‘I guessed as much.’
His worldliness shattered what remained of her composure. Was he insinuating that she was transparently inexperienced?
Well, she was, she thought stoutly, and what did it matter whether her untutored response to his kisses had told him so?
He finished with forbidding emphasis, ‘And you need not worry—I do not force women.’
‘I… Well, I’m sure you don’t,’ she said warily, then stopped when she saw where he was leading her. ‘Oh—oh! Oh, how lovely.’
They’d gone up one floor and through a small salon that opened out into air lit by lamps, their warm glow illuminating a wide, stone terrace, and a row of arches on the seaward side that were latticed with stone delicately carved into flowers and leaves. Shrubs and trees cooled the terrace and shielded it from prying eyes. At one end a lily-starred pool surrounded a roofed pavilion, connected to the terrace by a stone bridge. Behind floating, gauzy drapes, Lexie discerned the outlines of furniture.
‘Another whim of yet another besotted ancestor,’ Rafiq explained with a touch of irony. ‘He rescued his wife from a corsair ship; she loved to swim, and he loved to join her, so he built this pool and made sure it couldn’t be overlooked.’
The kisses they’d exchanged suddenly loomed very large in Lexie’s mind. Was he indicating…?
A sideways glance at his face banished that vagrant thought. He wasn’t even looking at her, and it was impossible to read anything from his expression.
Rafiq looked down and caught her watching him. His lashes drooped, and she asked too hastily, ‘Why was she on a corsair ship? Was she a pirate too?’
He stopped by the bridge. ‘She was the daughter of the British governor of a West Indian island, snatched for ransom, but the captain found her appealing enough to keep her. When the Caribbean got too hot for him, he fled to the Indian Ocean. She waited until they approached Moraze, intent as they were on plunder, then managed to wound her abductor severely enough to escape and swim ashore.’
Startled, Lexie looked up from her contemplation of the water lilies. They weren’t growing in the pool, as she’d first thought, but had been cut and floated on the water, a medley of white and palest yellow. Their scent teased her nostrils. ‘She must have been a very resourceful woman.’
Her companion showed his teeth in a smile that held more than a hint of ruthlessness. ‘I come from a long line of people who did what they had to do to survive,’ he said evenly. ‘Some weren’t particularly scrupulous, or even likeable; some embraced revenge without compunction if it served their plans. She hated her captor.’
A little shiver snaked down Lexie’s backbone, and memories of her father’s actions clouded her eyes. ‘Very few people can claim to have only saints in their lineage.’
He smiled cynically. ‘Agreed.’
‘So what happened to the governor’s daughter after she swam to Moraze?’
‘My ancestor found her hiding on shore. She told him of the corsair’s plans, and with his men he captured the ship, killing the man who’d abducted her. Apparently she and my ancestor quarrelled furiously for several months, then astonished everyone by marrying.’ This time Rafiq’s smile showed real amusement. ‘They had a long and happy life together, but they were not a peaceful couple.’
‘I’m glad she found happiness after such an ordeal,’ Lexie said. ‘As for peace, well, some people find peace boring.’
‘Are you one of them?’ he asked, indicating that they should cross the bridge.
Lexie frowned. It sounded like a throwaway question, yet somehow she sensed a thread of intention, of significance, in his words that made her feel uneasy and dangerously vulnerable. Was he exploring her personality, or just keeping the conversation alive?
Almost certainly the latter, common sense told her, and yet…
Because the silence threatened to last too long, she set out briskly across the bridge. ‘As a vet I don’t like too much excitement—it tends to involve going out in the middle of the night in filthy weather to deal with sick, very expensive animals and their frantic owners! But I certainly enjoy variety.’
There, that was innocuous enough, surely? She didn’t want to get into anything heavy here. Although they’d kissed—and he’d seemed to enjoy those kisses—she wasn’t going to let herself fall into the trap of believing they’d meant anything more to him than the superficial response of a virile man to a woman of the right age to mate.
A woman whose instant arousal, she thought with a burning shame, must make it obvious she found him irresistible.
But then, he’d be used to that response—it probably happened in every female who set eyes on him.
And to quench the flickering embers of desire she’d better stop this train of thought right now. So she asked, ‘What about you?’
‘I enjoy moments of peace,’ Rafiq said, his tone giving nothing away. ‘But I think a life of unalloyed tranquillity and harmony could become tedious after a while. I relish a challenge.’
‘Oh, so do I,’ she responded, and changed the subject abruptly. ‘The water lilies here must be different from the ones at home. Ours fold up at dusk.’
‘So do ours.’ He smiled. ‘I believe the petals of these ones are held in place by candle wax. It is a local tradition.’
A few steps brought them to the pavilion, where Rafiq held the drapes back with a lean hand. ‘Do you play chess?’
‘Badly,’ she replied, walking into the airy space and looking around. ‘I don’t think I’d be even the mildest challenge to anyone who can think more than two moves ahead.’
But several hours later, after they’d eaten, she was sitting on the edge of her chair and glowering at an elaborate chessboard, her mind working frantically.
Rafiq said evenly, ‘You lied.’
Her head came up, and she met his half-closed green eyes with a flash of fire. ‘I don’t lie.’
‘You said you were no challenge.’ His voice was amused.
‘You’re winning,’ she pointed out. ‘In fact, I can’t see how I’m going to get out of this situation.’
He lifted his brows. ‘If you want to know—’
‘No! Give me another few minutes to see if I can do it.’
His quick grin—so unlike his usual air of sophisticated forcefulness that it startled her—was quickly controlled. ‘Go ahead,’ he invited.
Frowning, Lexie puzzled over the board, saw what seemed to be the perfect move, and almost made it—until further intense thought revealed it would involve a check to her king a few moves further on.
Rafiq had a poker player’s face; not a single emotion escaped his control. She was acutely, violently aware of him at his ease in the cane chair, long limbs relaxed, the light from a dozen soft lamps highlighting the arrogant sweep of cheekbones, the tough jawline and the hooded green of his eyes.
Lexie’s breath caught in her throat. Behind him she could see several elegant loungers, and a day bed—a sinful thing, more than big enough to hold two people during the hours of a lazy tropical siesta. A puff of breeze smoothed over her skin, sensitising it…
Every coherent thought died a swift and unappreciated death, drowned by a sensuous recklessness. I want you, she thought, the need so violent she wondered for a panicky second if she’d actually said it.
Colour burned her cheeks. She had to get out of there, away from this