'You slip into bed, then, and I'll be back with a tray,' said Megan, leaving her. Lissa opened her case and took out one of her nighties. Slowly she undressed, her body aching. When Megan returned Lissa was already asleep, her head buried on the pillow.
Megan turned off the bedside lamp and tiptoed out with the tray. Lissa half stirred as the light was doused, b,ut sleep had her too deeply. She did not wake.
She did wake up, however, next morning, when she heard Megan drawing the curtains back. Megan turned with a smile. 'I brought you breakfast in bed,' Megan informed her. 'You look better this morning. You were dead to the world when I looked in last night,'
'I'm not used to travelling,' Lissa admitted.
'You'll have to get used to it with Luc,' Megan said with a little chuckle. 'He's born restless, always off to the other end of the world.'
She went out and Lissa buried her hot face in the pillow. Did Megan, too, expect her to become Luc's mistress? The thought made her so embarrassed and angry she wanted to scream.
She shouldn't have allowed him to bring her here. She was being put in a difficult position merely by being here in his house. Last night she had been too tired to think. Now she felt much more awake and aware, and as she looked around the pretty, expensively furnished room she felt her nerves prickle with anxiety.
Today she would go out and look for a job-any job that would take her away from Luc and the constant temptation of his inviting blue eyes and experienced hands.
She ate her breakfast while the morning light brightened the pale London sky. She heard birds calling somewhere outside and when she got up and went to the window she saw the trees of Regent's Park massed between two houses across the street. The elegant street was very quiet, but she could hear the far-off muted roar of London in the background. It reminded her of the sound of the sea which had been so constant a factor of life at St Lerie..
Later, dressed in a shirt and jeans, she went down the stairs with her tray. She paused in the hall, looking around her, and Luc appeared in a doorway, startling her.
'Oh!' she gasped. He looked very different today. He was wearing a formal dark striped suit, beneath which she could see a pale blue shirt and a rather sombre tie. That formality emphasised the razor edge of his profile, the cynical awareness of the blue eyes. Lissa looked at him and felt the enormous gulf between them, her heart wincing in pain.
'Megan says you slept well.' The deep cool drawl was very controlled. If she had first seen Luc looking like this, she realised, her impression of him would have been very different. He was not the mocking, reckless stranger she had known on St Lerie-this was a man sheathed in power and money, faintly remote, wearing authority like a gloss over his brown skin.
'I did. Thank you.' Her own voice was soft and polite, conscious of the distance between them.
'Put the tray on that table,' he said, glancing at it in her hand. 'Megan will collect it later.'
She put the tray down where he indicated and Luc waved her through the door of the room from which he had appeared. Lissa looked around it as she walked into it and was shaken by the unobtrusive elegance it presented. Luc came from a world she had never known before. She felt very out of place in her jeans and yellow shirt.
Closing the door, Luc stood watching her, one hand in his pocket, the other brushing back his black hair. 'What are your plans for today?' he enquired calmly.
She looked back at him. 'I must look for a job.'
Luc frowned slightly. 'There's no hurry.'
'There is for me.'
He ignored that. 'I have to go to the office this morning. Megan will take you on a shopping expedition.'
'Shopping? I haven't got enough money for…'
'You won't make a very favourable impression on a prospective employer in jeans,' Luc interrupted drily.
'Oh,' she said, flushing. She had brought a mere handful of clothes with her and it had not occurred to her until now that this would be a problem.
'Don't worry about money,' Luc said casually. 'Megan will charge whatever you buy.'
'I can't take money from you!' Her skin was burning and her eyes were a vivid, angry green.
'You can pay me back,' he drawled, and she felt her back stiffen at something in his eyes as he said that.
She involuntarily took a backward step and Luc's cool manner became suddenly glacial. 'And I didn't mean what you thought I meant!'
Her eyes fell away from the angry stare of his and she muttered: 'I'm sorry.'
There was a silence, then he said almost wearily: 'Can't you trust me, Lissa? Is it too much to ask?'
She looked up. 'If I don't trust you, whose fault is that?'
His face hardened. 'We can't talk now,' he said tersely. 'I have an appointment at eleven and I've got to go. Promise me to stay with Megan until I get back. She'll show you some of London. I don't want you wandering off on your own.'
Lissa hesitated and Luc said forcibly: For God's sake, does one day matter? Promise me!'
She nodded and he sighed faintly, turning to the door. She felt reluctant to see him go suddenly. She moved instinctively and he looked back at her over his shoulder, the turn of the dark profile making her heart turn over.
'You still haven't told me,' she said. 'What work do you do?'
'I told you the truth,' Luc shrugged drily. 'I deal in stocks and shares. I'm not a stockbroker, I'm a merchant banker. For most of the year I'm so respectable it's tedious. I break out of it to get away on the boat.'
'Banking?' she said in dazed disbelief. Whatever she had expected to hear, it had not been that.
He laughed shortly. 'Your expression! Yes, I'm afraid I'm what the newspapers call a "financier". I manage other people's money.'
Lissa glanced slowly round the room. 'And you have a lot of your own,' she muttered in grim realisation.
'I inherited it and I've increased it,' he admitted. 'I've got quite a flair for investment-I told you, it's another form of gambling. There's always an element of risk in it, but I was born with a sure instinct for the market. You can't be taught how to predict market fluctuation. You have to know by instinct and be ready to take risks.'
'What if something happened when you were away on the boat for weeks on end?' she asked, frowning. 'What if something went wrong in London?'
He laughed. 'There's a radio on the boat. I'm in constant touch with London. You don't think I leave anything to chance, do. you? And I've got a brilliant team of men managing things while I'm away. I don't believe in keeping a dog and barking myself.' His blue eyes held a wry amusement. 'Far from being a risk it's the only thing that keeps me sane. I need to get away. I love sailing. Dandy and I have fought our way through a hundred storms-it's the sort of challenge I need.' He glanced at his watch again. 'I have to go, Lissa.' 'Yes,' she said huskily, and he glanced at her quickly, then he pulled open the door and went out without saying anything.
Lissa stood in the beautiful, gracious room staring around at the brocades and fine antique furniture. This was Luc's real background and she did not belong in it. The realisation made her stomach sink and her skin feel cold.
Luc had rescued her from Chris and maybe now he felt responsible for her, because he had brought her here into an environment for which she was not yet adjusted, but any help he gave her from now on would have strings attached to it. The more she let him involve himself in her life, the less hope she would have of ever getting away from him. The longer she stayed in his house the more likely it would become that she would end up as his mistress for as long as he wanted her. That prospect made Lissa shiver.