She’d had more enthusiastic offers, but she understood. She too had functions she couldn’t avoid. ‘OK,’ she said lightly, and opened her door.
But he got out and came around the car to her. ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ he said with a wry attempt at a smile. ‘I haven’t entirely forgotten how to behave.’
He waited until she’d unlocked it, and then said, ‘I enjoyed tonight so much I’m quite looking forward to our next date.’
Lexie waved as he turned the car and set off down the drive again. It was a beautiful night, and she stood for a few seconds to admire the stars, thinking of the same stars in a depthless tropical sky.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely, and stepped back.
Then froze as a piece of shadow detached itself from beneath the jacaranda tree and came towards her.
‘Just as well he didn’t try to kiss you,’ Rafiq said in a lethal voice.
The initial flash of terror was superseded by a triumphant joy so fierce that she pressed one hand over her heart. As he strode silently towards her in the starlight, she couldn’t speak.
And when she did her voice was thin and uncontrolled. ‘It’s none of your business who I kiss.’
He stopped just in front of her. ‘You really believe that?’ he asked in a low, fierce growl.
And at her defiant nod he said thickly, ‘Then you need to learn otherwise,’ and hauled her into his arms, his mouth coming down on hers with a famished hunger that smashed through every shaky defence.
Passion soared through her, unleashed and formidable, sweeping away common sense and all the rational arguments she’d used to bolster herself through the long, dark days since she’d left Moraze.
But when at last he lifted his mouth from hers, and framed her face with his lean strong hands, eyes fiercely intent as he scanned her, she asked beneath a harsh indrawn breath, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I am starving to death without you,’ he said just as quietly, but with an intensity that brought warmth, and a wild hope with it.
‘RAFIQ,’ she said on a broken little sob. ‘I don’t want an affair.’
He said jaggedly, ‘I cannot bear your tears. Rage at me, little cat, show me the spirit you’ve kept intact all through this. But I beg you, don’t weep.’
Lexie couldn’t control her shock. His unexpected arrival had finally tipped her over the precipice she’d been negotiating for the past weeks. She gulped as more tears clogged her throat, and then she felt the longed-for strength of his arms around her, his warmth enclosing her as he rocked her back and forth, murmuring soft, comforting words in the language she didn’t understand.
Until finally her tears slowed and she could think again.
Then he said deeply, ‘So it has been as bad for you as it has for me?’
‘I don’t know how bad it’s been for you,’ she retorted with a flash of spirit.
He tipped her chin and examined her face, a gleam of satisfaction gilding the dark green eyes. ‘Very bad,’ he said succinctly. ‘Until you left, I didn’t realise how much I was going to miss you. I hoped you were missing me just as much, but if you were, you didn’t show it.’
‘How do you know?’ she demanded, startled by his words.
He looked arrogantly sure of himself, a conqueror fully in command. ‘Surely you didn’t think I would let you go so easily?’ he asked, his brows lifting. ‘Of course I made sure you were all right.’
‘You had me watched?’ Lexie tried very hard to be outraged; it shouldn’t have been difficult, but her natural anger was softened by a treacherous glow of pleasure.
‘Checked,’ he corrected, his jaw jutting. ‘If you had been happy, if you’d showed no signs of missing me, then I would have accepted your decision.’
She tried to pull back; he held her for another second, then let her go. ‘Really?’ she said disbelievingly.
Shrugging those broad shoulders, he conceded with an enigmatic smile, ‘Not without seeing you again. Everything happened so fast between us, and then you discovered that I had used you, and naturally you were furious and hurt. And there was the possibility of a child to complicate the situation. You needed time to think, to regroup, to discover for yourself what your emotions were. But always I planned to come and ask you to marry me again.’
Lexie heard his words as though in a dream. She stared at him and said furiously, ‘Just what do you feel for me? Apart from passion?’ Colour heated her cheekbones, then faded abruptly, so that they stood out starkly beneath her hot blue eyes. ‘That’s not the best base for something as serious as marriage, but you’ve never shown any indication of feeling anything more.’
He looked at her as though she was mad, his eyes blazing above a face suddenly stark. ‘I love you,’ he said between his teeth. ‘Of course I love you—how could you not have known? I asked you to marry me, Lexie!’
‘You asked me to marry you because you found out I was a virgin,’ she retorted tensely, her heart thudding so hard she had to focus on speaking clearly. ‘And because you thought I might be pregnant!’
Her whole future depended on this. He had to be sure—as sure as she was. And she had to be sure, too, that his sister’s wretched fate hadn’t driven him into that astonishing proposal.
Because it had to be faced, she said more steadily, ‘You couldn’t bear to be associated with Gastano in anything, especially not the seduction of a virgin. And then we made love without protection.’
Appalled, she watched his hands clench at his sides. He surveyed her with menacing eyes, their glitter so intimidating she had to stop herself from taking a step backwards. After a few seconds, he dragged in a deep breath and his fists relaxed.
‘I did not seduce you,’ he rasped. ‘We made love. There is a difference. For me there was always love.’
‘I can’t believe that,’ she said desperately, wanting so much to accept what he was saying she could feel the need like a huge hunger inside her. ‘You despised me because you thought I’d been Felipe’s lover.’
‘I tried very hard to despise you,’ he corrected with a grim smile. ‘From the moment I saw you in that flirtatious orange dress, I wanted you, but even then I felt more for you than the transient lust of a man for a sexy woman.’
‘How do you know?’
He gave her another arrogant look, one mingled with frustration, then, in a gesture as brutal as it was unexpected, hammered a fist into one cupped hand. ‘I felt—doubt, confusion, anger. All those—and something else. For the first time in my life, I did not know what it was I was feeling, and the loss of control made me angry.
‘So, yes, I suspected that you were far more experienced than you were, but the woman I kidnapped did not live up to my expectations. You were warm and thoughtful; after the car crash, you insisted on finding out how the driver of the car was, and you sent her a card and flowers. She is one of my best agents, by the way. You showed no signs of interest in anything but Moraze and the horses, the people—almost everything around you but me!’
Lexie couldn’t stop her incredulous laugh. ‘You must have known—you’re an experienced man, and every time you touched me or kissed me, I lost it.’
His