Heartless Rebel by Lynn Raye Harris Page A

Jack for money, and that
galled her. She already owed him for the night in the hotel, and the phone
call, and she hated that she had to ask for yet another loan. She was used to
paying her own way, to taking care of herself, and to be dependent on this man
she hardly knew for money to eat and sleep—and get back to Nice—bothered her
more than she could say. She felt wrong asking, and yet she had no choice.
                 She would pay him back. Even if he didn’t
believe it.
                 Jack
took a couple of pills from the bottles and washed them down with water. Cara
blinked. What kind of man could call a doctor and have painkillers delivered
twenty minutes later? It forced her to reevaluate her assessment of him. He
might be a gambler, but he was obviously a very good one. Perhaps he came from
money and never really had to worry about what would happen if he lost
everything.
                 Wouldn’t that be nice? Cara thought
wistfully. He looked up, met her gaze. His expression didn’t soften from the
hard mask he’d donned when she’d told him she was leaving. Her heart flipped in
response. She had to stifle an urge to go to him, to run her fingers through
his hair, to caress his granite jaw and press her lips to his. He slipped a
wallet from the tuxedo jacket he’d left lying on the bed. Then he took out some
euro notes and tossed them on the bed. “You’ll be needing that,” he said.
                 Perversely,
her eyes filled with tears. Angry tears, tears of frustration. She’d been
worried about asking for cash, and he’d preempted her. She wanted to tell him
to keep his damn money, and yet she couldn’t. Without it, she’d be standing on
a Lyon street by nightfall, singing a
cappella and hoping she could earn enough coins to eat dinner.
                 “Thank
you,” she said instead, shame a living creature inside her belly. It roiled and
twisted until she wanted to lock herself in the bathroom and heave into the
toilet.
                 “Take
care of yourself, Cara.” He watched her for a long moment, as if he wanted to
say something else—or maybe he was waiting for her to say something—before he
turned and walked out the door. He didn’t walk with the fluid grace that he had
when she’d first seen him, but he still moved like a man in control of his life
and destiny.
                 She
heard the roar of the engine start after what seemed like forever. And then the
tires were squealing out of the parking lot and she was alone.
                 Cara
let out the breath she’d been holding. He’d left her. Oddly, it hurt that he
had. But she’d told him to go! Cara
pressed her fingers to her temples and sucked in a sharp breath. What was wrong
with her? She’d wanted him gone, wanted to be on her own again so she could
think and plan and breathe without Jack Wolfe taking up all the oxygen in the
room.
                 She
clutched the bills in her hand, only now realizing that she’d not gotten his
address or phone number so she could pay him back. He’d given her five hundred
euros, and now she felt as if she’d opened his wallet and taken them herself.
Because she had no way to ever repay him.
                 But is that really the problem, Cara?
                 It
wasn’t, and she knew it. She could track him down again, no matter how
difficult the task. But the real problem was that Jack Wolfe had sparked
something inside her, something she’d never quite felt before. She didn’t know
why that was—he was too arrogant, too entitled, too much of a good-time guy who
worked the casino racket and made a living off the cards. He wasn’t the kind of
man she liked at all.
                 But
the physical attraction to him had been off the charts. As if that were a
reason to feel so forlorn that she’d never see him again.
                 Cara
took one last look