Exquisite Revenge

‘Jesse … it’s me.’

For a second she was in shock, and then Luc’s deep voice lanced her like a poison arrow. She laughed and it verged on hysteria. ‘Tell me, did you come up with this plan as a little something to keep you occupied because you had no one else to torture?’ She shouted down the phone. ‘Just stay away from me, Sanchis!’

This time after she put the phone down she pulled the cord from the wall.

After a few minutes she heard an e-mail ping in on her home computer and went and sat down.

She opened it up and the first words she saw were: ‘Jesse, don’t stop reading this, please.’

Tigger had somehow got onto the table. Almost absently Jesse scooped him onto her lap. Against her best intentions she read Luc’s e-mail. He claimed not to be involved in leaking the story to the press and said that he’d only just seen the news in New York, that he would come over as soon as he got back to see if she was all right. He also went into a lengthy explanation of what had happened all those years ago with his ex-lover.

Jesse was dangerously close to unravelling at this e-mail. ‘Why does he care what I think anyway?’ she muttered to herself, looking at his e-mail again. He felt guilty. That had to be it. Guilty—and perhaps he pitied her too.

She got panicky when she imagined him arriving at her door, ordering her to open up with that deep voice, threatening to kick it down if she didn’t. She couldn’t forget the devastation she’d felt when he’d thrown her out of his car and his life. The devastation that still lacerated her insides.

She replied:

Don’t write to me again. Don’t come near my apartment. Leave me alone or I will call the police.

Two days later Jesse sent up silent thanks that she was due to go to Oslo for a few days of meetings about investing in one of their biggest gaming consortiums. She was escaping the intense press interest, that was the main thing, and also escaping the endless round of thoughts that seemed determined to circle on Luc Sanchis.

He hadn’t appeared at her apartment, threatening to knock her door down, and Jesse hated herself for being so disappointed. She had told him not to come near her. She was worse than pathetic.

As she settled into the private jet that had been sent for her by the Norwegian company she relished the privacy. Some hair flopped forward onto her forehead and Jesse pushed it back, enjoying this proof that her life was changing in subtle ways all the time.

She was infinitely softer than she had been. Even her clothes were softer. She felt a little exposed in loose haremstyle pants, with a slim gold belt and a soft clinging top, but she couldn’t go back to the asexual uniform she’d worn before. And she hated that her metamorphosis had more to do with one person than her own desire to change: Luc.

Once they were cruising Jesse switched on her laptop. It opened straight onto Luc’s e-mail. She couldn’t help but touch the screen with her fingers, as if she could touch him. The last words of his message blinked out at her: I’ve never felt the desire to set this story straight with anyone except you …

Jesse resolutely deleted the e-mail and crushed all thoughts of Luc Sanchis. She was barely clinging on to control as it was.

It was only when she realised she hadn’t seen the polite air steward who had helped her onto the plane for a while that she began to get a little suspicious. Also, she had the weird sensation that they weren’t flying so much west to east across northern Europe as north to south.

She looked out of the window and the topography definitely looked browner than it should, given that they should almost be descending over Norway by now. In fact the plane didn’t seem to have dipped in altitude at all yet.

Jesse began to panic mildly, but told herself that she was being ridiculous. But as the minutes ticked by and the plane droned onwards, flying further and further into territory that bore no resemblance to Norway, she panicked in earnest.

She got out of her seat and knocked on the main pilot’s door, where the steward had to be too. No answer. Something was definitely up. Jesse sat back down, sweating now. She could see the sea below her and it sparkled in the sunlight. Azure blue and green. An awful suspicion was forming in her head, but she didn’t dare give it oxygen so she sat rigidly in her seat and focused on staying calm.

By the time the plane did land, and a sheepish-looking air steward emerged from the cockpit, Jesse was feeling rage. This was the last straw. She all but sprang out of her seat and went to the open door of the plane. She looked out onto exactly the same peaceful idyllic scene Luc Sanchis had greeted months before—only this time the roles were reversed.

She looked down to see him standing at the side of the Jeep, hands in the pockets of his jeans, a short-sleeved polo shirt straining across his chest. Dark glasses glinted in the sun.

In the space of time since they’d been here the temperature had already risen, and it held the promise of the heat of summer not far away.

Jesse crossed her arms against the emotion in her chest and shouted out, ‘I’m not getting off this plane, Sanchis!’

She watched as Luc ripped his sunglasses off and threw them into the Jeep beside him. He started striding towards her and Jesse squeaked and ran back into the plane, buckling herself back into her seat. The air steward looked on, impassive.

She heard Luc coming up the metal steps, and then he was filling the doorway with his broad frame.

‘How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sanchis? We’re way beyond that now.’

Jesse felt breathless. ‘I’m not leaving, Luc.’ She appealed to the steward. ‘This man is kidnapping me.’

‘Well, in fairness, Ms Moriarty, I think you kidnapped him first.’

Jesse blanched and far too belatedly recognised the young man as the steward she’d hired herself to slip the sleeping aid into Luc’s drink that day. This was how scrambled her brain had become. Her heart sank.