emotion started to choke her. She couldn’t stay, couldn’t accept his kindness—however brusque and domineering.
‘I’ve got work, another job,’ she added, frantically. ‘I can’t stay.’
‘I’ll pay for your time, damn it, if the problem is money. I don’t want an injured cycle messenger on my conscience as well as an eighty-grand ring.’
He was too close, surrounding her in a cloud of spicy cologne and the sweet subtle whiff of whisky. Her pulse points buzzed and throbbed in an erratic rhythm.
But then he hooked a knuckle under her chin, and nudged her chin up.
‘Wait a minute. I do know you.’ His eyes narrowed as he studied her face. For the first time, he was actually seeing her. The intensity of his gaze set off bonfires of sensation all over her chilled skin. She fumbled with the helmet she had hooked over her other arm, desperate to put it on, to stop him recognising her.
But it was too late as the swift spike of memory crossed his face.
‘Monique?’ he murmured.
Tears stung her eyes. ‘I’m not Monica. Monica’s dead. I’m her daughter.’
‘Allycat?’ he said, looking as stunned as she felt.
Allycat.
The nickname reverberated in her head, the one he’d given her all those years ago. The name she had been so proud of. Once.
As if he’d flipped a switch, the adrenaline she’d been running on ever since she’d got the commission drained away, until all that was left was the shame, and anxiety. And the inappropriate heat.
She dragged in tortured breaths, struggling to contain the choking sob rising up her torso. She didn’t have the strength to resist him any more. And what would be the point, anyway?
‘Breathe, Allycat,’ he murmured.
She gulped in air, trying to steady herself, and got a lungful of his scent—spiced with pine and soap.
‘Bad night?’
‘The worst.’ She bit back the harsh laugh at his sanguine tone. And shuddered, the pain in her ribs excruciating as she struggled to hold the sobs at bay.
What exactly are you so upset about? Having Dominic LeGrand pity you isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.
‘I know the feeling,’ he said, the wry smile only making him look more handsome—and more utterly unattainable.
She forced a smile to her lips as she shifted away from him, and scooped up the helmet that had clattered to the floor.
‘It was nice seeing you again, Dominic,’ she said, although nothing could have been further from the truth. Nice had never been a word to describe Dominic LeGrand. ‘I really do have to go now, though.’
But as she headed for the door, he stepped in front of her. ‘Don’t go, Allycat. Come in and dry off and clean up your leg. My offer still stands.’
She lifted her head, forced herself to meet his gaze. But where she’d expected pity, or impatience, all she saw was a pragmatic intensity—as if he were trying to see into her soul. And something else, something she didn’t recognise or understand—because it almost looked like desire. But that couldn’t be true.
‘I can’t stay,’ she said, hating the tremble in her voice.
She didn’t want to feel this weak, this fragile. She hated showing him even an ounce of her vulnerability, because it made her feel even more pathetic.
‘Yes, you can.’ He didn’t budge. ‘As I said, I will pay for your time,’ he added, the tone rigid with purpose.
‘I don’t need you to do that. I’m shattered anyway. I’m just going to cycle home.’ She needed to leave, before the foolish yearning to stay, and have him care for her, got the better of her.
* * *
Mon Dieu, who would have thought that Monique’s shy and sheltered daughter would grow into a woman as striking and valiant as Jeanne D’Arc?
‘So there are no more jobs tonight?’ Dominic asked.
The girl frowned, but, even caught in the lie, her gaze remained direct. ‘No, there aren’t,’ she said, the unapologetic tone equally captivating. ‘I lied.’
He let out a rough chuckle. ‘Touché, Allycat.’
He let his gaze wander over the slim coltish figure, vibrating with tension. Her high firm breasts, outlined by her damp cycle gear, rose and fell with her staggered breaths. With her wet hair tied back in a short ponytail, damp chestnut curls clinging to the pale, almost translucent skin of her cheeks, blue-tinged shadows under her eyes, and an oil mark on her chin, she should have looked a mess. But instead she looked like the Maid of Orleans—passionate and determined.
And all the more beautiful for it.
Not unlike her mother. Or what he could remember of her mother.
Monica Jones had been his father’s mistress, during that brief summer when his father had acknowledged him. But the truth was it was her daughter, the girl who stood before him now, her wide guileless eyes direct and unbowed despite her obvious misery, whom he remembered with a great deal more clarity.
She’d been a child that summer, ten or eleven maybe, but he still remembered how she had followed him around like a doting puppy. And defended him against his father’s abuse. She had stood up to that bastard on his behalf, and because of that he’d felt a strange connection with her. And it seemed that connection hadn’t died. Not completely.
Although it had morphed into something a great deal more potent—if the sensation that had zapped up his arm when he had touched her was anything to go by.
She was quite stunning, pure and unsullied—despite her bedraggled appearance. The compulsion to capture her cold cheeks in his palms and warm her unpainted lips with a kiss surprised him, though.
Why should he want her, when she was so unsophisticated? Un garçon manqué. A tomboy without an ounce of glamour or allure. Why should he care if she was cold, or wet, or injured? She wasn’t his responsibility.
Perhaps it was simply the shock of seeing her again, and the memories she evoked? Maybe it was the compelling contrast she made with the woman he’d just kicked out of his life? Not spoilt, entitled and indulged but fierce and fearless and proud. The most likely explanation, though, for his attraction was that erotic spark that had arched between them the minute she’d stepped into the house.
After all, it had been over a month since he’d made love to a woman, and considerably longer since he’d felt that visceral tug of desire this woman seemed to evoke simply by breathing.
‘Then I will order a car to take you and the bike home in due course,’ he answered, because he was damned if he’d let her leave before he had at least had a chance to explore why she intrigued him so much. And no way was he letting
