Taming the French Tycoon. Rebecca Winters
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“So you have no interest in me except for what I've been able to do for you.”
Her features hardened. “I came to you with a business proposition. You know how grateful I am for what you've done for me—”
“But it's all work and no play, even though you're separated from your beloved by thousands of miles?”
Those blue eyes looked haunted. “What do you want from me?”
“How about honesty?”
“I'm being honest …” Her voice trembled.
“The heck you are—” he whispered fiercely. Having taken all he could, he pulled her close so their mouths were almost touching. “I'm feeling something I've never felt before, and I know you're feeling it too, but your guilt is preventing you from admitting it. The fact that guilt is getting in the way means you couldn't possibly love this man the way you should.”
A strangled moan escaped her lips.
“I'm going to kiss you, Jasmine, and then we'll know for a certainty.”
Luc found her mouth and coaxed her lips apart. In the next instant he felt her begin to kiss him back with such answering hunger it took his breath.
He'd wanted this kiss to happen for so long, and now that it had he couldn't stop. Her passionate response took them to a deeper level until they both moaned with pleasure.
Taming the French Tycoon
Rebecca Winters
REBECCA WINTERS whose family of four children has now swelled to include five beautiful grandchildren, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the land of the Rocky Mountains. With canyons and high alpine meadows full of wildflowers, she never runs out of places to explore. They, plus her favourite vacation spots in Europe, often end up as backgrounds for her romance novels, because writing is her passion, along with her family and church.
Rebecca loves to hear from readers. If you wish to e-mail her, please visit her website: www.cleanromances.com.
Contents
May
WITH HIS BANKING business done in Cyprus, Luc had taken a rare morning off to visit Yeronisos before flying back to France. He’d always had an interest in archaeology and the tiny island off the coast was thought to be the site of the temple of Apollo. They’d dug up foundations, walls, coins, amulets, wine jugs, and much more. So far the items had been traced to Alexandria, three hundred miles away.
Evidently Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, had possessed the resources to build here on the top of these seventy-foot cliffs that kept visitors away. Yeronisos was so inaccessible they called it a virgin island because it had remained much as it had been when man had first come there over ten thousand years ago.
Luc had walked around the excavations for an hour and found it a totally fascinating place where he could indulge his passion, but then a boatload of male teenagers had arrived in a dinghy to disturb its tranquility. Instead of studying antiquities, they’d come to cliff dive, a foolhardy pursuit with the waters churning at the base because of a swift current. There was a sign that forbade it, but this group paid no heed.
Deciding it was time to go, he descended the steep steps. The warm May sun forced him to put on his sunglasses to cut the glint reflecting off the deep blue water. When he looked out, another dinghy was approaching. He returned to the speedboat he’d rented and started untying the ropes at the dock.
While he was doing so, the boat pulled in behind him and more young divers jumped out. He recognized their eagerness as they scrambled up the side of the island to get to the top and challenge the elements.
Stepping into his boat, he happened to glance at the last guy to leave the dinghy. But it turned out to be a young woman wearing a backpack. She had a pair of the most fabulous long legs he’d ever seen. A T-shirt over her bikini couldn’t hide the voluptuous mold of her body. A dark braid circled her well-shaped head.
As she passed him, he found himself staring into an incredibly lovely face. Classic, with high cheekbones and a provocative mouth. She reminded him a little of Sabine, the girl he’d loved and lost in a plane crash years ago, but sunglasses covered this woman’s eyes so he couldn’t see their color. With her attention focused on the top of the cliff, he doubted she’d noticed him. She’d come here with all those hormone-filled idiots?
In the background came the excited shouts from the divers already launching themselves into the dangerous, swirling waters. One by one, they jumped into the huge swells and then had to swim for their lives to reach the rocky walls of the cliff. When he heard several bloodcurdling screams among the shouts, his emotions suddenly morphed into gut-wrenching pain as he was transported back to his last year in high school.
During those years he and his friends had felt immortal. In their crazy exuberance, they’d decided to go skydiving. But it had ended in horror when their plane crashed against a hillside. Out of the six, four of them survived. The other two had perished, one of them being Sabine.
His fear for the divers’ safety intensified, causing his body to tense. Any one of them could be killed doing something so reckless. Luc knew all about it. He broke out in a cold sweat watching the attractive female make her way to the bottom of the steps that would take her to the top of the cliff. He thought of Sabine and couldn’t bear to see this woman hurt or possibly killed doing something so reckless.
She was young like they’d once been, eager for adventure and heedless of the danger. Didn’t she know her body could be tossed against the rocks and knocked unconscious or worse?