At His Convenience Bundle by Penny Jordan, Maggie Cox, Kim Lawrence Read Free Book Online

lying on top of him on the ground, the next somehow she was standing up on her own, with Lucas next to her.
    â€˜Go?’ she questioned warily ‘You’re going to let me go?’
    That surely wasn’t disappointment that was dampening down her relief, was it?
    â€˜I give you my word that I won’t say anything about the villa to anyone,’ she began to assure him earnestly.
    â€˜Your word?’ Lucas rapped out contemptuously.
    â€˜We both know that your word is as worthless and overused—as…as you are yourself!’
    The pain was everywhere. Inside her head, inside her heart, inside her body. With every breath she took she was breathing in its poison, its rank bitterness contaminating her.
    Worthless…overused…Immediately Suzy wanted to hit back at him, to hurt him as deeply as he had hurt her, to mark him in a way that would leave him wounded for life, as she knew she herself would be.
    Some women might shrug it off and even laugh at such a branding, but she was not one of them.
    Overused. That was what he thought of her. She felt sick inside with emotional agony.
    Something had changed. Some subtle shifting had occurred that had wrongfooted him, Luke’s instincts told him. But he couldn’t fathom what it was.
    Suzy was staring fixedly past him, her body immobile. Was it her silence that was triggering the sixth sense that told him he had overlooked something? Had he expected her to argue with him, try to win him round, convince him that he was wrong and that she was to be trusted?
    Frowning, he looked away, and so didn’t see the single tear that welled in each of Suzy’s eyes, to hang glistening on her eyelashes before rolling down her face.
    His words had hurt more than if he had physically attacked her—more than if he had turned and walked away from her—more than if he had simply left her to die in a crushed heap of flesh and bones against the jagged rocks from which he had saved her. One day she would be grateful for them, she promised herself. One day she would look back on this and know that what he had said to her had destroyed every minute seed of feeling she might have had for him with the force of a nuclear attack.
    One day. But not this day. This day she felt as though she wanted to crawl into a hole and hide herself away, somewhere private and dark, where she and the pain would be alone to confront one another.

CHAPTER FOUR
    S UZY could feel her legs trembling as she took a step away from Lucas Soames, her gaze fixed on the path ahead.
    Did she really think he was just going to let her walk away? Luke could not credit her woeful lack of reality. He had grabbed her before she had taken more than a few paces, jerking her back towards him.
    Suzy only had time to recognise that despite his violent gesture he did not actually hurt her before she was clamped to his side.
    â€˜You’d better get one thing clear,’ Luke told her curtly. ‘From now on where I go, you go. And you can take your choice whether it is by my side, two steps ahead of me or two steps behind. But two steps is going to be as far away as I let you get.’
    â€˜You can’t do that. You can’t make me!’ Suzy protested shakily, real fear in her eyes as she looked at him.
    â€˜I can and will do anything and everything I deem necessary in order to protect the interests I am here to protect,’ Lucas told her uncompromisingly. ‘Now,’ he demanded, ‘where are you staying?’
    Mutinously Suzy refused to answer him, compressing her lips and looking away from him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shrug.
    â€˜Very well then, we’ll go straight to the villa. If you choose to spend the next few weeks with only the clothes you are now wearing, then you may do so!’
    Unable to stop herself, Suzy turned towards him.
    â€˜The next few weeks?’ she protested in despair. ‘I can’t—I…’
    â€˜The