‘Oh, I know. It’s one of your major talents.’
‘I just meant I can take the car back to the apartment.’
The static was back in his chest. ‘You think you can run from this? You think you can just get on a plane and leave it all behind?’
Her eyes widened again, and there was a trace of uncertainty in her face. Suddenly he was fighting to stand still where he was. She was so close. All he had to do was take one step forward and kiss her...let his mouth, his hands, his body persuade her to close the gap between them as he had done so many times before.
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Good.’
Because this time she was going nowhere until he got some answers.
He glanced past her to where a sleek black helicopter sat squatly on its concrete apron on the lawn. Two members of his father’s security team were standing beside it and, jerking his head in greeting, he barked out his instructions in Arabic.
Delphi turned, her face stiffening with shock, as one of the men leapt forward and yanked open the doors.
‘After you.’ Omar propelled her forward.
‘No.’ It was a flat, unequivocal negative. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘You have to. We can’t use the car.’ He spoke with such certainty that he saw her flinch. ‘For exactly the same reason that we’re not going to go back and say goodbye to my parents. And we’re not going to the apartment either,’ he added. ‘Because, as you so rightly pointed out, you and I need to talk.’
‘I didn’t say that. You did,’ she protested, but he kept on speaking.
‘And for that to happen we need somewhere quiet and private.’
Although in this instance for ‘quiet and private’ read ‘isolated and secure’.
‘Somewhere we can talk without interruption,’ he continued.
Somewhere he could get answers to all the questions and conjecture swirling inside his head.
‘Jalila is already worried that she’s upset you. When she realises we’ve left the party I wouldn’t put it past her to come to the Lulua. Besides, why does it matter either way where we go? It’s just a few hours of your life.’
A pulse of anger beat over his skin as he thought back to that moment at the party when the shifting, disconnected pattern of dots inside his head had taken shape and he had uncovered a life-changing truth about himself.
‘Surely you can give me that?’ he said.
She stared at him, pale in the moonlight, as beautiful and as unreachable as the moon. ‘I am not going to get into some random helicopter with you,’ she said, sounding out each syllable as if she was talking to a child.
He held her gaze. ‘You will, Delphi. One way or another. But it will be easier if you co-operate.’
‘I have already co-operated.’
‘Then you know how easy it is.’
She stared at him, and the hostility and despair in her eyes almost stopped him. But then he reminded himself that this woman had deceived him. She owed him the truth. And this time he was going to get it from her.
Gazing down at the tops of the palm trees as the helicopter rose up into the night sky, Delphi took a small, panicky breath. The smell of the leather upholstery reminded her so much of the tack room at the ranch that she felt almost faint.
Not that the man sitting beside her cared.
She turned to look at the dark-eyed, astonishingly handsome stranger who was also her husband. Her very angry, single-minded husband.
‘Where are we going?’
He didn’t turn to look at her. ‘It’s a place in the hills. About twenty minutes from here.’