She walked out into the hall, all the warmth and comfort and pleasure evaporating from her body like raindrops on a scorching pavement. And then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and recoiled at the sight of her flushed cheeks and mussed hair—the definite look of someone who had been rolling around the place.
How could she? Oh, howcould she?
She picked up her handbag and a silken voice stopped her in her tracks.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ he questioned softly.
Composing her face, she turned round, and suddenly she didn’t carewhat he tried to threaten her with. Just let him try. Nothing could be worse than what she had just allowed to happen, despite all her supposedly good intentions. ‘Home,’ she said crisply. ‘Where else?’
‘You could come home with me.’
Sienna almost choked. ‘I’d rather spend the night in a lions’ cage! And anyway—I wouldn’t call a luxury hotel suite ahome ! It isn’t yours, it’s anonymous—just like this place. There’s nothing of you there, Hashim. A luxurious room with no soul. And that’s your life. Empty.’
For a moment a dark shadow passed across his heart. She dared to say this to him? To accuse him of an empty life? He, who had palaces and oil fields and people scattered all over the world who were eager to do his bidding? No woman had ever dared say such a thing to him. She was daring to look at him and speak to him as no woman ever had before…almost as hisequal . Again he felt the sensation of being on unfamiliar territory, and his mouth hardened in anger.
‘I forbid you to go!’
‘Well, you can’t. You don’t own me. You don’t even employ me any more. I’ve done what you asked and now I’m leaving.’
His eyes narrowed as he glanced around the carved wooden interior of the airy hall. ‘And what of this house and your obligation to it?’ he demanded.
‘It’s not my concern. Not any more.You sort it out! Here!’ And she flung the keys at him.
He caught them one-handed, realising that she meant exactly what she said. She was leaving! Walking out on him even though she had been sobbing out his name only moments before. And suddenly he was filled with a reluctant kind of admiration which only renewed the subtle throbbing of desire. ‘Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look when you’re angry?’ he questioned softly.
‘Fortunately, most people have a more original line than that!’
‘But it is not finished yet, Sienna,’ he said evenly. ‘I tell you that quite unequivocably. You have but tasted the pleasures I can give you, and soon you will be greedy for more.’
‘Oh, but you’re wrong. So wrong.’ She stared at him. ‘After all, we’re even now. I deceived you, and now you’ve paid me back by deceiving me. We can call it quits. I just want to forget you and your fake party. In fact, I want to forget all about you.’
He shook his head and his mouth curved into a cruel smile. ‘You still don’t understand, do you, Sienna? Those are notmy wishes—and the Sheikh always hashis wishes fulfilled.’
He wasn’t listening to a word she said! Frustratedly, she turned away, and his dark laughter was still ringing in her ears as she slammed her way out of the front door, running down to where her beaten-up little wreck of a car was parked beside his smooth, dark sports model. And if she needed some concrete evidence of the insurmountable differences in their lives she had only to look at their two contrasting cars.
It’s over, she told herself fiercely.
So why did she look up into the driver’s mirror to see his tall dark figure, the silken pomegranate robes whispered by the breeze to caress that hard, honed body which had made such sweet and unforgettable love to her?
She turned the key in the ignition with an angry jerk. It was over.
CHAPTER NINE
HASHIMrang her. Repeatedly. Sienna kept the phone on ‘divert’, but once she picked it up without checking and heard his voice, and quietly terminated the connection with a trembling hand.
He sent her a cheque—such a grossly inflated cheque that the businesswoman side of her momentarily weakened, until she allowed her righteous fury to put it in an envelope and send it back to him. She supposed she could have torn it up—but returning it might help to get the message through loud and clear.
He even tried flowers—and for some reason those riled her more than anything. Howdared he think he could buy her off with a bunch of flowers?
‘They’re lovely,’ Kat said wistfully, sniffing at the lily-of-the-valley and freesia and roses.
‘Have them—they’re yours!’ And Sienna unceremoniously dumped the monster bouquet into her bemused lodger’s arms.
Her work, which had previously fulfilled her, suddenly seemed a chore, and her life felt like a punctured balloon, coloured grey. Kat had taken to asking if she was sickening for something, and Sienna knew that she really was going to have to snap out of it. She had a business to run and she couldn’t divert her phone for ever. And Hashim seemed to have got the message at last, since he had left her alone for nearly a week.
She was sitting in her minuscule office, trying to concentrate on an engagement party which seemed to mock her with its celebration of love, when the telephone on her desk rang. Tiny hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle as she heard a disturbingly familiar dark, silken voice, and she wavered for a second. She could hang up, of course—or she could have the courage to tell him to leave her alone. And she couldn’t keep running away for ever.
‘What can I do for you, Hashim?’ she questioned coolly.