Exquisite Revenge

‘Give me a break, Jesse. It has everything to do with this. Why else would you want to save him so badly? Clearly you have some misguided sense of loyalty to the man—’

‘No!’ Jesse reacted viscerally to those words, cutting Luc off. ‘I don’t want to save him.’

He looked at her. ‘Excuse me?’

Jesse swallowed. ‘I don’t want to save him. I want to ruin him. I want him to be finished for ever. And I’m not going to let you be the one to save him. That’s why I wanted to buy you out—so that no one else would come to his aid …’

For a long tense moment they stared at each other across the divide, and then inexplicably Luc threw back his head and laughed. Jesse just stared at him. But he kept laughing. He couldn’t seem to stop. Eventually he had to sit down on the couch. Tears were running from his eyes.

Anger was rushing upwards inside Jesse; she’d completely exposed herself and he was laughing at her.

She stalked over to Luc and stood over him, much as he’d just done to her. ‘What’s so funny about that?’

Luc stood up, sober now, making her move back. He shook his head. ‘What’s so funny about it, Jesse—what’s so ridiculous—is that all this time we’ve been on the same side …’

‘What do you mean?’ Jesse asked faintly.

She found herself wanting to believe Luc so badly. But at that moment he turned away from her and ran his hands through his hair. She couldn’t see his expression, and in the few seconds before he turned back to face her she remembered standing on that small beach just now. She had the stark realisation that no matter what Luc said now she couldn’t trust him fully. She had to remember that or it could all still unravel.

‘What I mean,’ Luc said, when he turned back, ‘is that I want to see him gone too. I was going to wait until the last moment—until I knew no one else could step in to help him—and then walk away from the deal.’

‘What?’

>

‘When I told you I was interested in his Eastern European concerns it was the truth—but only insofar as I have every intention of saving them for myself and letting him go to hell with the rest of his poisoned businesses. Not that he’s aware of that … yet.’

Jesse looked at him and fought down the trembling flame of hope inside her. She had to be strong. She’d prepared for this her whole life.

She paced away from Luc with crossed arms, and then turned back to face him. ‘What possible motive could you have for wanting to see him ruined?’

She tried not to notice how vibrant and gorgeous he looked in the dying light of the sun as it streamed in the huge windows. She tried to stop her heart from thumping just a little too hard.

‘I told you that my father killed himself.’

Jesse nodded.

Luc paced back and forth, taut energy radiating out from his body. ‘My father was a construction foreman for a company owned by your father in Malaga. One day there was a terrible accident and my father was badly injured. He had to have both legs amputated from the knees down.’ Luc shook his head. ‘When he came home he was a shell of his former self. He was so ashamed of what had happened even though it wasn’t even his fault. It was outdated machinery.’

Luc slashed a hand down. ‘Of course there was little or no health and safety regulations in those days, and as for litigation or admission of culpability …’ He sneered. ‘O’Brien merely hired a new foreman and got on with his work. It was only when the next person had a fatal accident that he was forced to close the plant down.’

‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.

Luc looked at her now and she shivered. His eyes were so black.

‘My father couldn’t cope with being less than a full man. He’d been very proud. My mother was barely coping too, and Eva … she was so young at the time, and difficult. One night I woke up because my mother was screaming. I rushed outside and my father was sitting in his car, in the garage, with the engine on. It was too late to save him.’

Jesse clenched her arms tighter. ‘I’m sorry, Luc.’

‘Yes,’ he said flatly, ‘I’m sorry too. I went to see your father once, when I knew he was visiting the factory one day. It was before my father died. I went to beg him for help. He did exactly the same thing to me, Jesse. He took me into his office and locked the door …’

He gave a curt laugh. ‘Not once since we met again has he even remembered the name of Sanchis—or me as that young boy who confronted him.’

Jesse knew her father had been behind plenty of dodgy practices over the years. Dozens of claims had been mounted against him, but all had come to nothing because he was so well protected. Why would he remember the son of one man from one of his many factories dotted around Europe?

Everything urged her to believe Luc, but she felt as if she was being torn in two. She could feel emotion rising, and she wanted to tell Luc to stop—but he wouldn’t. It was as if he was binding her tighter and tighter with his words and soon she wouldn’t be able to walk away … Her heart was too soft. This was when she had to be most vigilant. But it was agony.

‘He told me that if I ever came back saying anything about my father he’d hurt my mother and Eva. He didn’t touch me physically, but he didn’t have to.’