One of those silences fell; it pumped up her heartbeat and dried out her mouth. His hands began to move, sliding beneath the lapel of his navy blue jacket until the backs of his fingers came to rest against her breasts. She pulled in a sharp breath; for a fine tight nerve-singing moment she thought he was going to lower his head and kiss her.
Then she shivered as genuine cold made itself felt again, and he was setting her free to reach for the umbrella. Opening it up, he urged her beneath it, then out into the pouring rain. Her stiletto shoes danced puddles as he hurried her across the street. Expecting to be ushered into the bank, she was surprised to find herself being bundled into the back of a car. It was big and plush, with a glass partition between them and the driver, and seats made of soft black leather.
Through shivering chatters she watched Rafiq toss the umbrella onto the floor of the car, then climb in beside her. His shirt was wet, showing patches of dark skin beneath its white fabric and his black hair was soaked and slicked to his head. He leant forward to pick up a telephone, uttered some terse command in Arabic, then sat back with a sigh.
‘Where are we going?’ she questioned.
‘Somewhere we can talk.’
‘Oh.’ She took a pensive glance out of the window. ‘I thought the bank…’
‘No,’ he said, and that was all. Her top teeth pressed into her bottom lip because she wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that no.
‘Rafiq—’
‘Randal has been trying to contact you.’
A diversion. ‘Has he?’
‘He said you were out at some function or other.’
‘First thing this morning, yes.’ She nodded. ‘Robbie’s school is putting on a pantomime at Christmas. They’re doing Cinderella. There were rehearsals this morning. I—helped out.’
‘Which school?’
She told him. He pressed his lips together and nodded his dark head. Melanie shifted tensely, unsure of his mood now and even more uncertain that she wanted to be sitting here in such close confines with a man she couldn’t read from one second to the next.
For all she knew he could be sitting here plotting her downfall—or her seduction. Because something improper had been running through his mind back there in the doorway. It had been running through hers too, she was forced to admit. It just wasn’t fair. Only this man had ever been able to toss her into this hectic state of sexual awareness just by—being there.
She frowned at the rain-spattered window. That feeling had been there from the first time her arm had brushed against his shoulder when she’d been serving him at the Maitlands’ dinner table. Twenty years old, as naive as they came, she’d caught his scent, the sound of his low dark laughter and the deeply smooth voice tones as he’d spoken to the person sitting next to him, and her response had been so primitively sexual that she’d spilled the sauce onto the tablecloth.
After that had come the humiliating dressing down from Sally Maitland, then her first real contact with his hand, when Rafiq had cornered her later and tried to make light of the embarrassing incident. He’d been dressed in a dinner suit, big and dark, suave and sophisticated, with an easy grace that had belied his size and a lazily worn self-confidence that aimed to charm.
‘Watch him,’ Sally Maitland had warned later. ‘Arab men are notoriously attracted to slender young blondes. He’ll take what you are putting on offer, Melanie, then despise you for it later.’
She had been right, too. Rafiq had pursued her like a man besotted until he’d finally managed to break down her defences. He’d promised her everything: love, marriage, the whole wonderful package. But the moment he’d taken what he had really been after he’d despised her for giving it. He’d seen a tramp then, a woman willing to give it out to all and sundry once she’d acquired the taste.
He moved. She stiffened and swung her head round to send him a hard, accusing glance.
‘What?’ He looked shocked by it.
‘Nothing.’ She looked away again, hoping to goodness that eight years of abstinence had given her some defence against him, though why did she think she needed it?
Because Rafiq still desired her. It had been there when they’d met in his office two days ago, there when he’d come to her home. It had been there just now in the doorway when he’d almost given in to it and kissed her.
Three meetings, two kisses, and one still hovering on the sidelines with time on its side to give it a chance.
As for defences, they were not much use when she only had to look at him to feel that old breathless, sensual pull.
The car drew to a stop outside a block of select apartments. Life took another worrying twist when she realised where they had to be. Rafiq opened his door and braved the rain again to stride rou
nd to her side of the car and open her door.
‘I don’t think…’
His hand found her wrist and the jacket began to slip from her shoulders as he tugged her into the rain. As she grappled to save the jacket from falling onto the wet pavement he pulled her inside the building before she had a chance to voice a bigger protest.
A man dressed in a security uniform sat behind a desk. He stood up and smiled. ‘Good morning, sir…madam,’ he greeted politely. ‘Dreadful weather,’ he opined with a glance at their rain-soaked clothes.