ABBY GREEN - The Virgin's Debt To Pay

She tried to force herself to stay focused, and calm. ‘What I meant, Mr Barbier, is that I will do everything in my power to convince you that my brother is innocent.’

CHAPTER TWO

LUC STARED AT Nessa O’Sullivan.

I will do everything in my power to convince you that my brother is innocent.

What kind of an empty suggestion was that? And why had it given him such an illicit thrill to see her act so shocked when he’d called her bluff? She’d blatantly offered herself to him—and then pretended that she hadn’t!

He wanted to laugh out loud. As if she were an innocent. There was no innocence in this world. Perhaps only in babies, before they grew up to be twisted and manipulated by their environment.

His conscience smarted to think of how he’d told her she wasn’t his type. He couldn’t deny the pounding of his blood right now. He told himself it was anger. Adrenalin. Anything but helpless desire.

Luc knew he should have walked away long ago and left her at the mercy of the authorities, no matter what he thought of them. He had enough evidence now to damn her, and her brother. But he knew that wasn’t necessarily the best option. Not for him .

She was staring at him, as if bracing herself for whatever he was going to say. She was throwing up more questions than answers and it had been a long time since anyone had piqued Luc’s interest like this.

What did he have to lose if he contained this himself? It wasn’t as if the local law enforcement could do any better than the private security company he’d already hired to investigate the matter and track down Paddy O’Sullivan.

One thing was clear. This woman wasn’t going to be walking away from here. He didn’t trust her. Not one inch of her petite form. Not after he’d seen how far she was prepared to go. And she wasn’t going anywhere until he had his money returned and he knew there was no damage to his reputation. If she was involved in this crime, then keeping her close would surely lead him back to the thief.

He folded his arms and saw the way her body tensed, as if to steel herself. In that moment she looked both defiant and vulnerable, and it caught at Luc somewhere he wasn’t usually affected. More acting. It had to be. He would not allow her to make a fool of him.

* * *

‘You say you want to convince me your brother is innocent?’

Nessa still felt sick to think that Barbier had taken her words to mean that she was offering herself up, like some kind of—She forced the thought out of her head. Of course this man would never look at someone like her in that way, but she didn’t need to be humiliated.

She tipped up her chin. ‘Yes.’

He was looking at her with unnerving intensity. She really couldn’t read him at all. Her mouth felt dry and instinctively she licked her lips. His gaze dropped to them for a second and her insides flipped. She ignored it, telling herself her reaction to him was due to the heightened situation.

His eyes met hers again. ‘Very well, then. You’re not leaving my sight until your brother accounts for his actions and my money is returned.’

Nessa opened her mouth but nothing came out for a moment. Then she said, ‘What do you mean, not leaving your sight?’

‘Exactly that. You’ve offered your services in place of your brother, so until he or my money returns you’re mine, Nessa O’Sullivan, and you will do exactly as I tell you.’

Nessa struggled to comprehend his words. ‘So you’re going to hold me as some kind of...collateral? As a prisoner?’

He smiled but it was mirthless. ‘Oh, you’re quite free to walk out this door, but you won’t make it to your car before the police catch up with you. If you want me to believe that you have nothing to do with this, and that your brother is innocent, then you will stay here and do your utmost to make yourself useful.’

‘How do you know about my car?’ Nessa asked, distracted for a moment and not liking the way panic had her insides in a vice grip.

‘You were tracked as soon as you parked that heap of junk outside my perimeter wall.’

Fresh humiliation washed over Nessa to think of her stealthy progress being watched in some security room. ‘I didn’t hear any alarms.’

He dismissed that with a curl of his lip. ‘Security here is silent and state of the art. Flashing lights and sirens would unsettle the horses.’

Of course it would. Hadn’t Nadim insisted on installing a similarly high-tech system on their own farm? Nessa searched in vain for some way to avoid being forced to spend an unknown amount of time under this man’s punitive command, even though she’d all but asked for it. ‘I’m a jockey and I work at our family farm—I can’t just walk away from that.’

Barbier’s black gaze flicked dismissively over her body again before meeting her eyes. ‘A jockey? Then how have I never heard of you?’

Nessa flushed. ‘I haven’t run many races. Yet.’ In recent years she’d gone to university and got a degree, so that had taken her out of the circuit for some time. Not that she was about to explain herself to Barbier.

He made a scathing sound. ‘I’m sure. Being a jockey is gritty, hard work. You look as if a puff of wind would knock you over. Somehow I can’t really see you rousing at dawn and putting in a long day of the back-breaking training and work that most jockeys endure. Your pretty hands would get far too dirty.’

Nessa bristled and instinctively hid her hands behind her back, conscious of how un pretty they were, but not wanting to show Barbier, even in her own defence. She still felt raw after his stinging remark, I can’t say that you’d be my type .

The unfairness of his attack left her a little speechless. Her family had all worked hard at their farm for as long as she could remember, getting up at the crack of dawn every day of the week and in all kinds of weather. Her family had certainly never lived a gilded life of leisure. Not even when Nadim had bought them out and pumped money into their ailing business.

‘Who do you ride for, then?’

She forced down the surge in emotion and answered as coolly as she could, ‘My family stables, O’Sullivans. I’m well used to doing my share of the work, believe it or not, and I’ve been training to be a jockey since I was a teenager. Just because I’m a woman—’

He held up a hand stopping her. ‘I have no issue with female jockeys. What I do have an issue with are people who get a free pass on their family connections.’

If Nessa had bristled before, now she was positively apoplectic. She’d had to work twice as hard to prove herself to her own family, if not even more. But she was aware that to really prove herself she’d have to get work with another trainer. It was a sensitive point for her.

‘I can assure you,’ she said in a low voice full of emotion, ‘that my being a jockey is not a vanity project. Far from it.’

She might have laughed if she were able to. Vanity—what was that? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn make-up.

Barbier looked unimpressed. ‘Well, I’m sure the family farm will cope without you.’

Nessa realised that she was damned if she walked out the door and and damned if she didn’t. But there was only one way of containing the situation and making sure that the rest of her family weren’t dragged into it, and that was doing as Barbier said. She wished she could rewind the clock and be safe at home in bed...but even as she imagined that scenario something inside her rejected it. Rejected the possibility of never having had the opportunity to see this man up close. The shock of that revelation made her stop breathing for a second, its significance terrifying to contemplate.

But the fact was that Nessa’s blood was throbbing through her veins in a way she’d never experienced before. Not even after an exhilarating win on a horse.

Shame bloomed deep inside her. How could she betray her own brother, her family, like this? By finding this man so...compelling? Telling herself that stress was making her crazy, she asked, ‘What will I be doing here?’ She tried to quash lurid images of herself, locked in a tower being fed only bread and water.

Barbier’s eyes flicked up and down over her body as if gauging what she might be capable of. Nessa bristled all over, again.

‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll find something to keep you occupied, and of course any work you do will be in lieu of payment. Until your brother resurfaces, his debt is now yours.’

Barbier straightened up to his full intimidating height and Nessa’s pulse jumped.

‘I will have Armand escort you back to your home to retrieve what you need. You can give me your car keys.’

This was really happening. And there was nothing she could do about it. Nessa reluctantly reached into her pocket for her keys and took the car key off the main ring, all fingers and thumbs. Eventually she got it free, skin prickling under the laser-eyed scrutiny of Barbier.

She handed it over, a little devil inside her prompting her to say, ‘It’s a vintage Mini. I doubt you’ll fit.’ Even the thought of this man coiling his six-foot-plus frame into her tiny battered car was failing to spark any humour in the surreal moment. She really hadn’t expected the night to turn out like this...and yet she could see now that she’d been supremely naive to assume it would be so easy to infiltrate the Barbier stud.

He took the key. ‘It won’t be me retrieving your car.’

Of course. It would be a minion, despatched to take care of the belongings of the woman who was now effectively under house arrest for the foreseeable future.

Not usually given to dramatics, Nessa tried to quell her nerves. She was within five kilometres of her own home, for crying out loud. What was the worst this man could do to her? A small sly voice answered that the worst he could do had nothing to do with punishment for Paddy’s sins, and everything to do with how he made her feel in his presence. As if she were on a roller coaster hurtling towards a great swooping dip.

Barbier turned away and opened the office door to reveal the huge burly man still standing outside. They spoke in French so rapid that it was beyond Nessa’s basic grasp of the language to try and understand what they were saying.

Barbier turned back to her, switching to English. ‘Armand will escort you home to collect your things and bring you back here.’

‘Can’t I just return in the morning?’

He shook his head, looking even more stern now, and indicated for her to precede him. Mutely, Nessa stepped over the threshold and followed the thick-set security man back out the way she’d come. In the courtyard there was a sleek four-by-four car waiting. Armand opened a car door for her.

For a second Nessa hesitated. She saw the entrance to the courtyard and a glimpse of freedom, if she moved fast. From behind her she heard a deep voice. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

She turned around. Barbier was right behind her and looked even more intimidating in the dark. Taller, more austere. His face was all hard bones and slashing angles. Not even the softness of that provocative mouth visible.

Nessa put her hand on the car door, needing something to hold onto. ‘What happens when I come back?’

‘You’ll be informed when you do.’

Panic made her blurt out, ‘What if I refuse?’

She saw the gallic shrug. ‘It’s up to you but you’ve made it clear you don’t want to involve your family. If you refuse to return I can guarantee that that will be the least of your worries. You would be an accessory to a crime.’