‘You didn’t seem so averse to the idea at the time!’
‘Funny that,’ he mused. ‘A beautiful woman comes up to my suite, turns her big blue eyes on me and starts coming on to me. She brushes my arm so lightly that I wonder if I’d imagined it, though my senses tell me I hadn’t. Then she pirouettes around so that there can be no mistaking the tight cut of her jeans or the cling of her blouse as she shows off her amazing body. She gazes into my eyes as if I am the answer to all her prayers.’ And for one brief moment hadn’t he felt as if he could be?
There was a pause as Leila forced herself to scoop some jewel-coloured rice onto her fork—terrified that someone might notice that she hadn’t eaten a thing and start asking themselves why. Had she done everything which Gabe had accused her of? Had she behaved like some kind of siren? She lifted her head to look at him. ‘You could have stopped me,’ she said.
Gabe stilled as he met the challenge sparking from her blue eyes. Because hadn’t he been thinking the same thing ever since it had happened? He could have stopped her. He should have stopped her. He should have waited until her bodyguards had gone and then told her to get out of his room as quickly as possible. He could have dampened down his desire, using the formidable self-control which had carried him through situations far more taxing than one of sexual frustration. He could have told her that he didn’t have a type, but that if he did—she wouldn’t be it.
He didn’t like women who were obvious. Who had persistent exes or brothers who were sultans. He had an antenna for women who were trouble and it had never failed him before. He resisted the tricky ones. The neurotic and needy ones.
But something had gone wrong this time.
Because he hadn’t resisted Leila, had he? He had broken his own rules and taken her to bed without knowing a single damned thing about her. And he still couldn’t work out why. He shook his head slightly. It had been something indefinable. Something in those wide blue eyes which had drawn him in. He had felt like a man whose throat was parched. Who had been shown a pool of water and invited to drink from it. He had felt almost...
His eyes narrowed.
Almost helpless.
And that was never going to happen.
Not twice in a lifetime.
‘I could have stopped you,’ he agreed slowly.
‘So why didn’t you?’
He didn’t answer straight away because it was important to get this right. He wanted to send out a message to her. A very clear message she could not fail to understand. That it had meant nothing to him. That it would be a mistake to fall for him. That he caused women pain. Deep pain.
‘Sometimes sex is like an itch,’ he said deliberately. ‘And you just can’t help yourself from scratching it.’
Her face didn’t register any of the kind of emotions he might have expected. No indignation or hurt. He suspected that hers was a world where feelings as well as faces were hidden. But he saw her eyes harden, very briefly. As if he had simply confirmed something she had already known.
‘I’m sure that the romantic poets need have nothing to fear from your observations,’ she said sarcastically.
He picked up his goblet of wine, twirling the long golden stem between his fingers. ‘Just so long as we understand each other.’
She leaned forward, and he caught a drift of some faint scent. It made him think of meadow flowers being crushed underfoot. He found it...distracting.
‘Oh, I get the message loud and clear,’ she said. ‘So forgive me if I ignore you as much as possible for the rest of the meal. I think we’ve said everything there is to say to each other, don’t you?’
CHAPTER FOUR
LEILA GRIPPED THE side of the washbasin as terror sliced through her like the cold blade of a sword. She wanted to scream. Or to throw back her head and howl like an animal. But she didn’t dare. Because her fear of discovery was almost as great as the dark suspicion which had been growing inside her for days.
She stayed perfectly still and listened, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Had anyone heard her? Had one of the many unseen servants been close enough to the bathroom to catch the sound of her shuddered retching?
She closed her eyes.
Please no.
But when she opened them again, she knew that she could no longer keep pretending. She couldn’t keep hoping and praying that this wasn’t happening, because it was.
It had started with a missed period. One day late. Two days late—then a full week. Her nerves had been shot. Her heart seemed to have been permanently racing with horror and fear. She was never late—her monthly cycle was as reliable as the morning sunrise. And the awful thing was that she’d had to pretend that it had arrived. She’d forced herself to wince and to clutch at the lower part of her stomach as if in discomfort, desperate not to alert the suspicions of her female servants. Because in that enclosed, watched world of the palace, nothing went unnoticed—not even the princess’s most intimate secrets.