One Night: Sensual Bargains: Nine Months to Redeem Him / A Deal with Benefits / After Hours with Her Ex

He waved his hand in clear disbelief. “You were also betrayed by your boyfriend and America’s Sweetheart. You could have sold the story in an instant and gotten money and revenge. But you’ve never said a word against them. That’s loyalty.”

“Stupidity,” I mumbled.

“No.” He looked at me. “It’s rare.”

He made me sound like some kind of hero. “It’s just common decency. I don’t gossip.”

“You were at the top of your profession in physical therapy. That’s why you quit. One of your patients did something, didn’t he? I wonder which—”

“For heaven’s sake!” I exploded. “None of them did anything. They’re totally innocent. I quit physical therapy to become an actress!”

Actress. The words seemed to echo in the dark study, and I wished I could take them back. My cheeks burned. Even the crackle of the fire seemed to be laughing at me.

But Edward St. Cyr didn’t laugh. “How old are you, Miss Maywood?”

The burn in my cheeks heightened. “Twenty-eight.”

“Old for acting,” he observed.

“I’ve dreamed of being in movies since I was twelve.”

“Why didn’t you start sooner, then? Why wait so long?”

“I was going to, but...”

“But?”

I stared at him, then looked away. “It just wasn’t practical,” I mumbled.

Now he did laugh. “Isn’t your whole family in the business?”

“I liked physical therapy,” I said defensively. “I liked helping people get strong again.”

“So why not be a doctor?”

“No one dies in physical therapy.” My voice wobbled a little. I lifted my chin and said evenly, “It was a sensible career choice. I made a living. But after so many years...”

“You felt restless?”

I nodded. “I quit my job. But acting wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I went on auditions for a few weeks. Then I quit that to become Madison’s assistant.”

“Your lifelong dream, and you only tried it for a few weeks?”

Looking down at my feet, I mumbled, “It was a stupid dream.”

I waited for him to say, “There are no stupid dreams,” or murmur encouraging or sympathetic noises, as people always did. Even Madison managed it.

“Probably for the best,” Edward said.

My head lifted. “Huh?”

He nodded sagely. “You either didn’t want it enough, or you were too cowardly to fight for it. Either way you were clearly headed for failure. Good to figure that out and quit sooner rather than later. Now you can go back to being useful. Helping me.”

My mouth fell open. Then I glared at him.

“You don’t know. Maybe I could have succeeded. You have some nerve to—”

“You waited your whole life to try for it, then quit ten minutes after you started? Give me a break. You’re lying to yourself. It’s not your dream.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Then what are you doing here?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You want to give it another shot? London has a thriving theater scene. I’ll buy you the train ticket. Hell, I’ll even send you back to Hollywood in my own jet. Prove me wrong, Diana.” He tilted his head, staring at me in challenge. “Give it another go.”

I stared at him furiously, hating him for calling my bluff. I wanted to grandly take him up on his offer and march straight out his front door.

Then I thought of the soul-crushing auditions, the cold reptilian eyes of the casting directors as they looked me over and dismissed me—too old, too young, too thin, too pretty, too fat, too ugly. Too worthless. I was no Madison Lowe. And I knew it.

My shoulders slumped.

“I thought so,” Edward said. “So. You’re out of a job and need one. Perfect. It just happens that I’d like to hire you.”

“Why me?” I whispered over the lump in my throat. “I still don’t understand.”

“You don’t?” He looked surprised. “You’re the best at what you do, Diana. Trustworthy, competent. Beautiful...”

I looked up fiercely, suspecting mockery. “Beautiful.”

“Very beautiful.” His dark blue eyes held mine in the flickering light of the fire. “In spite of those god-awful clothes.”

“Hey,” I protested weakly.

“But you have qualities I need more than beauty. Skill. Loyalty. Patience. Intelligence. Discretion. Devotion.”

“You make me sound like...” I motioned toward the sheepdog on the rug. The dog looked back at me quizzically, lifting his head.

Edward St. Cyr’s lips lifted at the edges. “Like Caesar? Yes. That’s exactly what I want. I’m glad you understand.”

Hearing his name, the dog looked between us, giving a faint wag of his tail. Reaching out, I scratched behind his ears, then turned back to glare at his master.

His master. Not mine.

“Sorry.” I shook my head fiercely. “There’s no way I’m staying to work for a man who wants a physical therapist he can treat like his dog.”

“Caesar is a very good dog,” he said mildly. “But let’s be honest, shall we? We both know you’re not going back to California, not with all the sharks in the water. You wanted to get away. You have. No one will bother you here.”

“Except you.”

“Except me,” he agreed. “But I’m a very easy sort of person to get along with—”

I snorted in disbelief.

“—and in a few months, after I can run again, perhaps you’ll have figured out what you truly want to do with your life. You can leave Penryth Hall with enough money to do whatever you want. Go back to university. Build your physical therapy business. Even audition.” He shook his head. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

“You just want me to stay.”

“Yes.”

Helplessly, I shook my head. “I’m starting to think I might be better off just staying away from people.”

His eyes glittered in the firelight. “I understand. Better than you might think.”

I tried to smile. “Somehow I doubt a man like you spends much time alone.”

He looked away. “There are all kinds of alone.” He set his jaw. “Stay. We can be alone together,” he said gruffly. “Help each other.”

It was tempting. What was my alternative? And yet...

I licked my lips, coming closer to his chair near the fire. “Tell me more about your injury.”

His handsome face shuttered as he drew back.

“Didn’t the agency explain?” he said shortly. “Car crash.”

“They said you broke your left ankle, your right arm and two ribs.” I looked over his body slowly. “And also dislocated your shoulder, then managed to dislocate it again after you were home. Was it from physical therapy?”

He made a one-shouldered gesture that would have been a shrug. “I was bored and decided to go for a swim in the ocean.”

He could have died. “Are you crazy?”

“I said I was bored. And possibly a little drunk.”

“You are crazy,” I breathed. “No wonder you got in a car accident. Let me guess. You were street racing, like in the movies.”

The air in the dark study turned so chilly, the air nearly crackled with frost. His hand gripped the armrest, then abruptly released it.

“Got it in one,” he said coldly. “I raced my car straight into a Spanish fountain and flipped it four times down a mountain. Exactly like a movie. Complete with the villain carted off in an ambulance as all the good people celebrate and cheer.”

His friendliness had evaporated for reasons I didn’t understand. Wondering what had really happened, I took a deep breath. “Too soon to joke about your accident, huh? Okay, got it.” I bit my lip. “What really happened? What caused it?”

“I loved a woman,” he said flatly. Jaw tight, he looked away, staring out the window. It was leaded glass, small-paned and looked very old. The last bit of reddish sun was dying to the far west.

“I find the topic boring.” He looked at me. “How about we agree to forget about the past—both of us?”

It was the best plan I’d heard all day. “Deal.”

“Jason Black sounds like an idiot in any case,” he muttered.

The memory of Jason’s warm eyes, his lazy smile, his sweet, slow Texas drawl—Darlin’, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes—made pain slice through me like a blade. Folding my arms tightly over my heart, I glared at my new employer. “Don’t.”

“So loyal,” he sighed. “Even after he slept with your stepsister. Such devotion.” Deliberately, he rested his eyes on his sheepdog, then turned back to me suggestively. I scowled.

“How do I know you won’t toss me out tomorrow, for some trumped-up reason, like all the others?”

“I’ll make you a promise.” His dark blue eyes met mine. “If you’ll make one to me.”

As our eyes locked in the firelight, my whole body flashed hot, then cold. His deep, searing blue eyes made me feel strangely shivery. My gaze fell unwillingly to his mouth. His lips were sensual and wicked, even cruel.

And just the fact that I noticed his lips was a very bad sign. Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley definitely would not approve.

Stay professional, she’d ordered in Chapter Six. Keep your heart distant when you’re physically close. Especially if your employer is handsome and young. Keep your touch impersonal and your voice cold. See him as a patient, as a collection of sinew and bone and spine, not as a man.

Looking up, I said in a voice icy enough to flay the skin of a normal man, “You’re not flirting with me, are you, Mr. St. Cyr?”

“Call me Edward.” His eyes gleamed. “And no. I wasn’t flirting with you, Diana.” His husky voice made my name sound like music. I tried not to watch the flick of his tongue on his sensual lips with each syllable. “What I want from you is far more important than sex.”

It had been an insane thing to worry about anyway—as if a gorgeous, brooding tycoon like Edward St. Cyr would ever look twice at a girl like me! “Oh. Good. I mean... Good.”

“I need you to heal me. Whenever I’m not working. Even if it takes twelve hours a day.”

“Twelve?” I said dubiously. “Physical therapy isn’t an all-day kind of endeavor. We’d work together for an hour a day, maybe three at most. Not twelve...” I tilted my head. “What is your work?”

“I’m CEO of a global financial firm based in London. I’m currently on leave but a sizeable amount of work from my home office is still required. I’ll need you available to me day or night, whenever I want you. I need you to be available for my therapy without question and without notice.”

Dead silence followed, with only the crackling of the fire. Caesar the Sheepdog yawned.

I stared at Edward. “It’s a completely unreasonable demand.”

“Completely,” he agreed.

“It would make me your virtual slave for months, possibly, at your beck and call, with no life of my own.”

“Yes.”

Considering the mess I’d made of my life myself, maybe that wouldn’t be all bad. I looked at his leg, propped up on the stool. “Will you quit on me when it gets difficult?”

His shoulders stiffened. Putting his foot down on the floor, he used one hand to steady himself on the back of the chair, and slowly rose to his feet. He stood in front of me, and my head tilted back to look him in the eye. He was a foot taller. I felt how he towered over me, felt the power of his body like a broad shadow over my own.

“Will you?” he said softly.

I shook my head, looking away as I mumbled, “As long as you don’t flirt with me.”

“You have nothing to fear. My taste doesn’t run to idealistic, frightened young virgins.”

I whirled back to face him. “How did you—”

“I know women.” His eyes were mocking as he looked down at me. He bared his teeth in a smile that glinted in the firelight. “I’ve had my share. One-night stands, weekend affairs—that is more my line. Sex without complications. That is how I play.”

“Surely not since your accident—”

“I had a woman here last night.” He gave his one-shouldered shrug. “An acquaintance of mine, a French lingerie model came down from London—we shared a bottle of wine and then we... But Miss Maywood, you look bewildered. I guessed you were a virgin but I expected you’d at least have some experience. Should I explain how it works?”

My face was probably the color of a tomato. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. With your injury...”

“It’s not difficult,” he said huskily, looking down at me. “She sat on top of me. I didn’t even have to move from my chair. I could draw you a diagram, if you like.”

“N-no,” I breathed. He was so close. I could almost feel the heat from his skin, the power from his body. He was right, I didn’t have much experience but even I could see that this man was dangerous to women. Even idealistic young virgins like me.

Edward St. Cyr was the kind of man who would break your heart without much bothering about it. Casually cruel, like a cat toying with a mouse.

“So you agree to the terms?”

Hesitantly, I nodded. He took my hand. I nearly gasped as I felt the warmth of his skin, the roughness of his palm against mine. A current of electricity went through me. My lips parted.

“Good,” he said softly. We were so close, I smelled his breath, warm and sweet—like liquor. I saw his bloodshot eyes. And I realized, for the first time, that he was slightly drunk.

A half-empty bottle of expensive whiskey was on the table by his chair, beside a short glass. Dropping his hand, I snatched them up. “But if I’m going to stay and be on call for you every hour of the day, you’re going to commit as well. No more of this.”

His dark eyebrow raised. “It’s medicinal.”

I didn’t change my tone. “No drugs of any kind, except, if you’re very nice to me, coffee in the morning. And no more late nights with lingerie models.”

Edward smiled. “That’s fine.”

“Or anyone else!” I added sharply.

He scowled, folding his arms like a sulky boy. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “So that makes two of us.”

“But if you take away all my toys, Diana,” he looked me over, “what else will I have to play with?”

My cheeks burned at his deliberately insulting glance. “You’ll have hard work,” I said crisply, “and lots of it.”

Edward leaned back, his handsome face cold. “You still yearn for Jason Black.”

The cruelty of his words hit me like a blow. With an intake of breath, I looked towards the window at the deepening night. I saw my plain reflection in the glass, against the red-orange glow of the fire.

“Yes,” I whispered, and was proud my voice held steady.

“You lo-ove him,” he said mockingly.

My throat choked. Madison and Jason were probably making love right now, in their elegant suite at a five-star Parisian hotel. I said in a small voice, “I don’t want to love him anymore.”

“But you do.” He snorted, looking over me with contemptuous eyes. “You’ll probably forgive that stepsister of yours, too.”

“I love them.” I sounded ashamed. And I was. What kind of idiot loves people who don’t love her back? My teeth chattered. “People...can’t choose who they l-love.”

“My God. Just look at you.” Edward stared at me for a long moment. “Even now, you won’t say a word against them. What a woman.”

Silence fell. The wind howled outside, shaking the leaded glass in the thick gray stone.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said quietly. “You can choose who you love. Very easily.”

“How?”

“By loving no one.”

At those breathtakingly cynical words, I looked at his powerful, injured body. The hard jaw, the icy blue eyes. Edward St. Cyr was the master of Penryth Hall, handsome and wealthy beyond imagining.

He was also damaged. And not just his body.

“You’ve had your heart broken too,” I whispered, searching his gaze. “Haven’t you?”

Edward looked me over in a way that caused my body to flash with heat. He took a step closer, and his muscular, powerful body towered over me in every direction.

“Perhaps that’s the real reason I wanted you here,” he murmured. “Perhaps we are kindred spirits, you and I. Perhaps we can—” he brushed back a tendril of my hair “—heal each other in every way....”

Edward pulled closer to me. I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin and shivered all over. My heart was beating frantically. He started to lower his head toward mine.

Then I saw the sardonic twist of his lips.

Putting my hands on his chest—on his hard, muscular, delicious chest, warm through his shirt—I said, “Stop it.”

“No?” Taking a step back, laughing, he mocked me with my earlier words. “Too soon?”

“You are a jerk,” I choked out.

He shrugged his one-shoulder shrug. “Can’t blame me for trying. You seem so naïve, like you’d believe any line a man told you.” He considered me. “Kind of amazing you’re still a virgin.”

Outrage filled me, and new humiliation. “You claim you’re desperate to be healed—”

“I never used the word desperate.”

“Then you fire your physical therapists, and waste your days getting drunk—”

“And don’t forget my nights having sex,” he said silkily.

“You’re already trying to sabotage me.” Narrowing my gaze, I lifted my chin. “I don’t think you actually want to get better.”

His careless look disappeared and he narrowed his eyes in turn. “I’m hiring you as a physio, Miss Maywood, not a psychiatrist. You don’t know me.”

“I know I came a long way here to have my time wasted. If you don’t intend to get better, tell me now.”

“And you’ll do what? Go back home to humiliation and paparazzi?”

“Better that, than be stuck with a patient who has nothing but excuses, and blames others for his own laziness and fear!”

“You say this to my face?” he growled.

“I’m not afraid of you!”

Edward stared at me blankly.

“Maybe you should be.” He fell back heavily into the chair and stared at the fire. The sheepdog lifted his head, wagging his tail.

“Is that what you want?” I said softly, coming closer. “For people to be afraid of you?”

The flickering firelight cast shadows on the leatherbound books of his starkly masculine study. “It makes things simpler. And why shouldn’t they fear me?” His midnight-blue eyes burned through me. “Why shouldn’t you?”

Edward St. Cyr’s handsome face and cultured voice were civilized, but that was a veneer, like sunlight over ocean. Beneath it, the darkness went deeper than I’d imagined. In spite of my earlier brave words, something shivered in my heart, and I suddenly wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

“Why should I be afraid of you?” I gave an awkward laugh. “Is your soul really so dark?”

“I loved a woman,” he said in a low voice, not looking at me. “So much I tried to kidnap her from her husband and baby. That’s how I got in the accident.” His lips turned flat. “Her husband objected.”

“This is why you wouldn’t allow the agency to give me any details,” I said slowly, “not even your name. You were afraid if I knew more about you, I wouldn’t come, weren’t you?”

His jaw tightened.

“Was anyone hurt?”

His expression suddenly looked weary. “Only me.”

“And now?”

“I’ve left them to their happiness. I’ve found that love, like dreams,” he said the word mockingly, “offers more pain than pleasure.” He turned to me in the firelight, his expression stark. “You want to know about the depths of darkness in my soul?” His lips twisted. “You couldn’t even see it. You, who are nothing but innocence and sunlight.”

I frowned at him. “I’m more than that.” I suddenly remembered my own power, what I could do. The glimmer of fear disappeared. “I can help you. But you must promise to do everything I say. Everything. Exercises, healthy diet, lots of sleep—all of it.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Think you can keep up with me?”

His lips parted. “Can you keep up with me? I’ve broken a lot of physiotherapists,” he said dryly. “What makes you think I can’t break you? I...” He suddenly scowled. “What are you smiling at? You should be afraid.”

I was smiling. For the first time in three weeks, I felt a sense of purpose, even anticipation as I shook my head. The high-and-mighty tycoon didn’t know who he was dealing with. Yes, I was a pathetic pushover in my personal life. But to help a patient, I could be as ruthless and unyielding as the most arrogant hedge fund billionaire on earth. “You are the one who should be afraid.”

“Of you?” He snorted. “Why?”

“You asked for all my attention.”

“So?”

My smile widened to a grin. “Now you’re going to get it.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU CALL THIS a workout?” Edward demanded the next morning.

I gave him a serene smile. “Those were just tests. Now we’re about to start.”

We were in the former gardener’s cottage, which Edward had recently had converted into a personal rehabilitation gym, complete with exercise equipment, weight benches, yoga mats and a massage table, with big bright windows overlooking the garden. I had him lift his arms slowly over his head, saw the pull in his muscle, saw him flinch.

“Okay.” I squared my shoulders. “Let’s begin.”

Then started the stretches and small weights and balancing and walking and then driving him to the nearest town recreation area so he could swim. I nearly brought him to his knees, literally as well as figuratively. I think I surprised him by pushing him to his limit, until he was covered with sweat.

“Ready to be done?” I said smugly.

Now he surprised me, by shaking his head. “Done? I’m just getting started,” he panted. “When will the real workout begin?”

Leaving me to grit my teeth and come up with exercises that would continue to strengthen him, or at least not cause him injury.

As the afternoon faded into early evening, he never once admitted weakness or exhaustion. It was only by the grip of his fingers and the ashy-pale hue of his skin that I knew.

On the second day, though, I knew he’d be sore. I expected him to plead the demands of business, and spend his day with ice packs on his aching muscles, relaxing in his home office and talking on the phone. But when I told him to meet me in the gardener’s cottage after breakfast, he didn’t complain. And when I went down to set up, I found Edward already at the weight bench, lifting a heavier weight on his shoulder than he should have.

“Linger over your kippers and eggs, did you?” he said smugly. And then the second day went pretty much like the first, except this time it felt like he was a step ahead.

So the third day, determined to regain a sense of control, I had an early breakfast and went down to the gardener’s cottage, at nine. I was able to greet his surprised face when he arrived five minutes later.

The fourth day, he was already there stretching when I arrived at eight forty-five.

We fell into a pattern. Any time Edward wasn’t working in his home office, on his computer or the phone at odd hours talking to London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo, he demanded my full attention. And as promised, he got it. Each of us trying to prove we were tougher than the other. A battle of wills, neither of us willing to back down.

And now, almost two months into our working together, it had come down to this.

I’d woken up at five this morning, cursing myself in the darkness, when any sensible person would have drowsed in bed for hours longer. I’d been woken by Caesar, who’d trotted into my bedroom to heft his huge fluffy body at the foot of my bed. The sheepdog had become my morning alarm, because he only came to visit me after Edward was gone. When the dog woke me, I knew the day’s battle was already half-lost.

Now, snow was falling softly outside as I hurried toward the gardener’s cottage. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt more tightly over my head, shivering as the gravel crunched beneath my feet. It was still dark, as was to be expected at five o’clock in December, the darkest day of the year.

I’d thought I could bring Edward St. Cyr to his knees? Ha. I’d thought I would make him beg for mercy? Double ha.

I’d worked with football players, injured stuntmen, even a few high-powered corporate types. I thought I knew what to expect from the typical arrogant alpha male.