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Khalis walked towards her, his expression softening, a sad smile tipping the corners of his mouth. ‘Oh, Grace.’ She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the undeserved compassion in his gaze. He put his arms around her though she didn’t lean into his embrace as she longed to. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was my fault … partly …’ A big part.
Khalis brushed this aside, his arms tightening around her. ‘Why didn’t you fight the custody arrangement? Most judges are inclined favourably towards the mother—’
Except when the mother was thought to be unfit. ‘I … couldn’t,’ she said. At least that was true. She hadn’t possessed the strength or courage to fight a judgement her heart had felt was what she deserved.
Khalis tipped her chin up so she had to face him. He looked so tender it made her want to cry. To blurt out the truth—that she didn’t deserve his compassion or his trust, and certainly not his love. ‘What does this have to do with you and me?’
You and me. How she wanted to believe in that idea. ‘Loukas—my ex-husband monitors my behaviour. He’s made it a requirement that I don’t become … romantically involved with any man. If I do, I lose that month’s visit with Katerina.’
Khalis drew back and stared at her in complete bafflement. ‘But that … that has to be completely illegal. And outrageous. How can he control your behaviour to such an absurd degree?’
‘He has the trump card,’ Grace said. ‘My daughter.’
‘Grace, surely you could fight this. With a pro bono solicitor if money is an issue. There’s no way he should be able to—’
‘No.’ She spoke flatly, although her heart raced and her stomach churned. What on earth had possessed her to tell him so much—and yet so little? Now he’d paint her as even more of a victim. ‘No, don’t, please, Khalis. Leave it. Let’s not discuss this any more.’
He frowned, shaking his head. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘Please.’ She laid a hand on his arm, felt the corded muscles leap beneath her fingers. ‘Please,’ she said again, her voice wobbling, and his frown deepened. She thought he’d resist, keep arguing and insisting she fight a battle she knew she’d already lost, but then he sighed and nodded.
‘All right. But I’d still like you to go out with me.’
‘After what I just told you?’
Smiling, although his eyes still looked dark and troubled, he reached for her hand and kissed her fingers. ‘I understand you can’t be seen in public with me—yet. But we can still go out.’
She felt the brush of his lips against her fingers like an electric current, jolting right through her and short-circuiting her resolve. She longed to open her hand and press it against his mouth, feel the warmth of his breath against her flattened palm. Step closer so her breasts brushed his chest. With the last vestiges of her willpower she drew her hand back and dredged up a response. ‘Go out where?’
‘Out there.’ He gestured towards the window, the wall. ‘Away from this wretched compound.’
‘But where—?’
‘Grace.’ He cut her off, stepping closer so she could feel the intoxicating heat of his nearness and knew her resolve was melting clean away. ‘Do you trust me,’ he asked, ‘to take you somewhere your ex-husband could never discover? A place where you’ll be completely safe—with me?’
She stared at him, fear and longing clutching at her chest. One day. One date. It had been four long years and she’d never, never known a man like Khalis—a man so gentle he made her ache, so kind he made her cry. A man who made her burn with need. She nodded slowly. ‘All right. Yes. I trust you.’
His mouth curled in a smile of sensual triumph and he reached for her hand, kissed her fingers again. ‘Good. Because I really would like to take you out to dinner. I’d like to see you in one of those dresses, and I’d like to peel it slowly from your body as I make love to you tonight.’ He gave her a wry smile even as his gaze seared straight into her soul. ‘But I’ll settle for dinner.’
The images he’d conjured brought her whole body tingling to life. ‘I can’t imagine a place where we can go to dinner that’s not—’
‘Leave that to me.’ He released her hand. ‘You can spend some time being spoiled by Shayma.’ He pressed a quick, firm kiss against her mouth. ‘We’ll have a wonderful evening. I’m looking forward to seeing which gown you pick.’
Two hours later, having been massaged and made-up and completely pampered, Grace was dressed in the dress of deep blue satin. She’d wanted to wear the ivory gown, but it had looked too bridal for her to feel comfortable wearing it. She wasn’t innocent enough for that dress.
In any case, the blue satin was stunning, with its halter top and figure-hugging silhouette before it flared out in a spray of paler blue at her ankles. Shayma had fastened a diamond-encrusted sapphire pendant around her neck and given her matching earrings as well. She felt like a movie star.
‘You look beautiful, miss,’ Shayma whispered as she handed Grace her gauzy wrap and Grace smiled her thanks.
‘You’ve been wonderful to me, Shayma. It’s been one of the most relaxing afternoons I’ve had in a long time.’
Khalis was waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase, and he blinked up at her for a moment before he gave her a wide, slow smile of pure masculine appreciation. ‘You look,’ he told her, reaching for her hand, ‘utterly amazing.’
‘You look rather nice yourself.’ He wore a suit in charcoal-grey silk, but Grace knew he’d look magnificent in anything. He was, simply and utterly, an incredibly attractive man. The suit emphasised the lean, whipcord strength of his body, its restrained power. ‘So where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
He led her by the hand out of the compound, through the forbidding gates and then towards the beach. Night was already settling softly on the island, leaving deep violet shadows and turning the placid surface of the sea to an inky stretch of darkness.
Khalis led her to a launch where an elegant speedboat bobbed gracefully in the water. ‘We’re going by boat?’ Grace asked a bit doubtfully, glancing down at her floor-length evening gown. ‘I hate to tell you, but I’m feeling a bit overdressed.’
‘Well, you look magnificent.’ He helped her into the boat, taking care to keep the hem of her gown from trailing in the water. ‘I will confess, I had an elegant little hotel in Taormina in mind when I originally had those gowns brought over. But it doesn’t really matter where we go, does it? I just want to be with you.’ He smiled at her, and Grace’s heart twisted.
You’re saying all the right things, she wanted to cry. All the sweet, lovely things any woman wants to hear, and the worst part is I think you mean them. That was what hurt.
‘I am curious,’ she murmured, ‘where this secret place of yours is.’ And nervous. And even afraid. In the four years since her divorce, she’d lost her monthly visits with Katerina twice. Once for going out for a coffee with a colleague, and another time for being asked to dance at a charity function she’d attended for work. She’d refused, but it hadn’t mattered. Loukas just liked to punish her.
Khalis headed towards the helm and within a few minutes he was guiding the boat through the sea, the engine purring to life and thrumming beneath them. Grace sat behind a Plexiglas shield, but even so her careful chignon began to fall into unruly tendrils, whipped by the wind.
‘Oh, dear.’ She held her hands up to her hair, but Khalis just grinned.
‘I like seeing you with your hair down.’
She arched her eyebrows. ‘Is that a euphemism?’
His grin turned wicked. ‘Maybe.’
Laughing a little, feeling far too reckless, she took the remaining pins out of her hair and tossed them aside. Her hair streamed out behind her in a windblown tangle. She probably looked a fright but she didn’t care. It felt good. She felt free.
‘Excellent,’ Khalis said, and the boat shot forward as he accelerated.
Grace still had no idea where they could be going. All around them was an endless stretch of sea, and as far as she knew there were no islands between Alhaja and Sicily. And he couldn’t be taking her to Sicily, could he? He’d said somewhere private; he’d asked her to trust him. And she did, even if her stomach still churned with nerves.
‘Don’t worry,’ Khalis told her. ‘Where we’re going is completely private. And it won’t take long to get there.’
‘How,’ she asked ruefully, ‘do you always seem to know what I’m thinking?’
He paused, considering. ‘I’d say your every emotion is reflected in your face, but it isn’t. It just feels that way.’
Her heart seemed to turn right over. She knew what he meant. Even at his most carefully expressionless, she felt as if she knew what Khalis was feeling, as if she could feel it, too, as if they were somehow joined. Yet they weren’t, and in twenty-four hours it would be over. The connection would be severed.
Unless …
For a brief blissful moment she imagined how it could go on. How she’d tell Khalis everything and somehow they’d find a way to fight the custody arrangement. Was this connection they shared strong enough for that?
She glanced at Khalis, her gaze taking in his narrowed eyes, the hard line of his cheek and jaw as he steered the boat. She thought of how he refused to grieve for his family. Forgive his father. Under all the grace and kindness he’d shown her she knew there was an inflexible hardness that had carried him as far as he’d got. A man like that might love, but he wouldn’t forgive.
She swallowed, those brief hopes blown away on the breeze like so much ash. They’d been silly dreams, of course. Happy endings. Fairy tales.
‘You look rather deep in thought,’ Khalis said. He’d throttled back so the noise of the engine was no more than a steady purr, and Grace could hear the sound of the waves slapping against the sides of the boat.
‘Just thinking how beautiful the sea is.’ And how, now that I want to live and love again, I can’t. Khalis had been right. Life wasn’t fair, and it was her own fault.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Khalis agreed, but Grace had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t fooled him, and he knew she’d been thinking about something else. About him.
‘So are we almost there yet?’ she asked, peering out into the unrelieved darkness. A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Are we. are we going to stay on the boat?’
Khalis chuckled. ‘You think that’s my big surprise? Sausages over a propane stove on a motorboat? I’m almost offended.’
‘Well, it is a rather nice boat,’ Grace offered.
‘Not that nice. And I don’t fancy eating my dinner on my lap, bobbing in the water. Come on.’ He held out his hand and, surprised, Grace took it. She couldn’t see much in the darkness, the only light from the moon cutting a pale swathe of silver across the water. She had no idea where Khalis might be taking her.
He led her to the front of the boat and, even more surprised, Grace realised they had come up next to a small and seemingly deserted island. A slender curve of pale beach nestled against a tangle of foliage, palm fronds drooping low into the water.
‘What is this place?’
‘A very small, very secluded island my father happened to own. It’s not very big at all—a couple of hundred metres across. But my father valued his privacy, and so he bought all the land near Alhaja, even if it wasn’t much bigger than a postage stamp.’ He vaulted out of the boat easily and then held out his hand to her. ‘Come on.’
Grace reached for his hand, teetering a bit in her high heels and long dress, until Khalis put both of his hands firmly on her waist and swung her down off the boat onto the beach. Her heels sunk a good two inches into the damp sand and, ruefully, she slipped them off.
‘I think these are designer. I don’t want to get them ruined.’
‘Much more sensible,’ Khalis agreed and kicked his own shoes off. Grace looked at the empty stretch of dark, silent beach, the jungle dense and impenetrable behind it. Everything was very still, and it almost felt as if they were the only two people in the entire world, or at least the Mediterranean.
She turned to Khalis with a little laugh. ‘Now I really feel overdressed.’
‘Feel free to take your clothes off if you’d be more comfortable.’
Her heart rate skittered. ‘Maybe later.’
‘Is that a promise?’
Grace gave a little smile. She couldn’t believe she was actually flirting. And it felt good. ‘Definitely not.’
She picked up her dress and held it about her knees as she picked her way across the sand. She hadn’t felt so relaxed and even happy in a long, long time. ‘So we’re not having sausages on the boat. A barbecue on the beach?’
‘Wrong again, Ms Turner.’ Grinning, Khalis reached for her hand. ‘Come this way.’ He led her down the darkened beach, towards a sheltered inlet. Grace stopped in surprise at the sight that awaited her there. A tent, its sides rippling in the breeze, had been set up, its elegant interior flickering with torchlight.
It was a tent, but it was as far from propane stoves and camping gear as could be possible. With the teakwood table, silken pillows and elegant china and crystal, it looked like something out of an Arabian Nights fantasy.
‘How,’ Grace asked, ‘did you arrange this in the space of a few hours?’
‘It was easy.’
‘Not that easy.’
‘It did take some doing,’ Khalis allowed as he reached for the bottle of white wine chilling in a silver bucket. ‘But it was worth it.’
Grace accepted a glass of wine and glanced around at the darkness stretching endlessly all about them, cocooned as they were in the tent with the flickering light casting friendly shadows. Safe. She was safe. And Khalis had made it happen. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
Khalis gazed at her over the rim of his wine glass, his gaze heavy-lidded with sensual intent and yet also so very sincere. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for trusting me.’
‘Finally,’ she said, and he smiled.
‘It didn’t take as long as all that.’ He started to serve them both hummus and triangles of pitta bread. ‘So you must live a very quiet life, with these restrictions your ex-husband has placed on you.’
‘Fairly quiet. I don’t mind.’
He gave her a swift, searching glance. ‘Don’t you? I would.’
‘You can get used to things.’ She’d rather talk about anything else. ‘And sometimes,’ she half-joked, ‘I think I prefer paintings to people.’
‘I suppose paintings never let you down.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said lightly, ‘a few paintings have let me down. I once found what I thought was a genuine Giotto in someone’s attic, only to discover it was a very good forgery.’
‘Isn’t it interesting,’ Khalis mused, ‘how a painting that looks exactly like the original is worth so much less? Both are beautiful, yet only one has value.’
‘I suppose it depends on what you value. The painter or the painting.’
‘Truth or beauty.’
Truth. It always came back to truth. The weight of what she wasn’t telling him felt as if it would flatten her. Grace took a sip of her wine, tried to swallow it all down. ‘Some forgeries,’ she said after a moment, ‘are worth a fair amount.’
‘But nothing like the original.’
‘No.’
She felt her heart race, her palms slick, even though they were having an innocuous conversation about art. Except it didn’t feel innocuous because what Khalis didn’t know—or maybe he already suspected—was that Grace herself was the most worthless forgery of all.
An innocent woman. A maligned wife. Both false, no matter what he thought or how she appeared. No matter what he seemed determined to believe.
‘Come and eat,’ he said, gesturing to the seat across from him, and Grace went forward with relief. Perhaps now they could talk about something else.
‘Had you ever been to this island before?’ she asked, dipping a triangle of pitta bread into the creamy hummus. ‘As a boy?’
‘My brother and I sailed out here once.’
‘Once?’
He shrugged. ‘We didn’t do much together. Everything was a competition to Ammar, one he had to win. And I started not to like losing.’ He smiled wryly, but there was something hard about the twist of his lips, a darker emotion that hinted at more than the average sibling rivalry.
‘Do you miss him?’ Grace asked quietly. ‘Your brother, at least, if not your father?’
Khalis’s face tensed, his body stilling. ‘I already told you I don’t.’
‘I just find it hard to understand.’ Why she felt the need to press, she couldn’t say. It was the same kind of compulsion as picking a scab or probing a sore tooth. To see how much it hurt, how much pain you could endure. ‘I miss my parents even now—’
‘My family was very different from yours.’
‘What about your sister? You must miss her.’
‘Yes,’ Khalis said after a moment. ‘I do. But there’s no point in going on about it. She’s been dead fourteen years.’
He spoke so flatly, so coldly, that Grace could not keep from blurting out, ‘How can you. How can you just draw a line across your whole family?’
For a second Khalis’s face hardened, his eyes narrowing, lips thinning, and Grace had to look away. This was the man of unrelenting, iron control. The man who never looked back. Never forgave.
‘I haven’t drawn a line, as you say,’ he said evenly, ‘across my whole family. I simply see no point in endlessly looking back. They’re dead. I’ve moved on. From mourning them and from this conversation.’ He leaned forward, his tone softening. ‘My father and brother don’t deserve your consideration. You are innocent, Grace, but if you knew the kinds of things they’d done—’
‘I’m not as innocent as you seem to think I am.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound patronising. And I did not intend to talk about my family tonight. Surely there are better ways for us to spend our time.’
‘I’m sure there are,’ Grace agreed quietly. Why had she pressed Khalis when she had not wanted to talk about her own past? She’d wanted to enjoy herself tonight, and losing themselves in dark memories was not the way to do it.
Khalis served her the next course and she watched the firelight flicker over his golden skin, saw the strength of the corded muscles in his wrist as he ladled fragrant pieces of chicken and cardamom onto her plate. Suddenly the memory of this afternoon, of Khalis’s lingering kiss, his hand sliding along her skin, rose up so Grace’s whole body broke out into a prickly heat, every muscle and nerve and sinew remembering how heartbreakingly wonderful it had felt when he’d touched her.
She felt her face heat and she reached for her glass. Khalis smiled, his eyes glinting knowingly. ‘I think we are both thinking of one way in particular we could spend our time.’
‘Probably,’ Grace managed, nearly choking on her wine. She could imagine it all too well.
‘Let us eat.’ The food was delicious, the evening air warm and sultry, the only sound the whisper of the waves against the sand and the rattle of the wind in the palms. Khalis moved the conversation to more innocuous subjects, and Grace enjoyed hearing about how he had built up his business, his life in San Francisco. Khalis asked her about her own life, too, and she was happy to describe her job and some of her more interesting projects. It felt wondrously simple to sit and chat and laugh, to enjoy herself without worry or fear. She’d been living too long under a cloud, Grace thought. She’d needed this brief foray into the light.
All too soon they’d finished their main course and were lingering over thick Turkish-style coffee Khalis had boiled in a brass pot and dessert—a sinful tiramisu—as the stars winked above them and were reflected below upon a placid sea. Grace didn’t want the night to end, the magic to stop, for it surely felt like a fantasy, wearing this gown, gazing at the sea, being with Khalis on this enchanted island.
Yet it didn’t have to end … not yet, anyway. Her body both tingled in anticipation and shivered with trepidation as she imagined how this magical night could continue. How Khalis could fulfil his promise and slip this gown from her shoulders. Make love to her. as she wanted him to.
Her fingers trembled and she returned her coffee cup to its saucer with a clatter. It had been so long since she’d been with a man. So long since she’d allowed herself the intimacy and vulnerability of being desired. Loved. It scared her still, but she also wanted it. More than she ever had before.
‘Why do you look afraid?’ Khalis asked quietly. ‘We’re safe here.’ Grace heard both tender amusement and gentle concern in his voice and he reached over to cover her hand with his own.
‘I’m not afraid.’ She lifted her head to meet his gaze directly, even boldly. She was not afraid, not of him anyway, and not even of Loukas. There was no way he could discover her here. No, she was afraid of herself, and this intense longing that had seized her body and mind and maybe even her heart. Tomorrow she would have to walk away from it.
‘Do you wish to return to Alhaja now?’
‘Not unless we have to.’ She smiled, her eyebrows arched even as her heart thudded. ‘Do we?’
‘No,’ Khalis said in a low thrum of a voice. ‘We could stay here.’
Grace didn’t know if he meant a little longer or all night. She glanced at a large pillow of crimson and cream striped silk, the torchlight shimmering off the rich material. It looked incredibly soft and inviting, and she could imagine sleeping on it. She could also imagine not sleeping on it.
‘More coffee?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’ Impulsively she leaned forward. ‘Let’s dance.’
Khalis raised his eyebrows. ‘Dance?’
‘Yes, dance. On the beach.’ The idea had come to her suddenly; this was a date, the only date she’d ever have, and she wanted to enjoy it. She wanted to do all the things she was never able to do because of Loukas and his restrictions. She wanted to dance with Khalis.
A small smile quirked the corner of Khalis’s mouth. ‘But there’s no music.’
Grace held out her arms, gesturing to the rich blue satin of her dress. ‘I’m wearing an evening gown on a deserted island. Do we really need music?’ She smiled, longing to grab this fragile happiness with both hands. ‘Does it really matter?’ she echoed his own words back to him.
‘Not at all.’ In one swift movement Khalis rose from the table and led her out to the beach. The sand was cool and silky beneath her bare feet and the darkness swirled around them, the moon shimmering on the surface of the sea, giving it a fine pearl-like sheen. Khalis turned to her. ‘Since there’s no music, we can pick the kind we like.’
Grace could hardly see him out here on the dark beach, but she felt the heat and intensity of him, the desire pulsing between them, a sustaining and life-giving force. Impossible to resist. Necessary for life. ‘Which kind?’ she asked in a voice that sounded a little hoarse.
‘Something slow and lazy,’ Khalis said. He reached out and pulled her towards him so her hips collided gently with his and heat pooled in her pelvis. She let her hands slide up his shoulders, lace around his neck as he started to sway. ‘A saxophone, maybe. Do you like sax?’
‘Sax,’ Grace repeated dazedly. Khalis had slid his hands from her shoulders to her waist to her hips, and now his fingers were splayed along her bottom as he pulled her even closer, against the full thrust of his arousal. ‘I. Yes, I think so.’
‘Good,’ he murmured, and they swayed silently together. Grace could have sworn she heard music, the lonely wail of a saxophone as they danced on the empty beach, their bare feet leaving damp footprints in the sand.
Above them the sky was scattered with stars, a hundred thousand glittering pin-pricks in an inky, endless sky. Grace laid her head on Khalis’s shoulder, felt the steady thud of his heart against her own chest. After a moment she lifted her head and tilted back so she could look up into his eyes. His lips were a whisper away. The sleepy sensuality of the dance was replaced by something far more primal and urgent, something whose force was overwhelming and irresistible.