'I didn't withdraw it!' she interrupted.
'You were careful to change the subject,' he countered. 'You want me every bit as much as I want you.'
'You conceited jerk! I was sick! I hate you!'
'You'll get over that,' he assured her.
'I'm not going to get over it! I'm leaving, walking out, departing…' she spelt out tempestuously.
'A fairly typical response of yours when the going threatens to get rough, but you're not doing a vanishing act this time.'
'I'm leaving you!' she shouted wildly.
'Watch the glass!' Luc raked at her rawly.
But it was too late. A sharp pain bit into her foot and she vented a gasp. Striding forward, Luc wrenched her off her feet, moved over to the nearest seat and literally tipped her up, a lean hand retaining a hold on one slender ankle. 'Stay still!' he roared at her. 'Or you'll push the glass in deeper.'
Sobbing with thwarted temper and pain, she let him withdraw the sliver and then she cursed him.
'I knew you would do that.'
'Let go of me!' she screeched.
'With all this broken glass around? You just have to be kidding,' he gibed, wrapping an immaculate hanky round her squirming foot. 'When did you last have a tetanus jab?'
'Six months ago!' she spat, infuriated beyond all bearing by the ignominy of her position. 'Did you hear what I said? I'm leaving!'
'Like hell you are.' Jerking up the sarong that had fallen on the ground, he proceeded to her utter disbelief to wrap it round her much as if she were a doll to be dressed.
She thrust his hands away. 'Don't you dare touch me! What do you mean—"Like hell you are"? You can't keep me here!'
Casting the sarong aside, he took her by surprise by lifting her and, when she fought tooth and nail with every limb flailing, he flung her over his shoulder.
'Let me go!' she shrieked, hammering at his back with her fists. 'What do you think you're doing?'
'Putting you under restraint for your own good. You're hysterical,' he bit out. 'And I've had enough.'
'You've had enough?' Her voice broke incredulously. 'Put me down!'
'Sta' zitta. Be quiet,' he ground out.
Gravity was threatening the bra of her bikini. She became more occupied with holding it in place than thumping any part of him she could reach. He was heading for the stone staircase that led up to the french doors on the first-floor gallery. 'I hate you!' she sobbed, tears of mortification, unvented fury and frustration flooding her eyes without warning.
A minute later Luc dumped her on her bed with about the same level of care as a sack of potatoes might have required. 'And hating me isn't making you happy, is it?' he breathed derisively. 'Per dio, doesn't that tell you something?'
'That you're the most unscrupulous primitive I've ever come across!' she spat through her tears. 'And I'm leaving!'
'You're not going anywhere.'
'You can't stop me!' And you certainly can't make me marry you!' she asserted with returning confidence, wriggling off the bed and hobbling over to a chair to pull on the flimsy n;aaeglig;aae lying there, suddenly feeling very exposed in what little there was of the bikini. 'And, now that Drew's got his precious contract, you can't hold that over me any more!'
'He signs for it one hour after the wedding.'
Catherine was paralysed in her tracks. Jerkily she turned round. Shimmering golden eyes clashed with hers in an almost physical assault. 'I had foreseen the possibility that this might occur.'
'He…he hasn't got it yet?' She could hardly get the stricken question past her lips.
'I'm such a conniving bastard, I'm afraid,' Luc purred like a tiger on the prowl.
*******
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