The Devil and Miss Jones

‘What good is your word to me when I don’t know who you are? Or anything about you.’

The look he shot her gleamed with challenge, a touch of dark humour flaring gold in those amazing eyes, reminding her that the truth was that she was in no real position to argue.

‘You know that I am probably your only chance of getting to where you need to be—or back to wherever you came from.’

His cool gaze swept along the deserted road, the rain soaked hills surrounding them.

‘Do you see a couple of hundred other cars—other bikes—queuing up to come to your rescue?’ he drawled sardonically. ‘To take you wherever you want to go?’

‘There’ll be someone else along…’

Even as she flung the words at him she knew that she was risking making a big mistake; cutting off her nose to spite her very cold and miserable face. His sceptical sidelong glance questioned her sanity in that statement just at the same moment as her own thoughts demanded to know if she was losing her mind.

‘Fine,’ he said, the single word curt and harsh. ‘Have it your own way.’

He turned away from her, towards his bike, putting a couple of strides between them, the silver helmet swinging from its strap at his side. The gesture was so obviously meant to show that he was calling her bluff that the sparks of irritation it ignited held her silent even as she knew she was risking possibly her last chance of rescue. She could challenge him too, and she would even if her stretched nerves screamed at her that this was crazy, that she was risking being abandoned again. But he couldn’t do that—could he?

But it seemed that he could as his long legs and powerful stride took him further from her, leaving her with only a view of his strong, straight back, those wide shoulders encased in tautly stretched white cotton, the black hair blowing wildly in the wind.

Indecision tore at her, making her feel raw and uneasy. Surely if he actually meant to do her harm then he wouldn’t just walk away like this? If only she had brought her mobile phone with her—but she’d left that on the dressing table in her bedroom at the Hall, forgetting to put it into her handbag at the last minute.

‘Wait…’ she tried, low and uncertain, but the wind whipped away the sound of her voice, scattering it across the deserted hillside.

He had only got a few metres away from her and yet already she felt shockingly lost and alone. The leather of his jacket seemed to have lost some of its protection against the wind, and she was gripped by a terrible sense of fear at the thought of being alone again. It had been bad enough before but she suddenly knew that it would be terribly, frighteningly worse this time after the brief spell of human contact that this man had provided.

‘Wait!’ she tried again, louder this time.

She saw his determined footsteps slow, come to a gradual but definite halt. He didn’t turn, but he had stopped, and the way that her heart lurched told her how important that was. Safe or not, her mind was made up.

‘What time is it?’

It was perhaps the last question he had been anticipating, and as he turned the quick dark frown that drew his black brows together told her that. But he turned a quick glance at the workmanlike watch on a heavy leather strap around his strong-boned wrist and then brought his eyes back to her face.

‘Almost two o’clock—is that important?’ His gaze and his tone had sharpened on the last words.

Her reaction had given her away. The start she had been unable to suppress, the way that her breath had hissed in through her teeth at the thought of the way her day should have been going right now.

‘Might have been,’ was all she could manage.

It should have been the beginning of her new life. The start of what she had foolishly believed was the happiness she had been looking for for so long. She might have turned up at Gavin’s door to tell him that she thought she was making a mistake, but the things she had heard and seen had stopped her dead, unable to deliver her message. And Gavin had been so intent on his own sensual pleasure that he hadn’t even heard the door open. So he would have no idea the wedding was not going ahead and if it was nearly two o’clock then the ceremony she had run from was officially about to begin.

‘Will you help me? Can we get out of here?’ A rather wild gesture of her hand indicated the sleek, powerful black and silver motorbike that stood at the side of the road. ‘On that.’

She had to get as far away as possible from the Hall where no doubt there must now be a search in progress, everyone wondering what had happened to the bride who seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

‘I take it that you need to get to your wedding?’ he asked now.

‘Oh, no!’

She couldn’t hold back on the horror that flooded her mind at just the thought of it. She could still hear those words, muttered in the thick rough tones of sexual passion.

‘It’s worth putting up with her in my bed—taking her much prized and held-onto virginity to be legally and fully her husband. Just think, darling—half of seven million when we get a quickie divorce—that’s worth consummating the damn marriage with Miss Prim, even if I do have to lie back and think of the money. Maybe that will turn me on because she sure as hell doesn’t. She’s so big, it’ll be like sleeping with a horse…’

‘No way! That’s the last thing I want!’

She’d shocked him so that his dark head went back, his amazing eyes widening for a second before narrowing again in swift assessment. Her nerves twisted painfully as she saw his frown.

‘I—I want nothing to do with my wedding,’ she declared, the bitter truth ironing out the shake in her voice. ‘It would have been the worst possible mistake I could make so I—got out of there fast. Leaving it all behind me. And I want it to stay behind me—as far behind me as possible.’

‘Es que la verdad?’

The slow drawl had a faintly mocking edge to it, one that had her tensing every muscle as she nerved herself for his next comment. His next question—inevitably it would be something on the lines of exactly what she had left behind and why. And she wasn’t ready to answer that.

‘What language is that?’ she asked sharply. ‘Are you—Spanish?’

She’d asked something that had sparked a new mood in him, one that seemed to have a shade coming down over his eyes, hiding their expression from her. But now she was intrigued, wanting to know more.

‘Argentinian, actually.’

‘And what do you do there?’

Somehow she’d stepped over a line that he didn’t want crossing and his response was brusque, dismissive.

‘Horses and wine.’

So, a gambler? Or a breeder? A drinker or… She didn’t know how to phrase the question and his stony face did nothing to encourage her to go further.

‘You—you’re a long way from home.’

‘A very long way,’ he agreed, his tone sombre in a way that made her feel he was talking of so much more than a physical distance.

‘So are you on holiday—or—?’

The rough shake of his head, sending that wild wet hair flying, had her cutting off the question sharply.

‘It seems that really we’re two of a kind,’ he said slowly.

There was a touch of dark amusement in his words, but there was also something more than that. Something that swirled, harsh and disturbing, at the bottom of his voice.

‘How so?’ Her voice caught sharply on the words.

That deep green gaze swept over her in cool assessment then swung back to his motorbike, eyes narrowed against the rain.

‘We both just took off—turned our backs, left everything behind. Two of a kind.’

CHAPTER TWO

TWO of a kind?