She watched as the man picked up the phone, answering with a curt, ‘Yes,’ his eyes never leaving hers.
Aneesa could just hear an indistinctly panicked voice. They must be phoning every room in the hotel. Her heart sank. This man was a complete stranger; he had no obligation to protect her. But even as she was thinking this and fearing the worst he cut off the babble on the phone and said, ‘I’ve seen no one. Please don’t disturb me again tonight unless it’s urgent. I’m sure the manager can deal with the situation.’
And he put down the phone. His eyes hadn’t left hers for a second.
Relief washed through Aneesa, dizzying in its intensity, even as her skin tingled, as if something unspoken had just passed between them. ‘Thank … thank you so much, I know you have no obligation to help me …’
The man prowled close to her and took the glass from her white-knuckled grip, placing it down on a table. Curiously, she recognised that even though she didn’t know him, she felt safe with him. As if she could trust him. And that was a revelation when for days she’d looked at everyone around her with suddenly jaundiced eyes.
He straightened up again to his full intimidating height. ‘Perhaps we should introduce ourselves, because it looks like you won’t be going anywhere for a while. They have every guard combing the hotel for you right now. I think you must be aware that I know who you are.’
Up until recently she would have automatically expected that response, but while this man knew who she was, clearly he wasn’t in thrall and that gave Aneesa a heady feeling. New humility and untold gratitude for this sanctuary made her voice soft. ‘Yes, I’m Aneesa.’
After a long moment she put out her hand, only becoming belatedly aware of what a caricature she must look like with the henna tattoo and all the elaborate jewels, and the wedding outfit. Her hand was enveloped in his much larger one, his grip warm and strong and sending a disturbing electric tingle right to her groin. He smiled and it was lopsided, making Aneesa feel dizzy again. She feared after tonight that she’d never get her equilibrium back.
‘Sebastian … at your service it would seem.’ Sebastian had made a split-second decision not to mention his family name, feeling it hanging like a yoke around his neck, and was aware for the first time that he was in the presence of someone who didn’t appear to know who he was. The thought was curiously heady.
A thread of illicit tension snaked through Aneesa at his words. As if he might be at her service in a much more carnal way. Shocked by that thought, and suddenly overwhelmed by everything and feeling more and more ridiculous, she said shakily, ‘Would you mind if I used your bathroom?’
He stood back after a long moment, releasing her hand with deliberate slowness, and shook his head, gazing so intently at her that she felt flutters run all the way up and down her spine. No man had ever looked at her so explicitly. He gestured to the back of the penthouse. ‘By all means, it’s just through there.’
Aneesa walked away on still-wobbly legs and found the bathroom, slipping inside and closing the door. It was a relief to be away from that courtyard and the intense pressure, and a relief to be away from Sebastian’s disturbing presence. Just then she remembered how it had been the memory of his eyes that had acted as a catalyst to make her run from the ceremony.
And now she was here, in his suite. And he was protecting her from the hordes.
She shivered slightly. She was a pragmatic person, not given to flights of fancy, but it suddenly felt very serendipitous to have arrived here. Immediately that visceral physical response flooded her body in a way that had never happened before.
Even on the fateful evening she’d gone to Jamal’s room to seduce him in her impossibly naïve way, she’d felt no physical anticipation, and yet in the space of the past few minutes she’d become more aware of herself and another man than she ever had been in her whole life. It was fast eclipsing the recent disastrous events.
She pushed away from the door and went to stand in front of the mirror; a soft light had come on automatically once she’d opened the door of the bathroom. She sighed deeply. When had she become so used to, or expected, such flippant luxuries?
She looked at her heavily made-up face and urgently wanted to feel clean again. As if she could get rid of the persona of Aneesa Adani, Bollywood’s darling. She released the clip which held the jewel that sat in the centre of her forehead and laid it down carefully and with warm water in the sink she bent and splashed it over her face.
After a few minutes though, she could see that it was going to take a lot more than water to wipe it all away. A sense of futility washed through her and also pain, to know the upheaval she was undoubtedly causing within her family. Jamal she wasn’t unduly concerned about; he would survive, especially now she knew he’d only seen her as a strategic pawn.
But her parents … they had deserved better. She could picture the disappointment and humiliation on their faces right now. They loved her so much, and while she knew they were proud of her success, she knew that they’d have been equally proud if she’d become a housewife and had babies. They’d always accepted her unconditionally and this is how she repaid them …
Emotion surged; Aneesa was unable to stop gut-wrenching sobs from rising upwards. She hadn’t really lost control yet, and the pressure of keeping it together nearly floored her now. She pulled at the bangles on her arms and rings on her fingers, uncaring of the pain as she ripped them off, dropping them to the counter. With shaking hands she untied the necklace from around her neck and it, too, fell under its own heavy weight.
Sobbing now in earnest, and with a sense of inner desperation mounting and anger at herself once again for having been so stupid and selfish, she tried ineffectually to wash the henna tattoo off her arms and hands, knowing that all the scrubbing in the world wouldn’t remove it, only the passing of time.
Just then a knock came on the door, and Sebastian’s voice saying, ‘Aneesa, are you all right in there?’
She couldn’t answer; the tears were streaming down her face now, streaking it with mascara. Her chest heaved with jerky sobs and she sagged back against the sink just as Sebastian opened the door, took one look and strode in.
She held out her dripping hands stupidly and looked up at him, struggling to regain control. can’t get rid of the henna tattoo…. Do you have any idea what this means?’
Sebastian shook his head, looking grim. And gorgeous. Aneesa was aware of that even in this state.
She said brokenly, ‘It’s meant to symbolise my transition from innocence … except now I don’t even have a husband to seduce me! I’m going to be walking around with the physical mark of my shame for everyone to see for weeks!’
Sebastian just got a facecloth and wrung it out in the warm water. He came close and gently wiped at the trails of mascara running down Aneesa’s cheeks. She could feel the backs of his lower arms brush against her chest as he wiped her face, and in an instantaneous reaction, her nipples stiffened, pushing against the hard material of her bodice top. Her inner agitation died away as a wholly new tension entered her body, flooding her belly with a hot tingling awareness, a sensation of melting.
A taut stillness entered the air around them as Sebastian washed her face. He finally put the cloth down and took a towel, drying Aneesa’s hands.
Then he dropped the towel and brought his hands to Aneesa’s jaw, his thumbs brushing back and forth against her cheeks. She was barely breathing now, hypnotised by the blue glitter of his eyes, by the heady sense of expectation in the air, by his intensely masculine scent. She could see his jaw clench as if he was exerting some control and inwardly a hidden part of her trembled to think that he had to exert it because of her.
He didn’t step away; he didn’t take his hands from her jaw or face, and Aneesa felt like she was slowly being set on fire. Her gaze slipped down to his mouth and she ached to know how it would