The Virgin's Debt To Pay
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Luc Barbier had closed the other door. The laptop was on a desk near him and he was just standing there, arms folded across his chest, legs spread wide as if to be ready for when she bolted again.
He asked, ‘So, who are you?’
Nessa’s heart thwacked hard. She kept her mouth firmly closed and her gaze somewhere around his impeccably shod feet, hoping the cap would hide her face.
He sighed audibly. ‘We can do this the hard way, or the harder way. I can have the police here within ten minutes and you can tell them who you are and why you’re trespassing on my property...but we both know it’s to get this, don’t we?’ He tapped the laptop with long fingers where it sat on the desk. ‘You’re obviously working for Paddy O’Sullivan.’
Nessa barely heard the last phrase. Totally ridiculously, all she could seem to focus on were his beautiful hands. Big and masculine but graceful. Capable hands. Sexy hands. The quiver in her belly became something far more disturbing.
Silence lengthened between them again and suddenly Barbier issued a low, violent-sounding curse in French and picked up the laptop, moving towards the door. He was almost there before Nessa realised that involving the Irish Garda'i would be even more of a disaster. The fact that Barbier hadn’t called them yet left a sliver of hope that something of this situation could be salvaged.
‘Wait!’ Her voice sounded very high in the silence.
He stopped at the door, his back to her. It was almost as intimidating as his front. He slowly turned around. ‘What did you say?’
Nessa tried to calm her thundering heart. She was afraid to look up too much, using the lip of her cap to keep herself hidden as much as possible.
‘I said wait. Please.’ She winced. As if a nicety like please would go over well in this situation.
There was more silence and then an incredulous-sounding, ‘You’re a girl?’
That struck Nessa somewhere very vulnerable. She knew she was dressed head to toe in black and wore a hat, but was she really so androgynous? She was well aware of her lack of feminine wiles, having spent much of her life knee deep in muck and wellies. She hitched up her chin and glared at him now, too angry to remember to try and stay hidden. ‘I’m twenty-four, hardly a girl.’
He looked sceptical. ‘Crawling through undergrowth to trespass on private property is hardly the activity of a grown woman.’
The thought of the kind of women a man like this would know—a world away from Nessa—made her skin prickle with self-consciousness and her vulnerability turned into defensiveness. ‘You’re meant to be in France.’
Luc Barbier was shocked. And he was not a man who was easily shocked. But this slip of a girl—woman?—was talking back to him as if she hadn’t just flagrantly invaded his private property with clearly criminal intentions.
‘I was in France, and now I’m not.’
He allowed his gaze to inspect her more closely, and as he did he felt something infuse his blood...interest. Because he could see it now. Yes, she was a woman. Albeit slim and petite to the point of boyishness. But he could see her breasts, small and perfectly formed, pushing against the form-fitting fleece of her black top.
He could make out a jaw too delicate to be a man’s, and wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. He also saw a very soft lower lip, which was currently caught between white teeth. He felt a very unwelcome stirring of desire and a need to see more.
‘Take off your cap,’ he heard himself demand before he’d even registered the impulse.
The small chin came up and that soft lip was freed from white teeth. He saw the tension in her. There was a taut moment when he wasn’t sure what she would do. Then, as if realising she had no choice, she raised a small hand and pulled the cap from her head.
For a moment Luc could only stare stupidly as a coil of long, dark red hair fell over her shoulder from where it had been stuffed under the cap.
And then he took in the rest of her face and felt even more foolish. He’d seen countless beautiful women, some of whom were considered to be the most beautiful in the world, but right now they were all an indistinct blur in his memory.
She was stunning. High cheekbones. Flawless creamy pale skin. A straight nose. Huge hazel eyes—flashing green and gold, with long dark lashes. And that mouth, lush and wide.
His body hardened, and the shock of such a reaction to this whippet of a girl made Luc reject the rogue reaction. He did not react to women unless it was on his terms. He was reacting because she was unexpected.
His voice was harsh. ‘Now, tell me who you are, or I call the police.’
Nessa burned inwardly from the thorough once-over Barbier had just given her. She felt very exposed without her cap. Exposed to the full impact of him up close. And she couldn’t look away. It was as if she were mesmerised by the sun. He was simply...beautiful, in a very raw, masculine way, all hard angles and sharp lines. But his mouth was provocatively sensual—the only softness in that face. It was distracting.
‘I’m waiting.’
Nessa flushed, caught out. She diverted her gaze, focusing on a picture of a famous racehorse on the wall behind him. She knew she really didn’t have a choice but to give him the information. The alternative was to give it to the Garda'i and, coming from such a small, close-knit community, she knew that word would go around within minutes as to what she had been doing. There was no such thing as privacy or anonymity here.
‘My name is Nessa...’ She hesitated and then said in a rush, ‘O’Sullivan.’ She snuck a glance back at Barbier and saw that he was frowning.