of her heart-shaped face. ‘I can see,’ he admitted, ‘how that might happen.’ With a last enigmatic non-smiling look, he turned and left without a word.
She expelled the breath she had been holding in one gusty sigh. You had to hand it to the man—he knew how to do an exit! And that cryptic parting comment, what was that about …? Was he saying he would like to marry her?
Not that she cared. Right?
A frown knitting her brow, Eva walked slowly to the window. As she looked down onto the street below she saw Karim emerge.
As she tried to analyse what it was about the way he moved that made something as simple as walking across the street riveting she saw him approach the stationary vehicle.
He tapped the roof and almost immediately two beefy figures emerged.
She gave a little grunt of satisfaction at the sight of the men dressed in jeans and tee shirts. There was nothing at all covert about them; he was wrong!
Her feeling of smug triumph lasted as long as it took them to start bowing obsequiously towards Karim. Even when they stopped their body language remained visibly respectful.
They spoke, or rather listened, for several minutes, then got back into the car.
Karim turned his head and glanced up to her building. Eva guiltily jumped back, biting her lip and almost groaning when she thought about what a fool she must have looked, and she waited a few minutes before looking back out.
There was no sign of Karim or the men in the car.
‘Well …’ she sighed heavily ‘… I think you could safely say that that date did not go well.’
CHAPTER SIX
LOST in her thoughts, her hood pulled over her head to protect against the rain, Eva didn’t see the long, low car with the blacked-out windows until it slowed down, spraying her skirt and boots with muddy water.
‘Great!’ She still had one more dog to deliver to its owner and didn’t know if she would have time to go back to the flat to change before she started her shift in the hotel bar.
‘Get in!’
The terse order made her stumble and forget her wet skirt and mud-spattered legs and the tiny dog she had popped into the conveniently big pocket of her duffel coat. Small in stature but large in personality, the Peke inevitably flagged after playing in the park with the bigger dogs.
She turned her head in disbelief. The voice was the same, but with his jaw cleanly shaven and his head covered in a traditional headdress he looked different from earlier … not different enough to make her consider for one second responding to the command with anything other than a laugh of sheer disbelief.
Ignoring him, she set off, her jaw set, her knees getting less shaky as she strode down the crowded street, hood up, shoulders hunched and staring fixedly ahead. As she weaved her way around people, Eva muttered the occasional rueful sorry when she collided with someone.
While she continued to ignore the car that shadowed her she was aware that the window had rolled up, but it continued its relentless but leisurely pursuit. She kept up a pace that just stopped short of running.
Not a single person came to her aid.
Typical, she thought as a group of teenagers made some laughing comments. I could be kidnapped in broad daylight and nobody would lift a finger. Eva let out a relieved sigh as she approached a busy intersection; the light showed red for pedestrians and green for the lane of traffic that the limousine occupied.
Her relief was short-lived when, rather than proceed, the gleaming monster hugging the kerb came to a total halt beside her, oblivious to the cacophony of hooting horns.
Eva turned her head. This was utterly ridiculous. ‘Go away!’ she wailed above the horns.
The window rolled down.
‘Why are you running away?’
Her chin went up a defiant notch. ‘I am not running away. I’m going home.’
‘Have you thought of taking regular exercise?’ Karim asked, his eyes moving from her flushed cheeks to her heaving bosom.
‘Have you thought of taking a hint?’ she cut back sarcastically. ‘And for your information there’s nothing wrong with my fitness levels.’ It was a shame that the same couldn’t be said of her hormone levels. ‘Even if I don’t have a stomach like a washboard.’ Like you, Eva thought as an inconvenient image of his lean, streamlined body flashed across her vision.
She blinked hard to banish the image and added defiantly, ‘And I happen to think that people, especially men who are obsessed with their bodies, are narcissistic and boring!’
‘So do I.’
She gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Am I meant to believe that your six pack is natural?’
‘I am flattered that my … six pack has occupied your thoughts, but actually I don’t want to discuss my exercise regime.’ He tilted his head back and heard himself say, ‘I like your body.’ What man wouldn’t?
The low husky words had more effect on her breathing than the impromptu cardiovascular workout had. Eva was glad her face was already red as her heart attempted to climb into her throat.
‘Get in, Eva,’ he said, bored irritation in his voice and twin lines of dark colour etched across the crest of his chiselled cheekbones.
‘Yeah,’ yelled the man in the car behind, ‘do us a favour, Eva—for pity’s sake, get in!’ The comment was endorsed by several more voices from inside cars.
The limousine door swung open in silent invitation.
Muttering, ‘I know I’ll regret this,’ Eva threw her bag inside, deriving some satisfaction from the fact it hit him square in the chest before she followed it.
As the car pulled smoothly away from the kerb and into the now slowly moving traffic Eva maintained her grip on the door.
‘You are planning to jump out, possibly?’
Eva ignored the sarcasm and gave up waiting for her breathing to return to normal, finally accepting it wasn’t going to happen while she was in an enclosed space that amplified the testosterone-fuelled-aura thing her travelling companion radiated like a force field.
The car was so ridiculously big that there was no question of anything uncomfortable like touching thighs.
Not that he looked as if he wanted to touch her—strangle her, possibly …? Back rigid, she turned her head slowly, willing her expression to stay neutral. ‘If you have something to say, say it. I want to go home.’
‘That might not be possible.’
Karim saw the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, but a moment later she tilted her chin to a challenging angle. He fought off an unexpected stab of admiration. The lost princess might have a red-headed, bloody-minded attitude, but she also had spirit.
‘Is
