Exquisite Revenge by Abby Green

being put on the table behind her. She felt his hands on her arms and she was urged upwards. Her head swam for a moment, but then it cleared. Luc was looking down at her, his eyes searching her face.
    Jesse could feel heat and colour rushing back. As if satisfied to see it, Luc propelled her chair around and she saw a plate with what looked like a steak sandwich on it and a glass of water.
    Luc sat down on the chair nearest to her and motioned to her. ‘Go on—eat. You need something in your belly.’
    Jesse saw then that a plaster had been put on her thumb. It was throbbing a little, but there was no sight of blood, thank God.
    She looked from the sandwich to Luc. ‘I … I’m sorry. I don’t know what …’
    ‘Just eat.’
    His voice was disarmingly gentle, doing funny things to her insides as she picked up the sandwich and took a bite. She nearly closed her eyes as the delicious taste of the meat hit her tastebuds. She’d never tasted anything so succulent and tender. She demolished it all in record time, and took a long sip of water before wiping her mouth with a napkin.
    Luc was watching her with a slightly mesmerised look on his face. He shook his head. ‘For someone so tiny you could put a mariner to shame, the way you eat.’
    Jesse flushed and said, ‘Just because I don’t cook much for myself doesn’t mean I don’t have an appetite.’
    Luc felt the slow lick of desire as he found himself wondering if Jesse’s ravenous
appetite
ran to the more carnal kind. He watched her face and could see expressions flit across it like clouds scudding across a bay in high wind. Did she realisehow transparent she was? Unless, of course, he mentioned a
verboten
subject like her father.
    He was finding her more and more intriguing, and he was finding it difficult to focus on the fact that because of her his years of well-laid plans would all be for naught.
    As if she could feel his intense regard, Jesse got up abruptly and took her things to the sink. Luc saw her hesitate for a second, as if afraid in case she saw blood again, but he’d been careful to wash it all away.
    He didn’t like the way his heart constricted slightly now. The line of her back looked incredibly delicate, and his eye travelled down over that T-shirt and the shorts she’d changed into during the afternoon. Her legs were smooth and pale. So slender he imagined wrapping a hand around one calf. And then he noticed something else: a long silvery line down one thigh that reached to the back of her knee, like a faded scar.
    Just then Jesse turned, and he looked back up. Her face was a bland mask, and Luc held his tongue when what he wanted was to ask her about the scar. She’d retreated into her cool shell, and he had to curb the desire to stand up and walk over to her and kiss her.
    He was disconcerted to find that as much as he wanted to do it to unsettle her, with a view to getting off this island, he also wanted to do it just for the sake of doing it.
    Unwilling to explore this unwelcome desire, Luc stood up. His mood wasn’t helped by the way Jesse’s eyes widened fractionally, showing more of that dark grey intensity. Saying something vaguely coherent, Luc made for the door.
    He stopped when he heard a tentative-sounding,
‘Luc?’
He realised that it was the first time she’d said his first name out loud.
    Feeling more and more threatened, he forced himself to turn around. He saw Jesse biting her lip before blurting out, ‘Thank you …’
    ‘It was nothing.’ His voice was gruff. Disgusted, because he felt as if he was running away, he left and went to the sanctuary of his room.
    Jesse sank back against the sink and looked at the empty doorway. Luc Sanchis had just been incredibly sweet to her. Since her mother died, she couldn’t recall anyone being so nice to her—even making her a sandwich like that and sitting there till she ate it. In all of her foster homes invariably the parents had had children of their own, and more often