Chapter 30

'It seems fairly safe to assume that you've retrieved your memory,' he drawled. 'I'm not sure it would be safe to assume anything else.'

'No, it wouldn't be!' His complete cool was maddening her even more. 'If you were dying of thirst, I wouldn't give you a drink! If you were starving, I wouldn't feed you! If you were the only man left alive on this earth and I was the only woman, the human race would grind to a halt! You deserve to be horsewhipped and keelhauled and hung, and if I was a man I'd do it!'

'And if you were a man, you wouldn't be in this situation,' Luc input helpfully as she paused to catch her breath.

'I'm going to report you to the police!' Catherine blazed at him, satisfied to have at last found a realistic threat.

Luc angled his dark head back, piercing golden eyes resting on her. 'What for?'

'W-what for?' she stammered an octave higher. 'What for? You kidnapped me!'

'Did I drug you? Physically abuse you? Have you witnesses to these events?'

'I'll make it up; I'll lie!' she slashed back at him.

'But why did you stand so willingly at my side at the airport when I announced our marriage plans?' Luc enquired with the same immovable, incredibly outrageous cool.

'You've kept me a prisoner here all week!' In desperation, she set off on another tack, determined to nail him down to a crime on the statute books.

An ebony brow quirked. 'With locked doors? I don't recall refusing to let you go anywhere.'

'Physical abuse, then!' Catherine slung through gnashing teeth. 'I'll get you on that!'

Luc actually smiled. 'What physical abuse?'

Catherine drew herself up to her full five feet and one quarter inch and shrieked. 'You know very well what I'm talking about! While I…while I was not in my right mind, you took disgusting advantage of me!'

'Did I?' he murmured. 'Catherine, it is my considered opinion that over the past week you've been more in your right mind than you've been for almost five years.'

'How dare you?' she screamed at him, fit to be tied. 'How dare you say that to me?'

A broad shoulder shifted in an elegantly understated shrug. 'I say it because it is the truth.'

'The truth according to who?' she shouted ferociously. 'You take that back right now!'

'I have not the slightest intention of withdrawing that statement,' he informed her with careless provocation. 'When you calm down, you will realise that it is the truth.'

'When I calm down?' she yelled. 'Do I look like I'm about to calm down?'

Luc ran a reflective appraisal over her. 'If you could swim a little better, I would drop you in the pool.'

'You're not even sorry, are you?' That was one reality that was sinking in. It did nothing to reduce her fury.

He sighed. 'Why would I be sorry?'

'Why? Why?' She could hardly get the repetition out. 'Because I'm going to make you sorry! I should have known you wouldn't have a twinge of conscience about bringing me here!'

'You're quite right. I haven't.'

'You act as though I'm some sort of a thing, an object you can lift and lay at will!' As his wide mouth curled with amusement, she understood why people committed murder.

His lashes screened his expressive eyes. 'If you are an object to me, then I am an object to you in the same way.'

For a sec

ond she glared at him uncomprehendingly and then caught his meaning. 'I'm not talking about sex!' she raged.

'No,' he conceded. 'I had noticed that once the charge of physical abuse was withdrawn—'