The Virgin's Debt To Pay

Fiercely she said, ‘I would do anything for my family.’

‘Why?’

Barbier’s simple question took her by surprise and Nessa blinked. She hadn’t even questioned Paddy when he’d called for help. She’d immediately felt every protective instinct kick into place even though she was younger than him.

Their family was a unit who had come through tough times and become stronger in the process.

Their older sister Iseult had kept them all in one piece—pretty much—after the tragic death of their mother, while their father had descended into the mire of alcoholism. She had shielded Nessa and her two brothers from their father’s worst excesses, and had slowly helped him to recovery even as their stud farm and stables had fallen apart around them.

But Iseult wasn’t here now. She had a much deserved happy life far away from here. It was up to Nessa to shoulder this burden for the sake of her brother, and her family.

She looked at Barbier. ‘I would do anything because we love each other and we protect each other.’

Barbier was silent for a long moment. Then he said, ‘So now you’re admitting that you’d go so far as to collude in a crime.’

Nessa shivered under the thin covering of her fleece. She felt very alone at that moment. She knew she could contact Sheikh Nadim of Merkazad, Iseult’s husband and one of the richest men in the world. He could sort this whole thing out within hours, if he knew. But she and Paddy had agreed they wouldn’t involve Iseult or Nadim. They were expecting a baby in a few weeks and did not need to be drawn into this mess.

She squared her shoulders and stared at Luc Barbier, hating his cool nonchalance. ‘Don’t you understand the concept of family and doing anything for them? Wouldn’t you do that for your own family?’

Barbier suddenly looked stony. ‘I have no family, so, no, I’m not familiar with the concept.’

A pang of emotion made Nessa’s chest tighten. No family. What on earth did that mean? She couldn’t fathom the lack of a family. That sense of protection.

Then he said, ‘If your family are so close then I will go to whoever is capable of returning either your brother or my money.’

Panic eclipsed Nessa’s spurt of emotion. ‘This just involves me and Paddy.’

Barbier raised a brow. ‘I will involve whoever and whatever it takes to get my money back and ensure no adverse press results from this.’

Nessa’s hands clenched to fists at her sides as she tried to contain her temper and appeal to any sense of decency he might have. ‘Look, not that it’s any business of yours, but my sister is going to have a baby very soon. My father is helping her and her husband and they don’t have anything to do with this. I’m taking responsibility for my brother.’

I’m taking responsibility for my brother.

There had been a tight ball of emotion in Luc’s chest ever since she’d asked if he understood the concept of family. Of course he didn’t. How could he when his Algerian father had disappeared before he was born, and his feckless, unstable mother had died of a drugs overdose when he was just sixteen?

The closest he’d ever come to family was the old man next door—a man broken by life, and yet who had been the one to show Luc a way out.

Luc forced his mind away from the memories. He was beyond incredulous that this sprite of a girl—woman—was insisting on standing up to him. And that she wasn’t using her beauty to try and distract him, especially when he couldn’t be sure that he’d hidden his reaction to her. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he felt a twinge of respect.

She was defiant, even in the face of possible prosecution. If she was calling his bluff she was doing it very, very well. He could still have the police here within minutes and she would be hauled off in handcuffs with the full weight of his legal team raining down on her narrow shoulders before she knew what was happening.

But it wasn’t as if the police were ever first on Luc’s list of people to turn to in this kind of situation. Not because he had more nefarious routes to keeping the law—he knew about the rumours surrounding him, and as much as they amused him, they also disgusted him—but because of his experiences growing up in the gritty outskirts of Paris. Surviving each day had been a test of endurance. The police had never been there when he’d needed them, so to say he didn’t trust them was an understatement.

He liked to take care of things his own way. Hence the rumours. Added on top of more rumours. Until he was more myth than man.

He forced his mind back to the task at hand. And the woman. ‘Where do we go from here, then, Miss O’Sullivan? If you’re prepared to take responsibility for your brother, then perhaps you could be so kind as to write me a cheque for one million euros?’

Nessa blanched. One million euros was more money than she was ever likely to see in her lifetime, unless her career as a jockey took off and people started giving her a chance to ride in big races and build her reputation.

She said, as firmly as she could, ‘We don’t have that kind of money.’

‘Well then,’ Barbier said silkily, ‘that gets us precisely no further along in this situation. And in fact it gets worse. Thanks to your brother’s actions, I will now have to hand over another one million euros to Gio Corretti to ensure that he doesn’t ask questions about why he hasn’t received the money yet.’

Nessa felt sick. She hadn’t considered that. ‘Maybe you could talk to him? Explain what happened?’

Barbier laughed but it was curt and unamused. ‘I don’t need to fuel the gossip mill with stories that I’m now claiming fraud to renege on payments.’

Nessa wanted to sit down. Her legs were wobbly again and she felt light-headed.

‘Are you all right?’ Barbier’s sharp question was like a slap to her face. She sucked in a deep breath. He’d taken a step towards her and suddenly the room felt even smaller. He was massive. And so dark. Possibly the most intimidating person she’d ever met.

She couldn’t fight this man. He was too rich, too successful. Too gorgeous. She swallowed. ‘I wish I could hand you over your money right now, Mr Barbier, believe me. But I can’t. I know my brother is innocent no matter what his actions look like.’

Nessa wracked her brains as to what she could do to appease Barbier so he wouldn’t go after Paddy. At least until Paddy had a chance to try and prove his innocence. But what could she offer this man? And then something struck her. ‘Look, all I can do is offer my services in his absence. If you have me, then can’t you accept that I’m willing to do all I can to prove his innocence?’

For a moment, Nessa’s words hung in the air and she almost fancied that she might have got through to him. But then he straightened from the desk and the expression on his face darkened. He spat out, ‘I should have known that veneer of innocence was too good to be true.’

That unnervingly black gaze raked her up and down, disdain etched all over his face. ‘I must admit, I might have felt differently if you’d come via the front door dressed in something a little more enticing, Miss O’Sullivan, but even then I can’t say that you’d be my type.’

Nessa struggled to understand—he couldn’t possibly mean...but then she registered what she’d said and how it might have sounded. And, she registered that he was looking at her with disgust, not disdain. Her gut curdled as a wave of mortification rushed through her whole body, along with hurt, which made it even worse. She burned with humiliation and fury.

‘You know I did not mean that.’

He raised an imperious brow. ‘What did you mean, Miss O’Sullivan?’

Nessa had started to pace in her agitation and she stopped and faced him. ‘Please stop calling me that—my name is Nessa.’

His voice was hard. ‘Nessa.’

The way he said her name impacted her physically, like a punch to her gut. She instantly regretted opening her mouth but Miss O’Sullivan was beginning to get under her skin. This man. This...meeting...was veering so far off course that she wasn’t even sure what they were talking about any more, or what was at stake.

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 unpretty 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.’

Nessa shivered again in the cool, night-time air. She had no choice, and he knew it. Defeated, she turned and stepped up into the vehicle, and the door closed behind her.

The windows were tinted and Nessa was enclosed in blackness as the bodyguard came around the front of the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat. Barbier strode away from them towards the main building and she felt suddenly bereft, which was ridiculous when the man was holding her to ransom for her brother. You put yourself up for that ransom, a voice reminded her.

As they approached the main gates Nessa reluctantly gave Armand directions to her own home. They passed her lonely-looking car on the side of the road and she sucked in a deep breath, telling herself that if she could endeavour to persuade Paddy to return to prove his innocence, and prevent anyone else from getting involved, then this—hopefully!—brief punishment at the hands of Barbier would be worth it.

Nessa tried to call up her usually positive disposition. Surely if Barbier saw how far she was willing to go to prove her brother’s innocence, he’d be forced to reconsider and give Paddy a chance to explain, wouldn’t he?

But why was it that that seemed to hold less appeal than the thought of seeing Luc Barbier again? Nessa scowled at herself in the reflection of the tinted window of the car, glad she wasn’t under that black-eyed gaze when her face got hot with humiliation.

* * *

When Nessa returned a short while later the stud was in darkness and quiet. Armand handed her over to a middle-aged man with a nice face who looked as if he’d just been woken up, and he was not all that welcoming. He introduced himself as Pascal Blanc, Barbier’s stud and racing stables manager, his right-hand man, and Paddy’s one-time immediate boss.

He said nothing at first, showing her to a small spartan room above the stables. Clearly this was where the most menial staff slept. But still, it was clean and comfortable, when Nessa had almost expected a corner of the stables.

After giving her the basics of the Barbier stud schedule and informing her that, naturally, she would be assigned to mucking out the yard and stables, and to expect a five a.m. wake-up call, he stopped at her door. ‘For what it’s worth, I would have given Paddy the benefit of the doubt based on what I thought I knew of him. We might have been able to get to the bottom of this whole nasty incident. But he ran, and now there’s nothing I can do except hope for his sake and yours that he either returns himself or returns the money. Soon.’

Nessa couldn’t say anything.

Pascal’s mouth compressed. ‘Luc... Mr Barbier...does not take kindly to those who betray him. He comes from a world where the rule of law didn’t exist and he doesn’t suffer fools, Miss O’Sullivan. If your brother is guilty, then Luc won’t be gentle with him. Or you.’

Somehow these words coming from this infinitely less intimidating man made everything even bleaker. But all Nessa could find herself doing was asking, ‘You’ve known Mr Barbier for long?’

Pascal nodded. ‘Ever since he started to work with Leo Fouret, the first time he came into contact with a horse.’

Nessa was impressed. Leo Fouret was one of the most respected trainers in racing, with hundreds of impressive race wins to his name.

‘Luc didn’t grow up in a kind world, Miss O’Sullivan. But he is fair. Unfortunately your brother never gave him that chance.’

Luc didn’t grow up in a kind world... The words reverberated in Nessa’s head for a long time after she’d been left alone in the room. She eventually fell into a fitful sleep and had dreams of riding a horse, trying to go faster and faster—not to get to the finish line but to escape from some terrifying and unnamed danger behind her.

* * *

What on earth did she have to laugh about? Luc was distinctly irritated by the faint lyrical sound emanating from his stableyard, which was usually a place of hushed industry in deference to the valuable livestock. It could only be coming from one person, the newest addition to his staff: Nessa O’Sullivan.

Her brother had stolen from him and now she laughed. It sent the very insidious thought into Luc’s head that he’d been a total fool. Of course she was in on it with her brother and now she was inside the camp. It made him think of the Trojan Horse and he didn’t find it amusing.