to even try?’ she challenged.
‘Maybe not,’ he admitted, for it was impossible not to answer that lancing question in her green eyes.
Sienna nodded, forcing herself to voice the bitter truth. She had allowed passion to cloud her vision, but now that passion had passed it was achingly clear. ‘You see women as commodities,’ she whispered. ‘To be used for passing pleasure but little else, other than maybe one day motherhood.’ And she felt a stupid great yearning as she realised that Hashim would never put her in that category. Not in a million years. A woman who had allowed herself to be photographed in that way, a woman who had fallen oh-soeasily into his arms, was merely a woman to be discarded. And the aching sense of longing for something she could never have washed over her in a bitter tide.
He could feel her retreating from him—not just mentally, but physically, too, and that reawakened the desire which had been obscured by his startling discovery. He was used to calling the shots, and by rights he should have been the one to distance himself from her now. Or not.
‘Ah, Sienna,’ he murmured, and reached out his hand to cradle her face. ‘What is done is done. Is it not a little late in the day for words of recrimination?’
Involuntarily Sienna trembled—for the touch of his skin was soft and warm and exquisite to behold. It had the power to lure her back into that place of unimaginable pleasure. But at what cost? She shook his hand away and sat up.
‘Yes, you’re right, it is. I should have said all this before.’
‘But you could not!’ he breathed triumphantly. ‘For you were as much in thrall to me as I to you! What just happened between us was as inevitable as the passing of night through to day. I knew that.’
‘Well, we’re all entitled to make mistakes,’ she said woodenly. ‘And anyway, we’re wasting time, sitting around here talking. Your guests will be arriving very soon and I suggest that we both of us try to tidy up.’ She reached up her hand to feel the bird’s nest mess of her hair, wondering how the hell she was going to tame it down.
She was surprised that he wasn’t leaping around fretting. He hadn’t once mentioned the no-show of the staff. Or the fact that his guests would be upon them shortly. And then something else occurred to her—dripping into her thoughts like slow poison— something which in its way was almost as bad as what she had just let happen. She could feel the heavy plummeting of her heart as everything clicked into disturbingly sharp focus.
Oh, no.
How could she have been so stupid?
Slowly, she turned her head to stare at him. ‘But there aren’t going to be any guests—are there, Hashim?’
He met the accusation in her eyes but he did not flinch from it. ‘No.’
‘There were never going to be any guests, were there?’
‘No.’
She geared herself up for the next blow, knowing the answer to her question before she asked it. ‘And the staff? The staff I so carefully vetted and booked but who didn’t bother to show?’
‘I allowed them to prepare for the dinner, so that your suspicions would not be alerted, and then I cancelled them.’
‘You cancelled them,’ she said slowly, feeling sickened by the sheer cold-bloodedness of his plan. ‘Just like that?’
He shrugged. ‘It was not difficult. I paid them in full.’
‘You paid them in full?’ she repeated, her voice shaking, haunted by the thought that she had followed suit. Fallen into line and done exactly what Hashim had wanted. What he had planned. He had lured her into a sensual trap which she had embraced with all the enthusiasm of the convert. She felt the hot sting of hurt but she would not allow it to be converted to tears. She would not cry in front of him.
‘You snapped your fingers and everybody jumped, I expect. You and your damned money and your damned power,’ she whispered. He had tricked her into organising a party just so that he could seduce her—how low could a man sink? And how could she have let him? How could she? The true extent of his deception brought fire into her voice.
‘You think you can just pick people up and use them, move them around like pawns and then throw them off the board when you’ve finished with them?’ she raged.
Hashim listened, waiting patiently for the storm to pass. Let her rage be spent, and then afterwards let her see sense. Realise that what had passed between them had been magnificent and that to let it go would be a waste of the highest order. Why, he could take her upstairs to one of the magnificent bedrooms, where they could continue to take their pleasure. Her anger would soon be forgotten after a night in his arms!
‘Sienna—’
‘No!’ she said fiercely, pushing away from him and scrambling to her feet. She had seen the brief darkening of his eyes, and she might be new to this game but she knew exactly what it meant. And did she trust herself around him? No, she did not. Her spirit might be fighting all the way, but around Hashim her flesh was as weak as it could be.
She moved as far away from him as possible. There was no dignified way of adjusting her dress and her panties, but she did her damnedest, raking her fingers back through the hair which had tumbled in untidy tendrils all down the side of her long neck.
And at least she had the enjoyment of seeing Hashim get to his feet and begin to rearrange his clothing, his face now tight with obvious displeasure and a simmering kind of anger. Or was it merely frustration?
She walked out into the hall, all the warmth and comfort and pleasure evaporating from her body like raindrops on a scorching pavement. And then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and recoiled at the sight of her flushed cheeks and mussed hair— the definite look of someone who had been rolling around the place.
How could she? Oh, how could she?
She picked up her handbag and a silken voice stopped her in her tracks.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ he questioned softly.
Composing her face, she turned round, and suddenly she didn’t care what he tried to threaten her with. Just let him try. Nothing could be worse than what she had just allowed to happen, despite all her supposedly good intentions. ‘Home,’ she said crisply. ‘Where else?’
‘You could come home with me.’
Sienna almost choked. ‘I’d rather spend the night in a lions’ cage! And anyway—I wouldn’t call a luxury hotel suite a home! It isn’t yours, it’s anonymous —just like this place. There’s nothing of you there, Hashim. A luxurious room with no soul. And that’s your life. Empty.’
For a moment a dark shadow passed across his heart. She dared to say this to him? To accuse him of an empty life? He, who had palaces and oil fields and people scattered all over the world who were eager to do his bidding? No woman had ever dared say such a thing to him. She was daring to look at him and speak to him as no woman ever had before …almost as his equal. Again he felt the sensation of being on unfamiliar territory, and his mouth hardened in anger.
‘I forbid you to go!’
‘Well, you can’t. You don’t own me. You don’t even employ me any more. I’ve done what you asked and now I’m leaving.’
His eyes narrowed as he glanced around the carved wooden interior of the airy hall. ‘And what of this house and your obligation to it?’ he demanded.
‘It’s not my concern. Not any more. You sort it out! Here!’ And she flung the keys at him.
He caught them one-handed, realising that she meant exactly what she said. She was leaving! Walking out on him even though she had been sobbing out his name only moments before. And suddenly he was filled with a reluctant kind of admiration which only renewed the subtle throbbing of desire. ‘Has anyone