wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Outrage warring with a demoralising pleasure, she looked up and met hooded iron-grey eyes. ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said stiffly. ‘I can organise my own wardrobe.’
‘Relax, I’m not casting aspersions on either your clothes or your taste,’ he said with infuriating calmness, adding to her anger by finishing, ‘And how are you going to organise a wardrobe without money?’
He looked amused, but Fleur sensed a hard will behind the coolly confident exterior.
Well, her mother had always said she was stubborn. ‘If you lend me a small amount of money I can get a selection of sarongs from the market—they don’t cost much and they’re all I need. Then I can return the ones I’ve been wearing to the nurse’s daughter.’
‘Don’t worry about the cost—you must know that I have more money than I can cope with. Think of it as redressing the balance a bit.’
Green fire glittered in her eyes. ‘Redressing what balance? I don’t want to accept anything more from you—you’ve already been far too good to me. In fact, I feel well enough to go home now.’
‘Did Dr King say so?’
She hesitated. ‘No,’ she admitted reluctantly, after a glance at Luke told her that he knew exactly what the doctor had told her. ‘Clearly she has no hesitation in breaking patient confidentiality.’
Luke’s shoulders lifted in a shrug that reminded her of his French great-grandmother. ‘I knew most of it, and guessed the rest,’ he drawled. ‘And if staying here galls you so much, you can earn your keep.’
She froze. ‘How?’ The word came more sharply than she’d intended.
‘Not the way you’re thinking,’ he told her with a hint of hauteur. ‘I’ve never had to pay for sex, and I don’t intend to start now.’
Fleur had always thought that the desire for the ground to swallow some embarrassed soul was weird, one that made her shudder. Now she understood the power of total humiliation. If the ground had cracked open in front of her she’d have leapt into the hole without hesitation.
Scarlet-faced, she said, ‘I didn’t think of anything like that until you…made it obvious what you thought I meant.’ Before she got too hopelessly tangled, she took a deep breath, then ploughed valiantly on. ‘I understand that it wasn’t what you meant, but I’m afraid I don’t have any skills to pay for my board.’
‘Let’s get one thing perfectly clear,’ he said, his gaze metallic. ‘I don’t expect you to pay for anything. What I meant by my offhand comment was that I find myself in somewhat of a bind, and if you’re agreeable, you can help me.’
‘I’d like to,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve been very kind to me and I’m not ungrateful.’
‘I don’t want your gratitude,’ he said, his aloofness setting a boundary between them. ‘The situation I’m in is an unusual one. An old friend of my father’s is arriving to stay soon, and bringing his granddaughter with him to a charity affair we’re all attending. Gabrielle is young, very pretty, and I like her, but she’s suffering a massive crush on me, and it’s becoming embarrassing.’
‘They usually are—to both the crusher and the crushee,’ Fleur said tartly. And she didn’t believe for a second that this was an unusual situation for him.
‘This is sliding over the edge into something that comes just a bit close to stalking for my liking. I’ve just read an interview she gave to a fashion magazine. She implied that she and I are engaged, and that I’m just waiting for her to grow up.’
Rapidly revising her impression of a high school Gabrielle, Fleur asked, ‘How old is she?’
‘Nineteen. She’s a model.’
‘I’m surprised. I’d have thought you’d be able to deal with a situation like this.’
‘Normally I would.’ His voice hardened. ‘But her grandfather is old, and it would hurt him if my lawyers sent her a letter telling her to desist, or if I contacted the press with a denial. And I like the girl—I don’t want to humiliate her.’
‘Somebody must have given her the idea that you were in love with her.’
He paused. ‘Not I.’
Fleur was inclined to believe him. After all, with all the women he could pick and choose from, it seemed unlikely that he’d choose one so young. ‘So how do you think I can help?’
He looked enigmatically at her. ‘You’ve been staying here for several days, and it might reinforce that I am not interested in her as wife material if we convince her that we’re lovers.’
‘Lovers?’ Her voice hit a high, shocked note.
He lifted her hand from the table and got to his feet, bringing her with him. ‘Lovers,’ he repeated calmly, a cynical smile tilting the corners of his mouth. ‘As in sharing a bed.’
‘As in being your mistress?’ Her heart was thumping so loudly she could barely hear her words, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, gunmetal grey and direct, yet heated in some mysterious way.
‘Mistress? That’s a very old-fashioned word,’ he said with an odd inflexion. Still holding her hand, he lifted his other one to trace the outline of her lips.
His touch was pure fire, lightning in her blood, a fever on her skin.
‘No,’ he said deeply. ‘Apart from that erotic mouth, you’re not mistress material. In fact, Gabrielle is light years ahead of you in sophistication. A mistress she could deal with. I want her to believe that we’re in love, that this is serious.’
One knowledgeable finger smoothed along one cheekbone. Trying hard to muster her thoughts into some coherent form, she muttered, ‘If she’s so sophisticated she’ll know…she’ll know…’
‘What will she know?’ His voice was amused, and when she lifted her lashes she could see that he was watching her mouth with narrowed, intent eyes.
An electric charge shot through her, setting every cell humming in dangerous intoxication. ‘That…that I’m not the right sort of person for you.’
It was so difficult to articulate her tumbling thoughts. She tried to ignore the compelling fascination of his dark voice, that hypnotic glint in his eyes and the slow, sensuous caress across her skin, the touch she felt right down to her innermost core.
Rallying herself, she said, ‘I mean, I’m not the sort of person you’d be attracted to. I blush all the time. It’s my skin—it’s the sort that shows colour—’
She was babbling and she cut back the words, afraid that she was making a total fool of herself. Pull away, she commanded her body. Step back. He’s only holding one hand—he’ll let you go…
His gaze darkened. ‘Ah, but you’re wrong. I find you very attractive—surely you’ve realised? Your skin is like silk, and the blushes you find so dismaying are charming.’
He released her hand, but before she could take the opportunity to
