Rebel's Bargain

Orsino’s lips curved in a tight smile. He looked forward to making her squirm. It was small enough revenge for what she’d done.

‘Don’t fret, Lucca. The woman I have in mind is just what the doctor ordered.’

Poppy drew a jagged breath as the taxi wove through traffic.

Fear had crowded close from the moment news broke of the avalanche and the two injured climbers. Even strangers felt fear for Orsino and awe for what he’d done. She’d overheard them discussing it at the airport: Orsino Chatsfield’s heroism, or his foolhardiness, depending on your view.

She looked at her ringless hands twisting in her lap. It wasn’t fear she felt but terror. It grated through her empty stomach.

She hadn’t seen Orsino in five years but she couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. His vitality, his passion, oh, Lord, his passion!

Her hands clenched as memories rushed to the surface, heating her skin.

His arrogance. His demands. The way he was so ready to judge but so unready to face his own faults.

Despite all the negatives, a hard, heavy lump pressed down on her chest as if she’d swallowed an anvil.

The message from the hospital—so uninformative, yet so peremptory—had congealed the dread in her veins. It had sent her racing from France to the base of the Himalayas. She hadn’t caught her breath the whole way. Even now her heart pumped too fast.

The taxi stopped and Poppy looked out at the ugly hospital, her heart in her mouth.

She didn’t even blink when a cluster of press surged, bombarding her with questions. She barely heard them. All she could think of was what awaited her inside.

* * *

Poppy’s footsteps echoed in the silent corridor. With each step her nerves screwed tighter.

Please, please. Let him survive. Let him live.

She’d told herself she felt nothing for Orsino Chatsfield. The burn of negative feelings had died long ago, buried under the overload of sheer hard work that had taken her to the top of her profession. No time to feel hurt, regret or guilt when every waking hour was occupied. That’s what she’d told herself for five years. What she’d believed. Till yesterday.

The fact he’d almost died on one of the world’s most inhospitable mountains, might even now be dying, made her swallow convulsively, her throat clogging.

He couldn’t die.

Poppy stumbled. She who never faltered, not even in six-inch stilettos, navigating a catwalk artistically obscured by dry-ice vapour.

Finally she reached the last room. Taking a shaky breath she stepped in, only to halt as she spied the figure unmoving in the hospital bed.

He was so still that for a horrible few seconds she wondered if he breathed.

Poppy pressed her hand to her chest. Her heart battered her ribs so hard it felt like it might jump free.

Her gaze riveted on the bed. She couldn’t remember Orsino being still. He was always on the move, as if his life force was greater than everyone else’s. The only time she’d seen him unmoving was when she’d woken before him. She remembered drinking in the sight of him, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, so precious as he sprawled beside her. The desperate intensity of her feelings had terrified her.

With good reason.

She should have trusted her instincts and run for her life.

Except she’d been hooked from the first look.

Orsino lay swathed in bandages—glaring white against his tan. One arm was in a sling, covered from fingers to elbow. The other, bare on the cotton blanket, bore livid bruises. His head was bandaged, as well. Not just his scalp but his eyes, too.

Poppy’s heart plunged to the toes of her soft kid boots.

Only the darkened jawline and column of bronzed throat were familiar. They were strong, beautifully formed and powerful. And his mouth—she surveyed those thin lips that could quirk in a smile guaranteed to make a woman’s heart soar.

She blinked, trying not to remember the words that had shot from those sculpted lips five years ago. But time hadn’t diminished her memory. They slashed her anew, reviving guilt, indignation and tearing pain.

Poppy swallowed convulsively. How bad was he? The news reports had been sensational but unreliable. Those head wounds—

‘Amindra? Is that you?’

Everything in her froze at the low words, gravelly as if he wasn’t used to speaking. She remembered that early-morning voice, how it had woken her so often, murmuring outrageous suggestions as his marauding hands played her body like a maestro tuning an instrument.

Relief flooded her that he was well enough to speak, and horror, too, at her tumbling rush of emotions.

Poppy bit her cheek, summoning strength. She felt wobbly but after more than a decade modelling she was an expert at hiding behind an impassive mask.

Her gaze went to his bandaged eyes and she shivered. Fear iced her spine.