Tropical Temptation: Exotic Affairs

‘Did you play out here?’ Grace asked. ‘When you were a child?’

Khalis shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’

‘With your brother?’

‘Not really. With my.’ A second’s pause. ‘With my sister.’

‘I didn’t realise you had a sister.’

‘She died.’

‘Oh!’ Grace turned around. Even in the darkness she saw how hooded his expression seemed. ‘So your whole family has died,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So has yours.’

‘Yes.’ She felt a shudder run through her. ‘But it must be harder for you, to lose siblings—’

‘I do miss my sister,’ Khalis said, the words seeming to be drawn reluctantly from him, although he spoke with a quiet evenness. ‘I never had a chance to say goodbye to her.’

‘How did she die?’

‘A boating accident, right off the coast here. She was nineteen.’ He sighed, digging his hands into his pockets. ‘She was about to be married. My father had arranged it, but she didn’t like the chosen groom.’

Grace frowned, connecting the pieces, threaded together by the darkness of Khalis’s tone. ‘Do you think it … it wasn’t an accident?’

He didn’t answer for a long moment. ‘I don’t know. I hate to think that, but she was determined in her own way, and it would have been a way to escape the marriage.’

‘A terrible way.’

‘Sometimes life is terrible,’ Khalis said, and his voice was bleak. ‘Sometimes there are only terrible choices.’

‘Yes,’ Grace said quietly. ‘I think that’s true.’

He gave her a wryly sorrowful smile, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. ‘I never speak of my sister. Not to anyone. What is it about you, Grace, that makes me say things I wouldn’t say to another soul? And want to say them?’

She shook her head, her heart thudding treacherously. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you feel it?’ he asked in a low voice, and in the soft darkness of the garden she couldn’t deny or pretend.

‘Yes,’ she said, the word no more than a thread of sound.

‘It scares you.’

Of course it does. She took a deep breath. ‘I told you before, I can’t—’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Khalis said almost roughly. ‘You think this is easy for me and hard for you?’

‘No—’ Yet she realised she had thought that. He seemed so relaxed and assured, so comfortable with what stretched and strengthened between them, and she was the only one quaking with nerves and memories and fear. She let out a wobbly laugh. ‘Maybe it’s just the island.’

‘The island?’

She gestured to the dense fragrant foliage around them. ‘It’s like a place and time apart, separate from reality. We can say what we want here. Feel what we want.’

‘Except,’ Khalis said quietly, ‘I don’t think you know what you want to feel.’

She felt a sudden spark of anger. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘Am I wrong?’

She swallowed and looked away. ‘I already explained to you—’

‘You didn’t explain anything,’ Khalis said, cutting her off. He sighed, stepping towards her, his hand resting on her shoulder. ‘Life hasn’t been very fair to you, has it, Grace?’

She tensed under his touch, as well as his assumption. ‘Life isn’t very fair,’ she said in a low voice.

‘No,’ Khalis agreed. His hand was warm and heavy on her shoulder, a comforting weight she longed to lean into. ‘Life isn’t very fair at all. I think we’ve both learned that the hard way.’

Her whole body tensed, fighting the desire to lean into him. It was like trying to resist a magnetic force. ‘Maybe,’ she said, the word half-strangled.

‘And here we are,’ he mused softly, ‘two people completely alone in this world.’

Her throat tightened with emotion. This man made her feel so much. ‘I feel alone,’ she whispered, the words drawn from her painfully. She almost choked on them. ‘I feel alone all the time.’

His hand still rested on one shoulder, and he laid his other hand on her shoulder and drew her gently to him. ‘I know you do,’ he said quietly. ‘So do I.’ She rested in the circle of his arms for a moment, savouring the closeness as she breathed in the woodsy scent of his aftershave, felt the comforting heat of his body. It felt so good, so safe, and it would be so easy to stay here, or even to tilt her head up for him to kiss her. So easy, and so dangerous.

Think what you have to lose.

Resolutely she turned away from him, jerking away from his grasp, not wanting him to see the storm of unwilling need she knew would be apparent on her face. She plunged down the twisting path, only to stop abruptly when it ended against a stone wall. The wall that surrounded the villa, the moon illuminating the evil shards of broken glass on its top, reminding her that she was a prisoner. Always a prisoner.

In a sudden burst of fury, Grace slapped her hands against the stone, her palms stinging, as if she could topple it over. ‘I hate walls,’ she cried in frustration, knowing it was a ridiculous thing to say, to think, yet feeling it with every breath and bone.

‘Then let’s leave them behind,’ Khalis said and reached for her hand. Too surprised to resist, she let him lead her away from the wall and down another dark path.

Khalis kept hold of her hand as he guided her down several paths and then finally to a door. The high, forbidding wall had a door, and Khalis possessed the key. Grace watched as he activated the security system, first with his fingerprint and then a number code, before swinging the door open and leading her out to freedom.

The air felt cooler, fresher and more pure without the walls. Khalis led her away from the compound and down a rocky little path towards the shore.

He still held her hand, his fingers wrapped warm and sure around hers as he guided her down the path to the silky sweep of sand. She heard the roar of the waves crashing onto the shore and saw the beach nestled in a rocky cove, now washed in silver.

‘This feels better,’ she said, as if she’d just had a little dizzy spell.

‘Why do you hate walls so much?’

She tugged her hand out of his. ‘Who likes them?’

‘Nobody really, I suppose, but it seems personal to you.’

Grace kept her gaze on the silvered sea. ‘It is. I used to live on an island like this. Private, remote, with high walls. I didn’t like it.’

‘Couldn’t you leave?’

‘Not easily.’

She could feel him staring at her, trying to figure her out, even though her back was to him. ‘Are you saying,’ he asked finally, ‘you were some kind of prisoner?’

She sighed. ‘Not really. Not literally. But other things can imprison you besides walls.’ She turned so she was half-facing him. ‘Hopes. Fears.’ She paused, her gaze sliding to and then locking with his. ‘Mistakes. Memories.’

She felt tension snake through him, even though he kept his voice light. ‘That sounds like psychobabble.’

‘It probably is,’ she admitted with a shrug. ‘But can you really deny this island has an effect on you?’

Khalis didn’t answer for a moment. ‘No,’ he said finally, ‘I can’t.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment, the truth of what he’d said seeming to reverberate through them. ‘What will you do with this place?’ Grace asked eventually. ‘Will you live here?’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘After what you just observed? No, never. Once I’ve finished going through my father’s assets, I’ll sell it.’

‘Will you manage Tannous Enterprises from the States, then?’

‘I don’t intend to manage Tannous Enterprises at all. I’m going to dismantle it and sell it off piece by piece, so no one has that kind of power again.’

‘Sell it?’ Even in the moonlit darkness she could make out the hard set of his jaw, the flintiness in his eyes. ‘I thought you were going to turn it around. Redeem it.’

He looked away from her, out to the sea. ‘Some things can’t be redeemed.’

‘Do you really think so?’ She felt a sudden sorrowful twist of disappointment inside her. ‘I like to think they can. I like to think any … mistake can be forgiven, if not rectified.’

‘My father is not alive for me to forgive him,’ Khalis said flatly. ‘If I even wanted to.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Why should I? Do you know what kind of man my father was?’

‘Sort of, but—’

‘Shh.’ Smiling now, Khalis drew her to him and pressed one finger to her lips. His touch was soft and yet electric, the press of his skin against her lips making the bottom of her stomach seem to drop right out. ‘I didn’t bring you to this moonlit cove to talk about my father.’

‘I could tell you about what I’ve discovered about the panels—’ Grace began. Her heart beat hard in her chest for she could not mistake the look of intent in Khalis’s eyes. Or the answering pulse of longing she felt in herself.

He laughed softly. ‘I didn’t bring you here for that, either.’

Her heart thudded harder. ‘Why, then?’

‘To have you kiss me.’

Shock made her mouth drop right open and he traced the curve of her parted lips with the tip of his finger. A soft sigh escaped her before she could suppress it. ‘Kiss you—’

‘The reaction when I kissed you was not quite what I was hoping for,’ Khalis explained, a hint of humour in his voice although his gaze blazed into hers. ‘So I thought perhaps we’d try it the other way.’

His finger still rested on her mouth, making her dizzy. ‘How do you know I even want to kiss you?’ she challenged.

‘Do you?’

How could she lie? His gaze was hungry and open; he hid nothing. And she hid so much. From him, and even from herself. For even if she didn’t want to want him, she knew she did. And she wouldn’t hide it. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and Khalis waited.

Grace took a shuddering breath. Just one kiss. One kiss no one would ever know about. And then she’d walk away, go back to being safe and strong and independent. Slowly she reached out and touched his cheek, his own hand falling away from her mouth. She took a step towards him so her breasts brushed his chest. He gazed down at her, still, steady. Trustworthy.

Her palm cradled his cheek, the tips of her fingers brushing the softness of his hair. She leaned closer, so her body pressed fully against his and she could feel the hard thrust of his arousal. And then she kissed him.

CHAPTER SIX

HER lips barely brushed his, but Khalis held himself still, and Grace knew he was purposely letting her control the kiss. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel and taste of him. He tasted like mint and whisky, a sensual combination. His lips were soft and yet his yielding touch was firm, so that even though she was in charge she knew it was only because he allowed it. And somehow that made her feel safe rather than threatened or repressed.

Gently she touched her tongue to his lips, exploring the seam of his mouth, the caress a question. She felt a shudder go through him but he didn’t move. She pulled away, blinking up at him with a new shyness. She saw his eyes were closed, his body rigid. He looked almost as if he were in pain, but surely he couldn’t be … unless it was costing him to remain so still.

‘A kiss involves a bit of give and take, you know,’ she told him.

He opened his eyes, giving her a wry smile. ‘I didn’t want to scare you off.’

‘I don’t scare quite that easily.’ At least she hoped she didn’t.

‘No?’ His arms came around her, gently, slowly, giving her time to pull away. She didn’t. She’d allow herself this one moment, that was all. In a minute she’d step away. ‘Good,’ Khalis murmured, and Grace slid her hands up along the hard wall of his chest, lacing her fingers around his neck as she pulled his mouth down towards her. And then she kissed him again, deeply this time, a plunging sensation in her stomach as he responded in kind, their tongues tangling in a blaze of exquisite sensation. When had she last kissed like this? Felt like this?

You know when.

A shudder ran through her, a shudder of both longing and loss. It felt so wonderful and it had been so long, and yet just the memory of a man holding her made the memories rise up, the shame rushing through her in a hot, fast river, along with the desire and the hope. She closed her eyes and kissed Khalis more deeply, pressing herself against him, wanting desperately to banish the memories that taunted her even now.

You kissed a man like this. You wanted a man like this. And it cost you your daughter.

She felt Khalis’s hands span her waist, then slide under her T-shirt. The warmth of his palm against her skin made her shudder again and he stilled, waiting. He was so careful, so caring, yet she could not halt the relentless encroaching of her memories and that cold hard logic that swamped even her desire, and she knew he felt it, too.

‘Grace …?’

She pulled away from him, her head bowed, her hair falling in front of her face. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry.’ He took her chin in his hand so he could study her face. See her blush. ‘We don’t need to rush this, do we?’

Yes, she wanted to say, we do. Because this is all we have.

‘I shouldn’t have kissed you.’

‘It’s a little late for regrets,’ he said wryly and Grace jerked her chin from his hand.

‘I know that.’

‘Why shouldn’t you have kissed me, Grace?’

‘Because—’ Her breath came out in a rush. Because I’m scared. Of so many things. Of losing myself in you, and losing my daughter as well. How could she explain all that? She couldn’t, didn’t want to, because to explain was to open herself up to all kinds of vulnerability and pain. She just shook her head.

Khalis let out a slow breath, the sound of controlled impatience. ‘Are you married or something?’

She forced herself to meet his gaze levelly. ‘No. But I was.’

He stilled, his eyes narrowing. ‘You’re divorced?’

‘Yes.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘It’s … complicated.’

‘That much I could guess.’

She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. Now the wind felt cold. ‘I just can’t be involved with you,’ she said quietly. ‘My marriage wasn’t. It wasn’t happy. And I’m not.’ She let out a little weary sigh. ‘I can’t.’ She stopped again, her throat too tight for any more words.

‘What,’ he asked, ‘would it take for you to trust me?’

Grace turned back to him, and she saw a man who had only been gentle and patient and kind. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘But it doesn’t matter, Khalis. I wish it did matter, in a way. But, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t be in a relationship with you.’ Belatedly she realised he’d never actually said that word. Relationship. It implied not just intimacy, but commitment. ‘Or anything,’ she added hurriedly. ‘There can’t be anything between us.’ And, before he could answer, she walked quickly down the beach, back towards the door and that high, high wall.

That night she slept terribly. Memories came in fragments, as dreams, bizarre and yet making too much sense. Khalis kissing her. Her kissing Khalis. The sweet yearning of it, suddenly obliterated by the shame and guilt as she stared into Loukas’s face so taut with anger, his lips compressed into an accusing line.

How could you do this to me, Grace? How could you betray me so?

With a cry she sat up in bed, the memory roiling through her mind, racking her body with shudders. Knowing she would not be able to get back to sleep, she rose from the bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a light cotton jumper. She piled her hair up with a clip and slipped out of her room, along the cool, dark corridors and downstairs.

The basement felt eerily still in the middle of the night, even though Grace knew it should make no difference. The place had no windows. She switched on the lights and gazed down at the panels laid out on a stainless steel table.

She’d spent most of her time so far authenticating the first painting of Leda and the Swan, but now she let her gaze turn to the second painting, the one that caused a fresh shaft of pain to lance through her. Leda and her children.

Over the centuries there had been speculation about this painting; Leonardo had done several studies, a few sketches of Leda sitting, her face downcast, her children by her side. Yet the reality of the actual painting was far more powerful than any sketch. Unlike the other painting, in this one Leda was seated and clothed, the voluptuous temptress hidden or perhaps forgotten. Two children, Castor and Polydeuces, stood behind her, sturdy toddlers, their hands on her shoulders as if they were anchoring themselves, or perhaps protecting their mother. Clytemnestra and Helen were rotund babies, lolling in Leda’s lap, their angelic faces upturned towards their mother.

And Leda. What was the expression on her face? Was it sorrow, or wistfulness, or even a wary joy? Was there knowledge in those lowered eyes, knowledge of the terrible things to come? Helen would start a war. Castor would die in it. And Clytemnestra would lose a daughter.

Abruptly Grace turned away from the painting. If she worked for a few hours, she could present Khalis with a file of her findings tomorrow, enough for him to go on with, and for her to leave Alhaja. Leave Khalis. And they could both get on with their lives.

Khalis watched as a wan and fragile-looking Grace entered the breakfast room the next morning. She looked as if she’d barely slept, although her pale face was composed and as lovely as ever. She was dressed in a slim-fitting black skirt and white silk blouse and carried a file, and Khalis knew exactly what she was about. After last night’s frustrating and half-finished kiss, he’d expected something like this. He sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee, waiting for her to begin.

‘I’ve completed most of the preliminary tests on the Leonardos.’

‘You have?’

She placed the file on the table, her lips pressed together in determination. ‘Yes. The analyses of the pigments and the wood panels are consistent with the time period that he would have completed these paintings. There are also several—’

‘Grace.’

She stopped, startled, and Khalis smiled at her. ‘You don’t need to give me a lecture. I’ll read the file.’

Her lips thinned even more. ‘All right, then.’

Khalis took a sip of his coffee. ‘So you feel you’ve finished?’

‘I’ve done all that I can do on my own. You really need to call a legal authority to—’

‘Yes, I’ll take care of that.’

She stopped, her eyes narrowing, and Khalis felt a sliver of hurt needle his soul. Did she still not trust him about the damn art? Then slowly, resolutely, she nodded. Acceptance, and he felt a blaze of gratified triumph.

‘Very well.’ She straightened, pressed her hands down the sides of her skirt. ‘Then my work here is done. If you could arrange—’

‘Done? Good.’ Khalis smiled, saw the flash of hurt in her chocolate eyes that was quickly veiled. Suppressed, but he’d seen it and it gave fire to his purpose. No matter what she’d said last night, no matter how her ex-husband had hurt her so badly she trembled at the thought of a kiss, she still wanted to be with him. ‘Then you can take the day off.’

‘What … what do you mean?’

‘A day of leisure, to enjoy yourself. With me.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Your work was expected to take a week. It’s been three days. I think you can take a day off.’

‘I told you before—’

‘One day. That’s all. Surely you can allow yourself that?’

She hesitated, and he saw the longing in her eyes. What, he wondered yet again, kept her from enjoying herself? From living? ‘You want to.’ He leaned forward, not bothering to hide the need he was sure she could see in his eyes. The need he was sure she felt, too. ‘I want to. Please, Grace.’

Still she hesitated. Khalis waited. ‘All right,’ she said at last. She offered him a rather tentative smile. ‘All right.’

Khalis couldn’t keep himself from grinning. ‘Wonderful. You’d better change into something a bit more serviceable, and I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes.’

‘That’s rather quick.’

‘I want to take advantage of every moment with you.’

A flush tinted her cheeks rose-pink and she turned away. ‘One day,’ she murmured, and he couldn’t tell if she was warning him—or herself.

Grace hadn’t brought too many serviceable clothes with her, at least not the kind she thought Khalis had in mind. While working she dressed with discreet professionalism, clothes that were flattering without being obvious. After a few moments’ consideration she chose the slim black trousers and white fitted T-shirt she’d worn earlier in the week, and threw a cardigan in charcoal-grey cashmere over her shoulders, in case the breeze from the sea was strong.

Where could he be taking her? Alhaja Island hadn’t looked that large from the air. Besides the enclosed compound, there were only a few stretches of beach and a tangle of trees. Yet Grace knew it didn’t even matter where he might be taking her, because she simply wanted to be with him—for one day. One day that posed no risk to her heart or her time with Katerina. One day out of time and reality, a memory she would carry with her in all the lonely days and nights ahead.

Khalis was already waiting in the foyer when she came down the stairs, wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt, open at the throat, so Grace’s gaze was inexorably drawn to that column of golden-brown skin, the pulse beating strongly. She jerked her gaze upwards and gave him a tentative smile.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Just to the beach,’ he said, but there was a glint in his eye that told her he had something planned. Grace followed him outside to an open-topped Jeep waiting in the drive. She climbed in and fastened her seat belt as Khalis drove through the forbidding-looking gates and then out along a rutted dirt road that looked to circumnavigate the island.

Grace pushed her hair from her face and shaded her eyes as she glanced at the rocky outcrops and the stretch of golden beach, the sea jewel-bright and winking under the sun in every direction. ‘This island’s not very big, is it?’

‘Two miles long and half a mile wide. Not large at all.’

‘Did you ever feel … trapped? Living here?’

Khalis slid her a speculative glance and Grace pretended not to notice. ‘Yes,’ he answered after a moment, his hands tightening reflexively on the steering wheel, ‘but not because of the island’s size.’

‘Why, then?’

His mouth curved grimly. ‘Because of the island’s inhabitants.’

‘Your father?’

‘Mainly. My brother and I didn’t get along very well, either.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘Ammar was my father’s heir, and my father poured everything into him. He was tough with him, too tough, and I suppose Ammar needed to take it out on someone.’

‘He was a bully? Your brother?’

Khalis just shrugged again. ‘Boarding school was a bit of a relief.’

‘What about your sister?’

He didn’t answer for a moment, and Grace felt the tension in his body. ‘I missed her,’ he finally said. ‘I’m sure she felt more trapped here than I did. My father didn’t believe in educating daughters. He employed a useless governess for a while, but Jamilah never had the opportunities Ammar and I did. Opportunities she would have had if—’ He stopped suddenly, shaking his head. His expression, Grace saw, had become shuttered. Closed. ‘Old memories,’ he said finally. ‘Pointless.’

‘Do you think,’ she asked after a moment, ‘the helicopter crash was an accident?’

‘It’s not outside the realm of possibility that one of his enemies—or even his allies—tinkered with the engine. I don’t know what they would have hoped to gain. Perhaps it was an act of revenge—my father did business with the dregs of every society. People like that tend not to die in their beds.’

Grace felt a chill of trepidation at how indifferent Khalis sounded, as if the way his father and brother had died was a matter of little concern. His attitude towards his family was so different from the affable man she’d come to know and even to trust. Again she glimpsed a core of hard, unyielding iron underneath all that easygoing friendliness. ‘You sound rather heartless,’ she told him quietly.