Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella

Audrey had forgotten about the power cut. But even if she had to rub two sticks together to make a fire she would do it rather than go anywhere with him. ‘I’ll be fine. The fire will be enough. I’m only staying the one night.’

He continued to look at her as if he thought a white van and a straitjacket might be useful right about now. ‘What about your thing with spiders?’

How like him to remind her of her embarrassing childhood phobia. But she had no reason to be ashamed these days. She’d taken control. Ridiculously expensive control. Twenty-eight sessions with a therapist that had cost more than her car. She would have done thirty sessions but she’d run out of money. Her income as a library archivist only went so far. ‘I’ve had therapy. I’m cool with spiders now. Spiders and me, we’re like that.’ She linked two of her fingers in a tight hug.

His expression looked as though he belonged as keynote speaker at a sceptics’ conference. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. I’ve had hypnotherapy so I don’t get triggered when I see a spider. I can even say the word without breaking out in a sweat. I can look at pictures of them too. I even draw doodles of them.’

‘So if you turned and saw that big spider hanging from the picture rail you wouldn’t scream and throw yourself into my arms?’

Audrey tried to control the urge to turn around. She used every technique she’d been taught. She could cope with cobwebs. Sure, she could. They were pretty in a weird sort of way. Like lace...or something.

She was not going to have a totally embarrassing panic attack.

Not after all that therapy. She was going to smile at Incy-Wincy because that was what sensible people who weren’t scared spitless of spiders did, right?

Her heart rate skyrocketed. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Beads of sweat dripped between her shoulder blades as if she were leaking oil. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Her breathing stop-started as though a tormenting hand were gripping, then releasing her throat. Grip. Release. Grip. Release. Grip. Release.

What if the spider moved? What if this very second it was climbing down from the picture rail and was about to land on her head? Or scuttle down the back of her dress? Audrey shivered and took a step closer to Lucien, figuring it was a step further away from the spider even if it brought her closer to her arch-enemy Number One. ‘Y-you’re joking, right?’

‘Why don’t you turn around and see?’

Audrey didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to see the spider. She was quite happy looking at Lucien instead. Maybe her therapist should include ‘Looking at Lucien’ in her treatment plan. Diversionary therapy...or something.

This close she could smell his aftershave—a lemony and lime combo with an understory of something fresh and woodsy. It flirted with her senses, drugging them into a stupor like a bee exposed to exotic pollen. She could see the way his stubble was dotted around his mouth in little dark pinpricks. Her fingers itched to glide across the sexy rasp of his male flesh. She drew in a calming breath.

You’ve got this. You’ve spent a veritable fortune to get this.

She slowly turned around, and saw a spider dangling inches from her face.

A big one.

A ginormous one.

A genetically engineered one.

A throwback from the dinosaur age.

She gave a high-pitched yelp and turned into the rock-hard wall of Lucien’s chest, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in the cashmere of his sweater. She danced up and down on her toes to shake off the sensation of sticky spider feet climbing up her legs. ‘Get rid of it!’

Lucien’s hands settled on her upper arms, his fingers almost overlapping. ‘It won’t hurt you. It’s probably more frightened of you.’

She huddled closer, squeezing her eyes shut, shuddering all over. ‘I don’t care if it’s frightened of me. Tell it to get some therapy.’

She felt the rumble of his laughter against her cheek and glanced up to see a smile stretching his mouth. ‘Oh. My. God,’ she said as if witnessing a life-changing phenomenon. ‘You smiled. You actually smiled.’

His smile became lopsided, making his eyes gleam in a way she had never witnessed before. Then his gaze went to her mouth as if pulled there by a force he had no control over. She could feel the weight of his eyes on her mouth. She was as close to him as she had been to any man. Closer. Closer than she had been to him at the last wedding reception. Her entire body tingled as if tuning in to a new radar signal. Her flesh contracting, all her nerves on high alert. She could feel the gentle pressure from each of his fingers against her arms, warm and sensual.

His fingers tensed for a moment, but then he dragged his gaze away from her mouth and unwrapped her arms from his waist as if she had scorched him. ‘I’ll take care of the spider. Wait in the kitchen.’

Audrey sucked in her lower lip. ‘You’re not going to kill it...are you?’

‘That was the general idea,’ he said. ‘What else do you want me to do? Take it home with me and handfeed it flies?’

She stole a glance at the spider and fought back a shudder. ‘It’s probably got babies. It seems cruel to kill it.’

He shook his head as if he was having a bad dream. ‘Okay. So I humanely remove the spider.’ He picked up an old greetings card off the bookshelf and a glass tumbler from the drinks cabinet. He glanced at her. ‘You sure you want to watch?’

Audrey rubbed at the creepy-crawly sensation running along her arms. ‘It’ll be good for me. Exposure therapy.’

‘Ri-i-ight.’ Lucien shrugged and approached the spider with the glass and the card.

Audrey covered her face with her hands but then peeped through the gaps in her splayed fingers. There was only so much exposure she would deal with at any one time.

Lucien slipped the card beneath the spider and then placed the glass over it. ‘Voila. One captured spider. Alive.’ He walked to the front door of the cottage and then, dashing through the pelting rain, placed the spider under the shelter of the garden shed a small distance away.

He came back, sidestepping puddles and keeping his head down against the driving rain. Audrey grabbed a towel from the downstairs bathroom and handed it to him. He rubbed it roughly over his hair.

She was insanely jealous of the towel. She had towel envy. Who knew such a thing existed? She wanted to run her fingers through that thick, dark, damp hair. She wanted to run her hands across his scalp and pull his head down so his mouth could cover hers. She wanted to see if his firm mouth would soften against hers or grow hard and insistent with passion.

She wanted. Wanted. Wanted the one thing she wasn’t supposed to want.

Lucien scrunched up the towel in one hand and pushed back his hair with the other. ‘This storm looks like it’s not going to end anytime soon.’

Just like the storm of need in her body.

What was it about Lucien that made her feel so turned on? No other man triggered this crazy out-of-character reaction in her. She didn’t fantasise about other men. She didn’t stare at them and wonder what it would be like to kiss them. She didn’t ache to feel their hands on her body. But Lucien Fox had always made her feel this way. It was the bane of her life that he was the only man she was attracted to. She couldn’t walk past him without wanting to touch him. She couldn’t be in the same room—the same country—without wanting him.

What was wrong with her?

She didn’t even like him as a person. He was too formal and stiff. He rarely smiled. He thought she was silly and irresponsible like her mother. Not that her two tipsy episodes had helped in that regard, but still. She had always hated her mother’s weddings ever since she’d gone to the first one as a four-year-old.

By the time Sibella married Lucien’s father for the first time, Audrey was eighteen. A couple of glasses of champagne—well, it might have been three or four, but she couldn’t remember—had helped her cope reasonably well with the torture of watching her mother marry yet another unsuitable man. Audrey would be the one to pick up the pieces when it all came to a messy and excruciatingly public end.

Why couldn’t she get through a simple wedding reception or two or three without lusting over Lucien?

Another boom of thunder sounded so close by it made the whole cottage shudder. Audrey winced. ‘Gosh. That was close.’

Lucien looked down at her. ‘You’re not scared of storms?’

‘No. I love them. I particularly love watching them down here, coming across the fields.’

He twitched one of the curtains aside. ‘Where did you park your car? I didn’t see it when I drove in.’

‘Under the biggest oak tree,’ Audrey said. ‘I didn’t want it to be easy to see in case the press followed me.’

‘Did you see anyone following you?’