why did she feel that her impulsive approach to him had set something dangerous in motion? Resisting a faint, foolish urge to turn and run, she stole a rapid sideways glance at his face and dragged in a silent breath. A silver wash of starlight emphasised boldly angular features, strong and thrusting and uncompromising.
Dead gorgeous, she thought with involuntary appreciation, her heart picking up speed. In superbly tailored evening clothes he carried himself like an autocrat, his six-foot-several-inches of lean manhood almost intimidating.
Against such steel-hard authority, Felipe’s glamorous sophistication suddenly seemed flashy and superficial.
Sedately, she said, ‘It’s an honour to meet you, sir.’
‘My name is Rafiq.’ He smiled at her, his dark eyes intent.
Lexie’s pulse rate accelerated further, and an odd twist of sensation tightened her stomach. Trying to curb her runaway response, she struggled to remember what she’d read about the man who ruled this small, independent island state.
Not a lot. He didn’t make the headlines, or figure largely in the tabloids. Felipe had referred to him contemptuously as ‘the tinpot fake prince of a speck of land thousands of miles from civilisation.’
But Felipe’s jeering dismissal of the man beside her had been foolish as well as wrong. Rafiq de Couteveille walked in an aura of effortless power based on formidable male assurance.
Her mind jerked away from the memory of the moment that morning when, tired after the long flight from Europe, she’d discovered that Felipe had organised for her to spend the week in a room with him.
It had been a shock. She’d already decided she wasn’t in love with Felipe, and by going back to New Zealand she’d be ending their relationship.
The week in Moraze on her own was to have been a holiday, seven days to reorient herself to her real life as a country vet in Northland. Being met by Felipe at the airport had been unexpected. But when he’d swept her off to the hotel he was staying in, and they’d been shown into a suite with flowers everywhere and a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket prominently displayed, she’d realised with dismay and a certain unease that he’d set the scene for seduction.
Still, she’d been civilised about it, and so had Felipe, when she’d told him that no, she wasn’t going to join him in any sensual fantasy.
He hadn’t argued. Felipe never did. He’d taken her rejection with a smiling shrug, observing that it didn’t matter, that he’d sleep on one of the very comfortable sofas. That was when she’d found out that he’d cancelled her booking at her own, much more modest hotel some miles away. It had been impossible to get a room to herself—it was the holiday season and all the hotels were fully booked, an apologetic clerk told her.
It hadn’t been the first time Felipe had suggested they make love, but before it had always been with a light touch so she’d never felt pressured.
This time there had been something about his humorously regretful acceptance that didn’t ring true; he’d sounded satisfied, almost smug. Oh, she wasn’t afraid, but right now she felt a long way from home, and rather vulnerable and wary, whereas before she’d always been at ease with him.
Well, almost always.
He’d talked her into accompanying him to the party, only to abandon her after the first half-hour. It seemed very like punishment.
Yes, she thought—deliberate and rather vindictive. That sense of unease grew. Because she was out of place in this assembly of famous faces she’d seen in newspapers and gossip columns. Others were complete strangers, but they too wore fabulous clothes and even more fabulous jewels, and they all seemed to know each other.
‘You are all right?’ the man beside her asked in a deep, cool voice that ruffled across her skin like dark velvet.
‘Yes, of course.’ Goodness, was that her voice? Pitched slightly too high, the words had emerged almost breathlessly.
‘Should I apologise for disturbing you and your friend?’ Rafiq de Couteveille asked.
‘No, not at all,’ she said, again too quickly. She fixed her gaze on the lagoon, placid and shimmering beneath the tropical night.
She stole a glance at Rafiq de Couteveille, and a hot shiver worked its way down her spine, igniting her nerves so that she was acutely, almost painfully aware of him. Like her he was looking out across the lagoon, and in the darkness his arrogantly autocratic profile was an uncompromising slash across the star-gemmed sky.
Both he and Felipe were exceedingly good-looking, but the difference between them couldn’t have been greater.
Felipe had dazzled her; after the hard work of proving herself to the Illyrians, he’d accepted her without comment, made her laugh, introduced her to interesting people and generally entertained her with a light touch.
And, until she’d been presented with the fait accompli of that huge double bed, she’d taken him at face value.
Perhaps she should have seen the signs sooner—like the moment, after they’d been seeing each other for a month or so, when he’d noticed she was tired and told her he could get something that would take away her tiredness…if she wanted him to.
After one glance at her stunned expression he’d laughed softly and with affection, before apologising charmingly, saying that he’d only been testing her.
Then she’d believed him. Now she wondered whether he’d been lying. In spite of seeing so much of him, she really didn’t know Felipe at all. Her hands tightened on the balustrade.
‘There is something wrong. Can I help?’
Could Rafiq de Couteveille read minds? ‘I’m fine,’ she said briskly. After all, she didn’t know this man either.
‘Do you know Gastano well?’
‘I’ve known him for a couple of months,’ she said with restraint.
‘It appears you are close to becoming engaged to him.’
‘What?’ He was watching her keenly, those dark eyes uncomfortably piercing. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from,’ she said more forcefully than she’d intended, startled by her instinctive rejection of the possibility.
His straight brows rose, but his voice was smooth when he said, ‘You don’t find the idea of taming a man like that intriguing?’
Turning her gaze to the pool and the gracefully curved trunks of the palms beyond, she said abruptly, ‘I don’t find the idea of taming any man intriguing.’
And she stopped, because this was an odd conversation to have with a man she didn’t know.
‘It’s supposed to be a universal female desire,’ he observed.
A note in his words told her he was amused—and strangely, she found that a relief. ‘Not mine,’ she told him brightly. ‘What made you think that we were about to become engaged?’
‘I heard it somewhere,’ he said. ‘Perhaps whoever was discussing it misunderstood—or possibly I did. So what is your desire?’
The flicker of excitement deep inside her leapt into a flame. He was flirting with her.
She should go back inside. Actually, she should leave this party. But that suite upstairs, with its one huge bed, loomed like a threat. Shrugging off that worry, she smiled up at her companion. Although his lips curved in response, she couldn’t see any humour there. He was watching her, his chiselled face enigmatic in the starlight, his expression speculative.
Did he know what was happening to her? Could he feel it too—that keen awareness, the anticipation, hidden yet potent, the whispered instructions she didn’t dare obey?
Hastily, before she could react to a treacherous impulse to lift herself onto her toes and kiss his excitingly sensuous mouth, she said demurely,