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CHAPTER ONE

NESSA O’SULLIVAN HAD never considered herself capable of petty crime, and yet here she was, just outside a private property, under the cover ofthat didn’t belong to her

She gri to be breaking and entering, because she had her brother’s keys to his office in the Barbier stud far of the owner of this stud and racing stables h Nessa’s sli branch, on the edge of a pristine lawn in front of the s She’d left her battered Mini Cooper a short distance away froates and climbed over a loall

Nessa’s own family ho this stud farm very well She’d played here as a child when it was under different ownership

But any sense of familiarity fled when an owl hooted nearby, and she juainst her breastbone She forced herself to suck in deep breaths to calain for fleeing like he had But then, could she really bla up to Luc Barbier—the inti world, about whom more was unknown than known?

His darkly forbidding good looks had ruypsies, and that he’d lived on the streets, before beco world for his ability to train the most difficult of horses

He’d progressed in a very short space of ti stables outside Paris, and now he owned this extensive stud far stables, where his impressive number of successful racehorses were trained by the best in the world, all under his eagle-eyed supervision

People said his ability was some kind of sorcery, handed down by his mysterious ancestors

Other rurown up on the wrong side of the tracks, and had utter to where he was now by using a fluke talent and ruthless ingenuity to get ahead

The ins only added to the feverish speculation surrounding hi concerns, he had invested inhis fortune in a short space of ti his position as one of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs But racing and training remained his main concerns

Paddy Jnr had talked about the man in hushed and awed tones for the last couple of years, since Barbier had eer

Nessa had seen him herself, once or twice, from a distance at the exclusive Irish horse sales—where there was a regular attendance of thefrom all over the world Sheikhs and royalty and the seriously wealthy

He’d stood out, head and shoulders above everyone around hi his collar A dark-skinned, hard-boned face and a stern expression, his eyes hidden by dark glasses Thickly muscled arms were folded over his broad chest, and his head had followed the horses as they’d been paraded for the prospective buyers He’dsome of the sheikhs, or a mysterious movie star, than an owner

He’d had no obvious security around him, but even now Nessa could recall the faint air ofpeople away He would be well capable of protecting himself

The only reason she was even here tonight, indulging in this hare-brained exercise for her brother, was because he’d assured her that Luc Barbier was currently in France She had no desire to come face to face with the man himself, becau

se on those occasions when she had gli sensation in her belly—a kind of awareness that was totally alien to her, and very inappropriate to feel towards a coer

She took another deep breath and moved forward fro barked and Nessa halted, holding her breath It stopped, and she continuedand went under the archway that led into a courtyard, around which the administrative offices were laid out

She followed Paddy’s directions and found the er key to unlock the door Her heart was thu but the door opened without a sound There was no alarht be

It was dark inside, but she could just about make out the stairs She cli the torch app on her phone and breathed a sigh of relief when she found his office She opened the door with the other key, stepping inside as quietly as she could, before shutting it again She leant against it for a second, her heart thu Sweat trickled down her back

When she felt slightly caluide her to the desk Paddy had said was his He’d told her that his laptop should be in the top drawer, but she pulled it open to find it e slightly panicky, she tried the other desks but there was no sign of the laptop Paddy’s frantic words reverberated in her head: ‘That laptop is the only chance I have to prove my innocence, if I can just trace the emails back to the hacker’

Nessa stood in the centre of the office biting her lip, feeling frantic now herself