‘Very enterprising.’
‘It’s a non-profit-making operation,’ she added defensively. Wanting to gain his approval just a little too much. ‘We charge a nominal rent and—’
‘Hold up,’ he interrupted. ‘I may think the aristocracy is an anachronism in this day and age, but that doesn’t mean I assume that they are all out to subjugate the masses.
‘That’s remarkably open-minded of you, L…’
‘Luc,’ he prompted, watching with a glimmer of a smile in his deep-set eyes as she bit her lip. ‘It is my name.’
‘You don’t have to live the role you—’ She broke off and gave a grimace as a stab of pain shot through her right ankle.
‘Are you all right?’
Megan waved aside his concern and flexed her right foot. ‘Fine, just turned my ankle, that’s all.’ She frowned at the heel that had got jammed in a crevice in the uneven cobbled surface. She pulled but it didn’t budge. She swore softly under her breath. ‘These things are lethal,’ she complained.
‘But very sexy.’ His lashes lifted and the glitter she saw reflected in the platinum depths of his eyes made her heart thud.
Flushing, Megan lowered her gaze and let the skirt she was holding, gathered bunched in her hand, fall with a damp, silken slither to the ground.
‘I’m not prepared to cripple myself in the pursuit of wolf-whistles…normally,’ she added drily.
Megan had no self-esteem issue, she knew that some men found her attractive, but even while she had been carefully selecting her outfit earlier she had been aware that, no matter what she wore, it wasn’t going to make her look drop-dead gorgeous. It was a fact of life that men who looked like Luc were not generally seen with women who looked the way she did, so tonight she had made an effort.
‘I haven’t inherited my mother’s fashion sense or, for that matter, her figure.’ Forgetting for a split second whom she was talking to, she pressed her hands flat to her nicely formed but not impressive bosom.
Luc’s eyes followed her gesture and his lips twitched. There was no hint of apology in her gesture, just the merest suggestion of wistfulness. ‘You look fine to me.’
The notion that he might have thought she had been fishing for compliments brought a deep flush to her fair skin and a look of horror to her face.
‘I can do without your approval.’ Do without, but wouldn’t it be nice to have it…? Megan’s glance dropped as the thought surfaced unbidden to her mind.
His heavy sigh—a mixture of resignation and irritation, brought her head up.
Eyes holding hers, he set his shoulders against the wall behind him. With his weight braced on one leg, he crossed one ankle over the other. The man, she admitted, could slouch like nobody else she had ever met.
‘Do you actually want this thing to work?’
The question startled her out of her contemplation of his effortlessly elegant body language. ‘Of course I want this to work. Why wouldn’t I?’
His lips formed a twisted smile as he scanned her face. ‘Good question. Well, if you do want a result it’s going to require a bit of effort.’
Effort? Did he have any idea how much effort she was making? ‘What do you mean “effort”?’
‘Well, for starters you’re going to have to put some work in on the adoring love slave front…’
The awful Brian had expected if not demanded his bride-to-be’s uncritical adoration as his due, and he had received it. That was, until Megan had woken up to the fact that he was an inadequate creep, and furthermore she didn’t love him. Megan fixed Luc with a glare and tossed her head, a disdainful sneer twisting her lips.
‘What’s wrong with your face?’ he asked, watching her rub the left side of her face. His eyes narrowed; it wasn’t the first time he had noticed her doing that. The first time had been…when…?
Megan’s hand fell self-consciously away. She tried to turn but her foot held her fast. ‘Damn…damn,’ she cursed.
‘Did he hit you?’
An expression of total shock chased across her pale features as she focused on his face. His expression was blank.
It wasn’t the reminder of that contemptuous backhander that Brian had delivered when she had explained that she would not be giving up her job or marrying him that brought the look of dismay to her face, but this man’s startling perception. It was almost as if he could read her mind at times.
‘Pardon…?’ she faltered.
‘You heard me,’ he intoned grimly.
‘Once,’ she admitted, because one look at his face revealed he wasn’t going to let this one go.
Brian had said it wouldn’t happen again, but Megan had seen the mask slip and had recognised his tearful apology for the lie it had been. In a weird way it had been a relief; it had been much easier to walk away with a clear conscience.
Luc struggled to keep his expression neutral; it wasn’t easy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt anything like this sort of blinding rage, this desire to rip someone limb from limb, and laugh while he was doing it.
‘Why didn’t you tell your mother the scumbag hit you? She talked like he was the second coming.’
‘It would have upset her and…I suppose I was…ashamed—? Irrational, I know, but I’m not a victim.’
For a long painful moment Luc looked down into her face. His shoulders lifted. ‘No, just a stubborn idiot,’ he gritted. ‘Not all men are vicious bullies.’
‘Oh, God, I know that!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t run away with the impression I’m emotionally scarred or anything. Damn, damn thing…’ she addressed her curse to her shoe.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was high-pitched with alarm as he hunkered down in front of her. She stiffened as Luc took hold of her ankle. Megan swayed like a sapling caught in a strong gust of wind then, eyes half closed, mouth slightly open, she took a series of shallow breaths and she forced herself to remain still.
‘This situation requires a light touch.’
Well, he had that, she was forced to concede as slither after shivery slither of sensation sliced like a knife through her helplessly receptive body. It was no longer possible for her to ignore the heat, specifically the heat between her thighs. When his fingertips brushed against the fine, almost invisible denier that covered the skin of her calf she had to bite her lip to stop herself gasping out loud. The situation made it hard to think straight—actually, it made it hard to think full stop!
‘It’s stuck fast,’ came his oddly muffled verdict after a few moments.
The dull thud in her ears made his voice seem to come from a long way off to Megan.
‘Tell me something I didn’t know,’ she grunted, trying desperately to marshal her thoughts.
The man kneeling at her feet lifted his head. In the fading light she didn’t see the lines of darker colour scoring his high slashing cheekbones, she could just see his eyes…and his mouth and…oh, God—!
‘You should take them off.’
Anything you say. God, please let me not have said that out loud! She ran the tip of her tongue nervously over her dry lips. ‘What…?’ she croaked.
‘The shoes,’ he replied. ‘You should take them off. The stockings too,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘How did you