A Whisper of Disgrace
Sharon Kendrick
Who can tame a Sheikh?Only a wild Corretti Rosa will never forget the one unguarded night she spent with her incognito sheikh. For a few hours she found the passion her family had locked away. Now, Kulal wants her to behave like a good little girl. But Rosa Corretti has been good for too long.She refuses to jump from one gilded cage to another no matter how brightly it glitters. The question is, if Kulal lets her fly away, will she come back? Or will the arrogant Sheikh have to do the unthinkable…and change?
Impulsive and irresistible: Can a Corretti tame a sheikh?
Rosa Corretti cannot forget the one unguarded night she spent with Kulal, when she buried her disgrace beneath the seductive sighs of passion. Now this hard, demanding sheikh wants to control her!
Rosa has been too good for too long and will not jump from one gilded cage to another—no matter how brightly it glitters!
But Kulal has centuries of the desert in his blood and the more Rosa resists, the hotter it fires in his veins. As their passion burns through the tethers around his heart, will this arrogant sheikh accept this Corretti?
The king leaned back in his chair. “You do realize the identity of the woman you spent the night with?”
“Of course I do. Her name is Rosa.”
“Her name is Rosa Corretti!”
Kulal’s expression remained unchanged, for he did not care to admit that the brunette’s surname was news to him. “Mmm. That’s right. Corretti. She’s Italian,” he said, as if imparting some important nugget of information.
“No, she is not Italian,” said Hazail. “She’s Sicilian. And not only is she Sicilian, but she comes from one of the most powerful families on the island.”
“So?”
“So her brothers are probably going to come after you. In fact, the whole damned family is probably going to come after you after you compromised her reputation by spending the night with her.”
Kulal shrugged. “Then let them come,” he said carelessly. “For I am afraid of no man!”
The more powerful the family…the darker the secrets!
Introducing the Correttis—Sicily’s most scandalous family!
Behind the closed doors of their opulent palazzo, ruthless desire and the lethal Coretti charm are alive and well.
We invite you to step over the threshold and enter the Correttis’ dark and dazzling world…
The Empire
Young, rich and notoriously handsome, the Correttis’ legendary exploits regularly feature in Sicily’s tabloid pages!
The Scandal
But how long can their reputations withstand the glaring heat of the spotlight before their family’s secrets are exposed?
The Legacy
Once nearly destroyed by the secrets cloaking their thirst for power, the new generation of Correttis are riding high again—and no disgrace or scandal will stand in their way…
Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty
A LEGACY OF SECRETS—Carol Marinelli
AN INVITATION TO SIN—Sarah Morgan
A SHADOW OF GUILT—Abby Green
AN INHERITANCE OF SHAME—Kate Hewitt
A WHISPER OF DISGRACE—Sharon Kendrick
A FACADE TO SHATTER—Lynn Raye Harris
A SCANDAL IN THE HEADLINES—Caitlin Crews
A HUNGER FOR THE FORBIDDEN—Maisey Yates
Eight volumes to collect—you won’t want to miss out!
Dear Reader (#u7ba494fa-5862-59ba-b760-cd8ad7b3326b),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
A Whisper of Disgrace
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Tony “The Vet” Abbott…who is a fabulous person to see plays with and who has provided plenty of animated (geddit?) discussions and laughter over the years.
Contents
Cover (#u0b8886a2-346f-5d94-91af-d114b8189eb8)
Back Cover Text (#u68c356f4-f428-58f9-a70e-bcd435499431)
Introduction (#uec08d10e-9361-5a60-99e8-6a86132664b1)
Sicily's Corretti Dynasty (#ub940f492-9337-5c21-8fd1-dd5a69ab557b)
Dear Reader (#u7f2b696b-a3b5-565d-ba31-e1caba3db0f6)
About the Author (#ubd093771-b8e9-55d5-9ce0-94fbabb2f56f)
Title Page (#uf014bb4d-57b4-51a0-b127-c38283eafd73)
Dedication (#uf47ada24-ab51-5410-8ee4-bc93d696ffaf)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua1a1f104-f5e5-5ecf-a1d4-8f4f3c358fd3)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9e025344-f1cc-5196-b63b-87465661074d)
CHAPTER THREE (#u4b8ddc67-c6f2-54fd-8752-a361ea020276)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u824af7dd-bcb2-57e1-aff9-9aae3db332b8)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Behind the Scenes (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u7ba494fa-5862-59ba-b760-cd8ad7b3326b)
THE BOTTLE WAS cold, but not nearly as cold as the ice around her heart. Rosa lifted the champagne to her lips and drank another mouthful as she tried to dull the pain. She wanted to wake up and find that the past few days hadn’t happened. She wanted to be the person she thought she’d always been. And she wanted that towering man on the other side of the nightclub to stop watching her with that dark and unsettling stare of his.
The flashing lights and loud music were making her feel giddy—or maybe that was just the champagne she’d been glugging from the moment she’d walked in. She wasn’t really used to the sharp, bubbly flavour and she didn’t really like it—mainly because she’d been brought up on the wines of Sicily which were rich and warm and red. Or at least, she’d been allowed the occasional half-glassful, topped up with water—watched over by the fiercely protective eyes of her two brothers.
Except that they were not really her brothers, were they? From now on, she had to start thinking of them as her half-brothers.
Rosa gripped the neck of the bottle, a shudder running down her spine as she forced herself to confront the unbelievable truth. That nothing was as it seemed, nor ever would be again. The discovery had been brutal and she’d found out in the worst possible way that she’d been living a lie all her life.
And she was nothing but a fake.
‘Mademoiselle? You are ready?’
Wordlessly, Rosa nodded as the nightclub attendant gestured towards the podium on which various women had been attempting to pole dance all evening. It would be fair to say that most of them had been making an absolute hash of it, despite the fact that they were slim and blonde and incredibly fit. But then, all the women on this part of the French Riviera looked like that. Rosa was the one who stood out like a sore thumb with her mahogany hair, olive skin and the generous curves—which were currently spilling out of her brand-new crimson dress.
She placed one leg rather unsteadily on the podium, wondering if she would be able to dance in the kind of heels she wouldn’t have dared wear back home in her native Sicily. But who cared if she stumbled? And who cared if her dress was the shortest thing she’d ever worn? Not her. Tonight she was going to shrug off the old Rosa, who had cared so much about appearances and doing the right thing. Tonight she was going to embrace a brand-new Rosa—one who had grown a tougher skin so that nobody could hurt her ever again. On this privileged strip of French coastline known as the Côte d’Azur, she would emerge from her protective shell into a glittering and unrecognisable creature—and her transformation would be complete.
She took another slug of champagne and put the bottle down, but as she stepped up onto the podium, she found her gaze locked with the man on the other side of the club—the one with the dark hair and the powerful body. He was still watching her—and something in the speculative amusement which glittered in the depths of his eyes made Rosa’s stomach perform an odd kind of flip. Hadn’t anyone ever taught him that it was rude to stare like that? And even more rude to ignore that poor woman who was practically draping herself over him.
The music began as Rosa gripped the pole, thrusting her pelvis towards it, the way she’d watched the others do. She’d never even seen a pole dance before tonight—nor would she ever have dared enter a competition for enthusiastic amateurs. But shock could make a person behave in a way which was completely out of character.
Snaking one leg around the slippery pole, she began to move. She could feel the smooth, cold metal sliding against her bare thigh. The alcohol was relaxing her and the hypnotic beat of the music began to suck her in. And suddenly it was easy. Easy to lose herself in the sensual sway of the music and forget about her own particular heartache. Her movements seemed instinctive—as if she had been born to dance this way. As if rubbing her body against a static piece of metal was the only way to go. Closing her eyes, she raised her leg even higher and tipped her head back, so that she could feel her long hair brushing against the floor. She began to grind her hips in slow and sensuous circles against the pole and, inexplicably, could feel the slow burning heat of excitement deep in her groin.
Through her dreamy reverie she could hear other sounds. A loud, whooping noise as she slid up and down in time to the music. The unrestrained clamour of male voices shouting enthusiastically as she clutched the pole and writhed against it. But Rosa didn’t care who was shouting—she just kept her eyes tightly closed and gave the dance everything she’d got. It was the most cathartic thing she’d ever done and it wasn’t until the music had stopped that she opened her eyes to find that a large crowd of men had gathered at the front of the stage to watch her.
For a moment she blinked at them, feeling like a prize exhibit being paraded in a foreign zoo. She found herself expecting to see the furious faces of her brothers.
Correction. Her half-brothers—but they were hundreds of miles away.
She straightened up and flicked her gaze over the assembled men, wondering how she was going to be able to make her way through them without pushing. Lots of them had their shirts open to the waist and their chests looked all sweaty. She didn’t want to touch them. She shuddered. She didn’t want anything to do with them. All she wanted was another drink, because the aching in her heart was starting to return and a drink seemed the only way to numb it. She bent to pick up the bottle, when she felt the whisper of fingertips on her arm and, straightening up, she found herself staring into the blackest pair of eyes she had ever seen.
It was the man from the opposite side of the club. The one who’d been staring at her. Who up until ten minutes ago had been the object of some beautiful woman’s attention. She tried to focus her gaze to look at him properly, and as his image blurred and then sharpened again, she thought that she’d never seen a man like this before. Standing up close to his hard body and staring up into his hawk-nosed face, Rosa could suddenly understand why that woman had been draping herself all over him. He seemed larger than life—as if he was composed of some dark, elemental force which dominated the entire room. His black eyes glittered—as if a fire was smouldering behind those long lashes—and his lips were full and sensual.
But he frowned as he glanced at the clamouring throng of men. ‘You look to me like someone in urgent need of rescuing,’ he said, in an exotic accent she didn’t recognise.
The old Rosa might have been intimidated by such a man—that’s if she had ever been allowed to get within six feet of him by her overprotective family. But this new and tipsy Rosa was feeling no such thing as intimidation. Instead she looked into his eyes and felt an undeniable excitement—as if she had just found something she hadn’t expected to find. Something she hadn’t even realised she’d been looking for. ‘And you’re just the one to do it, I suppose?’
‘I’m the perfect candidate for any kind of rescue mission, my beauty. Be assured of that.’
Trying to dampen down the excitement which was fizzing through her veins, she looked around her in mock surprise. ‘But I can’t see your white horse anywhere.’
‘That’s because I always ride a black stallion, although never in France. He’s big and he’s powerful and he’s not particularly partial to nightclubs.’ His eyes were gleaming as they gazed at her. ‘Unlike a woman who doesn’t seem to realise what havoc she was creating when she performed that incredibly sexy dance a few moments ago and nearly had the whole place in meltdown.’
Rosa’s smile became a little glassy, aware that the level of flirtation was escalating by the second. And she was feeling more than a little daunted by it because this kind of thing was way outside her experience. Even during her university days in Palermo, the men she’d fancied had steered clear of her when they’d discovered who she was. Because what man in their right mind would get involved with a Corretti woman, a woman they wouldn’t dare touch for fear that one of her brothers or cousins would come after them?
She’d never met anyone who hadn’t been intimidated by the reputation of her powerful family and she wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a man like this. A man who was sizzling out so much sex appeal that she wondered if her fingers might burn if she reached out and touched him.
She knew that the sensible thing to do would be to turn around and walk away. To go back to the hotel she’d booked into and sleep off the champagne. She would wake up in the morning—probably with a splitting headache—and decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
But Rosa wasn’t feeling sensible. She was feeling...defiant. Because defiance was easier to deal with than heartbreak and loneliness, wasn’t it? Defiance made you feel alive, instead of flat and empty and wondering just where your life was going. ‘I don’t want to be rescued,’ she said, a touch petulantly as she took another swig of champagne. ‘I want to dance.’
‘Now that,’ he said steadily as he removed the bottle from her hand and handed it to someone standing nearby, who accepted it without comment, ‘can also be arranged.’
He took her hand and led her towards the dance floor and Rosa was aware of a sudden and heady sense of danger as he took her into his arms and the music began to throb out a sultry beat. He was so tall, she thought—taller than any other man she’d ever seen. And his body felt so strong. She licked her dry lips. A woman wouldn’t stand a chance against a man like this. The thought thrilled her, rather than scared her as she knew it should have done. ‘I don’t even know your name,’ she shouted.
‘That’s because I haven’t told you.’
‘And are you going to tell me?’
‘I might—if you’re very good.’
Recklessly, she said, ‘And if I’m not?’
He didn’t miss a beat. ‘In that case, I will definitely tell you—because there is nothing I like better than a woman who isn’t good. My name is Kulal.’
She tried saying it. Rounding her lips she sounded out the first syllable and then, letting her tongue touch the upper palate, she murmured the second. ‘Ku-lal.’
‘Mmm. I like the way you say it. It sounds very sexy on your lips.’
Rosa giggled. ‘Stop it!’
With a sudden hard beat of lust, Kulal pulled her closer and felt her melt against him, as if she’d been waiting all night to have him do that. And wasn’t it like that for him? Hadn’t his senses been ignited from the moment he’d set eyes on her and seen those soft lips parting with a look of innocent wonder, which certainly didn’t match the sinful splendour of her voluptuous body? He could feel the way her breasts were pushing against his chest and he sucked in a breath of longing as he dipped his mouth to her ear. ‘Now let’s see if you can dance as well on the floor as you did on the podium, shall we, my beauty?’
The slick words which flowed from his lips were warning Rosa to be careful. Because there was a reason for the expression ‘paying’ someone a compliment—her ruthless family had taught her that. You told a woman she was pretty and she would put out for you—wasn’t that how it worked? Hadn’t she grown up watching the male members of her family as they’d put their own heartless seduction campaigns into action? Men like this wanted only one thing from a woman like her and she’d been brought up to guard her honour and integrity. But that was before the world had changed. Before the values she’d held so dear had been held up as shallow and worthless.
So she pushed away her doubts and instead glanced up at him, batting him a coquettish look she hadn’t even realised had been in her repertoire until now. ‘You’re going to mark me out of ten, are you?’
‘If you want.’ His hands tightened around her waist. ‘But I warn you in advance that I can be a very harsh judge.’
The words came out almost before she realised she’d said them. ‘I’ll take the risk,’ she said.
‘Good.’ His lips nuzzled against her neck. ‘I like a woman who takes risks.’
Rosa could feel the whisper of his mouth on her bare neck and she closed her eyes with pleasure. This was...bliss. His arms had tightened around her and she realised that dancing with him was different to dancing with anyone else. He seemed to be making up the rules as he went along, completely ignoring the rhythm of the music and moving them around as if this was a slow waltz instead of a vaguely jumpy beat. And she was letting him. Why wouldn’t she let him? Why, he could carry on doing that all night, he was so good at it.
‘Do you like that?’ he queried softly as the palms of his hands skated possessively over the curve of her bottom.
Her sudden, heady sense of freedom and the sensation of listening to her body’s desires made Rosa bold and she didn’t shrink away from the way he was pulling her even closer. ‘Yes.’
‘I thought so. I like it too. I like it very much.’
Kulal closed his eyes as he felt her fingertips move to his shoulders. He could feel the brush of her silken hair against his cheek and the wave of desire which swept over him was so strong that he was filled with an unbearable need to touch her more intimately.
But even though he’d always been known as a mould-breaking prince, Kulal respected his position enough not to throw his royal role into jeopardy. Dancing with a woman who was clearly an exhibitionist was one thing, but making love to her in a public place was quite another. So that even though they were shielded by the bobbing crowds around them and even though the flashing lights obscured most of their movements, he did not do what he wanted to do. Which was to play with the tips of her breasts through the thin satin of her minidress. Or to slide his hand up her thigh and touch the undoubtedly moist heat which would be searing its way through her panties.
That’s if she was wearing any.
He swallowed, wondering if she could feel the sudden jerk of his erection.
He’d noticed her the moment she’d walked into the nightclub—but then, her shiny red dress had left little to the imagination. She had the type of body which was deeply unfashionable—especially here, in the South of France. She didn’t look as if she spent hours at the gym and she didn’t look as if she existed on a punishing diet either. The kind of diet which always left women with that furrowed and slightly anxious look—as if they were worried they might pass out from hunger. Instead she was ripe and luscious—like a juicy mulberry just before it fell from the tree.
He’d noticed the way her hair had tumbled like dark satin all the way down to her waist and her dress had skimmed the smooth expanse of her bare thighs. Their eyes had met across the dance floor—he had seen her eyes widen as if she had been surprised—and in that moment he had known. Just as he always knew when a woman wanted him. She was his for the taking and he wanted to take her as soon as possible—because one day very soon, this kind of sexual dalliance would be a thing of the past.
Kulal felt his mouth flatten in resignation, for the duty and the protocol of an arranged marriage loomed close on his horizon and his carefree playboy days were numbered. Even if he and his new bride were to agree to an ‘open’ marriage—or at least ‘open’ for him—he knew that in future he would have to conduct his affairs discreetly. He came from the kind of culture where wives turned a blind eye to their husbands’ indiscretions, but marriage brought with it certain responsibilities. Gone would be the days of walking into a nightclub alone, and walking out with a beautiful woman on his arm.
He pressed his lips against the warm, fleshy shell of her ear as they moved in time to the music. ‘What’s your name?’ he questioned.
‘Rosa,’ she replied, instinctively leaving off the ‘Corretti’ bit. He might have heard of her notorious family or he might not, but she wasn’t going to take that risk. Tonight might be her night for behaving recklessly, but not stupidly.
‘Rosa,’ he repeated, running his palm down over the thick spill of her dark hair as if he was stroking the flank of his favourite mount. He smiled as he felt her wriggle in response. ‘I like that too. Are you Italian?’
‘Yes,’ Rosa managed, even though it was difficult to speak when his earthy scent was overpowering her. Who cared that she was being a little economical with the truth? She was Sicilian through and through, and her family would have erupted with rage if they’d heard her claiming to being Italian! But it was easier this way. And she no longer owed her family anything, she reminded herself fiercely. Not a single thing. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘And do you make a habit of pole dancing in nightclubs, Rosa?’
She shook her head. ‘Never done it before in my life.’
‘Interesting. Why not?’
Rosa screwed up her face because this was a path she didn’t want to venture down. She shook her head. ‘Tell me about you instead!’
But Kulal was coming to realise that he didn’t want to have to shout to make himself heard, and he didn’t dare stay on the dance floor with her much longer. Much more of her rubbing her voluptuous body against him and he would be unable to move. So why not cut to the chase and continue this conversation somewhere more private—like the seclusion of his villa complex, with the convenience of a nearby bed?
‘Why don’t we go somewhere a little quieter?’ he suggested.
Rosa swayed. She wished he’d given her some kind of warning before he’d loosened his grip on her like that, because suddenly she felt like a ship which had broken anchor. ‘Like where?’
Kulal frowned as a flicker of irritation skittered over him. Why did women always do this? Why did they pretend total innocence when they both knew exactly how the night was going to end? Trying to suddenly play the innocent was never going to work for someone as foxy as her. He shrugged. ‘I know a place with an amazing view, where we could sit and watch the stars.’
‘Oh, I love the stars,’ said Rosa dreamily.
‘I love them too. So why don’t we get out of here and find our own little piece of heaven?’
He made the words sound so poetic, Rosa thought as a feeling of wooziness shimmered over her again. She tried to remember the last time she’d eaten but it seemed like a long time ago. ‘Okay,’ she agreed carefully.
And Kulal smiled, for it was as easy as he had expected it to be. What Kulal wanted Kulal got. That’s what they always said about him. He’d never had to fight for anything or anyone—except for the one person he’d really wanted, and it hadn’t been possible to fight for her.
She was looking up at him now and the expression on her face was so soft and...trusting—and he didn’t want her to look at him that way. He wanted her hard and hot and sexy. ‘Let’s go and find my car,’ he said, his gaze skating over her bare arms and legs. ‘Do you have a jacket, or something?’
Rosa blinked. Did she? She couldn’t recall. She stared down at the satin minidress which was skimming her thighs. She remembered buying it in that ridiculously expensive boutique in Antibes just a few hours earlier, along with the towering shoes which complemented it. It matched the crimson bag which was hanging from her shoulder on a gilt chain, but she didn’t remember it coming with a jacket.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said vaguely.
The look that Kulal shot her was tinged with apprehension and, as he steered her through the packed dance floor, he suddenly began to regret his impetuous offer. She might look like every man’s fantasy come to life, but now her gait was distinctly unsteady and he began to wonder just how drunk she was. He liked women who weren’t good, that much was true, but he liked them to be sober.
His hand resting in the small of her back, he felt her stagger as they stepped outside the club and he caught her and steadied her. Thank God there were no paparazzi around, he thought grimly as he gently levered her into the back of the waiting limousine and she slumped back in the seat with her long legs splayed out in front of her, her eyelids fluttering to a close.
For the first time in his life, Kulal found himself tugging down the hem of a dress in a vain attempt to introduce a modicum of decency. Now was not the time to make the observation that she was wearing panties. Or that they were lace, by the look of them. ‘Just how much have you had to drink?’ he demanded.
That deeply accented voice penetrated her woolly thoughts and Rosa’s eyes snapped open. The fresh air had made her feel very peculiar but suddenly she felt safe in this luxurious car. And he was still here, she thought. Her black-eyed rescuer from the nightclub who’d held her so closely on the dance floor. She felt very safe with him. So why wasn’t he still holding her? Holding her so tightly that she could forget everything except the sensation of him touching her.
‘Come over here and kiss me,’ she mumbled as his jet-dark eyes swam in and out of focus, before the effort of keeping her eyelids open became too much and she closed them again. ‘Please. Just kiss me.’
Kulal caught hold of her arms and gave her a little shake as he tried to wake her—but he didn’t bother hiding his feeling of disdain, or his growing anger for having allowed himself to get into a situation like this. Did she really think that he wanted to kiss her when she was in that kind of state?
‘Rosa,’ he accused. ‘You are drunk!’
‘I know I am.’ Her head lolled back against the soft leather seat as his unfamiliar words washed over her. ‘And it feels fantastic.’
‘If you could see yourself you would not think that,’ he raged. ‘For a drunken woman is never a pretty sight.’
‘But a drunken man is okay, I suppose?’ she mumbled. Because wasn’t this what she’d grown up with? One rule for men and a different one for women. Oh, why was the world so unfair?
‘I don’t approve of anyone losing control of themselves in such a way as this, no,’ he retorted. ‘Which is why I’m taking you home.’
The word mocked her enough to make her lips curve into an empty smile. ‘Home?’ she questioned, and for the first time a trace of bitterness crept into her voice. ‘You’re going to have a bit of a problem with that one. Because I don’t have a home. Not any more.’
Kulal leaned over her, only just managing to avoid the arms which were reaching up in an attempt to snake themselves around his neck. He wasn’t interested in this particular alcohol-fuelled sob story. He just needed to get rid of her and he needed to do it quickly. ‘Where are you staying?’ he questioned urgently.
At this, her eyes snapped open and, blurrily, she looked up at him. She tried to sit up, but somehow the effort of moving was just too much. And he had brought her attention to a much bigger problem. Where was she staying?
‘I’ve no idea,’ she mumbled, tucking her legs underneath her. It was comfortable here and she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She wanted to stay with this man with the dark face and glittering eyes because he made her feel safe and he made her feel excited. She gave a luxurious yawn as she snuggled down against the soft leather seat. ‘So I guess I’d better stay with you.’
CHAPTER TWO (#u7ba494fa-5862-59ba-b760-cd8ad7b3326b)
WARM SUNLIGHT FLOODED over Rosa’s face and for a moment she wriggled, reluctant to leave the hypnotic dream which felt curiously realistic.
‘I know you’re awake.’
The hard, accented voice crashed into her dream and shattered it—even though it was the voice of the man who was responsible for the erotic images which had punctured her restless night.
Her throat feeling as dry as a summer beach, Rosa opened her eyes to find a pair of black eyes trained on her, but there was no lazy speculation or flirtation in them this morning. All she could read was anger and... She cringed. Yes, that was definitely contempt she could see flickering in their ebony depths.
Woozily, she looked around her in an attempt to get her bearings as she tried to piece together the jigsaw memories of last night. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt dry and claggy and she had the feeling that something was very wrong.
Something was. She stared down at herself in horror as she realised that she was in a very large bed—and she was completely naked!
Clutching the fine linen sheet to conceal the jiggle of her breasts, she sat up and stared at the man she knew only as Kulal, who was standing glaring at her from the end of the bed, looking like some kind of dark and avenging angel.
‘What happened?’ she demanded.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘If I remembered, I wouldn’t be asking—would I?’
The disdainful twist of his mouth deepened. ‘You want to know if we had sex?’
Rosa felt her cheeks grow hot as she stared at him, appalled by his crude question. But beneath her horror beat the memory of how good it had been to have been held by him on the dance floor and she could feel an unwanted tingling in her breasts. She felt as if she’d left one nightmare and woken up in a different one—and she was going to have to be strong if she wanted to get out of this with any degree of dignity. And she could be strong. She’d proved that, hadn’t she? She had survived her mother screaming vitriol at her as she’d made her vile confession. And she’d faced the unbelievable and heartbreaking truth, that her beloved father—the single rock in her life—was not her father at all.
She prayed for the right amount of bravado as she stared into Kulal’s furious face. ‘And did we?’
At this, he smiled, and it was the coldest smile that Rosa had ever seen.
‘Believe me, garbuua—if you’d had sex with me, you’d remember it, no matter how drunk you were.’
Rosa met the mocking expression in his eyes, telling herself that she wasn’t going to be intimidated. She just needed to extricate herself from this regrettable situation—but first of all she must face facts.
‘So we didn’t?’ she questioned flatly.
‘No.’
She held the sheet a little tighter. ‘Then how come I’m not wearing any clothes?’
‘Because I undressed you.’
‘You...undressed me? Why?’
‘Why do you think?’ he snapped. ‘Because I wanted to feast my eyes on your delectable body?’ And yet Kulal felt the sudden fierce beat of his heart as he tried to subdue the memory of her firm flesh as he had stripped her bare. He’d taken her clothes off on autopilot, averting his eyes when he had slithered that wispy little pair of lace panties down over her knees. In her uninhibited state she had grabbed him and pulled him down towards her—and he’d had the tantalising experience of having his head buried in her magnificent breasts before he had forced himself to move his aching body away. ‘If you must know, I removed your clothes because I didn’t think you’d want to leave here this morning wearing last night’s crumpled dress, or underwear.’
The gap in her memory was making Rosa feel frightened but she wasn’t going to let him know that. ‘Is that so?’ she said.
Kulal heard the disbelief in her voice and felt a slow anger begin to simmer inside him. Didn’t she realise how lucky she’d been that someone like him had been the man she’d targeted last night? That somebody completely lacking in moral scruples could have taken her home and... His mouth hardened. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened,’ he bit out. ‘You couldn’t remember where you were staying, and just before you passed out on the back seat of my limousine, you announced that you wanted to stay with me.’
Rosa could do absolutely nothing about the blush which stained her cheeks. ‘I said that?’
‘You did,’ he agreed grimly. ‘Leaving me with little choice other than to bring you back here to my hotel. My plan was to get you inside as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible—but unfortunately, that was not on your agenda.’
She saw the furious accusation which had darkened his face. ‘It wasn’t?’ she questioned as a trace of nerves began to creep into her voice.
‘Indeed it wasn’t. You decided that as many of the people in the immediate vicinity and beyond should know exactly what you wanted—and what you wanted was to go down to the beach and look at the sky....’
Oh, God. It was all coming back to her now. He’d promised to take her somewhere to look at the stars. He’d said that to her in the nightclub as he’d held her in his arms. And in that moment, she felt as if he’d been offering her a slice of paradise. ‘What...what happened?’ she whispered.
‘I decided that an excess of alcohol, a senseless female and close proximity to the Mediterranean were a potentially lethal combination and so I carried you in here, undressed you—and put you to bed.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘So where did you sleep?’ she questioned pointedly.
He gave a short laugh. ‘When you rent a hotel villa overlooking the Mediterranean, there tends to be more than one bedroom. In fact, there are three—so I slept in the one next door.’
Rosa’s mind was spinning as she listened to his explanation, but the one thought which was uppermost was that her virtue was still intact—and that surprised her. Because she did remember the heady rush of abandonment she’d felt as he’d held her on the dance floor. She wasn’t experienced, but she didn’t need to be to realise that she’d been putty in his hands last night. That if he hadn’t been so moral, then he would have been lying beside her now. Because she had wanted him. Come to think of it, she still wanted him.
He had moved away from the bed and now that he was at a distance it gave her a better opportunity to study him. She wondered where he was from—his rich accent certainly didn’t sound Mediterranean and his skin was much too dark.
‘Who are you?’ she questioned suddenly.
Kulal tensed, realising that he had been expecting this question a whole lot sooner and knowing that his answer would bring with it a whole new set of baggage. Should he lie? Adopt some fictitious identity, knowing that their paths would never cross again? But that might add fuel to a possibly combustive situation. She had already humiliated herself through her drunken behaviour—if she then discovered that he was lying to her, then mightn’t she take out her shame on him? He knew women well enough to know that they were impossible when you rejected them. So why not keep her sweet? Why not make her appreciate just how much he had done for her?
‘My name is Kulal,’ he said.
‘I already know that bit. Where are you from—you’re not Mediterranean, are you?’
‘No, I am not. I come from a country called Zahrastan.’ He searched her face for signs of recognition. ‘Any idea where that is?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it. Should I have done?’
Kulal told himself that he shouldn’t have been surprised. He wouldn’t really expect a pole-dancing socialite to know much about the Arabian principality which produced a vast tranche of the world’s oil supply, would he? She probably thought of little else other than which colour she was going to paint her pretty little toenails each day. ‘I suggest you try acquainting yourself with a map of the world if you want to find out its exact position.’ His voice was dismissive as he slanted her a cool look. ‘Now, have I answered all your questions to your satisfaction?’
She wanted to say that no, he hadn’t. She wanted to ask him if they couldn’t just forget about the disastrous way the evening had ended. If only it was possible to rewind life and stop at the bit you liked best. When she’d been dancing with him it had all felt so...promising. But the repressive note in his voice and the unwelcoming look on his face made her realise that this was not a conversation he was keen on extending. She lifted her fingertips to her temples as if that might help reduce the pounding inside her skull, but it didn’t.
‘My head hurts,’ she said, painfully aware that the first and last hangover of her life should have been conducted in front of such a critical audience.
Kulal nodded as he saw an acceptable exit sign looming ahead. ‘So why don’t you get showered and dressed?’ he suggested smoothly. ‘Your things are hanging up in the bathroom and I can order you something to eat. You’ll feel much better once you’ve had some breakfast—’
‘I don’t want any breakfast,’ she snapped, realising that he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
‘You ought to. When did you last eat?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember.’
Reluctantly, he found his gaze drawn to her eyes which had been illuminated by the bright sunshine, and for the first time he noticed that their darkness was broken by flecks of green and gold which made him think of the filtered sunlight you sometimes found in a quiet forest glade. But despite their natural beauty, there was no disguising the shadows which lay beneath them—shadows which were not caused simply by her smudged mascara. Her eyes looked empty, he realised—as if she had seen something which had haunted her. And she was pale. Very pale. Beneath that smooth olive skin of hers, she had the pinched look of a woman who had stopped caring—not about her appearance, but about life itself.
And that was not his business.
He was a royal prince and he was about to announce his engagement to a royal princess. The last thing he needed was to start worrying about the welfare of some spoiled little rich girl who had got herself plastered. Thank God he’d been strong enough to walk away from the promise of her amazing body—he should start being grateful for the lucky escape he’d had.
But something was nagging at his conscience and he found himself unable to ignore it.
‘You’re not leaving here until you’ve eaten something,’ he said forcefully.
‘And you’d be prepared to stop me, would you?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t intend to pick you up for a second time if you pass out and I don’t want the drama of a French ambulance screaming to a halt outside. So why don’t you do something sensible for the first time in your life and eat something?’ he said, turning on his heel and heading for the door.
Rosa stood watching as the door banged shut behind him and she could have burst into howls of frustration. How dare he judge her and find her wanting—when last night he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her?
He could do anything he liked, she realised, because she had put herself in a position to be judged. Angrily, she pushed aside the sheet and headed for the bathroom, recoiling as she caught sight of her reflection in the huge mirror. It was a shock on so many levels, because walking around naked wasn’t something she ever did. In Sicily, she always wore a silk nightgown to preserve her modesty because that was how she’d been brought up.
‘Imagine if there was a fire in the middle of the night,’ her mother had once said, in that tart way she had of speaking to her only daughter. ‘And the fireman found you naked and indecent. That is not the way a lady behaves, Rosa.’
As she stood beneath the torrential jets of the shower, Rosa’s lips curved with derision. She had just accepted her mother’s opinion, hadn’t she? The way she always did. Never realising that the woman who had brought her up so strictly was nothing but a cheating hypocrite.
Quickly, she turned on the cold tap—hoping that the shock of the icy water might wash away the memories of the past few days, but it wasn’t easy to forget her mother’s dramatic confession. She stayed in the shower until she had scrubbed herself clean, and afterwards she found an unused toothbrush and paste and located her clothes and hairbrush. By the time she heard a knock on the bedroom door, she felt a million times better and she psyched herself up to face the judgemental face of Kulal.
‘Come in,’ she said crisply, her heart beginning to race as he walked in. ‘I’m ready.’
‘So I see,’ Kulal said, reluctantly letting his gaze drift over her. Her feet were bare and the crimson minidress brushed the smooth skin of her thighs. For a moment he felt a powerful wave of temptation as he imagined taking her back to bed, before he swatted it away. She was trouble, he told himself. Last night, he might have been swayed by her beauty and her dancing, but in the cold light of day he knew she was best avoided.
‘I’ve ordered breakfast to be served on the terrace,’ he said. ‘So why don’t we go downstairs?’
Hunger made Rosa nod her head in grudging agreement and she followed him down a wide marble staircase and out onto a terrace, where a table had been laid with croissants, juices and jams, and what looked like a dish of iced mango. The terrace overlooked landscaped gardens and, in the distance, she caught a glimpse of the sapphire sea. It felt as if they were in a self-contained world of their own—a private little bubble which was miles away from the hustle and bustle of the French Riviera. ‘Did you say this was a hotel?’ she asked curiously.
‘It is, but I always rent one of the two villas which are attached to it. They come with their own gardens and that affords me more privacy.’
Rosa sank into one of the wicker chairs and looked up into the flatness of his eyes. ‘Which makes it easier to get rid of unwanted overnight guests in the morning, I suppose?’
He sat down opposite her—a movement which immediately heralded the appearance of a butler bearing a large silver pot of coffee. Let her know exactly where she stands, Kulal told himself. Tell her the truth, even if the truth hurts. ‘That is always a consideration to take into account,’ he agreed.
Rosa stared at the inky coffee which was being poured for her before Kulal waved the butler away. She wasn’t going to cause a scene about what he’d just said, when all he’d done was be honest. It would have been much worse if he’d pretended otherwise—if he made out that he’d never taken a strange woman back to his hotel before. And wasn’t she all done with lies and subterfuge? ‘Wise man,’ she said lightly.
Her casual tone made Kulal relax and he sat back in his chair. So she was going to behave herself, was she? He guessed she must have done this kind of thing plenty of times herself. The slightly stilted morning breakfast after a night of red-hot sex.
His mouth hardened as he forced himself to face the frustrating and rather laughable truth. Because you haven’t actually had sex with her, have you?
He watched as she pulled a croissant from the bread basket and began to cover it in strawberry jam. With her dark hair drying in the sunshine and her body smelling of soap rather than perfume, he thought how different she looked this morning. Her face was completely bare of make-up so that she looked very young and almost innocent. Her pink lips were so delicious that it seemed a crime not to lean across the table and kiss them, and for a split second he imagined his tongue licking its way inside her mouth. Until he remembered the way she’d been writhing her hips around the pole last night and forced himself to dampen down his ardour. What chameleons women were, he thought. How they changed faster than the seasons! She was about as innocent as one of the houris who charged men by the hour for their services.
Even so, as he watched her lift a glass of jus de pamplemousse to her lips, he couldn’t ignore the undeniable regret that he hadn’t made love to her. Because she would be an amazing lover. The sexual connoisseur in him told him that—even if he hadn’t witnessed the sensational way she’d been moving on the podium last night. As he’d put her to bed, her beauty had been revealed to him in all its shockingly sensual glory. He had felt deliciously firm skin as he’d peeled the little dress from her body. And it had taken more strength than he’d ever needed to walk away and spend a restless night in the bed next door.
He waited until she’d finished eating, until she had dabbed those delectable lips with a napkin, before putting down his own coffee cup and subjecting her to a steady stare. ‘I’m assuming that by now you’ve remembered where you’re staying?’
Rosa winced. What would he say if she told him that she’d never been drunk like that before? That she’d just discovered that her mother had cheated with her husband’s own brother—and her whole world had been smashed apart?
How would he react? Well, he might believe her or he might not, but that would make no difference to the fact that he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
‘I’m staying at the Hotel Jasmin,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘So if you wouldn’t mind calling me a cab, I’ll get out of your way.’
Kulal rose from the wicker chair, knowing that he could easily send her home in his own car, but it was a pretty distinctive car and it would inevitably connect them. This part of the Riviera was always crawling with paparazzi, eager to capture the indiscretions of celebrities. They’d been lucky enough not to have been seen last night when he’d had to carry her inside—so maybe he should count his blessings and get rid of her as anonymously as possible.
‘I’ll get reception to organise it for you,’ he said. ‘And arrange for someone to show you through to the main part of the hotel.’
Rosa felt like a piece of garbage which was headed for the recycling bin and wondered if it was possible to feel any worse than she did right then. She was never going to touch another drop of alcohol in her life! And she was never going to dance with dark and dangerous-looking strangers in nightclubs. She nodded as she looked up into his black eyes, unprepared for his sudden movement as he touched her hair before running his fingertips lightly down the side of her face in a gesture which felt almost gentle.
‘Just do yourself a favour, will you?’ he said roughly. ‘And stay off the booze in future.’
His words affected her far more than they should have done and Rosa recognised how lucky she’d been in her choice of rescuer. He had plucked her from the sweaty scrum in the nightclub and danced with her, and then she had blown it. She had got drunk and passed out but he hadn’t taken advantage of her sorry state, even though it would have been easy for him to do so. And if he was clearly appalled by her behaviour—well, who could blame him? She was pretty appalled by it herself and she’d never get another chance to show him that deep down she wasn’t really like that. Worst of all was that she would never know what it was like to kiss him....
The old Rosa might have slunk off—but of course the old Rosa would never have found herself in such a compromising position. And the new Rosa wanted to have a taste of pleasure—just one—before she walked out of his life for good.
She stood up on tiptoe and framed her hands around his hard jaw before leaning forward to brush her lips over the sensual curve of his mouth. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘For your hospitality and your chivalry.’
For a moment he didn’t move and it was as if her soft words had turned him to stone. Rosa could see a little muscle working overtime at his temple before he drawled out a sardonic reply. ‘I’d like to say that the pleasure was all mine, but that wouldn’t be true.’
She looked at him uncertainly. ‘No?’
‘In fact, it was an evening which fell pretty short on the pleasure quota for both of us, and I’m wondering whether it might not be too late to remedy that....’
Rosa was unprepared for the decisive way that he pulled her against him and the equally decisive way that he drove his mouth down onto hers. His hands were cupping her head and her hair was spilling through his fingers and suddenly he was kissing her like she’d never been kissed before. She could feel the instant flowering of her breasts and a delicious warmth between her legs. Did he know that? Was that why he thrust one hard thigh between hers, as if sensing that might help alleviate the sudden aching she could feel at the most intimate part of her body?
‘Oh,’ she said against his lips, swallowing down her sense of wonder. ‘Oh.’
With an effort, he tore his lips away and looked down into her upturned face. ‘How commendably circumspect I have been with you, my beauty,’ he said shakily. ‘But that all ends as of now. You are no longer drunk and I am no longer angry. This may be one of the most ill-judged decisions of my life, but I want you—and, sweet heaven, I am going to have you. Right now.’
His emphatic statement should have daunted her, but it didn’t. She suspected that he didn’t particularly like or respect her, but suddenly Rosa didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything other than the way he was making her feel. Why shouldn’t she taste the pleasures which seemed to drive everyone else in the human race, except for her—poor, protected Rosa, who had been shielded from the world for so long? Her lips were dry but somehow she managed to echo his words as she felt his thumb tease its way over one painfully erect nipple.
‘I want you, too,’ she whispered. ‘And right now is fine with me.’
With a hard smile of satisfaction, he bent his head to kiss her again and Rosa never knew what would have happened next had she not heard the sound of an embarrassed cough behind them. With a start, they sprang apart—as if they’d been caught red-handed at the scene of a crime.
And maybe they had, she thought. Because there, standing at the edge of the private garden watching them, was a man as dark-skinned as Kulal himself, though his head was dipped with the faintest degree of subservience.
She watched as a look of anger darkened Kulal’s face. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded. ‘Why the hell are you disturbing me, Mutasim—creeping up on me like a spy?’
Rosa thought she’d never seen a man look more embarrassed than Mutasim did as Kulal’s words fired into him, and she noticed that the stranger hadn’t met her eyes. Not once.
‘I beg your indulgence at this untimely intrusion, Your Highness,’ said Mutasim softly. ‘But your brother, the king, craves your company at the earliest opportunity.’
Rosa’s lips parted in shock as the words registered in her befuddled brain. She looked up at Kulal, her bewildered eyes asking him a silent question.
Highness? King?
Were they playing some sort of joke on her? Talking in some kind of code? But her confusion was quickly superseded by shame as Kulal took no notice of her silent plea. Completely ignoring her, he walked over to the dark-skinned man and began to speak in a low voice, in a language she couldn’t begin to understand.
And Rosa felt completely invisible.
CHAPTER THREE (#u7ba494fa-5862-59ba-b760-cd8ad7b3326b)
‘SO WHAT DID you think you were playing at, Kulal?’ The king was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘When you decided to take some drunken pole dancer back to your hotel?’
For a moment Kulal didn’t answer. Instead he sat back in one of the ornate chairs in the throne room and stared up at the old-fashioned fan which was whirring in the vaulted, golden ceiling. He was back in the ancient palace in which he’d been raised, having flown to Zahrastan as soon as he had received word that the king wished to speak with him. He’d never received a summons quite like this and it occurred to him that he’d never seen his brother look quite so exasperated either. Not even during that time when he had caught Kulal leaving one of the chambermaid’s rooms, smoothing down his ruffled robes and smirking all over his face.
Or the time when Kulal had ‘borrowed’ one of the palace cars for an unauthorised trip into the desert when he was barely sixteen and nobody had known that he could drive. On both those occasions—and, indeed, on many more—righteous anger should surely have come flooding the younger prince’s way, but it had not. It was almost as if it had been expected that he should behave wildly—and everyone knew why. Weren’t motherless children always indulged?
As two royal princes of a fabulously rich desert kingdom, the two men should have been close but an accident of birth meant that they had grown up living two very different lives. Hazail was the older, the heir to the throne, and the defining factor of his life had always been that he would one day inherit the crown. It had been Hazail’s destiny which had occupied most of their father’s time as he had tutored his elder son in the art of ruling a powerful desert kingdom.
Kulal had simply been the ‘spare’—the extra boy child born as an insurance policy to ensure the line of succession. He had been brought up by a series of amahs—female servants who had adored him but had lacked the strength to discipline the strong-minded little boy. Consequently, he had been given freedom—perhaps a little too much freedom for so strong and so wilful a character. But that had never compensated for the heavy weight which had hung over him since his mother had died—a shocking death which had sent the country spiralling into deep mourning. And Kulal had been marked out by that terrible loss, for she had died saving his life. Deep down he knew that was the reason why his father and his brother had always been so distant towards him. He knew that subconsciously they blamed him for the queen’s untimely end, even if logic told them that it was nothing but the cruel intervention of fate. Of two people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Perhaps it had been to make up for their emotional distance that they had tended to overlook Kulal’s misdemeanours. But it seemed that they were not being overlooked this time. Hazail was pacing the floor like an expectant father, before turning back to his younger brother, still with that exasperated expression on his face.
‘She wasn’t a pole dancer,’ Kulal protested as he picked up a golden goblet and swirled the pomegranate juice it contained.
‘No?’ Hazail looked at him. ‘It is fiction, then, that she was seen writhing around in a nightclub, showing much of her underwear in the process? That is simply a figment of my informant’s imagination, is it?’
‘Which informant?’ Kulal demanded, trying to dampen down the vivid image of Rosa’s curvaceous body as it had twisted itself around the pole. Or the fact that his brother’s damned servant had interrupted him just as he had started to seduce her!
‘That is surely beside the point,’ answered Hazail coolly. ‘Unless you’re denying that you took this exhibitionist back to your hotel with you?’
Kulal shrugged. ‘No, I am not denying it.’
‘She seems a little outré even for your extravagant tastes, Kulal.’
‘I know.’ Kulal met the question in his brother’s eyes with a faintly bemused shrug, because he couldn’t have begun to describe the sensation which had washed over him when he’d watched Rosa walk into the nightclub that night. Lust didn’t begin to cover the hunger he’d felt when he’d seen her. There had been something in her eyes—a look which had seemed so at odds with the provocative curves of her body and which had called out to something inside him. He had noticed the defiant way she’d lifted the champagne bottle to her mouth and the small rush of foam which had trickled erotically over her lips. And then she had begun to dance....
Kulal felt desire shiver over his skin as he remembered that dance. It had been an invitation to sex. The most blatant and beautiful invitation he had ever witnessed and he had simply been unable to resist it. He had walked towards her like a man on autopilot, with his heart thundering and his body on fire. ‘But she is very beautiful,’ he said simply.
‘There are a lot of beautiful women in the world, as well you know,’ came Hazail’s dry rejoinder. ‘Surely you could have found someone a little more suitable to have sex with?’
Kulal wanted to protest that they hadn’t actually had sex, but his fiercely masculine pride would not allow him to make such a disclosure, especially not to his brother. ‘I’m not really clear about why there has been a big drama about it, Hazail?’ he drawled. ‘Why the sudden interest in my sex life?’
‘Because you are engaged to be married—in case it had slipped your mind. And therefore it is inadvisable for you to behave like a rutting stag!’
Kulal thought of his serious-faced fiancée—a blue-blooded princess who hailed from the neighbouring country of Buheiraat. He thought about the matter-of-fact way the two of them had sat down to work out an agreement for their forthcoming nuptials. He thought about her complete lack of passion and compared her to the fiery and responsive Rosa, and his heart sank.
He shot his brother a cool look. ‘I made a single, minor transgression, Hazail,’ he said. ‘I hardly think that puts me in the category of “rutting stag.” And besides, you know how these things work. Ayesha will not be expecting her prince to come to her on her wedding night as a cowering innocent. She will expect her husband to be experienced in matters of sexuality.’
‘Well, Ayesha’s expectations are now academic,’ said Hazail. ‘Since the wedding is now off.’
Kulal stilled. ‘The wedding is off?’
‘Yes. She has sent word to the palace through one of her envoys that she will no longer marry you.’
Kulal’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why not?’
‘Why do you think?’ exploded Hazail. ‘Because word has got back to her about your exploits, that’s why! You seem to forget that modern princesses are different to the way they used to be. They are no longer prepared to turn a blind eye to behaviour which they find intolerable. And you have hardly been the soul of discretion on this occasion, Kulal. A discreet liaison is one thing, but openly spending the night with a complete stranger is something else.’
Kulal’s mouth hardened because it had been the loud and drunken Rosa who had made it into such a spectacle. If she hadn’t been so damned predatory, this might never have happened. He glowered at his golden goblet and slammed it down on the table. ‘I will write to Ayesha, wishing her all the very best for her future happiness,’ he said. ‘And we will forget that this unfortunate incident ever happened.’
But Hazail was shaking his head. ‘That’s the trouble—we can’t just forget it. If only it were that simple.’
Kulal frowned. ‘You’re not making any sense.’
The king leaned back in his chair. ‘You do realise the identity of the woman you spent the night with?’
‘Of course I do.’ Kulal felt a beat of frustration harden his groin, his erection conveniently concealed by the silk robes he always wore when in Zahrastan. And although it felt like an exquisite form of torture, he allowed a picture of her luscious curves and dark hair to form in his mind. ‘Her name is Rosa.’
‘Her name is Rosa Corretti!’
Kulal’s expression remained unchanged, for he did not care to admit that the brunette’s surname was news to him. ‘Mmm. That’s right. Corretti. She’s Italian,’ he said, as if imparting some important nugget of information.
‘No, she is not Italian,’ said Hazail. ‘She’s Sicilian. And not only is she Sicilian, but she comes from one of the most powerful families on the island.’
‘So?’
‘So her brothers are probably going to come after you. In fact, the whole damned family is probably going to come after you after you compromised her reputation by spending the night with her.’
Kulal shrugged. ‘Then let them come,’ he said carelessly. ‘For I am afraid of no man!’
‘Your courage has never been in question, but you don’t seem to realise the gravity of the situation, Kulal.’ Hazail bit his lip with the closest thing to anxiety Kulal had ever seen. ‘The influence of the Corretti family extends all over the world and they do not take the virtue of their womenfolk lightly. I’m not joking—this could be political and economic dynamite for our country if it were to erupt into some kind of international scandal.’
There was silence for a moment as Kulal mulled over his brother’s words. Were this Corretti family such a big deal, then? He remembered everything he had heard and read about the Sicilian culture. That the men were proud and the women were pure. His lips twisted scornfully. Except that Rosa Corretti was the least pure woman he’d met in a long time!
‘Do you think they might respond to bribery?’ he mused. ‘Shares in one of our oil refineries might buy their silence.’
Hazail shook his head. ‘This is one situation where I suspect that bribery will not work—for there are very few ways to appease a Sicilian family when their honour is involved.’
For a moment, Kulal was silent as he considered the options which lay open to him and forced himself to acknowledge that there were remarkably few. He thought about Rosa Corretti and her soft pink lips. He thought about her magnificent breasts and waterfall of dark hair and he felt a corresponding pang of pure and frustrated lust. Surely there was something he could do to remedy a potentially explosive situation?
And then an idea began to form in his mind, an idea so simple that he was surprised it had taken him so long to come up with it.
‘I suppose I will have to marry her,’ he said.
Hazail stared at him. ‘Marry her?’
Kulal shrugged. ‘Why not? A short-term marriage would suit both parties very well. It would rescue her “honour,” silence any overprotective brothers and it might work in our favour. Think about it, Hazail. We sell the story as some kind of love match and Princess Ayesha will be seen as magnanimous for agreeing to cancel her wedding to me. And just think how the press will seize on it!’ He gave a mocking smile. ‘The Arabian version of Romeo and Juliet!’
The king’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Entirely serious.’ Kulal smiled as he allowed his body to anticipate the pleasure of reuniting with his little Sicilian firecracker. ‘I shall go to Rosa Corretti and ask for her hand in marriage.’
There was a pause as the king looked at him. ‘This is remarkably good of you, Kulal,’ he said quietly.
‘Ah, but I am not doing it to be “good,”’ Kulal corrected silkily. ‘I am doing it because I can see no feasible alternative. Look on it as an act of supreme patriotism, if you will. Let’s just say I’m doing it for the sake of my country.’
CHAPTER FOUR (#u7ba494fa-5862-59ba-b760-cd8ad7b3326b)
ROSA HAD BEEN crossing the room towards the bathroom when the sudden rap on the door halted her in her tracks. She could feel a sudden clamminess on her forehead and her heart began to pound with something which felt very much like fear. Who on earth was that knocking at this time of night? She wasn’t expecting any visitors and this wasn’t the kind of hotel which offered room service. More importantly, nobody knew she was here.
Or at least, only one person did and she doubted she’d ever see him again.
But her heart began to race as a series of ghastly possibilities began to crowd into her mind. What if Kulal wasn’t the only person who knew of her whereabouts? What if her brothers who she must now refer to as her half-brothers had discovered she was here? They might have been horrified to find out that she didn’t share their father—and that their mother had brought shame and disgrace to the family with her behaviour. Their eyes may have deadened with anger on discovering that she was not their true blood sister, but surely twenty-three years of guarding her as fiercely as a lion might guard its cubs could not be forgotten overnight?
Mightn’t they have decided to bring her back to Sicily themselves? Wasn’t that the gist behind the text which she’d received? The one which had simply said, Come home, Rosa.
She had ignored the text, just as she had ignored the one which had followed shortly after. In fact, she’d hurled the phone at the wall so that it had fallen in shattered and useless pieces on the carpet. But she planned to get herself a new, cheap one tomorrow morning and then none of the Correttis would have her new number. Which meant that none of them would be able to contact her.
And in the meantime, why was someone still knocking on her door like that?
She stayed rooted to the spot, praying that it was a case of mistaken identity. A drunken reveller, perhaps—for there were enough of them in this part of the South of France. She felt her skin redden. Because hadn’t she been one of those drunken revellers herself the other night, when she’d made such an awful fool of herself in front of that arrogant man, Kulal? It was ironic, really. She’d grown up surrounded by arrogant men and seen the heartbreak they could wreak on women, so why hadn’t she chosen someone softer and easier as the man she had decided she wanted to take her virginity?
Briefly she shut her eyes because the most humiliating thing of all was that he hadn’t wanted her. He’d put her to bed after too much champagne and the disdain on his face the following morning had been clear. It was only when she’d practically thrown herself at him that he had deigned to kiss her. She wondered if they would have gone all the way had the kiss not been interrupted by that other man, the one who’d started talking about a king.
She still couldn’t quite believe the words he’d uttered. Something about the king ‘craving his company.’ Did people really talk like that any more? Perhaps they were some kind of double act who trawled holiday areas pretending to be people they weren’t. Operating some kind of cheap scam.
‘I know you’re in there.’
The terse words carried through the closed door and put a swift halt to Rosa’s swirling thoughts. Because that deep voice with the strange accent was horribly familiar and she was unprepared for the wave of desire which made her skin grow heated. A curling expectation began to unfold somewhere deep inside her and it wasn’t a feeling she particularly welcomed. She thought of his cruel face and hard body and her heart began to pound. What was the matter with her? He was probably nothing but a weird imposter—some fake sheikh—and she didn’t have to answer the door to him.
Oh, why hadn’t she turned the lights off?
Because you weren’t expecting a late-night visitor, that’s why.
‘You can try ignoring me if you want, Rosa, but I’m not going anywhere,’ persisted the voice. ‘And if you stretch my patience too far, then I may be forced to break down this door.’
What a caveman he was! Rosa racked her brain for some kind of response and decided to attempt an audacious piece of bravado. ‘And what if I’m not alone?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you think you might be disturbing something—that I might want a little privacy?’
From the other side of the door, Kulal gritted his teeth as a slow rage began to build inside him. Bad enough that he was being forced to enter a union with this tramp of a woman, but that she should dare to keep him waiting was intolerable!
‘Then I’d advise you to tell your paramour to get dressed and to get dressed quickly, since he might not enjoy facing me in my current mood.’
Rosa shivered at the forceful intent behind his words. She should have been shocked by his arrogance, but she was Sicilian and therefore she wasn’t a bit shocked. She was used to outrageously chauvinist behaviour within the Corretti clan itself, but this man was making the male members of her own overbearing family seem like absolute pussycats.
Reluctantly, she unlocked the key and opened the door, her senses assailed by the overpowering scent of jasmine from the darkened gardens as she stared at the man who was standing on her doorstep.
He was exactly as she remembered him. No, that wasn’t quite true. She’d spent the past two days trying to play him down in her imagination, telling herself that it had been her highly emotional state which had made her react to him in such an uncharacteristic way. Telling herself that he was nothing special, that he was just a man who was aware of his appeal to women and who played on it.
But she had been wrong. More than wrong. Because tonight, his undeniable sexiness was edged with something potent—something which suddenly made her feel innocent and fragile. He looked as if he meant business—and it wasn’t just the way he was dressed, in a dark and sombre suit, which emphasised his powerful physique. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved that day so that his dark jaw was faintly shadowed with stubble. It was a look which was essentially masculine and subtly modern, yet it didn’t match the expression in his black eyes. Because that was the antithesis of modern—it was darkly glittering and almost primitive.
She swallowed. ‘What do you want?’
‘A little courtesy might be a good place to start. I’d like to come in.’
To Rosa’s disbelief he didn’t bother waiting for her assent, just walked straight past her. ‘You can’t just barge in here like that!’ she protested.
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