion...my body was still trembling with the pleasure of it, with the desperate need. My body hated me right now for stopping. I wanted him still, desperately.

But he had to want me.

Me, Diana, not just any random woman.

All right, so I wasn’t exactly a beautiful movie star like Madison. That didn’t mean I had to settle for being a stale bag of chips. Not to anyone.

Pulling away, I fisted my hands at my sides. “You are my patient. There are some lines I will never cross.”

“Oh, for...” He gave a low curse. “Surely you’ve crossed lines before.”

I shook my head stubbornly.

“Never broken a single rule?”

“No.”

Reaching out, he brushed tendrils of hair from my face, tracing his fingertips down my temple, to my cheek, to my trembling lips. “Then,” he whispered, “you’ve missed a lot of fun.”

He towered over me, unselfconscious and proud, though utterly naked. While my own body was trembling. Blood rushed through my veins and I was breathing too fast. I didn’t let myself look anywhere but his eyes. Just meeting his hot, hungry gaze was hard enough.

“Let me love you, Diana,” he said in a low voice.

For a second, my heart stopped. Then...

“Love me? You said you’ll never love anyone.”

His breath exhaled on a hiss. “That kind of love is overrated. Hearts and flowers and pledging fidelity forever.” His lip curled. “As if you can make emotion permanent by mummifying it in a vow.” He took a step closer. “I do like you, Diana. I respect you enough to treat you as my equal—”

“Gee, thanks.” My voice was tart.

He placed a finger on my lips. “We both know what is going to happen between us. Pretend otherwise, if you like, but you’re fooling no one. Not even yourself.” He traced his fingertips along my cheek. “I felt how you just kissed me. You want me, as I want you.”

I could hardly deny it. “That doesn’t mean I have to act on it.”

“Why not?”

I struggled to remember, and finally managed, “Jason—”

“Ah yes. Jason Black, the bright flame in your heart,” Edward said mockingly. He shook his head. “Let him keep your heart. I will have your body.” He ran his hand gently down my back. “Very soon. And we both know it.”

His words shocked me. But I feared he was right. Even now, it was all I could do not to turn my face into his caress.

It would be so easy to surrender. Part of me wanted nothing more than to be bold—to be a rule breaker like he was. What had following the rules ever done for me, except leave me brokenhearted and alone?

If your employer’s temptation grows too great, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley had warned, run as if your life depended on it. It does.

Trembling, I turned and fled.

“Diana—”

I didn’t stop. Tripping over the yoga mat, I wrenched open the door and ran out into the cold garden.

The earlier snowflakes had changed into a chilly, sodden mist that threatened rain. I was nearly crying by the time I made it back to the main house. But the instant I pushed open the heavy oak door, the thick gray walls started to close in on me.

Never broken a single rule?

No.

Then you’ve missed a lot of fun.

Caesar whined at my feet. Wiping my tears savagely, I looked down to see the sheepdog pacing in front of the door. I’d gotten in the habit of taking him for a walk, since his nominal owner, who was actually and surprisingly Mrs. MacWhirter, had little patience for giving him long walks or letting him sleep on the bed. Getting away suddenly felt absolutely necessary. Grabbing my raincoat and Caesar’s leash, I went back out into the rain, the large sheepdog galloping happily beside me.

I walked the opposite direction of the gardener’s cottage, heading for the path that led to the rocky edge of the cliffs. The mist had turned to drizzle, already melting down the thin layer of snow, which I knew overnight would harden into ice. Ice like Edward’s heart.

Some wounds can’t be seen or touched. Some go deeper. Let me help you, Edward. Tell me what you need.

Here’s how you can help me. Here’s what I need.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh. I abruptly stopped on the path, causing Caesar to jump beside me, before he ran ahead with a snuff.

That was the reason Edward had kissed me. Not because he wanted me. Not even just because he wanted a woman. Oh no.

He’d kissed me to shut me up. Because I’d been asking about his accident, probing with questions he didn’t want to answer. He’d deflected me the easiest, simplest way he knew how. The way that always worked with any woman.

My cheeks were burning now, my throat aching with humiliation. Tears streaked down my face, leaving cold trails beneath the chill of the wind, as I looked out at the vast gray sea.

Edward St. Cyr was used to riding roughshod over people, especially women. He was used to twisting them all around his finger. I knew this. And I’d still let him do it to me.

I stared out at the ocean, watching the light’s play of sparkle and shadows. My tangled hair flew around me in the chilly wind. Watching the seagulls fly away, I almost wished I could join them. To fly away and disappear and never be seen again.

Penryth Hall was supposed to be my place to hide. How did you hide from a hiding place?

Maybe there was nowhere to hide, I thought suddenly, when the person you were really trying to hide from was yourself.

Sooner or later, I’d have to go back to California. Face the scandal, the pity. Face the two people who’d ripped out my heart. And most of all: face myself.

Picking up a stick, I tossed it down the beach. With an eager yelp, Caesar ran after it. My mouth still felt seared from Edward’s kiss. I touched my bruised lips. They still ached for him. For that one single moment, when I’d thought Edward wanted me—me, the invisible girl, completely unnoteworthy either in looks, intelligence or career—I’d felt like I was worth something. Like I mattered.

I writhed with shame to remember it now.

Caesar barked happily, dropping the stick at my feet. I picked it up and tossed it farther down the rocky shore. I stayed out there, procrastinating for as long as I could. But by the time we were both wet with rain and freezing cold, I’d made up my mind.

I was leaving Penryth Hall.

As the dog raced ahead on the return path, I realized I’d finally found something that frightened me more than going back to California.

Staying here.

Edward didn’t really need me anyway. Not anymore. I’d known that when I’d seen him running on the treadmill today.

“You don’t need me,” I said aloud.

Need me, need me, the wind sighed mournfully in return.

As Caesar hurried ahead of me on the wet path, his tongue lolling out as he raced eagerly to get back home to the castle of gray stone, my steps became slower. When I finally reached the door, my feet turned to the left, and I found myself walking around the house to the front door, procrastinating the moment I’d have to go inside and tell him I was leaving. Once I said it, I’d have to do it.

I stopped in shock.

Two expensive sedans were parked in front of Penryth Hall. Standing next to them were my stepsister’s two bodyguards, Damian and Luis.

I stared at them, goggle-eyed. “What are you...”

“Hello, Diana,” Luis said, smiling. “Long time no see.”

But next to him, Damian glowered down at me. “Miss Lowe and Mr. Black are here to see you.” Seven feet tall, bald, and scowling, he shook his head at me. “And she’s really, really mad at you.”