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Her mind jerked away from the memory of the moment that morning when, tired after the long flight from Europe, she’d discovered that Felipe had organised for her to spend the week in a room with him.
It had been a shock. She’d already decided she wasn’t in love with Felipe, and by going back to New Zealand she’d be ending their relationship.
The week in Moraze on her own was to have been a holiday, seven days to reorient herself to her real life as a country vet in Northland. Being met by Felipe at the airport had been unexpected. But when he’d swept her off to the hotel he was staying in, and they’d been shown into a suite with flowers everywhere and a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket prominently displayed, she’d realised with dismay and a certain unease that he’d set the scene for seduction.
Still, she’d been civilised about it, and so had Felipe, when she’d told him that no, she wasn’t going to join him in any sensual fantasy.
He hadn’t argued. Felipe never did. He’d taken her rejection with a smiling shrug, observing that it didn’t matter, that he’d sleep on one of the very comfortable sofas. That was when she’d found out that he’d cancelled her booking at her own, much more modest hotel some miles away. It had been impossible to get a room to herself—it was the holiday season and all the hotels were fully booked, an apologetic clerk told her.
It hadn’t been the first time Felipe had suggested they make love, but before it had always been with a light touch so she’d never felt pressured.
This time there had been something about his humorously regretful acceptance that didn’t ring true; he’d sounded satisfied, almost smug. Oh, she wasn’t afraid, but right now she felt a long way from home, and rather vulnerable and wary, whereas before she’d always been at ease with him.
Well, almost always.
He’d talked her into accompanying him to the party, only to abandon her after the first half-hour. It seemed very like punishment.
Yes, she thought—deliberate and rather vindictive. That sense of unease grew. Because she was out of place in this assembly of famous faces she’d seen in newspapers and gossip columns. Others were complete strangers, but they too wore fabulous clothes and even more fabulous jewels, and they all seemed to know each other.
‘You are all right?’ the man beside her asked in a deep, cool voice that ruffled across her skin like dark velvet.
‘Yes, of course.’ Goodness, was that her voice? Pitched slightly too high, the words had emerged almost breathlessly.
‘Should I apologise for disturbing you and your friend?’ Rafiq de Couteveille asked.
‘No, not at all,’ she said, again too quickly. She fixed her gaze on the lagoon, placid and shimmering beneath the tropical night.
She stole a glance at Rafiq de Couteveille, and a hot shiver worked its way down her spine, igniting her nerves so that she was acutely, almost painfully aware of him. Like her he was looking out across the lagoon, and in the darkness his arrogantly autocratic profile was an uncompromising slash across the star-gemmed sky.
Both he and Felipe were exceedingly good-looking, but the difference between them couldn’t have been greater.
Felipe had dazzled her; after the hard work of proving herself to the Illyrians, he’d accepted her without comment, made her laugh, introduced her to interesting people and generally entertained her with a light touch.
And, until she’d been presented with the fait accompli of that huge double bed, she’d taken him at face value.
Perhaps she should have seen the signs sooner—like the moment, after they’d been seeing each other for a month or so, when he’d noticed she was tired and told her he could get something that would take away her tiredness…if she wanted him to.
After one glance at her stunned expression he’d laughed softly and with affection, before apologising charmingly, saying that he’d only been testing her.
Then she’d believed him. Now she wondered whether he’d been lying. In spite of seeing so much of him, she really didn’t know Felipe at all. Her hands tightened on the balustrade.
‘There is something wrong. Can I help?’
Could Rafiq de Couteveille read minds? ‘I’m fine,’ she said briskly. After all, she didn’t know this man either.
‘Do you know Gastano well?’
‘I’ve known him for a couple of months,’ she said with restraint.
‘It appears you are close to becoming engaged to him.’
‘What?’ He was watching her keenly, those dark eyes uncomfortably piercing. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from,’ she said more forcefully than she’d intended, startled by her instinctive rejection of the possibility.
His straight brows rose, but his voice was smooth when he said, ‘You don’t find the idea of taming a man like that intriguing?’
Turning her gaze to the pool and the gracefully curved trunks of the palms beyond, she said abruptly, ‘I don’t find the idea of taming any man intriguing.’
And she stopped, because this was an odd conversation to have with a man she didn’t know.
‘It’s supposed to be a universal female desire,’ he observed.
A note in his words told her he was amused—and strangely, she found that a relief. ‘Not mine,’ she told him brightly. ‘What made you think that we were about to become engaged?’
‘I heard it somewhere,’ he said. ‘Perhaps whoever was discussing it misunderstood—or possibly I did. So what is your desire?’
The flicker of excitement deep inside her leapt into a flame. He was flirting with her.
She should go back inside. Actually, she should leave this party. But that suite upstairs, with its one huge bed, loomed like a threat. Shrugging off that worry, she smiled up at her companion. Although his lips curved in response, she couldn’t see any humour there. He was watching her, his chiselled face enigmatic in the starlight, his expression speculative.
Did he know what was happening to her? Could he feel it too—that keen awareness, the anticipation, hidden yet potent, the whispered instructions she didn’t dare obey?
Hastily, before she could react to a treacherous impulse to lift herself onto her toes and kiss his excitingly sensuous mouth, she said demurely, ‘Only a foolish woman tells a man her innermost desire.’
‘My innermost desire at this moment,’ he said, his deep voice investing the conventional words with an edge that sent Lexie’s pulse racing into overdrive, ‘is to discover if your mouth tastes as good as it looks.’
Lexie froze, her widening eyes taking in his honed features.
His smile twisted into something close to cynicism. ‘But not if it goes against your principles.’
‘No—well—no,’ she stammered, barely able to articulate.
‘Then shall we try it?’ He took her startled silence for assent, and bent his head to claim her lips in a kiss that was surprisingly gentle.
At first.
But when her bones melted his arms came around her and he pulled her against his lean, powerful body—and all hell broke loose.
That cool, exploring kiss hardened into fierce demand and Lexie burned up in his arms, meeting and matching his frankly sexual hunger. Stunned by an urgent, voluptuous craving, she almost surrendered to the adrenalin raging like a bushfire through her.
She felt the subtle flexion of his body, and knew that he too wanted this—this headstrong need, mindless and sensuous. Desperately, she fought to retain a tiny spark of sanity as a bulwark against the white-hot sensations his experienced kiss summoned inside her.
Yet when he lifted his head and drawled, ‘Shall we go further down into the garden?’ it took every ounce of her will power to refuse.
In a ragged voice she muttered, ‘No.’
He let her go and stepped back. Embarrassed, shocked and angry with herself, she whirled and set off for the bright rectangles of light that indicated the doors onto the terrace.
‘One moment.’
Startled into stillness by the decisive command, she stopped and half turned.
He was right behind her. A long-fingered hand lifted to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and somehow he managed to turn the simple gesture into a caress that sent more forbidden excitement drumming through her.
‘You don’t look quite so storm tossed now,’ he said, that sardonic smile tilting his lips again as he surveyed her face. ‘But a trip to the powder room is advisable, I think.’
‘I—yes,’ she said, forcing her voice into its usual practical tone. ‘Are you coming inside too?’
‘Not for a few minutes,’ he said gravely. ‘My body, alas, is not so easily mastered as yours.’
‘Oh.’ Hot faced, she took off to the sound of his quiet laughter behind her.
Rafiq watched her go, frowning as his aide-de-camp passed her in the doorway, the man’s presence breaking in on thoughts that weren’t as ordered as he’d have liked.
Dragging his mind away from Lexie’s sleek back and the gentle sway of her hips, he said abruptly, ‘Yes?’
‘Your instructions have been followed.’
‘Thank you,’ Rafiq said crisply, and turned to go inside. Then he stopped. ‘You noticed the woman who passed you on the way in?’
‘Yes, sir.’ When Rafiq’s brows lifted, the younger man expanded, ‘She is also under s—’ He stopped as Rafiq’s brows met over his arrogant nose. Hastily he went on, ‘She is staying at the hotel with Count Felipe Gastano.’
He stepped back as another man approached them, saying to Rafiq, ‘You’re leaving already, sir?’
Rafiq returned the newcomer’s smile. He respected any man who’d hauled himself up from poverty and refugee status, and this man—the CEO of the construction firm that had built the new resort—was noted for his honesty and philanthropy. ‘I’m afraid I must,’ he said. ‘I have an early call tomorrow.’
They exchanged pleasantries, but as Rafiq turned to go the older man said, ‘And you will consider the matter we discussed previously?’
‘I will,’ Rafiq told him with remote courtesy. ‘But I am unable to make the decision; there must be consultations with the council first.’
The older man said shrewdly, ‘I wonder if you will ever regret giving up the power your forebears took for granted?’
Rafiq’s broad shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. ‘In the eyes of the world Moraze might be only a smallish island in the Indian Ocean. But its few-million citizens are as entitled to the privileges and responsibilities of democracy as any other free people, and if they don’t want them now they will soon enough. I am a practical man. If I hadn’t introduced self-government, power would eventually have been taken away—either from me or from one of my descendants.’
‘I wish all rulers were as enlightened,’ the other man said. He paused before adding, ‘I know my daughter has already thanked you for your magnificent birthday gift, but I must thank you also. I know how rare fire-diamonds are, and that one is superb.’
‘It is nothing.’ Rafiq dismissed his gift with a smile. ‘Freda and I are old friends—and the diamond suits her.’
They shook hands and Rafiq frowned, his mind not on the woman who’d been his lover until six months previously but on Alexa Sinclair Considine, with the gold-burnished hair and the steady gaze, and a mouth that summoned erotic fantasies.
And her relationship with a man he loathed and despised.
She was no longer in the room, Rafiq realised after one comprehensive glance around the large salon. And neither was Felipe Gastano.
CHAPTER TWO
UP IN the palatial bedroom, Lexie could still hear the faint sound of music. Moraze was as glorious as its discreet publicity promised—a large island, dominated by a long-extinct chain of volcanoes ground down by aeons of wind and weather to become a jagged range of mountains bordering a vast plateau area.
Just before landing the previous day Lexie had leaned forward to peer at the green-gold grasslands. She’d hoped for a glimpse of the famed wild horses of Moraze, only to sink back disappointed when lush coastal lands came into view, vividly patched with green sugar cane and the bright colours of flower farms.
Now, standing at the glass doors onto the balcony, she remembered that the island’s heraldic animal was a rearing horse wearing a crown. Her mind skipped from the horse to the man it signified, and she lifted her hands to suddenly burning cheeks.
That kiss had been scandalously disturbing, so different from any other she’d ever experienced that it had overwhelmed her.
Why? Yes, Rafiq de Couteveille was enormously attractive, with that compelling air of dangerous assurance, but she was accustomed to attractive men. Her sister Jacoba was married to one, and Marco’s older brother was just as stunning in a slightly sterner way. Yet neither of them had summoned so much as an extra heartbeat from her.
It wasn’t just his leanly aquiline features, boldly sculpted into a tough impression of force and power, that had made such an impression. Although Felipe Gastano was actually better-looking, he didn’t have an ounce of Rafiq’s dangerous charisma. She couldn’t imagine Felipe on a warhorse, leading his warriors into battle, but it was very easy to picture Rafiq de Couteveille doing exactly that.
Or she could see him as a corsair, she thought, heart quickening when her too-active imagination visualised him with a cutlass between his teeth as he swung over the side of a vessel…
According to the hotel publicity, in the eighteenth century the Indian Ocean had been the haunt of buccaneers. Moraze had been threatened by them, and had also used them in the struggle to keep its independence. Eventually the corsairs had been brought to heel, and Moraze’s rulers were at last able to give up the dangerous double game they’d been forced to play.
But no doubt the corsairs had left their genes in the bloodlines of the people of Moraze. Certainly Rafiq looked like a warrior—stern, hard and ruthless if the occasion demanded it.
However, fantasising about him wasn’t any help in dealing with her most pressing problem. Frowning, she stepped back inside. What the hell was she to do?
She wished she could trust Felipe to sleep on the sofa, but she didn’t. If she chose the bed, she suspected he might see it as an invitation for him to join her, and she did not want an undignified struggle when he finally decided to come up for the night.
Making up her mind, she pulled the light coverlet from the foot of the bed, grabbed a pillow, changed into cotton trousers and a shirt and curled up on the sofa.
She woke to music—from outside, she realised as she disentangled herself from the coverlet. Vaguely apprehensive, she glanced towards the closed bedroom door and grimaced. Once she’d finally fallen asleep, Rafiq de Couteveille had taken over her dreams to such an extent that she was possessed by an odd, aching restlessness.
The light she’d left on glowed softly, barely bright enough to show her a note someone had slipped under the door. Heart thudding, she untangled herself and ran across to retrieve it.
My dear girl, she read, I am sorry to have inconvenienced you. As it upset you so much to think of sharing a room with me, I have thrown myself on the sympathy of good friends who have a suite here. Because I do not trust myself with you.
Felipe had signed it with an elaborate F.
Lexie let out a long breath. She could have slept in the bed without fear, it seemed. It was thoughtful of Felipe.
Or perhaps, she thought, remembering the way he’d more or less ignored her at the party last night, this too was a little punishment?
Surely he wouldn’t be so petty?
It didn’t matter; the clerk had promised her a room of her own tomorrow—today, she amended after a glance at the clock. Felipe’s consideration should have appeased her, but his assumption that he could manipulate her into bed had crossed a boundary, and she knew it was time to tell him that their friendship would never develop any further.
Surprised at the relief that flooded her, she realised she’d been resisting a creeping sense of wrongness ever since he’d offered to buy drugs for her.
So her decision had nothing to do with the fact that he seemed far less vital—almost faded—next to the vital, hard-edged charisma of the man who’d kissed her on the terrace.
Felipe’s kisses had been warm and pleasant, but conveyed nothing like the raw charge of Rafiq’s…
‘Oh, stop it!’ she commanded her inconvenient memory.
Irritated, she poured herself some water to drink, and carried it across to the glass door leading onto the balcony.
The music that had somehow tangled her dreams in its sensuous beat had fallen silent now, the only sounds the sibilant whisper of a breeze in the casuarinas, the sleepy hush of small waves on the beach, and the muted thunder of breakers against the reef. As far as she could see the lagoon spread before her like a shadowy masquerade cloak spangled with silver.
She drank deeply, willing herself to relax, to enjoy the breeze that flirted with her hair, its hint of salt and flower perfumes mingling with a faint, evocative scent of spices, of ancient mysteries and secrets hidden from the smiling beauty of daylight.
It was almost dawn, although as yet no light glowed in the eastern sky. Feeling like the only person in the world, she took a deep breath and moved farther out onto the balcony.
The hair on the nape of her neck lifted, and unthinkingly she stepped back into the darkness of the overhang, senses straining as her eyes darted back and forth to search out what had triggered that primitive instinct.
Don’t be an idiot, she told herself uneasily, there’s no one out there—and even if there were it would be some sort of night watchman.
Moving slowly and quietly, she eased into her room and pulled the glass door shut, locking it and making sure there was no gap in the curtains.
But even then it was difficult to dispel that eerie sense of being watched. She marched across to the bathroom and set the glass down, washed her face, and then wondered how she was going to get back to sleep.
Half an hour later she gave up the attempt and decided to email her sister Jacoba.
Only to discover that for some reason the internet link wouldn’t work. Thoroughly disgruntled, she closed down her laptop and drank another glass of water.
It seemed that Felipe had decided to continue his charade of rejection. After breakfast in her room the butler hand-delivered a note that told her Gastano had business to attend to in Moraze’s capital, and would see her that evening.
Suddenly light-hearted, Lexie arranged the transfer of her luggage to a new room, then organised a trip up to the mountains, eager to see the results of the world-famous bird-protection programme.
It was a surprise to find herself alone in the small tourist van with a woman who informed her she was both driver and guide.
‘Just you today, m’selle,’ she confirmed cheerfully. ‘I know all about this place, so, if you got any questions, you ask.’
And know about Moraze she did, dispensing snippets of information all the more intriguing for having a strong personal bias. Lexie plied her with questions, and once they reached the high grasslands she looked eagerly for signs of the horses.
‘You like horses?’ the driver asked.
‘Very much. I’m a vet,’ Lexie told her.
‘OK, I tell you about the horses.’
Lexie soaked up her information, much of which concerned the legendary relationship between the horses and the ruler.
‘As long as the horses flourish,’ the guide finished on the approach to a sweeping corner, ‘Our Emir will also, and so will Moraze.’
She spoke as though it were written law. Lexie asked curiously, ‘Why do you call him the Emir?’
‘It’s kind of a joke, because the first de Couteveille was a duke in France. He got into trouble there, and after a couple of years of roaming in exile he found Moraze. He brought an Arabian princess with him.’ She gave a thousand-watt smile. ‘Their descendants have kept Moraze safe for hundreds of years, so you better believe we look after those horses! We don’t want anyone else taking over our island, thank you very much.’
Lexie gasped with alarm as the guide suddenly jerked the wheel. The van skidded, the world turned upside down, and amidst a harsh cacophony of sounds Lexie was flung forward against the seatbelt. It locked across her, the force driving the breath from her lungs, so that she dragged air into them with a painful grunt.
The laboured sound of the engine and a strong smell of petrol forced her to ignore her maltreated ribs. A cool little wind played with her hair, blowing it around her face. She forced her eyes open and saw grass, long and golden, rustling in the breeze.
The car had buried its nose in the low bank on one side of the road, and when she tried her door it refused to open. She turned her head, wincing at a sharp pain in her neck, to see the driver slumped behind the wheel. The woman’s harsh breathing filled the vehicle.
‘I have to turn off the engine,’ Lexie said aloud. If she didn’t it might catch fire.
Easing herself around, she freed the seatbelt and groped for the key. She could just reach it. With shaking fingers, she twisted rapidly, hugely relieved when the engine sputtered into silence.
Now she had to see if the driver was all right. If it was a heart attack she could at least give CPR. But first she had to get out, which meant crawling over the poor woman, possibly making any injuries worse…
She reached for the driver’s wrist, hugely relieved when the pulse beat strongly beneath her shaking fingers. And then she heard the distant throb of a powerful engine, a sound she identified as a helicopter.
The pilot must have seen the wrecked car because the chopper altered course. The clack-clack-clack of the engine filled the air, and seconds later the craft landed in a haze of dust and wind. Immediately a man leapt down, ducking to avoid the rotors as he ran towards her. Lexie put her hand up to her eyes and closed them, then looked again, blinking hard.
Even at this distance she knew him. Rafiq de Couteveille—the man who had kissed her only last night…
Stunned, her stomach hollow, Lexie watched him yank open the driver’s door and crouch beside her. After one quick glance at the unconscious woman, he transferred his gaze to Lexie’s face.
‘You are all right?’ he demanded, pitching his voice so she could hear him above the noise of the helicopter.
Lexie nodded, ignoring the sharp stab of maltreated muscles in her neck. ‘I think she might have had a heart attack.’
He bent his attention to the crumpled woman beside her. Was he a doctor? No, he didn’t look like a doctor.
The driver stirred and muttered something in the local Creole French, then opened her eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rafiq de Couteveille said. ‘We’ll have you both out soon.’
No sooner said than done; within a few minutes the driver was free and being carried across to the chopper by two men, and Rafiq was saying, ‘Let me help you.’
‘I can manage, thank you.’
But he eased her past the wheel, his strong arms gentle and controlled. In spite of the shivers racking her when he set her carefully on her feet, her breath was shallow and her colour high.
And all she could think of was that she must look a real guy. ‘Thank you,’ she said as crisply as she could.
Something flickered in the dark eyes—green, she realised in the clear light of the Moraze day. Not just ordinary green, either—the pure, dense green of the very best pounamu, New Zealand’s prized native jade.
‘So we meet again,’ he said with an ironic twist to his beautifully chiselled mouth.
He was too close. Taking an automatic step backwards, she turned slightly away, her brows meeting for a second as another twinge of pain tightened the muscles in her neck.