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His jaw looked as if he was grinding his teeth together. Then he whispered, low and menacingly, ‘Never put me in the same category as Paolo.’
‘Why the hell not? Why are you doing this? Paolo said you two had been involved in some feud years ago. I told him he was being crazy, that no one probably even cared any more. But you do, don’t you? You care so much it’s like a poison in your system. Tell me, what did he do? Why do you hate him so much?’
Anger set the planes of his face hard and cold. ‘You’re upset,’ he said, his voice revealing a barely controlled fury.
So he was mad, good for him. It was nothing to how she was feeling.
‘Damned right, I’m upset,’ she said. ‘And I’ll stay upset until I get out of this place. You don’t have to become the barbarian. For the most part you appear to be a civilised man. You have no need to act like some petty despot. And if you have any respect for me at all, if you think anything of me, you have to respect my wishes. Let me go. I have to go.’
He looked down at her, the depths of his dark eyes swirling, his brow knotted, and her hopes lifted. Was he relenting in his mad desire to make her his wife? Had he realised he’d inflicted enough damage on her already?
‘I can’t let you go.’
Fury blasted through her. ‘Then I’ll go in spite of you. I’ll find some other way of getting to the airport and I’ll go anyway. Because I won’t stay here.’
She stormed her way to her suitcase propped up near the door and grabbed purposefully at the handle.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
‘I’m not staying here. I’m definitely not marrying you.’
‘So you keep saying, but that changes nothing. You cannot leave Jebbai now.’
‘You can’t keep me here. I want to go home.’
‘But not today,’ he said. ‘Not for at least twenty-four hours.’
‘I have to get away,’ she said, half-demanding, half-pleading.
‘You have no choice, as it turns out,’ he snapped, his voice cold and imperious again. ‘The airport is closed.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU’RE lying.’ Her voice seemed surprisingly level under the circumstances. ‘This is just some pathetic attempt to keep me here. But it won’t work. I’m leaving.’
‘Unfortunately it’s true. Insurgents from neighbouring Jamalbad have been stirring up trouble along the border. This is the second such infraction in a few weeks—the first happened while we were en route from Milan. It seems someone thought that my absence then was an opportune time to stir up trouble.’
She thought back to the plane flight, his sudden disappearance, the urgent discussions going on around the communications equipment.
‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Yet in spite of that danger, you still brought me here.’
‘I would never have brought you here if I’d thought it was serious. My guards believed they’d dealt with the problem. It now appears they missed the ringleaders. They’ve still been out there, stirring up trouble. We’ve closed the airport as a precautionary measure.’
‘For an entire day?’
He shrugged. ‘It is best to be prudent—perhaps it will be closed for less.’
She looked ruefully down at the suitcase and let go of the handle. It was like letting go of a lifeline. He’d told her she would be safe here. Now she couldn’t get away even when she wanted to.
And how she wanted to.
She wanted to be as far away from this desert ruler as possible. Her previous life had never seemed calm—the fashion industry was madness as well as maddening, but compared to the way her feelings and emotions were being tossed about now it was a cakewalk.
She didn’t want to stay near Khaled. If his scheming methods to get her here weren’t frightening enough, his quiet declaration that he didn’t have to force her to marry him and that she would come to him of her own accord scared her even more.
He was kidding himself! Not that she wanted to hang around to prove his theory wrong. But neither did she want to stay and be subjected to the pull of his fiery magnetism.
She couldn’t trust herself to resist it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I promise you will be safe. That’s why I came to see you today. I wanted you to hear it from me, to assure you that we are dealing with the problem and that Jebbai will soon be returned to its former peaceful existence.’
‘And what of my former peaceful existence?’ she said. ‘When will I be returned to that?’
She looked so fragile right then, her blue eyes foggy with vulnerability and defeat, and he felt her anguish deep inside, in a place he’d long thought shrivelled and empty.
