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Hudson had taken a three-month sabbatical from his law firm and had already used a month of that time before he had met her, and Marianne had had anew job waiting for her in Scotland. But on the night he had asked her to marry him—and she had accepted—she had known she would follow him anywhere. It had made the next few hours all the harder.
'Is it not… ?'
'I'm sorry?' Marianne came to with a jolt to realise Fatima had been speaking and she hadn't heard a word. She blushed hotly, forcing herself to give all her attention to the Moroccan woman.
'I said your job must be very interesting, Marianne.' Fatima was too sensitive and far too well-bred to show open curiosity, but it was clear she was wondering where Marianne fitted into Hudson's life, and after a somewhat cagey conversation Marianne was relieved when the men returned and they all went through to the dining room to eat.
The meal was in traditional Moroccan style—everyone seated on sofas around a low table—and before they ate they were given towels and rose-water in order to wash their right hands—the hand Moroccans used to eat from the communal dishes they favoured. Marianne had heard of the custom, but only having eaten at the hotel—which was distinctly European—had never seen it in action.
She found it fascinating to watch the others reaching into a big bowl of couscous, picking up olives and raisins with three fingers, twirling them round in the creamy mixture and then popping them into their mouths. Normally she would have thoroughly enjoyed the experience—the table was full of mouth-watering dishes that smelt divine—but her stomach was so knotted with nerves, she could barely force anything past the constriction, and each mouthful was an effort of will.
Why had Hudson brought her here? The question was drumming in her head all through the meal and the subsequent conversation over coffee. She hadn't seen him for two years. They both had separate lives now—and if the tall, elegant redhead was anything to go by he hadn't exactly pined away for her, she thought with a touch of bitterness. He must hate her—he did hate her; he'd made that plain—so why bring her to his friend's home and act as though she was with him? Why put them both through such torment?
She didn't understand it and she didn't understand him, but he made her nervous—very nervous. She had never imagined he was a man who would forgive easily, but this—there was no rhyme or reason to it.
It was after eleven when they left Idris and Fatima, and the soft indigo dusk had given way to a black velvet sky pierced through with hundreds upon hundreds of bright, twinkling stars, the darkness perfumed with the heavy, rich scent of magnolia flowers.
It was a beautiful night—romantic, gentle, the full moon silhouetting the eastern horizon of flamboyant mosques and towering minarets with ethereal charm—but Marianne had never felt so tense and nervous in her life. Just sitting beside Hudson made her as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof, and she knew he sensed her agitation. Sensed it and was satisfied by it.
'You are frightened of me?' The dark, deep voice was silky-soft, but caused her to straighten her backbone as she glanced at the ruthlessly cold profile.
'Of course not,' she lied tightly, her voice cold and even.
'No?' The query was soft, charged with dark emotion.
'No.' She forced her hands, which had been clasped in tight fists on her lap, to relax before she said, her voice as steady and unemotional as she could make it, 'Why? Should I be?'
'Most certainly.' It wasn't the reply she had expected, and as her eyes widened with the shock of it her heart went haywire.
'You walked out on me, Annie, and no one had ever done that to me before. I didn't like it' It was the understatement of the year, and delivered in such an expressionless voice that her blood flowed cold. 'I didn't like it at all.'
'I… ! explained—'
'We had an agreement, Annie.' He continued as though she hadn't spoken. 'An agreement you welshed on. How do you think I should deal with that?' he asked coldly, his eyes on the road in front of them.
She stared at him w
arily, quite unable to gauge anything from the cool mask he could don at will and which proved so formidable in the courtroom. He was formidable, terrifyingly so.
'Now look, Hudson—'
'No, you look!' It was an explosion, hot and acidic, and as she felt herself shrink in the seat it dawned on her that he was furiously angry—that he had been furiously angry from that first moment of meeting her again. The fact that he had been holding the rage in didn't comfort her in the least, merely emphasising, as it did, the almost superhuman power and control he could exert over his emotions when he chose to do so. But the fury was still there, just waiting to escape the iron constraint and devour her, she thought shakily. And it had had two years to simmer and burn.
'You didn't seriously think I would just say hello and goodbye, did you?' he asked coldly. 'You owe me, Marianne McBride-Harding.'
'I owe you?' She was scared to death but she was blowed if he was going to bully her like this, and the sarcastic intonation of her name brought a welcome surge of angry adrenalin to melt the chill his intimidation had wrought on her psyche. 'Think again, Hudson,' she said tightly. 'I owe you nothing and you know it'
'I've thought, Annie, I've thought long and hard,' he grated slowly. 'I've had two years to think, haven't I? Does the current boy wonder know what a cheating little liar you really are? Or are you stringing him along the way you did me?'
'Who… ?' And then she realised. 'Keith? Keith is just my boss—' Keith? He seriously thought she was interested in Keith?
'And I'm Father Christmas,' Hudson said cuttingly.
'You don't believe me?' she asked hotly, aware that he was driving far too fast along the badly lit Moroccan roads but too angry to care. 'You think I'd lie just for the sake of it?'
'You find that surprising?' he rasped scathingly, his lips compressing in one straight, angry line. 'I believed you once, my faithless siren, but never again. This time the old adage once bitten, twice shy holds fast Mind you—' he glanced at her, the movement lightning-fast but savage '—I think even you will be hard pressed to explain where you have been all evening.'
She stared at him, too stunned to reply as a hundred and one thoughts chased themselves through the turmoil of her mind. This had been a calculated exercise on his part, she told herself weakly, a cold-blooded, determined effort to make Keith think—Think what? she asked herself painfully as a sickening flood of desolation and despair washed over her. That she had been with Hudson in the biblical sense of the word—slept with him? Surely even Hudson wouldn't do that… ? 'I shall simply tell him the truth,' she informed him through lips that were beginning to tremble.
