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Keira tensed as she heard Jay’s now familiar footsteps crossing the hallway.
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’
How formal he sounded—and looked, Keira thought, contrasting his immaculate appearance in a perfectly fitting lightweight neutral-coloured suit worn over a pale blue shirt with her own jeans and shirt. But then she had dressed for the bumpy, dusty ride she had been anticipating. Her driver tended to keep the windows of the car open rather than use the air-conditioning, so that he could engage in conversation with other drivers.
They were in the car before Jay spoke to her again.
‘Remind me again what the purpose of your visit to this manufacturer is?’
The sarcastic tone of his voice made Keira wish even more that he had not chosen to accompany her.
‘I want to see the finished furniture before it is delivered, to make sure that it will work. He’s making some special shelving units for the larger properties. They’re to go into the studies and the children’s rooms, and I wanted to see how he’s getting on with them. If my idea works I thought they could be adapted to various age groups if they were given different paint finishes. I also wanted to make sure that he understands that all the paint used must be lead-free. I’m trying where possible to ensure that all the raw materials used come from sustainable sources. Green issues are just as big here in India with the middle classes as they are in Europe, of course.’
Jay had been driving fast, but now he had slowed down to allow for the leisurely progress of several camel carts.
‘I see. And can I be confident that this designer is not another of your countrymen, looking for what you are so obviously eager to give?’
He was hateful, horrible, making accusations without any justification to back them up. Except that in his arms she had been eager to give, hadn’t she? And she could hardly tell him that he was the first, the last and the only man to whom she had wanted to give herself. Even if she did he wouldn’t believe her, and if he ever got to know about her background and her mother, he’d think he had even more reason for his accusations.
‘I am not the one who controls what you do or don’t think,’ was the only thing she could think of to say to him to show her feelings about his comment.
But it was no use. He swooped on her words as swiftly as a predatory bird of prey to the lure—so much so, in fact, that she could almost feel the verbal bite of his sharp talons as he countered, ‘But you are the one whose behaviour gives rise to my thoughts.’
Keira had had enough.
‘If you choose to think that a simple lighthearted exchange of words between a man and a woman is tantamount to an offer of sex then I feel sorry for you—or rather I feel sorry for the women who are the victims of your prejudice, should they happen to indulge in what they think is lighthearted conversation with you.’
‘Your sex does not indulge in lighthearted conversation. It plans the course of its words with military precision—from the minute a woman makes an approach to a man to the minute he hands over to her the reward she has already decided he will give her in exchange for the pleasure of her company.’
‘That is just cynical and unfair. There may be some women who do do that, but—’
‘Some women—of which you are one, as we both already know.’
Keira knew there was nothing she could say that would make him accept that he was wrong about her. And why should she care if he did? What benefit would it be to her? It would simply make her even more vulnerable to him. At least this way she had his contempt of her to strengthen her determination not to allow her feelings for him to betray her.
The furniture factory was outside a small, dusty and very busy town on the caravan route where the plain met the desert.
Henna painters sat cross-legged on the roadside, hoping for passing custom; up ahead of them a farmer was unloading cackling chickens onto a stall ready to sell, whilst hot food was already on sale at another stall, filling the air with the scent of spices and cinnamon. A group of temple musicians walked past, their brightly coloured turbans contrasting with their white clothes.
‘The factory is over there,’ she told Jay, pointing in the direction of a two-storey building set apart from the others.
