Free Rebel's Bargain by Annie West Page A

nausea in her hollow stomach.
    ‘It looks worse than it is.’ Orsino flexed his bare shoulder as if to work out a kink and abruptly Poppy realised she was staring.
    ‘If you say so.’ Her voice was brisk as she made herself step around him to undo the knot at his neck that held up his sling.
    Inside she felt like crying. Why? She’d seen him in hospital. She knew he was injured. But that wasn’t the same as seeing his body so battered.
    Her gaze dropped to the wide sweep of his shoulders and back, her belly clenching anew.
    Poppy told herself she’d feel the same sympathy for anyone who’d been injured. But this was more profound than sympathy. She tried to reason it wasn’t possible, but the truth was too blatant to be ignored. She felt shivery with shock and horror, because it was
Orsino
who was injured.
    Despite that snide crack about her sleeping around, despite her pain and anger, when it came to Orsino she still couldn’t find a way not to
feel.
    Unbidden the memory of her mother surfaced. She’d tied herself to a man who didn’t care about her, and worse, was set on destroying her. She hadn’t had the strength to walk away no matter how bad the abuse.
    Old creeping fears stirred, whispering a familiar warning that love made you weak.
    Poppy shuddered. She was
not
like her mother. She refused to be weak like her, clinging to the wrong man.
    Swallowing a knot of emotion, she made her voice cool and businesslike. ‘Since they’ve cut your sleeve away I’ll just take the sling off then slide the shirt over your bad arm. Can you hold it still until I tie it up again?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Poppy’s hands were steady and her movements swift as she stripped the shirt and retied the sling. She showed Orsino the en suite bathroom, put aglass of water on the bedside table and made sure he had everything he needed. She didn’t offer to help him out of his trousers.
    As she left she congratulated herself. Her moment of weakness had been just that, momentary, no doubt due to shock at being confronted with those bruises.
    She could do this: deal with Orsino and put the past behind her. She wasn’t susceptible to him. Not any longer.
    Poppy squashed the tiny voice that told her life wasn’t that simple.
    She’d make it simple. It was past time she did.

CHAPTER SIX
    O RSINO LET HIMSELF out the tower’s big wooden entrance door and stepped into a morning chill with the promise of winter. He drew his coat close.
    He’d had enough of being cooped up in luxurious isolation.
    His plan had backfired. Instead of having Poppy on tap he was alone most of the day. She left before dawn and returned late.
    She couldn’t be working all that time. She was avoiding him.
    To his chagrin he’d been unable to follow her. He hadn’t been nearly as fit as he’d hoped.
    Surprisingly, she’d not abandoned him entirely. There’d been short phone calls each day to check he hadn’t fallen down the stairs or otherwise damaged himself, and she’d arranged for the catering staff to bring his meals.
    All very efficient. Very civilised. Very annoying.
    It wasn’t some wide-eyed cook he wanted lingering in his presence, or even the curvaceous, sloe-eyed nurse who’d recently removed the sling,leaving the cast on his forearm and fresh bandages on his hand.
    He wanted Poppy.
    Orsino grimaced. With his strength returning his body made it embarrassingly clear how much he wanted her. With no extreme sport to indulge in, without his usual outlets for rising frustration, Orsino had spent the week in a state of semi-arousal.
    Listening to her moving about in the bedroom overhead, smelling her scent on the stairs, hearing the rush of water when she showered and imagining her naked, glistening and beautiful … It was enough to drive a man to drink.
    Orsino had no intention of resorting to a bottle to cure what ailed him.
    Not when there was another, more pleasing solution.
    He peered ahead and noticed activity at the end of the formal rose