Sinful Revenge: Exquisite Revenge / The Sinful Art of Revenge / Undone by His Touch

Luc squared his body to face her more fully, and Jesse had the uncanny prescience that she wasn’t the only one who’d just faced some revelations.

‘Your name … Moriarty … it’s Irish, isn’t it?’

Jesse nodded, a little blindsided by this observation. ‘Yes, it is … My mother was Irish—from Kerry.’

‘O’Brien is Irish too …’

Jesse went cold all over. Goosebumps broke out on her skin. And then Luc said it out loud.

‘He’s your father, isn’t he, Jesse? Your mother was his housekeeper.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘HE’S your father, isn’t he, Jesse? Your mother was his housekeeper.’

Luc must have seen the instantaneous reaction of shock on Jesse’s face, because he obviously took it as confirmation.

He continued, seemingly unaware of the seismic reaction within Jesse. ‘What I’d like to know is, after everything he’s done to you, why the hell do you want to save him?’

For a second she thought she might faint. As if sensing it, Luc crossed the distance between them and took her arm; he led her to the couch where he forced her to sit down.

He glared down at her, hands on his hips. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?’

Jesse felt far too vulnerable where she was, so she scrambled off the couch and went to stand apart from Luc, crossing her arms. ‘I didn’t tell you because it has no relevance to anything.’

Even Jesse winced at those words, and she flinched slightly at Luc’s caustic laugh.

‘Give me a break, Jesse. It has everything to do with this. Why else would you want to save him so badly? Clearly you have some misguided sense of loyalty to the man—’

‘No!’ Jesse reacted viscerally to those words, cutting Luc off. ‘I don’t want to save him.’

He looked at her. ‘Excuse me?’

Jesse swallowed. ‘I don’t want to save him. I want to ruin him. I want him to be finished for ever. And I’m not going to let you be the one to save him. That’s why I wanted to buy you out—so that no one else would come to his aid …’

For a long tense moment they stared at each other across the divide, and then inexplicably Luc threw back his head and laughed. Jesse just stared at him. But he kept laughing. He couldn’t seem to stop. Eventually he had to sit down on the couch. Tears were running from his eyes.

Anger was rushing upwards inside Jesse; she’d completely exposed herself and he was laughing at her.

She stalked over to Luc and stood over him, much as he’d just done to her. ‘What’s so funny about that?’

Luc stood up, sober now, making her move back. He shook his head. ‘What’s so funny about it, Jesse—what’s so ridiculous—is that all this time we’ve been on the same side …’

‘What do you mean?’ Jesse asked faintly.

She found herself wanting to believe Luc so badly. But at that moment he turned away from her and ran his hands through his hair. She couldn’t see his expression, and in the few seconds before he turned back to face her she remembered standing on that small beach just now. She had the stark realisation that no matter what Luc said now she couldn’t trust him fully. She had to remember that or it could all still unravel.

‘What I mean,’ Luc said, when he turned back, ‘is that I want to see him gone too. I was going to wait until the last moment—until I knew no one else could step in to help him—and then walk away from the deal.’

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