But that look . . .

“He only did it to get you to leave, Zanders,” she muttered to herself. “And it worked. You willy-nilly chicken, you.”

She was on the verge of stomping back out there and calling his bluff; indeed, had moved back toward the door and was about to step out, when he made a sound.

A sound that made her shiver and close the door instead.

And lock it.

A hungry animal sound.

Leaning back against the door, Chloe took slow, deep breaths.

She was in way over her head. It was one thing to be held hostage by a criminal. To maybe fantasize about kisses. It was entirely another thing to be seduced by him. The dastardly man was both a thief and a kidnapper, and she dare not forget that.

She had to escape before it was too late. Before she was fabricating reasons, not merely to aid and abet the criminal, but to present him with her virginity on a silver platter.

When Chloe crept from the study half an hour later, the arrogant man actually let her get all the way to the door before he bothered moving. Then he stood slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and gave her a look of gentle reproof and disappointment.

As if she was doing something wrong.

Defiantly, Chloe brandished the short sword she’d pilfered from his wall collection, having decided it was best for her size, eighteen inches of razor-sharp steel. “I told you I won’t tell anyone and I won’t. But I can’t stay here.”

“Put down the blade, lass.”

Chloe twisted the interior dead bolt.

The precise moment she tugged at the door, he lunged, and when it didn’t open she was stunned, then realized that it hadn’t been locked to begin with. Frantically, she scrabbled to turn it the other way, but his palm hit the door above her head and he crowded her with his body. Instinctively, she raised the sword and he stiffened, as the tip of it came to rest at his heart.

They stared at each other a long moment. Dimly, she realized his breath was coming as shallowly as hers.

“Do it, lass,” he said coolly.

“What?”

“Kill me. I’m a thief. The evidence is here. You’ll need but summon your police and show them that I am—or was—the Gaulish Ghost, that I held you captive. None will blame you for killing me to escape. ’Tis no more than any honest lass would do.”

She gaped. Kill him? She didn’t like hearing him speak about himself in the past tense. It put a cold, awful knot in her stomach.

“Do it,” he insisted.

“I don’t want to kill you. I just want to leave.”

“Because I’ve treated you so badly?”

“Because you’re holding me captive!”

“And it’s been awful, has if no’?” he mocked lightly.

“Just step back,” she hissed. When he deliberately pressed his body forward against the tip of the sword and she felt his skin give beneath the blade, she gasped. His lips curved in a chilling smile.