He was best out of it. He should have known that before it began. He should have seen the idiot he was making of himself every time he let her weave her magic spells around him.
The trouble was, he’d liked it. He’d liked playing slave to Eve Herakleides and her whims. She turned him on, hard and fast. She made him feel alive.
She’d had a heart temporarily tattooed onto one of her most erogenous spots just to tease him out of his mind.
‘Only, in this mood, you aren’t what I would call sociable,’ Victor inserted carefully.
‘Watch me turn on when the curtain goes up,’ he promised. ‘I’ll be so sociable with your son-in-law that they will start to wonder if it’s Hassan I’ve been having the affair with.’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
Victor was getting angry. Ethan didn’t particularly blame him.
‘You should have brought her with you if you can’t last a day out of her arms without turning into a grouch.’
‘Who are we talking about?’ Ethan’s eyes flashed a warning glance at the other man.
Victor just smiled one of those smiles that people smiled around him these days. ‘I might not have been to San Estéban recently, but even the London-office cleaner knows about the souvenir you brought back from the Caribbean.’
Souvenir from hell, he amended bitterly.
Then he saw her expression just before he’d turned his back on her for the last time, and his insides knotted into a tight ball. He’d hurt her with all of this. He’d known that he would. That’s why he’d tried to find out where she’d wanted their relationship to go, before he’d told her about this trip.
He’d wanted her to understand. He’d wanted her to trust him. See, for goodness’ sake, that he couldn’t be in love with another woman when she possessed every single inch of him!
So—what now? What was he doing here? A sudden and uncontrollable aching tension attached itself to his bones. He should be back there, arguing with Eve, not snapping at Victor! She was right in a lot of ways: he should have put her feelings first!
Oh, hell, damn it, he cursed.
The car came to stop in front of a beautiful lapis-lazuli-lined dome suspended between pillars made of white marble. Beyond the dome he could see a vast entrance foyer glittering beneath Venetian crystal. Victor got out of the car. Ethan did the same. As they stepped towards the dome, he shrugged his wide shoulders and grimly swapped Eve-tension for play-your-part-tension—so he could get the hell out of here.
Dressed in black western dinner suites, white shirts and bow ties, he and Victor stood out in a room filled with flowing Arabian colour. He saw Leona straight away. She was wearing gold-threaded blood-red silk and she looked absolutely radiant. Beside her stood the man she had adored from the first moment she’d set eyes on him just over five years ago, Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim—who looked unusually pale for a man of his rich colouring.
Had the strain of the last few weeks begun to get to him? Victor had relayed some of what had been going on. Hassan had been fighting the battle of his life to keep the wife of his choice by his side and retain his place as his father’s successor as ruler of Rahman. He had achieved success on both fronts—by the skin of his teeth.
Other than for this one last thing…
The hairs on the back of Ethan’s neck began to prickle. A brief, smooth scan of the room showed him what he had expected to see. People were staring at him—in shock, in dismay, in avid curiosity.
Were they expecting a scene? Were they looking like that because they expected Hassan to call for his sword and have his head taken off?
The prickle at the back of his neck increased, when what had been meant as a bit of sardonic whimsy suddenly didn’t seem that whimsical at all. Then common sense returned, because what use would it be to have his head severed from his shoulders when all that would do would be to prove that Hassan believed the rumours about his beautiful wife?
What he was doing was far more subtle. The man had style, Ethan was prepared to acknowledge when, on catching sight of him standing here next to Victor, Hassan did not reveal a hint of the old dislike that usually flashed between the two of them. Instead Ethan saw him smile, then gently touch Leona’s arm to draw her attention their way.
Leona turned to towards them. By now the room was held enthralled. Her lovely face began to lighten. A pair of stunning green eyes, that somehow were not quite as stunning to him as another pair of green eyes, flicked from her father’s face to his face then quickly back again. Then, on a small shriek of delight, she launched herself towards them.
It seemed as if the whole assembly took a step backwards in shocked readiness for her to reveal her true feelings for this western man. Tall, lean and in very good shape for his fifty-five years, Victor Frayne received his daughter into his arms and accepted her ecstatic kisses to his face while Ethan felt the room almost sag in relief, or disappointment, depending on whether they were friend or foe to Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim.
‘What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Leona was scolding her father through a bank of delighted tears.
‘Ethan—’ She turned those starry eyes on him next and reached out to capture his hand. ‘I can’t believe this! I thought you were in San Estéban!’
‘I only spoke to you this morning in London.’ She was talking to her father again.
‘No, a hotel, here.’ Her father grinned at her. ‘Thank your husband for the surprise.’
Hassan appeared at Leona’s side to lay a hand on her slender waist. Leona turned those shining eyes onto him.
