Tariq froze in furious rejection of the image that slipped so treacherously past his guard. The woman he would choose to share his life would not be that woman. Last night’s woman. Gwynneth. He had seen her name in her passport when he had pushed the money into her bag this morning.
Gwynneth! The first thing Tariq heard when he walked into the apartment was the sound of her voice.
‘There’s a bit of a problem. But don’t worry. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure we get the money—just as I promised you I would, and no matter how long I have to stay here to get it or what I have to do.’
She was speaking grimly. As though she was trying to reassure someone. She was seated at the kitchen table with her back to him, the money he had left her this morning in an untidy pile beside her.
An uncomfortable mix of very powerful feelings was fighting for control of his emotions: righteous anger that she had dared to stay here when he had made it obvious that he wanted her to leave; and a deeper, darker feeling of savaged male pride at hearing her underline the fact that all he was to her was a source of income. The physical memories of last night were storming the defences he had put up against them like grains of sand chafing against his skin.
Gwynneth sighed as she ended her call to Teresa. She hadn’t wanted to worry the younger girl by saying too much to her, even though she desperately wanted to have someone she could confide her own anxieties to. Her mind was still on Teresa and the problems of her father’s apartment, but some sixth sense made her turn round, the colour momentarily leaving her face only to return in a hot wave of betraying soft pink awareness as she stood up shakily.
‘You! You’ve come back!’
‘Very dramatic—but somewhat ineffective, surely? Since you must have realised that I would come back.’ Tariq responded curtly to her breathy gasp.
Had she? He had such a powerful air of authority about him that for a moment she was almost in danger of believing him. Almost.
‘Why would I do that?’ she challenged him daringly.
‘I should have thought that was obvious.’
Gwynneth couldn’t help it. She could feel the colour burning up under her skin as her body reacted to what he had said. Her body couldn’t actually be pleased that he had come back? That he wanted more of her? Could it? Surely that wasn’t possible? She mustn’t let it feel like that, she decided, panicking. What had happened last night was excusable—just—as an isolated, never to be repeated incident. So long as that was what it remained.
‘After all,’ Tariq continued, ‘this does happen to be my apartment.’
His apartment? His apartment? She stared at him in shocked dismay. That couldn’t possibly be true! Could it? A horrible cold feeling of uncertainty and dismay was creeping over her. What if it was true? If it was, then obviously he wasn’t here because of her. He hadn’t come back because he wanted a repeat performance of last night’s sex, as she had so humiliatingly assumed.
If it was true—But it wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true; she wasn’t going to let it be true, she decided wildly, her normal facility for calm, rational, logical thinking disintegrating in the face of her emotional reaction to both him and his unwelcome information.
But worse was to come. As she struggled to assimilate his unwelcome news he added sharply, ‘Since I’ve already added a generous bonus to what you were paid for last night—particularly generous under the circumstances—I fail to see why you are still here. Surely for a woman in your profession time is money? Or did you think I might be persuaded to keep you on for tonight as well?’
‘Are you trying to suggest that I’m a prostitute?’ Gwynneth demanded in disbelief.
‘Are you trying to suggest that you aren’t?’ His voice was as derisive as the look in his eyes. ‘Because if so you’re wasting your time. I know what you are, why you were waiting in my bed for me, and who arranged for you to be there.’
‘What? This is crazy!’ Gwynneth protested shakily. ‘Who—? Who—?’
‘Stop right there. I don’t want to hear another word. Pick up your money and go,’ Tariq ordered, then frowned as his mobile—the one he used only for calls from the gang—started to ring.
‘Wait,’ he told Gwynneth contradictorily, striding out of the kitchen and closing the door behind him, leaving her inside.
‘Get yourself down to the marina—pronto. Chad wants to see you—now.’ The familiar voice of one of the gang members rasped in Tariq’s ear.
The call was disconnected before he could make any response. He looked at the closed kitchen door. At this delicate stage in the proceedings he couldn’t afford to antagonise the leader of the gang by refusing to obey him.
What on earth had she got herself into? Gwynneth worried anxiously. Suddenly she was seeing last night’s uncharacteristic and admittedly very dangerous and foolish sexual adventure in a very different and sickeningly seedy and unpleasant light. She had been mistaken for a prostitute and she was about to be evicted from her own apartment. The situation she was in couldn’t have been any worse. Could it? What about the fact that not so very long ago she had virtually caught herself wondering if last night’s events might be repeated?
The kitchen door was opening.
Gwynneth took a deep breath.
‘You’ve got this all wrong. I am not a prostitute.’
She certainly wasn’t done up like one, Tariq acknowledged, unable to stop himself from looking not so much at her as for her, the moment he stepped into the kitchen. She wasn’t wearing make-up, her clothes looked more suited to an office worker, and no man looking at her would feel that she was making any attempt to be alluring. And as for last night…He had been the one pleasuring her, not the other way around.
‘I’d agree that you certainly aren’t a good advertisement for your profession,’ he agreed unkindly.
‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ Gwynneth protested. ‘I am not a prostitute! I’m—’
‘An escort?’ Tariq suggested silkily, and gave a condemnatory shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter what name you give what you do. It doesn’t change the fact that you sell your body to men for their sexual pleasure. Do your family know what you do? Your father?’ he demanded abruptly, without knowing why he should be asking her such a question—the kind of question that might almost suggest that he cared.
‘My father is dead.’
So, like him, she was fatherless. That was no reason for him to feel the sudden surge of fellow feeling towards her, Tariq warned himself angrily.
‘So is mine,’ he told her coldly. ‘That is no excuse. Surely there is some other way you could support yourself? Have you no pride? No self-respect? No—?’
‘I don’t need an excuse. And as for me not having any pride—what about you?’ Gwynneth shot back, and took advantage of the sudden silence her attack had gained her to point out pithily, ‘After all, you didn’t exactly reject me, did you?’
What she was saying was perfectly true, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept, Tariq admitted unwillingly.