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“You might be the first,” I’d growled. “If you don’t quit adding extra weights to your bar.”
But there were some topics we carefully avoided. I never mentioned Madison, or Jason or my failed movie career. We never again discussed Edward’s car accident in Spain, or the woman he’d loved and tried to kidnap from her husband. We kept it to two types of talk—small and smack.
We’d become coworkers, of a sort. Friends, even.
Friends, I thought mockingly. He’s a client. Not a friend.
So why did my body keep noticing him not as a patient, not even as a friend—but a man?
Beneath the rivalry and banter, I felt his eyes linger on me. I told myself not to take it personally. I’d cut him off from his sex supply. It was like denying gazelles to a lion. He was hungry. And I was handy. He couldn’t help himself from looking, but I wouldn’t fall prey to it.
And so I kept telling myself as we worked together in near silence, till the sun rose weakly over the horizon. Then I heard his stomach growl.
“Hungry?” I said in amusement.
Straightening from his stretch, he looked at me.
“You know I am,” he said quietly.
I turned away, trying to ignore the sudden pounding of my heart. I tried to think of what Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley would say. Looking at my watch, I kept my voice professional. “Time for breakfast.”
But I couldn’t stop looking at him beneath my lashes as we left the cottage to go back to the hall. Edward was so darkly handsome. So powerful and dangerous. So everything that Jason was not.
Stop it. Don’t think that way. But I shivered as we tromped through the snowy garden, beneath morning skies that had now turned sodden violet in color.
A full English breakfast, prepared by Mrs. MacWhirter, was soon ready for us in the medieval dining hall. As I sat beside Edward at the end of the long table, I watched his hands pour hot tea into his china cup. I felt hyperaware of his every movement as he served himself bacon and eggs and toast. I felt him lift the fork to his mouth. I could almost wish I was bacon, feeling the caress of his breath and tongue.
This was getting ridiculous.
Shaking myself angrily, I dumped a bunch of cream and sugar into my coffee.
I couldn’t let myself linger over the face and body of my handsome, brooding boss. But I couldn’t stop. For weeks, my eyes had lingered over his chiseled jawline, often dark with five o’clock shadow. Lingered over the curve of his cruelly sensual lips. Over his wicked smile. Over his large hands, the thickness of his neck, his muscled forearms, dusted with dark hair.
And his eyes. When they met mine, I lingered there most of all.
As I sat next to him now at the breakfast table, pretending to read the newspaper, I couldn’t stop being aware of everything about him. Every time he moved, every slight vibration from his direction amplified in waves. When the waves hit my body, they could have been measured on the Richter scale.
Sadly, there was no chapter in Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley’s book about how a nurse should quash her own lust.
Lust. I shivered. Such an ugly word, without love to make it pretty. Because I knew I didn’t love him. I saw the darkness in his soul too acutely. He trusted no one, cared for no one. Especially not the women he’d taken to his bed. If he had cared for any of them, he would have written or called her. Instead, there was nothing. If he couldn’t take a woman to bed, he wasn’t going to bother with her. It was despicable, really.
But my hand still shook as I held my coffee cup. If he knew how easily he could seduce me...
Edward St. Cyr was a powerful man accustomed to satisfying his every desire. Sex-starved as he was, he might make short work of me right here, on this table. He’d lick me like salty bacon, pull me into his mouth like the sweet, plump imported strawberries. He’d satiate himself quickly with the offered treat—my body—and forget me an hour later. Just like what he was eating now....
Desperate for distraction, I snatched up the London newspaper he’d just finished. Edward looked up with a frown. “Wait—”
His warning was too late. As I opened the page, I saw a picture of Madison on a red carpet, smiling in a glamorous sequined gown as she attended the premiere of her latest blockbuster in Leicester Square. At her side, slightly behind her in a tuxedo, was Jason.
“Oh,” I breathed, and even to my own ears it sounded like a choked, bewildered wheeze, the sound someone makes when they’d just been punched.
Something grabbed my hand. Blinking hard, I saw it was Edward’s hand, holding mine tightly over the table. Was he trying to comfort me?
Abruptly, he dropped his hand. Lifting a sardonic eyebrow, he looked at the photo. “He looks like a trussed duck,” he observed.
“She’s dragging him behind her like a baby blanket.”
“You’re wrong,” I said automatically, then looked more carefully. Hmm. Now that Edward had pointed it out, Jason did look rather like an accessory, rather than a man, as Madison clutched his hand, dragging him behind her.
“And that white toothy smile of his,” Edward continued, rolling his eyes. “How much did he pay for those?”
“His smile is lovely!” I protested.
“The white hurts my eyes.” He briefly covered them. “I’ve never seen anything so fake.”
“Shut up!”
“Right. I forgot he’s your dream man.” Leaning back in the chair, Edward took a gulp of his black tea as he rolled his eyes. “See where love gets you.”
For about the hundredth time, I wondered about the woman who had broken his heart in Spain. The one who’d made him care so much that he’d actually tried to kidnap her. What had been so special about her? I looked back down at the photo of my stepsister and Jason, beaming at the camera.
See where love gets you...
I set down my fork. “Let’s get back to work.” I tilted my head and said challengingly, “Unless you need a longer break...”
Edward’s cup fell with a clatter against the saucer. His eyes were gleaming with the joy of the fight. “I’ve been ready for ten minutes. I was waiting for you.”
An hour later, back at the cottage, he was walking on the treadmill at the slow speed he hated.
“This is boring,” he grumbled.
“It’s fine,” I insisted.
“No.” He turned up the treadmill speed.
“Don’t!” I said sharply.
He turned it up even more.
“You’re going to kill yourself!” Then my eyes went wide as I drew back, watching him—this man who at the beginning of November had walked with a cane—now jogging forcefully on the treadmill. Edward had improved more rapidly than any client I’d ever seen.
“It’s almost superhuman,” I breathed. I jumped when I realized I’d said it out loud. Praise wasn’t part of our deal. I blushed. “I, um, mean...”
“No. I heard you perfectly.” Still jogging, Edward turned his head to give me a triumphant grin. “I amaze you with my strength and power. You’re in awe. You’re wishing right now you could give me a big fat kiss....”
“Am not!” I said indignantly, my cheeks on fire.
“I can see it in your face.” His grin widened. “Oh Edward,” he said mockingly in falsetto, “You’re incredible. You’re my own personal hero—”
His sentence ended when his ankle abruptly twisted beneath him. He slammed down hard, cracking his shoulder and head against the treadmill. In a second, I was on my knees beside him.
“Are you all right?” Luckily he’d been wearing the safety, which made the treadmill’s engine stop, or the skin of his cheek would have been ripped raw. “Careful. Don’t sit up so fast—”
Ignoring me, he ripped his arm away with a scowl. “I’m fine.”
“It was my fault—”
“It wasn’t,” he said shortly.
“I distracted you.”
Edward looked even more ticked off than ever. “Stop trying to take the blame. You didn’t do anything.”
“Your head’s bleeding. We might need to take you to a hospital—” But as I started to run my hands along his head, he yanked away.
“Stop bothering. I said I’m fine.” He put his hand to his scalp and his skin was covered in blood as he pulled it away.
Rushing across the cottage, I grabbed a clean white towel. Turning on the hot water in the sink, I got it wet and soapy then brought it back to him. Taking it without comment, he wiped his head. I put my hands over my mouth, almost ill with guilt.
“I shouldn’t have let you push yourself so hard. It’s my job to control you....”
“As if you could,” he gibed. He snorted, and one corner of his lips lifted as he looked at me. “Seriously. Think about it.”
Our eyes met. My shoulders relaxed slightly.
“That’s true. I can’t tell you anything, can I?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing.”
Seeing the blood dripping down his forehead, my smile fell. “But you can’t be strong all the time, Edward.” My voice faltered. “Even you have moments of weakness....”
His smile changed to a glare. “Weakness?”
I recoiled from the blast of cold anger. “From your injury.”
“Ah. Well. That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?” He bared his teeth into a smile. “To wipe every trace of weakness from my body, to make me twice the man I was before she—”
He looked away, his jaw tight.
“Do you miss her?” I said softly.
“No,” he bit out. He pulled the towel from his head. “She was a good reminder of the lesson I learned as a child. Never depend on anyone.”
What had happened when he was a child? I wondered. “You depend on me.”
“To fix me? Yes. To keep my secrets? Yes.”
“That’s something, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, looking at me. “That’s something.” He abruptly turned away. Grabbing the handrail of the treadmill, he pulled himself to his feet. “The bleeding’s stopped. Back to work.”
“You’re going to run more?” I stared at him in shock.
“Why not, are you tired?” he said challengingly.
I held up my hands. “Don’t even! You’re going to hurt yourself!”
“I know what I can handle.” But as he stepped back on the treadmill, I saw the white of his knuckles as he gripped the handrails.
Edward was used to commanding everything and everyone. He was nearly killing himself to prove his strength. And forget the time a few thousand pounds of steel had crushed him like a blade of grass.
“A body needs time to heal.” I put my hand over his. “Even a body like yours.”
He tilted his head with a mocking smile. “Looking, were you?”
I blushed. “No. That is, yes, of course I was, but—”
“I like it when you blush.” Turning away, he reached for the power button of the treadmill. He really was determined to kill himself.
“No more running for today,” I said desperately. What could I possibly do to stop him? “Um—take off your clothes and lie down.”
He gave a low laugh. “You really don’t want me to run. Very well,” he said gravely. “If you’re determined to lure me away with sex, I accept.”
“Take your clothes off for a massage. I don’t want you to stiffen up....” The corners of his lips quirked, and I scowled. “Shut up!”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said meekly.
I pointed at the massage table. “You know what I want.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.” Stepping off the treadmill, Edward looked down at me with a gleam of light in his eyes. “I’m just surprised it’s taking you so long to admit it.”
He was so close. And looking at me so intensely. My heart was pounding. All he had to do was reach out and take me in his arms.
“Admit what?” I breathed, trying to ignore the bead of sweat between my breasts as heat flashed through me. “Admit you’re a colossal pain?”
“Have it your way.” With a grin, he stepped back and reached up to pull his T-shirt off his body. “So you want me naked, huh? I knew sooner or later you’d be begging me to—” He flinched, and exhaled, dropping his arms. Gritting his teeth, he started to try again.
“Stop. Is it your shoulder?”
“It’s fine,” he ground out, an obvious lie. He must have hit his shoulder harder than I’d thought.
Coming to him, I ran my hands over his shoulder anxiously, then exhaled. “It’s not dislocated.”
“I told you.” He started to reach up to pull off his shirt.
“Stop. Let me do it.”
He tilted his head, his eyes gleaming. “Be my guest.”
