careful—be very careful—her mind warned, but she knew her heart wasn’t going to listen. Her emotions seemed to be riding a roller coaster, the gentle acceptance of the day banished by a cocktail of adrenalin and anticipation pulsing like drugs through her veins.
At the bottom of the staircase she spared a compassionate glance for the photograph of his sister Hani. Why didn’t he mention her?
Perhaps the grief of her untimely death was still too raw.
When she entered the salon, Rafiq was talking into a mobile phone, speaking with forceful authority in the local Creole French.
He looked up as she came in, and to Lexie’s astonishment, and a forbidden, heady delight, she got her look—a green glitter of stunned, intense desire.
Only for a moment—he gathered himself together almost immediately—but her foolish, wayward heart rejoiced while he terminated the conversation and snapped the phone shut.
For the rest of her life she’d hug to her heart the memory of that split second of passionate hunger.
‘That colour does amazing things to you.’ His voice was controlled and level. ‘Do you understand French?’
‘No. I do speak Maori.’ And Illyrian, but she wasn’t going to admit to that—it could lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.
They took the coast road to the new hotel. Lexie looked around her with interest when they drove in, making a small sound of pleasure at the flowers and festoons of coloured lights that decorated the place.
From beside her Rafiq said, ‘There are always two openings for any new hotel on Moraze. The first is for the people who actually do the building, and then there is a more formal one, like the one you attended the other night, where publicity is a factor. That was rather stuffy; this will not be.’
The year she’d spent in Illyria had accustomed Lexie to royal occasions, but the moment she walked in with Rafiq she realised how right he was—this was indeed something special.
Smiles and cheers and applause greeted their arrival. Without the burden of being the only child of the dictator who’d terrorised the onlookers, it wasn’t difficult to smile back, to relax in the warmth of their greetings.
Until she saw a face she recognised.
She must have flinched, because Rafiq demanded sharply, ‘What is it? You are not well?’
‘I’m perfectly all right.’ After all, why on earth should she be afraid of Felipe Gastano?
He came towards them with a smile on his too-handsome face, and the air of someone completely sure of his welcome. ‘Dearest Alexa,’ he said smoothly as he bent to kiss her cheek.
Rafiq pulled her a little closer to his side and the unwanted kiss went awry.
Something glittered a second in Felipe’s pale eyes, but the smile stayed fixed as he nodded to Rafiq. ‘I am sorry,’ he said in an apologetic tone that grated across Lexie’s nerves. ‘I was so pleased to see an old friend that I forgot protocol. Sir, it is a pleasure to be here on this auspicious occasion.’
Rafiq said, ‘We’re pleased to see you here.’
An apparently sincere greeting, yet somehow the calm words lifted the hairs on the back of Lexie’s neck. She sensed a very strong emotion beneath his glacial self-control, and wondered if she was the cause of it.
Felipe didn’t seem to notice. Still smiling, he transferred his gaze to Lexie, held her eyes a moment, then turned back to Rafiq. ‘I thought I’d like to see whether my friend Alexa was enjoying all that Moraze has to offer its guests.’
Lexie stiffened, wondering exactly what he meant by those enigmatic words.
The noise level soared suddenly, fuelled by a group of musicians who’d gathered around a bonfire blazing on the sand.
‘I hope you enjoy the evening,’ Rafiq said coolly. ‘After a few short, official speeches there will be dancing on the beach.’ His narrow smile gleamed. ‘Our local dances are a feature of the entertainment here.’
‘I’m sure I shall find them very interesting,’ Felipe said, fixing Lexie with a significant look.
She met it with hard-won composure, both relieved and glad when he stepped back to let another couple be introduced.
As Rafiq had promised, the official part of the evening was short, punctuated by champagne toasts and much good cheer, and then the party really got going. Down on the beach, the band struck up again in impressive rhythm, guitars and keyboards vying with older in struments—a triangle, gourds with seeds inside, and an insistent drum.
‘The hotel dancing troupe will do a demonstration first, but later everyone will join in,’ Rafiq told her as the crowd moved onto the sand, the better to watch the spectacle. ‘You will find it a little different from western dancing; in the sanga, people do not touch.’
Watching the dancers—women in brightly coloured cropped tops and full skirts that reached their ankles, and men in white pirate shirts knotted at the waist above tight breeches—Lexie decided they didn’t need to.
Because the sanga was erotic enough to melt icebergs.
The women began it, holding out their full skirts while they approached the men with sensuous, shuffling steps. They swayed to the music, bare feet moving in an intricate rhythm, smiles bold and challenging as they danced from one partner to another, choosing and discarding until eventually they settled on one particular man.
When that had happened, the drum beats began to build to a crescendo and the dance took an even more provocative turn. Both women and men taunted and teased their partners, hip movements suggesting a much more intimate encounter, smiles becoming slow and languid as the dancers gazed into each other’s eyes.
The insidious spell of the dance—the rhythm set up by the drums and the primitive imperative of the fire, the heat and the gorgeous, primal colours of the women’s full, flounced skirts—set fire to something basic and untamed within Lexie. Her cheeks burned and her eyelids were heavy and slumbrous.
And then, with the drumbeats reaching a frenzied climax, only to abruptly halt, the world seemed suspended in dramatic silence. After several seconds people began to applaud, releasing the dancers from the erotic spell of their own contriving. Many relaxed, laughing, calling out jests to the crowd; others walked off together—still not touching, Lexie noticed.
Carefully avoiding Rafiq’s scrutiny, she looked across the leaping flames of the bonfire and met Felipe Gastano’s cynical smile.
She nodded, wishing she’d never been so silly as to go out with him, wishing—oh, wishing a lot of foolish things, she thought bracingly, trying to still the constant thrumming of her heart.
No wonder people talked of going troppo! This had to be the dangerous enchantment of the tropics.
As though sensing her restlessness, Rafiq said, ‘Would you like to see around the hotel? The gardens and pool area are magnificent.’
‘I’d love to,’ she said, grateful for the chance to get away from too many interested eyes.
They
