‘If you aren’t interested—’ she began.
‘Did I say that?’ He was standing even closer to her now.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But…’
‘If you really wanted to prove to him that you do love him, I think a good place to start would be right here,’ she heard him murmur. ‘Right here, in his arms, like this…’
His arms were closing round her, holding her tight. Relief melted the tension from her bones.
‘Like this?’
Was that thrilled little squeak really her voice?
‘Uh-huh. And then you might show him that you liked being here by putting your arms around his neck, looking up in his eyes and…’
‘Like this, you mean?’ Petra whispered.
‘Sort of… You’re on the right track—but it would be even better if you did this!’ Rashid told her, showing her what he meant as he brushed her lips with his own.
‘Mmm… But what if I want to kiss him properly?’ Petra asked him.
‘Well, then I think you should go right ahead,’ Rashid replied. ‘But I ought to warn you that if you do that, he could very well want to…’
Sometimes actions could speak far more informatively than words, Petra decided dizzily as she daringly silenced Rashid’s soft-voiced instructions with the loving pressure of her mouth against his.
It was a long, long time before either of them wanted to speak again, but when they had finally managed to stop kissing one another Rashid told her masterfully, ‘I think our negotiations might be better conducted somewhere more… private.’
‘Oh?’ Petra gave him a mischievous look. ‘Have you anywhere specific in mind? Only I am staying at the hotel.’
‘What I have in mind,’ Rashid responded softly, with an erotic undertone to his voice that made her heart dance in excited anticipation, ‘is a very large bed, in a room that is preferably soundproofed so that no one can hear your cries of pleasure other than me…’
Since he was threading each word on a necklace of kisses round her throat, in between teasing her lips with the briefest of sensual contacts with his mouth, Petra was not really able to focus on too many specifics—although the words ‘bed’ and ‘pleasure’ did manage to penetrate her dizzying mist of euphoria.
As he kissed his way up the side of her neck and nibbled on her earlobe she demanded huskily, ‘So it is true, then—you do love me?’
So abruptly that it shocked her, Rashid released her. For a moment Petra went icy cold with fear, but then she saw the expression in his eyes.
‘I fell in love with you here on this beach, the evening you propositioned me,’ Rashid told her quietly. ‘Up until then you had just been a name I had heard mentioned in connection with your grandfather—someone who shared a similar parental background to my own, yes, but there are many, many offspring of mixed marriages living here.’ He gave a small dismissive shrug. ‘And then you accosted me here, and told me your wild tale of believing you were about to be forced into marriage to a man I admit even I was beginning to despise after I had listened to your description of him! And I thought that Saud liked me!’ he commented drolly.
Petra had the grace to give him an abashed look.
‘My grandfather told me that I’d got it all wrong, and that Saud had misunderstood what he had overheard!’
‘A passing comment, between business partners, that was never intended to be taken seriously. Knowing how concerned your family was about your grandfather’s health, and the effect your visit might have on it, I volunteered to show you something of the complex. But never for one moment did I intend to do so with a view to seeing if you might be a suitable wife!’
‘Did you really fall in love with me that night?’ Petra couldn’t resist asking him.
‘When I asked you what kind of man you wanted, and you told me…’ He paused and looked away from her, before looking back again. ‘I am a very wealthy man, Petra, and naturally I have been pursued by the kind of woman who sees a man only in terms of the financial benefits she can gain from him. When you spoke so passionately of your feelings and your beliefs, your hopes and desires for the way you wanted your life and your love to be, they so closely mirrored my own that I knew I could not let you walk away from me. And then I kissed you.’
‘And you knew then?’
Petra knew that her voice was trembling, and that Rashid would be able to hear quite clearly the joy and incredulity in it, but now she felt no need to hide her feelings or to feel ashamed of them.
‘Yes,’ Rashid acknowledged simply.
‘I knew then, and I was determined to court you… and woo you… but unfortunately I hadn’t reckoned on your stubborn determination not to fall in love with the man you believed me to be. I was beginning to panic. I was afraid that I might lose you. And then you found out who I was and I thought I had lost you. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Not when I knew just how good things could be for us.’
Petra gave him a wry look. ‘So you had made up your mind that I loved you, had you?’
‘Quite simply I could not bear to think of how my life would be if you didn’t!’
His admission dissolved any potential suspicion of arrogance or lack of respect for her feelings so immediately that Petra could only look softly at him.
‘And,’ Rashid continued huskily, ‘I hoped—especially after the way you had given yourself to me with such wonderful passion and completeness—that you loved me. But I knew that time was running out for me, that as Rashid I could not continue to be “away on business” for much longer. And then came the desert.’
‘When you couldn’t take your eyes off the belly dancer!’ Petra reminded him challengingly.
‘I know her—after all, she is an employee of the hotel complex and she knew who I was! I was afraid that she might inadvertently give me away! But then you came to me… to my bed… and I knew I had to take a chance and find some way of keeping you permanently in my life. When you came to the hotel suite, to confront me, I seized on the opportunity it gave me to insist that we marry out of desperation.’
‘But you said nothing, Rashid… You were so cold—so indifferent…’
‘I felt guilty,’ he admitted. ‘I had railroaded you into marriage to get what I wanted… and I knew that I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘There are lots of things you shouldn’t have done,’ Petra mock reproved him. ‘Including giving me a separate suite of rooms and tormenting me by letting me think that you didn’t care.’
‘But now you know that I do care,’ Rashid whispered softly. ‘You are the oasis of my life, Petra, the cool enriching gift of water to my parched desert. You and you alone have the power to make my heart bloom and flower.’
Misty-eyed, Petra listened to him.
‘I want to go home, Rashid,’ she told him shakily.
‘Home!’ He didn’t try to hide either the starkness in his voice or the tormented, anguished pain in his eyes. ‘You want to leave me! Perhaps I deserve it, after what I have done, but I cannot bear to let you go, Petra. Please, just give me a chance to show you, prove to you, how much I want to make you happy, to give you love. If you are not happy here in Zuran then we can live somewhere else—anywhere else that you choose—so long as you let me live there with you!’
Immediately Petra realised that he had misunderstood her, but his reaction was all the proof she could have asked for of just how much he did love her.
‘I meant I want to go home with