Did he hear the accusation in her tone? If he did, his face didn’t show it as he turned with what Eve read as reluctance from the photo to look at her. ‘It’s the company villa,’ he corrected. ‘Victor designed it, Leona furnished it. We all use it as a convenient place to live when we are here in Spain.’
Convenient, just about said it for Eve, and her mind was suddenly tripping over itself as it painted lurid pictures in her head of Ethan and Leona in their convenient love-nest with dear Papa along as one lousy chaperone!
‘And where’s Leona now?’ she demanded.
‘With her husband on their yacht. Victor flew back to London yesterday, once he knew I was coming here to take over for him.’
‘So you thought, Why not bring Eve here and conveniently slot her in where Leona should be?’
Ethan’s eyes narrowed at her waspish tone. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means,’ she lashed at him, ‘that I do not appreciate playing substitute to anyone!’
‘Substitute to who, exactly?’
He wanted her to spell it out for him. Well, she could do that! ‘Leona’s clothes hang in the wardrobe,’ she told him. ‘The next bedroom to yours as a matter of fact!’
‘It bothers you?’ he murmured.
‘It bothers me.’ She nodded. ‘It more than bothers me that you dared to bring me here to your sordid little love-nest and make love to me in the same bed in which you probably made love to her!’
His grey eyes narrowed some more and Eve was suddenly thinking about dangerous animals again, and felt the fizz of excitement leap inside.
She was trembling like mad, Ethan noticed, and he was angry! ‘A small piece of advice,’ he offered thinly. ‘Loose talk is dangerous when the Al-Qadim family is involved. So hold your foolish tongue and listen. Leona and I are not, and never have been, lovers,’ he stated it with ice-cold precision. ‘Take that on board and heed it, Eve, because I won’t repeat it again.’
But he would say that, wouldn’t he, to protect his true love? Eve had never felt so used in her entire life. ‘I’m leaving,’ she decided.
He didn’t say anything, but just stood there looking at her through cold hard gun-metal-grey eyes.
Her heart was bursting, because she didn’t really want to go. But she turned anyway and began walking towards the archway the led to the hall.
‘Back to Aidan Galloway?’ he fed silkily after her. ‘Back to the young bloods you can handle better than you can handle me?’
She stopped. ‘At least Aidan cares about my feelings.’
‘By spiking your drink so he can enjoy you without needing to put much effort into it?’
She swung round. ‘I told you it wasn’t Aidan that did that to me!’
‘Ah, yes, the other nameless young blood,’ he drawled, and Eve noticed that the cynicism was back. ‘Funny how you remembered him only after I threatened to tear Galloway limb from limb.’
He still didn’t believe her about Aidan! she realised. ‘It was Raoul Delacroix who spiked my drink!’ she insisted furiously.
Raoul Delacroix. Any other name, Ethan was thinking, and he would have laughed in her lying face! But he was recalling the look on Raoul’s face as he’d turned away from her in the bar at the beach. He was recalling the stinging sensation he’d experienced at the back of his neck, that reminded him he didn’t like what he’d seen on the young Frenchman’s face.
‘And I don’t know what right you think you have to throw my love life back at me when nothing could be more sordid than the set-up you have going here!’
‘Leave Leona out of this,’ he bit at her.
‘Leave Aidan out of it!’
Stalemate. They both recognised it for what it was. She was standing there shimmering with offence and fury and he was standing there simmering in the midst of a jealous rage! He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t bring himself to accept that in forty-eight short hours she could have actually brought him down to this.
‘Go if you are going,’ he said as the damning remark to come straight out of that last angry thought.
She turned—but not before he had seen that heart-shaped pink mouth that had a propensity to pout, quiver, and her eyes sparkle with the promise of tears. Hell, he cursed, when he knew what was going to happen: he was going to give in. He could feel it bubbling up inside him, hot and out of control.
‘But—I’m coming with you.’ The decision itself set his feet in motion. As he strode towards her he saw his ring sparkling on her finger when she lifted her hand up to brush a tear from her cheek.