'That's how I got this,' he added tantalisingly, tapping his scarred thigh. 'An...unforeseen complication during a job in Lebanon.' He paused again, waiting for her response to the enticing lure.
'Unforeseen complication.' Elizabeth repeated his words slowly, unwilling to make it a question. Little did she realise that her violet eyes were brilliant with the interest she stubbornly tried to deny him.
'A woman who turned out to be not what she seemed.'
Elizabeth's resistance crumpled like cardboard. 'And what did she seem to be?'
His mouth thinned to a cynical line. 'A woman in love.'
'With you?' So his scarring had been not only physical.
'Do I seem so unlovable?'
'No—I- No!' She was flustered by the sensual undertone in his question. 'And were you in love with her?'
'At the time very much so.' There was no longer a hint of amusement about him, and Elizabeth found a grave, serious Jack Hawkwood even more threatening to her emotional equilibrium than the cynical rake who had menaced and aroused her. 'Or, at least, in love with the woman I thought she was. Zenobia was supposedly working for an international finance group I was liaising with, but she was also an informant for one of the terrorist organisations—some obscure splinter group that was looking to make the headlines. Only I didn’t find that out until afterwards—a great intelligence officer I turned out to be!' His self-derision was bleak. 'The information that she passed on enabled them to ambush my car with a rocket attack that killed two of my clients and almost killed me.'
' W-what happened to her?' The grimness in his voice warned her that the woman had not gone unpunished for her betrayal.
'Oh, Zenobia was only a small cog in a fanatical machine and therefore expendable. She was in the car at the time.'
Elizabeth sucked in a breath. 'She was killed?'
‘Instantly.' The word was clipped, precise.
‘I’m sorry,' she said helplessly.
'For what? My being a gullible fool? For not doing my job properly?'
'You didn’t cause their deaths-'
‘Indirectly I was responsible. I didn’t actually hand-feed Zenobia the information-' He looked at her as he clarified with deliberate bluntness, ‘I never was one to indulge in pillow talk and ironically I thought Zenobia would be safer in total ignorance of my activities. But evidently she picked up enough to make it worth her while to stay with me. I thought myself in love and lost my edge, not to mention my reputation. Security consultants who lose their clients literally also lose their professional credibility.'
'So...you went into the family hotel business instead.' Had he come to Ile des Faucons to lick his wounds, to hide from what he felt was a humiliating failure? And when he fully recovered would he be back out there again, risking his life in a private war against terrorism? 'How long has it been?' she asked.
She was expecting him to say a year or even less, so she was shocked when he murmured, 'Five years.'
'Five years?’
He read her effortlessly. 'Did you think this was just a panacea for my ills?' His eyes silvered with lazy amusement. ‘I’m doing exactly what I want to do, Beth. I never coveted my brother's inheritance as eldest son, but this place is rather special... we spent most of our childhood here. As far as I'm concerned I've come home. I also discovered, rather to my surprise, that I happen to be damned good at running a hotel... at the hands-on stuff as opposed to the boring business end that's Jules's forte. Here I'm in command of myself and Ile des Faucons is my sole domain—I virtually have carte blanche with the place—Jules's way, I suspect, of consoling me for only being second son...'
'And you don’t pine at all for your old life?' Elizabeth asked curiously. Uncle Simon had told her about some of the thrill-junkies he had known from his time in the army—the men who required the constant adrenalin-rush of dicing with death to give them their 'high'. The kind of men who became mercenaries in times of peace in order to satisfy their craving for action. Jack had been a kind of mercenary.
He shrugged. ‘I’m a realist. I'm no longer young. I'm fit, but this leg will never be one hundred per cent reliable in the way that it needs to be for the kind of fieldwork I specialised in—which would have meant me doing the kind of desk job I'd left the army to avoid. So I turned the operation over to my partner and came here to convalesce and re-think my life. When I found myself making excuses not to leave I knew I'd found my new niche. These days if I want thrills I can get all I need in the casino, where the only thing I risk losing is money.'
Of which he obviously had plenty. But still Elizabeth didn’t believe that he was as settled as he claimed. As much as he denied it his restless edge was still there, and he was subconsciously looking for something to hone it against. That something right now being Elizabeth. It seemed a very unequal challenge!
‘Intelligence training is invaluable in running a hotel,' he continued musingly. ‘I can generally spot the troublemakers before they cause trouble and I'll never again make the elementary mistake of being too trusting, no matter how innocent the face...'
&
nbsp; So absorbed was Elizabeth in adjusting to what he had just revealed about himself that she didn’t notice the words were aimed very specifically at her. 'We all need to trust in something and someone, Jack, it's human nature,' she murmured. 'One betrayal doesn’t make the whole world untrustworthy.'
'Are you saying that I can trust you, Beth?'
She blinked at the unexpected question and then looked hurriedly away from the piercing grey eyes, flushing uncomfortably.
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I thought not.'