asked if Gerard thought she was unbalanced; this certainly couldn’t be normal. She groaned softly as she turned over on her side to await the appearance of the all-knowing doctor. Well, one thing was certain; there was no way, no way at all, she was leaving this place with Gerard Dumont, sister or no sister.
They left the clinic at precisely half-past three in the afternoon, and after the relative coolness of the air-conditioned building the white heat outside was overpowering.
‘All right?’ Gerard’s eyes were tight on her face as they walked to his car, a low-slung sports model in jet black that looked as if it would bite if provoked.
‘Fine.’ She wasn’t, of course. The heat was amazing but it was the dazzling brilliance of the blazing light that was causing problems, sending sharp little pinpricks of pain through her head as though it were being methodically stabbed with a keenly pointed blade. But even that wasn’t the main reason for the trembling that seemed to have taken over her limbs and the palpitations that were causing a violent, irregular beating of her heart and a sick churning in her stomach. It was him. This virile, overwhelmingly masculine man at her side who dwarfed her not inconsiderable height by a good six inches and exuded an air of pure unadulterated sensual magnetism that was both dangerous and darkly attractive.
Why had she ever agreed to leave with him? she asked herself silently as she slid into the beautiful car just as her legs felt as though they wouldn’t support her for another second. She hadn’t meant to. But somehow... somehow he had swept all her objections aside with cool logic and a distant kind of friendliness that reassured even as she wondered if it were genuine. The call from his sister had helped too. She glanced at him now as he slid into the car at her side. ‘Why did you ask Colette to phone me?’ she asked tentatively. ‘I mean—’
‘I know what you mean,’ he said mockingly as the sleek car growled into life. ‘And you are right, partly...’ He turned to eye her briefly, his face cynical and closed. ‘You thought I had used her to promote what I wanted, is that it?’ She stared at him without answering, wondering if it were too late to jump out of the car and run back to the relative protection of the impersonal clinic. ‘Well, maybe I did, but it is for your own good, let me make that perfectly clear. This is a foreign country, or we’ll assume it is a foreign country until we find out differently,’ he added as she opened her mouth to make that very point, ‘and one does not always play by the Marquis of Queensbery’s rules here.’ The tawny gaze was glittering now, reflecting the sun’s brilliance as he held her wide grey eyes mesmerised. ‘You are very definitely the bird with the broken wing at the moment, however much you dislike the analogy, and as such prey to all kinds of dangers. Do you know that in some quarters you would fetch a king’s ransom?’
‘What?’ She couldn’t believe she’d heard right for a moment.
‘Make no mistake about it.’ His mouth was harsh now as his gaze wandered over the red-brown hair and pale creamy skin. ‘With your English looks and that air of untouched virginity, you would be snapped up within days.’ He leant back in the seat as her mouth twisted in disbelief. ‘You do not believe me? That alone tells me I was right. A babe among wolves...’
Was he going to sell her to some sheikh or white-slave trader? Was that it? She stared at him dumbly, unaware of the terror in her eyes. She had authorisation from the police to stay with him. They knew where to contact her. Lots of people did. Surely he wouldn’t have organised all that if he intended—
‘Colette exists.’ His voice was very dry now as he read her thoughts. ‘My home exists. I am a perfectly normal man who would not have slept particularly well at night if I had let you be cast adrift into an uncertain world. The telephone conversation with Colette was satisfactory?’
‘Colette?’ She pulled her thoughts together and moistened paper-dry lips carefully. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘You can spend some time talking with a female companion of your own age and perhaps something will be remembered, a spark that will unlock the door, yes?’ He put a very large hand over hers resting on her knees, and she forced herself not to jerk away although his touch fired the alarm button. ‘Now we have to drive to the small airfield where my plane is waiting. It will not take long.’
‘Your plane?’ She began to feel slightly hysterical. This wasn’t happening to her, it couldn’t be. She still wasn’t quite sure how she came to be sitting in this prowling beast of a car with its master, anyway. As his hands moved to the leather-clad steering-wheel and he manoeuvred the powerful car out of the tiny hospital car park, she forced herself to think rationally, to get her emotions under control. She had made enquiries, independent enquiries, that morning with the police and the surprisingly sympathetic doctor, who had spent some considerable time with her trying to probe for something, anything, from her past, all to no avail.
She had discovered Gerard Dumont was an eminently respected businessman in Morocco, owning several businesses in Casablanca, Essaouira and Marrakesh involving the processing of fish and fruit, as well as his own fleet of freighters for goods to be sent overseas, and homes in each of the towns. He was enormously wealthy, a dignified and decorous citizen of the land his parents had moved to before he was born and altogether, according to her reports, a paragon of virtue. Except... Her eyes narrowed as she remembered the doctor’s hesitation when she had asked if Gerard was married or involved with a particular woman.
‘Not a particular woman, no...’ The doctor had smiled carefully after a long moment of silence. ‘But he is a young man in the prime of life; obviously there are stories...’
‘Stories?’ she had squeaked nervously, but the elderly man had not allowed himself to be drawn into a discussion about such an illustrious personage, parrying her questions adroitly until she had to give up gracefully. He had told her Gerard’s parents had died many years before, that his sister was engaged to be married to a French Moroccan of impeccable breeding, and that if she accepted Gerard’s invitation, which the doctor made clear he thought was an extremely generous and benevolent one, she would be treated with great respect and care as befitted the guest of such an important man. The phone call from Colette had clinched her indecision. Gerard’s sister had sounded so bubbly and natural and genuinely concerned about her misfortune and anxious to help. It had all seemed cut and dried...until she had seen him again. Then all the doubts and fears returned with renewed vigour.
‘You do not like me much, little one, do you?’ It was a statement, not a question, and after one darting glance at the harsh profile she decided silence was definitely the best policy. There was nothing she could say, after all. She didn’t like him; in fact everything about him grated on her like barbed wire even though she kept telling herself it was the height of ingratitude when he had been so kind. His height, the powerful masculine body, his arrogance and total domination of everything and everyone around him... It bothered her. Bothered her and frightened her and—She shut off her thoughts abruptly. She didn’t trust him. Not an inch. She didn’t know why and probably there was no foundation for how she felt, but it was a fact.
She glanced again at his face and saw that the hard mouth was curved in a cynical, mocking smile. And that grated too.
‘I will be interested to find out who you are, my sharp-clawed kitten,’ he said softly after a few miles had passed in complete silence, the atmosphere tense and taut. ‘I like honesty in people, men and women, and you are not short of that commodity.’
‘You do?’
‘I do.’ She heard the thread of amusement in the dark seductive voice, and bit her lip tightly. ‘I am clearly the lesser of two very real evils and it is a long time since I have been cast in such a role, especially by a woman.’ The glittering gold eyes moved swiftly over
