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'I… I went to London,' she admitted through stiff lips.
'And Harding? Is that your married name?' he bit out tightly.
'No, I… I didn't get married,' she said flatly. 'I changed my name from McBride, that's all. Harding… Harding was more suitable in London.'
'You didn't get married?' She felt the penetrating gaze sweep her face again but forced herself to stare straight ahead, her eyes seeing the hot street outside the car, with its veiled women, energetic little children and robed men, as though she were in a dream. 'But I thought—' He paused. 'Was that anything to do with the car crash?' he asked softly. 'Or a separate decision?'
'You know about the crash?' She did turn to look at him then, but the dark, tanned profile was giving nothing away. 'How?' Scotland was a long way from America.
'Let's just say I kept tabs for a while,' he said smoothly. 'You didn't go to the funeral of your mother and stepfather. Why?'
'Reasons.' This was becoming too hot to handle. 'Look, Hudson, the past is the past—can't we just leave it at that? And where are we going anyway?' she asked nervously as they joined a road that began to curve upwards. 'I need to get back—'
'A friend of mine has invited me to stop by this evening.' He had known how she would react, and his voice was dry and cool as he said, 'Don't look so surprised, Annie. I do have friends, you know. Or is that too difficult for you to believe?'
'I'm sure you do,' she said tightly. 'But won't they be surprised to see you turn up at the door with a strange woman?'
'The "strange woman" is your terminology, not mine,' he mocked softly. 'I would have said unusual, extraordinary perhaps, but strange is going a little too far.'
'You know what I meant' She'd hit him in a minute—she would!
'So… ' The cool voice was thoughtful. 'Where did you go when you ran away from me, if not to marry your lover?'
'I've told you—London,' she said shortly.
'And you changed your name and cut off all contact with your family, even to the extent of not attending your parents' funeral.' He was talking as though to himself. 'What made you contact your aunt in France after two years?' he asked suddenly, his voice sharpening into cold steel.
'How did you know—?' She stopped abruptly, her face going white as reality dawned. 'You knew I would be here, didn't you?' she said dazedly. 'This is not a coincidence.' He had known her name earlier at lunch. He had called her Marianne Harding.
'You haven't answered my question.' The cool mockery was back.
'You haven't answered mine either,' she shot back quickly, his cold, faintly drawling voice incredibly irritating when she was as tense as a tightly coiled spring. 'You knew I'd be here, in this hotel in Tangier, didn't you? You planned all this.'
'You really think I would chase across half the world because I'd discovered your whereabouts?' he asked contemptuously, and at the same moment, with a flash of mortifying and hot humiliation, she remembered the stunning redhead. He was here with her. Of course.
'I… I didn't mean that' She didn't really know what she had meant, she admitted to herself painfully. But that wasn't surprising—Hudson had always had the power to send her senses into overdrive and her mind spinning. She hadn't looked at another man—hadn't had the slightest interest in one—since she had left France two years ago. Left him two years ago. How he'd laugh at that.
'Here we are.' As the car passed through a great archway covered in traceries so delicate and intricate that they looked like lace, Marianne saw they were in the courtyard of what was obviously a very wealthy family, the low, sprawling white house in front of them decorated in the Moorish style with fine carvings in stone and wood. The air was heavy with the perfume of banana trees, bougainvillaea vines and other flowering tropical plants. Several sparkling fountains murmured in the vegetation beyond the courtyard. It was tranquil, serene and very beautiful.
'My friend's name is Idris,' Hudson said quietly as he brought the car to a quiet standstill in the warm, scented air, the sound of droning insects in the vegetation meeting their ears. 'He and his family are very westernised, but he is a Berber through and through and proud of it We will be expected to eat with them.'
'But… ' It was as though she had been transported into another world, swept along in the dark aura of this man who had dominated her life since the first moment she had laid eyes on him—the intervening years since she'd last seen him accentuating, rather than diminishing, his fierce appeal. 'I can't… They don't know me. Hudson, you must see I can't stay; it's presumptuous—'
'They expected me to bring a friend.' The glittering grey gaze fastened on her alarmed green eyes with their deep gold flecks, and then he uncoiled himself from the car, walking with cat-like litheness round to the passenger door.
A friend? The redhead, no doubt, Marianne thought silently as a rapier-sharp stab of jealousy replaced the desperate, panic. Why hadn't she come? Was she ill? Indisposed in some way? But that still didn't explain why he had appeared on the quayside like that.
'Come along.' His deep, smoky voice interrupted her frantic thoughts, and as she slid out of the car his hand on her arm seemed to burn like fire. She didn't want to obey, but there was nothing else she could do, after all.
This was crazy, surreal—it couldn't be happening, Marianne told herself as she stood dazedly in the shaded warm air. She should be back at the hotel, getting ready for dinner in an environment that was familiar and safe and controlled How had she got here anyway? She had only agreed to have a lift with him.
'Hudson… please—'
' "Hudson… please".' He mimicked her voice softly and cruelly, his face mocking and his eyes narrowed. 'You used to say that in the old days—"Hudson, oh, Hudson, please… please"—remember? When you were in my arms, when I was kissing you—holding you. Did your young English lover take you into the world we inhabited, Annie? Did he make you feel like I made you feel? Did he?'
'You're hurting me.' His hand on her arm was vice-like.
'Am I?' He released her immediately. 'I want to hurt you, my inconsistent little siren,' he said with such matter-of-fact coolness that it took a moment for his words to sink in. 'I want to see you suffer, like I suffered two years ago. Not in any physical sense—that would be too easy, too simple. But I would like to get inside your head—like you got inside mine—and watch while I slowly drain the very essence of you into my control. Does that shock you?' he added with a marked lack of expression.
