Exquisite Revenge

‘We’re done, Jesse. Our little interlude is over.’

Luc’s hand dropped from her jaw and he sat back. Jesse just stared at him. All she could think about was that he’d held her aloft again for a brief moment and was now letting her smash to the ground. Revenge. Retribution. Such ineffectual words for the feelings blooming inside her like blood spreading on the ground.

Pathetically, it had to be the quickest revenge in history—a mere couple of days and nights. A maelstrom was erupting in her chest—so many emotions that she didn’t know which was uppermost. Hurt. Anger. Pain, yes. That was there more than all of them. Pain because she’d been so weak. She’d lain down and let him take her when all he’d wanted to do was punish her. It had only taken a quickie on her bedroom rug and another in his car for him to become bored.

Incensed, and galvanised by a force greater than she’d ever felt, Jesse reached over and slapped Luc across the face. It was awkwardly delivered, but he didn’t move or flinch. She wanted to hit him again so badly she shook with it.

‘You bastard,’ she said shakily. ‘You absolute bastard.’

And then he said, ‘Just go, Jesse. Get out.’

Jesse didn’t need any encouragement. She scrambled out of the car and slammed the door, standing on the pavement and fighting down the tremors starting to rack her body with shock and pain. She wanted to watch him drive away, etch it onto her memory so she would never be so duped again.

The door opened. Luc was holding out her shoes.

Jesse spat at him, ‘Keep them. You bought them anyway, and if you can find a mistress with the same shoe size you can use them again—impress her with your recessionary scruples.’

Luc just dropped them to the gutter and the door closed. The car pulled away. The back wheel drove over one of the shoes, crushing it. Jesse stood at the side of the road, barefoot, and her heart splintered into a million pieces, each one cutting her like glass.

As his car drove off, all Luc could feel was a dull ache. Not even the tingling of his cheek where Jesse had slapped him. He closed his eyes, but he could still see how she’d looked just now—as if he’d slapped her. Then all he could see was the intent expression on Jesse’s face as she’d come over to touch his face, effortlessly sensing his black mood. And then the expression on her face as she’d slid onto him, taking him into her tight, silky embrace.

His eyes snapped open again. He’d set out to get revenge, but within just thirty-six hours things were already derailing fast. Again. It had happened on the island and now here. The woman seemed to have some innate ability to burrow under Luc’s skin and lodge there like a thorn, sending him spinning in a million different directions at once.

On some level he’d been confident that Jesse would instantly morph into a woman he knew how to handle, but she hadn’t. And she couldn’t. Because she was utterly different. She was achingly sexy and vulnerable. Yet stronger than anyone he’d ever known. And the truth was she made him feel weak.

As he’d held her on his lap just now, in his arms, something soft had been cracking him open all over again, making him as vulnerable as he’d been on the island.

In the aftermath of that shattering climax Luc had seen only one possible outcome. She had to go. His very life depended on it—the life he knew, the life he’d built up around himself and his family with ruthless intent. Jesse threatened the equilibrium he’d worked so hard to achieve every time he looked at her, smelled her scent.

He should have just ignored her the other evening. That would have been revenge enough. But he’d been weak. He’d had to have her. He wouldn’t be so weak again. It was over. His and Jesse’s lives had entwined for a brief moment in time. That was all it was and all it ever would be.

He didn’t want her in his life. It was that simple. He needed to feel in control, and control was in very short supply around Jesse Moriarty.

As Luc’s car cut through the light night-time London traffic he relished the prospect of his life finally returning to normal and ignored the dull ache in his chest. A dull ache was nothing. He could cope with a dull ache over the almost painful intensity Jesse threatened him with …

Two Weeks Later …

Luc sat on the edge of the bed in his New York apartment’s bedroom. Downtown Manhattan was laid out before him. Usually it inspired him with an incredible sense of energy. Except energy was in short supply, and had been for two weeks now. He felt nothing but numb—as if something had died inside him when he’d driven away from Jesse that night.

She was everywhere. In his thoughts, in his dreams. Only yesterday he’d stepped out of his offices and a woman had careened into him, small with short strawberry-blonde hair. Luc’s heart had spasmed so violently he’d felt dizzy as he’d reached out to grab her shoulder. The woman had looked back. She wasn’t Jesse. Nothing like Jesse, and she’d shouted an expletive to Luc, telling him to keep his hands to himself …

Biting back a groan, Luc stood up and noticed that he’d left the TV on all night on mute. He grimaced at this evidence of his sleeplessness, and was about to turn off the rolling English news channel when his hand stilled on the remote and his breath dried in his throat.

It was Jesse, and this time she wasn’t a mirage. She was struggling through a mob crowd outside her apartment, with only a security guard to help her, and she looked tiny and defenceless.

Suddenly the numbness disappeared and feeling rushed back into Luc’s body with such force he almost staggered. In that moment his heart cracked into two pieces and he knew he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.

Jesse was trying very hard not to let terror grip her into a state of paralysis.

The security guard on the phone sounded weary. ‘They’re still here, love. Looks like they’re settling in for the night too.’

Jesse put down the phone and blinked back the onset of weak tears. If anything had shown her the depth of hatred and resentment Luc felt for her this had. She’d been under siege in her apartment for two days now—ever since someone had leaked to the press who she was. The disgraced JP O’Brien’s daughter.

She found it easier to keep the incredible hurt and pain at bay if she focused on hating him.

Her phone rang and she picked it up, saying automatically, ‘No, I’m not interested in giving a?

?’