His arrogant boast drew her up short. This wasn’t going as well as she had hoped. In fact, that was the understatement of the year! He should be gradually going off the idea of marriage to her by now. Minute by minute, his resolve should be weakening. She decided to play the equality card a little bit more.
Defiantly, she raked her fingers through the starkly cropped hair. ‘I’m pretty pleased with it myself,’ she confided, and gave him a bright smile. ‘So easy to manage. I can go straight to college with it still wet from the shower. Just like a man, actually!’
His eyes became cold chips of jet. ‘Still wet from the shower?’ he repeated tightly. ‘You go to college with your hair wet?’
She supposed that it must sound bizarre to a man whose position had always isolated him from the cares and concerns of normal everyday life—but he was making it sound as though she had committed some kind of sexual deviation. ‘Of course!’ she expanded. ‘If I’m late.’
He expelled a low breath. ‘Well, you will not have such concerns in the future, because you will not be studying from now on, Jenna! And you will grow your hair immediately!’
Jenna stared at him in alarm. This wasn’t what she had intended to happen at all!
Deep in her heart she knew that her objections to him were well founded. It wasn’t just the fact that he was an irrepressible seducer with great streams of women waiting to leap into his beds—his arrogance was even more breathtaking than she had remembered!
But then she had never openly opposed him before.
Imagine what kind of autocratic and overbearing husband he would make! Worse than in her very worst nightmares.
She had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this, but she knew she had no choice. There was one thing and one thing only which would guarantee her a seat on the very next plane out of Quador.
Her voice was remarkably steady as she said, ‘But I can’t marry you, Rashid. It…it wouldn’t be fair.’
The black eyes glittered with interest. ‘Oh?’
She swallowed, and now her voice was not so steady. ‘B-because I am no longer fit to be your wife,’ she breathed. ‘You see, I have already taken a lover before you, Rashid. I am no longer pure. And therefore I cannot marry you.’
CHAPTER FOUR
HELL broke loose.
Rashid harshly uttered a Quadorian curse, then added a few more in English and French and Spanish to really get the message home. Then he strode over to Jenna, his face a livid picture of dark fury, and the chaperon sprang to her feet in alarm.
‘Excellency!’
‘Silence!’ he thundered autocratically, and the chaperon sat straight down again.
His rage was so potent that he felt consumed by it, as if it had invaded his very blood—but alongside that rage came the desire to beat his fist uselessly against the wall. Jenna! His Jenna—in bed with another man! He wanted to kill him!
‘I want his name!’
And then to kill her!
‘Well, you can’t have it!’ Jenna backed away from him, recoiling as much from the expression on his face as from his anger. And if she had thought that she had seen contempt there before, then she had been wrong. This was contempt—a contempt so blisteringly undiluted that it seemed to sizzle off him in hot and tangible waves.
She forced her stumbling words out with difficulty. ‘R-Rashid, I realise that this means that you can’t marry me—w-won’t want to marry me—and I’m sorry if it’s ruined all your plans. But I think the best thing is if I just get straight back on the plane to America and—’
‘Silence!’ he thundered, cutting across her babble with the gunfire shot of his voice. He controlled his breathing with difficulty. He could never remember feeling quite so outraged before. Nor so shocked. With a supreme effort of will he banished the disturbing vision of Jenna lying naked and entangled with another from his mind. His black eyes narrowed, but the gleam that spat from them was like a searchlight. ‘Was it Brad?’ he questioned softly.
Her eyes widened. ‘No!’ she gasped.
He nodded. Her reaction had been too instant to be a lie. Instinct told him that. ‘Then who?’ he pursued, with deadly intent.
She shook her head, wishing that her long hair was back to camouflage her flaming cheeks. ‘Rashid, I must go,’ she said desperately.
‘Not yet,’ he contradicted implacably, and traced a thoughtful forefinger along the shadowed jut of his chin.
He did not speak for a moment, and when he did his words startled her. ‘It is inconceivable that you leave Quador without first seeing your father,’ he murmured. ‘And you really need to freshen up before you do so.’ His eyes swept over her disparagingly. ‘Don’t you?’
Was he really letting her off so lightly? Jenna let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Maybe she had just unwittingly provided the answer to his unspoken wishes. She had let him off the hook and he could continue his playboy activities to his heart’s content—without the prospect of a jealous wife watching his every move.