LITMIR.BIZ

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out a breath, he dropped his rucksack to the floor and, muttering first in French and then in Greek, clicked on a light and retrieved the dustpan and brush to clean up the mess. For pity’s sake. Not only hadn’t Rupert’s last house guest washed, dried and put away the tumbler—leaving it for him to break—but they hadn’t taken out the garbage either! Whenever he stayed, Finn always made sure to leave the place exactly as he found it—spotlessly clean and tidy. He hated to think of his friend being taken advantage of.

      Helping himself to a glass of Rupert’s excellent whisky, Finn lowered himself into an armchair in the living room, more winded than he cared to admit. The cast had come off his arm yesterday and it ached like the blazes now. As did his entire left side and his left knee. Take it easy, the doctor had ordered. But he’d been taking it easy for eight long weeks. And Nice had started to feel like a prison.

      Rupert had given him a key to this place a couple of years ago, and had told him to treat it as his own. He’d ring Rupert tomorrow to let him know he was here. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Two thirty-seven a.m. was too late...or early...to call anyone. He rested his head back and closed his eyes, and tried to will the pain coursing through his body away.

      He woke with a start to flashing lights, and it took him a moment to realise they weren’t due to a migraine. He blinked, but the armed policemen—two of them and each with a gun trained on him—didn’t disappear. The clock said two forty-eight.

      He raised his hands in the universal gesture of non-aggression. ‘My name is Finn Sullivan,’ he said in Greek. ‘I am a friend of Rupert Russel, the owner of this villa.’

      ‘Where is your accomplice?’

      ‘Accomplice?’ He stood then, stung by the fuss and suspicion. ‘What accomplice?’

      He wished he’d remained seated when he found himself tackled to the floor, pain bursting like red-hot needles all the way down his left side, magnifying the blue-black ache that made him want to roar.

      He clamped the howls of pain behind his teeth and nodded towards his backpack as an officer rough-handled him to his feet after handcuffing him. ‘My identification is in there.’

      His words seemed to have no effect. One of the officers spoke into a phone. He was frogmarched into the grand foyer. Both policemen looked upwards expectantly, so he did too.

      ‘Audra!’

      Flanked by two more police officers, she pulled to a dead halt halfway down the stairs, her eyes widening—those too cool and very clear blue eyes. ‘Finn?’ Delicate nostrils flared. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

      The glass on the sink, the litter in the kitchen bin made sudden sense. ‘You called the police?’

      ‘Of course I called the police!’

      ‘Of all the idiotic, overdramatic reactions! How daft can you get?’ He all but yelled the words at her, his physical pain needing an outlet. ‘Why the hell would you overreact like that?’

      ‘Daft? Daft!’ Her voice rose as she flew down the stairs. ‘And what do you call breaking and entering my brother’s villa at two thirty in the morning?’

      It was probably closer to three by now. He didn’t say that out loud. ‘I didn’t break in. I have a key.’

      He saw then that she clutched a lacrosse stick. She looked as if she wouldn’t mind cracking him over the head with it. With a force of effort he pulled in a breath. A woman alone in a deserted house...the sound of breaking glass... And after everything she’d been through recently...

      He bit back a curse. He’d genuinely frightened her.

      The pain in his head intensified. ‘I’m sorry, Squirt.’ The old nickname dropped from his lips. ‘If I’d known you were here I’d have rung to let you know I was coming. In the meantime, can you tell these guys who I am and call them off?’

      ‘Where’s your friend?’

      His shoulder ached like the blazes. He wanted to yell at her to get the police to release him. He bit the angry torrent back. Knowing Audra, she’d make him suffer as long as she could if he yelled at her again.

      And he was genuinely sorry he’d frightened her.

      ‘I came alone.’

      ‘But I heard two voices—one French, one Greek.’

      He shook his head. ‘You heard one voice and two languages.’ He demonstrated his earlier cussing fit, though he toned it down to make it more palatable for mixed company.

      For a moment the knuckles on her right hand whitened where it gripped the lacrosse stick, and then relaxed. She told the police officers in perfect Greek how sorry she was to have raised a false alarm, promised to bake them homemade lemon drizzle cakes and begged them very nicely to let him go as he was an old friend of her brother’s. He wasn’t sure why, but it made him grind his teeth.

      He groaned his relief when he was uncuffed, rubbing his wrists rather than his shoulder, though he was damned if he knew why. Except he didn’t want any of them to know how much he hurt. He was sick to death of his injuries.

      A part of him would be damned too before it let Audra see him as anything but hearty and hale. Her pity would...

      He pressed his lips together. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he didn’t want to become an object of it.

      Standing side by side in the circular drive, they waved the police off. He followed her inside, wincing when she slammed the door shut behind them. The fire in her eyes hadn’t subsided. ‘You want to yell at me some more?’

      He’d love to. It was what he and Audra did—they sniped at each other. They had ever since she’d been a gangly pre-teen. But he hurt too much to snipe properly. It was taking all his strength to control the nausea curdling his stomach. He glanced at her from beneath his shaggy fringe. Besides, it was no fun sniping at someone with the kind of shadows under their eyes that Audra had.

      He eased back to survey her properly. She was too pale and too thin. He wasn’t used to seeing her vulnerable and frightened.

      Frighteningly efficient? Yes.

      Unsmiling? Yes.

      Openly disapproving of his lifestyle choices? Double yes.

      But pale, vulnerable and afraid? No.

      ‘That bastard really did a number on you, didn’t he, Squirt?’

      Her head reared back and he could’ve bitten his tongue out. ‘Not quite as big a number as that mountain did on you, from all reports.’

      She glanced pointedly at his shoulder and with a start he realised he’d been massaging it. He waved her words away. ‘A temporary setback.’

      She pushed out her chin. ‘Ditto.’

      The fire had receded from her eyes and this time it was he who had to suffer beneath their merciless ice-blue scrutiny. And that was when he realised that all she wore was a pair of thin cotton pyjama bottoms and a singlet top that moulded itself to her form. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

      The problem with Audra was that she was exactly the kind of woman he went after. If he had a type it was the buttoned-up, repressed librarian type, and normally Audra embodied that to a tee. But at the moment she was about as far from that as you could get. She was all blonde sleep-tousled temptation and his skin prickled with an awareness that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

      He had to remind himself that a guy didn’t mess with his best friend’s sister.

      ‘Did the police hurt you?’

      ‘Absolutely not.’ He was admitting nothing.

      She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Finn, it’s obvious you’re in pain.’

      He shrugged and then wished he hadn’t when pain blazed through his shoulder. ‘The

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