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And wasn’t it in reality that very celibacy that was responsible for the white heat of his desire for Keira?
Keira. His thoughts had turned full circle, and his body now ached like hell. Jay threw back the bedcovers. Picking up the documents from the bedside table, he strode naked to the desk. He pulled on a robe and switched on his laptop, and proceeded to do what he could to blot Keira out of his thoughts by engrossing himself in some work…
‘Oh, I love this toile,’ Keira enthused as she studied the fabric sample in front of her, with its design of Indian palaces, monkeys, elephants and howdas printed in traditional single colours against the creamy white of the cotton background.
‘I designed it myself,’ Alex Jardine told her with a smile. ‘I had some original copperplate rollers for toile fabric I was lucky enough to pick up in an antique market in France years ago, and when I showed them to Arjun, here, and explained what I wanted to do, he was able to find me a craftsman to copy the rollers for us so we could create this toile. It’s one of four we’ve been experimenting with: two traditional, of which this is one, and two very contemporary designs.’
Keira nodded her head, fascinated by the designs.
‘We’re experimenting at the moment with charcoal, to black-dye the modern toile and give it a more edgy look,’ he continued.
From the moment she had stepped into the fabric factory Keira had felt as though she had stepped into her own private Aladdin’s cave. Bolts of fabrics of every hue imaginable were stacked to the ceiling, mouthwatering acid sherbet colours, rich traditional colours of crimson ruby, jade and emerald embellished with gold thread, sea and sky colours, and even pale creamy naturals. Her senses had fed on them as greedily as a child let loose in a sweet shop, and now she was every bit as giddy and dizzy as that child might have been, from consuming too many additives. She was on a high with the sheer intensity of her own rush of delight. And that delight was compounded by her sense of having met someone so much in tune with her own way of thinking in Alex.
At first sight she had felt slightly put off by him. Over six foot tall, with thick curly hair that reached down to his shoulders, he was dressed in white linen trousers, a loose linen shirt and with his feet bare. His voice was a languid ‘okay yah’ upper crust London drawl, and Keira had felt initially that there was rather too much of the faux hippie about him—so much so, in fact, that it was almost a theatrical affectation.
But then he had shown her his fabrics, his large hands as tender on them as though they were small children, his voice softening as he told her about their provenance and his own desire to keep his designs true to tradition whilst bringing in something unique and modern that was still ‘of India’, and Keira had been entranced and captivated.
‘I am hoping that we’ll be able to design something that has a bit of a Bollywood twist to it, but Arjun, here, thinks I’m being over-confident.’ Alex laughed as he smiled at the factory owner.
‘I just love what you’re doing,’ Keira told him. ‘And if it was up to me I’d be buying up everything for this new venture, but I don’t have that authority.’
‘We can supply you with samples and you can show them to His Highness Prince Jayesh,’ the factory owner was assuring her eagerly.
‘Arjun won’t let you leave until he’s heaped you with samples,’ Alex warned her, with a warm smile, reaching out to pluck a stray thread of cotton that had attached itself to the sleeve of her top as the factory owner hurried away for more samples.
Keira smiled back at him, unaware of the fact that Jay had just walked into the building and was standing watching the byplay between them with a glacier cold look in his eyes.
It was Alex who saw Jay first, his own gaze sharpening in recognition of what he could see in Jay’s eyes as he strode towards them.
‘There’s a very angry-looking alpha male heading this way,’ he told Keira drolly. ‘And he looks very much as though he thinks I’ve been trespassing on his private property.’
‘What?’ Puzzled, Keira turned round and then gave a small ‘oh’ of mixed comprehension and surprise as Jay bore down on them, her stomach churning out its message of acute physical awareness of him as her heart pounded erratically.
