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He lifted the hand she had bitten, looked at it. So did Annie. ‘I’m bleeding,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘You have sharp little teeth.’
And then he absently put out his pink tongue-tip and licked the blood away. Annie watched him, her nerves prickling. The little gesture had an intimacy that shocked her, yet sent another of those quivers of response through her body.
It was at that moment that she really began to be afraid, to believe that this was actually happening, that she had been kidnapped for motives she didn’t yet understand by a man who frightened her and attracted her at one and the same time.
Her insides collapsed, but she fought not to show how scared she was, throwing back her head and looking straight at him, hoping she looked calm and confident.
‘Why don’t you take me back to Paris now, before this gets really serious? Kidnapping is a very serious offence, you know.’
‘Very,’ he agreed, straight-faced.
Flushing at what she suspected to be mockery, she snapped, ‘You could end up going to prison for the rest of your life!’
‘They have to catch me first,’ he pointed out coolly, brushing the tangled black hair back from her face with those powerful tanned fingers. The light touch of his hand sent a trickle of icy awareness down her spine, and yet there was something like tenderness in the gentle movement of his fingers. Even that made Annie afraid—afraid of what might be coming, what he meant to do with her.
‘Why don’t I show you the room I’ve got ready for you?’
Her stomach turned over. She wondered if he could hear the acceleration of her heartbeat, see the spring of perspiration on her face.
If he picked up her nervous reaction he didn’t show it. ‘Then we’ll have lunch,’ he added, and she bristled.
‘I’m not hungry! I couldn’t eat; I feel sick!’
‘You’ll feel better with some food inside you,’ he said, as if she were a child. ‘It won’t be anything elaborate—I’m no cook—but I’ve got plenty of salad and cheese and fruit. It was freshly bought this morning in the market; you’ll find it’s delicious. And I’ve got a bottle of very good wine.’
‘I don’t drink wine!’
He raised straight black brows at her, looking genuinely incredulous. ‘You don’t drink wine? You’re missing out on one of life’s great pleasures. I shall have to teach you to enjoy it while you’re here. It will calm your nerves down, relax you.’
That was what she was afraid of, what she must not allow to happen. She had to stay on the alert, on her guard against him, and watchful for an opportunity to escape. If she could only get out of the house she might be able to hide among the trees until it was dark and then walk until she reached a village; there must be one somewhere near here!
‘If you want to calm my nerves you might start by letting go of me!’ she told him, and without a word he let his arm fall.
She took several steps away, looked around the small, shadowy hall from which a staircase led upstairs.
‘Does this house belong to you?’
He didn’t answer, but she sensed from the expression in his eyes that it didn’t.’
‘Look, Mr...? You still haven’t told me your name. Or at least told me what to call you. I must call you something.’
He frowned oddly, hesitated, then said curtly, ‘Marc.’
From the way he watched her she couldn’t tell whether it was really his name but she didn’t query it. ‘Marc,’ she repeated. ‘You’re French, aren’t you?’
‘How did you guess?’
He was kidding. Solemnly she said, ‘A wild stab.’ She put her head on one side, listened to the silence surrounding them. No sound of traffic from outside, just the constant murmur of the trees in the wood behind the house, yet there was something familiar to her about the noise. She couldn’t track it down for a minute until she realised it reminded her of the sound she had heard in her dream the other night—a sound like the sea. This was it, not traffic, not the sea, but the rustle and whisper of hundreds of branches swaying and bending in the wind.
Why on earth had she heard that sound in her dream? There was something uncanny about it. It made her shiver. She had never been here before; why had this sound got into her dreams? Maybe he had rung her from here. Maybe the noise had been a background sound on the answering machine tape.
‘Did you ring me from here?’ she asked him, and he gave her a sharp look, shaking his head.
‘The phone has been cut off.’
She was sorry to hear that, but maybe it had been telepathy. He must have had this sound in his head when he talked to her on the phone and she had picked up on it. Nothing uncanny about telepathy—she had several times had ideas leap into her head from Di or Phil when they were working together. If you were on the same wavelength it could easily happen.
But she wasn’t on this man’s wavelength! she hurriedly thought. She couldn’t be.
‘Why has the phone been cut off?’ she asked, thinking that the house had the strange, echoing feel of a house which was always empty; it didn’t feel like anybody’s home.
‘I didn’t need it.’
‘Then where did you ring me from?’
He didn’t answer, eyeing her drily.
She noticed that from the hall several doors opened into rooms which were gloomy with shadow because of the closed shutters over the windows. She only got an impression of them, a fleeting glimpse of dark oak furniture and leather chairs, a wallpaper with trails of ivy and blue flowers.
‘Is there anyone else here?’ she asked huskily, listening.
He half smiled again. ‘No, we’re quite alone, Annie.’
She tensed, bit her lower lip, watching him and wishing she knew what went on inside his head. Or did she? Maybe she was better off not knowing! ‘At least tell me what this is all about! Why have you brought me here? Do you want money? Are you going to ask my record company for a lot of money before you let me go?’ Her mind worked feverishly. But even if Philip paid him whatever ransom he demanded, would he let her go? Alive?
She had seen his face now; he hadn’t tried to hide it. Didn’t kidnappers usually kill their victims so that they could never identify them? Fear made her stomach clench, sent waves of sickness through her.
‘This has nothing at all to do with money!’ he bit out, and she stared at him, afraid to feel relief. If he wasn’t holding her for ransom, what did he mean to do with her?
‘Then why have you brought me here?’ She searched his face for a clue. The hard, insistent lines of it did nothing to lessen her tension. ‘Are you sure you really know who I am? You aren’t mixing me up with someone else, are you? Because you keep asking if I remember you, but I don’t, and I’m sure we’ve never met before. I have a good memory; I’d remember if we had met.’
His dark eyes hypnotically stared down into hers. ‘You’ll remember Annie,’ he said softly. ‘I can wait; I’ve waited a long time already.’
A shiver ran down her back. If she wasn’t careful, he would start convincing her! He didn’t look it, but he must be crazy.
‘Stop arguing, Annie,’ he said. ‘Come upstairs and I’ll show you your room.’
She dug her heels in, resisting the hand that seized her elbow and tried to move her towards the stairs.
‘You can’t keep me here against my will and get away with it! I don’t know what the penalty is for kidnapping in France, but you don’t want to go to prison for years, do you? Look, if you just want to get to know me, I’ll have lunch with you now, and then you can drive me back to Paris, and I’ll see you again there. I’ll get you a ticket for my concert and—’
He laughed harshly. ‘You know you don’t mean it; if you made a date with me it would be the police who kept it, I imagine. I’m not stupid, Annie. You’re ready to promise me anything to get away. Do you think I don’t know that?’
‘What are you going to do to me?’ She tried to hide her fear, but he would have had to be blind to miss that look in her eyes.
His brows met. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Annie; don’t look like that!’
He sounded so convincing. She let out a long sigh, put her hand out to him. ‘Then please let me go, Marc—please...’
Taking her hand, he looked down at the slight, pale fingers he held, slowly entwined his own tanned fingers with them. Annie felt her heart skip sideways in a little kick of awareness.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Just for the moment, you’re my guest. You’ll find the house very comfortable, and it’s tranquil here, much more peaceful than you would have been in Paris. No media clamouring for interviews, no telephones, no fans waiting outside to hassle you. Why don’t you stop worrying and enjoy it?’
Annie considered him soberly. If she kept her temper and was not unfriendly maybe she would be able to talk him round, get him to see sense and take her back to Paris.
She pulled her hand away; he let it go without comment. Annie began to walk upstairs, aware of him following close behind her.
‘In here,’ he said, throwing open a door on the landing above.
Halting on the threshold, she watched him walk across the darkened room to the windows. He opened them, flung back the shutters, and light flooded in, making her blink, dazzled, staring at him.
She felt a strange flash of surprise, a jerk of dislocation, like mental whiplash, and for that instant had the oddest feeling, and then it was gone, and she was watching him with wide, half-blind green eyes.
He stared back at her with a curious eagerness, as if he knew that something had happened to her just then, as if he could read her thoughts, or her feelings; and that bothered her. That could be very dangerous. From now on she must try to hide from him what she was thinking, or she would have no defences against him.
‘Annie?’ he whispered.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ she asked, trying to keep all intonation out of her voice.
She thought she heard him sigh. Then he gestured. ‘Through that door. I’ll go downstairs and start preparing lunch, so don’t be long. I’ll bring your cases in from the car later and you can unpack after lunch.’
She waited until she heard him reach the bottom of the stairs, then she went over to the window. How far was it to the ground from up here? If there was a handy drainpipe it might be worth risking the climb down. She peered down at the garden below and grimaced. No, that was out.
There was no drainpipe close enough—the nearest was outside the bathroom, and the bathroom window looked far too small for her to climb through it. From here, too, the ground seemed a very long way off. She wouldn’t like to risk breaking a leg, or worse, by jumping out of the window. In films people knotted sheets together and climbed down them; maybe she could try that.
But not now. She could hear noises from the room below, a tap running, the sound of china clattering. That must be the kitchen. If she tried to climb out of here now he’d be sure to spot her.
She went into the bathroom and found it very pretty: the fittings a primrose-yellow, a pine shelf along the wall filled with French toiletries—bath oil, soaps, gels, shampoo, talc.
Annie washed, then deliberately left her face bare of make-up, brushed her long black hair up into a neat bun at the back of her neck, made herself look as unattractive as possible.
Looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she saw the nervous awareness in her green eyes and turned away quickly. In this situation it was very dangerous to admit, even to herself, in the privacy of her own head, that she found him attractive. No, more than that, if she was honest. Ever since she first saw him she had been mesmerised; and that was scary.
He might keep telling her not to be scared, that he wouldn’t hurt her, but the fact remained—he had kidnapped her, brought her here by force. Why had he done that, if not for ransom? What on earth was going on here? She was afraid to think about it.
Was he out of his head? Look at his obsession that they had met before! Yes, one of them had to be crazy, and it wasn’t her. She was one hundred per cent certain she had never seen him in her life until today.
Then she remembered that fleeting dizziness when he opened the shutters, the feeling of déjà vu, and she frowned, bit her lip. What on earth had that been about? For a second she almost had thought she remembered...something...
Angrily she pushed the thought away. She was letting him get to her, that was all. She must not let him hypnotise her into joining him in his fantasy. That way lay madness.
Feeling calmer, she went downstairs, started looking into rooms, until she opened a door into a large, bright kitchen with golden pine fittings, white walls and red and white gingham curtains. There were bowls of hyacinths in bloom on the windowsill, and the whole room was full of their scent and the fragrance of fresh coffee.
While she hesitated at the door, Marc turned to look at her, his narrowed eyes skating over her face and hair, his brows rising sardonically.
‘You look about fifteen! Is that meant to make me keep my distance?’
‘I hope you will anyway,’ she said primly, not meeting his eyes.
There was a long silence, and at last she had to look up. He was watching her seriously, his dark eyes level and frowning.
‘I told you, you don’t need to be afraid. I’m not holding you for ransom, I won’t hurt you, and, I assure you, I won’t leap on you suddenly. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.’
Red burned in her cheeks. ‘You forced me to come here, and you’re forcing me to stay here against my will.’
‘It was the only way I could get you to myself for long enough,’ he coolly told her.
‘Long enough for what?’
‘To get to know me,’ he said. ‘Now come and sit down at the table and we’ll have lunch.’
Still absorbed in thinking over what he had just said, she didn’t argue. She sat down automatically and looked at the food he had put out on the square pine kitchen table—a large bowl of crisp green salad tossed in dressing, black olives in a dish, some hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, a gingham-covered wicker basket of sliced French bread, a platter of various French cheeses and a bowl of fruit.
Annie hadn’t felt hungry until then, but the food looked so good that she felt a surprising pang of hunger.
‘Help yourself,’ he said as he sat down opposite her.
She took salad—a mixture of avocado, lettuces, cucumber, green peppers—a hard-boiled egg, a tomato, some black olives, a slice of Brie, some of the golden bread.
‘I’m sorry there’s nothing more exciting,’ he said, and she looked up, her green eyes startled, then smiled.
‘It’s great food—I’ve always loved a picnic; that’s what this is—a picnic indoors.’
‘But picnic food tastes better in the open air,’ he said, reaching over to pour white wine into her glass, and that was when Annie had another of those strange déjà vu flashes, a baffling sense of having seen him do that before.
As she drew a sharp, startled breath he looked up at her, his body stiffening, his face watchful.
‘Annie?’ he said again, as he had before, and she slowly lifted her own eyes to stare back at him, dazed.
He held her eyes. ‘Tell me what you felt,’ he softly said.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘It was...nothing...’
‘It was something,’ he said, and his black eyes glittered. ‘You’re beginning to remember.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHY don’t you tell me when we’re supposed to have met, and stop playing games?’ Annie burst out.
Shaking his head, he gestured. ‘Taste the wine.’
‘Was it in England? In London?’
‘There’s no point in trying to guess. When you remember, you’ll know.’
But she was beginning to read his expressions, the fleeting thoughts passing through those brilliant liquid black eyes, the way his mouth changed, softening, tightening, twisting. He might not have denied that they’d met in England, but something about his face just then told her that that wasn’t where they had met. Where else could it have been? She was determined to make him tell her.
‘America?’
He laughed, shook his head.
That didn’t leave many other countries. Annie hadn’t travelled very widely yet. So she came to the most likely answer.
‘Was it here, in France?’
He didn’t answer, but his eyes were as bright as black stars.
‘It was, wasn’t it?’ she said slowly.
‘So now you believe we have met,’ he said, his voice deep, vibrating with a new note, passionate, excited. She felt her pulses leap, and this time it was she who didn’t answer. She didn’t have to; her sudden flush, the way she looked down, her dark lashes cloaking her eyes, spoke for her.
Huskily she finally said, ‘I believe you think we did. But I really don’t remember—I’m sorry. I’ve only been to France a couple of times—it must have been on one of those trips, I suppose. The last time I came here I spent two weeks in Normandy with my best friend and her sister. We stayed in a wonderful old hotel in Caborg, right on the sea. It was very hot that summer; we spent a lot of time on the beach—was that where we met?’
He shook his head, sipping wine and leaning back in his chair, his lids half down over his dark eyes, his legs stretched full-length sideways. Annie didn’t mean to stare, but she couldn’t help noticing that under his shirt she could almost see the ripple of lean muscled flesh every time he breathed. He had a very slim waist and hips, or was that a visual illusion because of the length of his legs? She couldn’t deny that he was her type. His long, supple body was intensely sexy.
Her eyes drifted back upwards, and with a start of shock met his gaze. Annie looked away, her colour high.
‘Well, where did we meet?’ Her voice was husky, defying him to make anything of the way she had been looking him over. ‘If I knew where we met I might remember it. Why don’t you tell me?’
‘Because you have to remember without any help from me,’ he said coolly.
‘Why?’ she persisted.
He ignored the question, gesturing. ‘Come on, eat some of your salad—you look as if your blood sugar is a little low. Maybe that’s why you’re so bad-tempered.’
‘I’m bad-tempered because you’ve kidnapped me!’ she retorted, but picked up her glass and drained the pale golden wine while he watched, his brows shooting up.
‘Careful! If you aren’t used to drinking wine it could go to your head if you drink it too fast.’
She reached for the bottle, which stood in a vacuum jug in the middle of the table, but Marc lifted it out before she seized it, poured her another half-glass, refilled his own, advising her,
‘Eat your food before you drink any more; it’s never wise to drink on an empty stomach.’
‘Will you stop giving me orders?’ But she began to eat all the same, and the food was delicious—the cheese, the bread, the salad with its tangy dressing tasting of lemon, vinegar and herbs and glistening with oil. All this tension seemed to have given her an appetite, or maybe it had been the wine, after all.
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