nights working with his government and the security service. He looked at Lexie’s intelligent face and thought wearily that, just for once, he wished she’d accept the easy answer.
But that wasn’t Lexie. And he owed her the truth before they moved on from this.
‘He was an arrogant man, vain and secretly insecure,’ he said austerely. ‘Possibly because he was illegitimate; the title he used was not his but his half-brother’s, who died in suspicious circumstances.’
Horrified, she demanded, ‘You mean—did he murder his brother?’
‘I don’t know. I think not—but the real count died of a drug overdose.’
‘Nothing—not growing up illegitimate, not anything—excuses dealing in drugs.’
She stopped, acutely conscious that her own father had killed without compunction, and spent years plundering a country at the whim of inner demons that nothing else could satisfy.
Rafiq filled in her sudden silence. ‘Who knows the secret workings of a man’s mind?’ he said sombrely. ‘I’m not sorry he is dead, not sorry I’ve spent the past two years working to bring him down. His damned drugs have killed more people and ruined more lives than anyone can count.’
He paused, and she looked up to meet his narrowed eyes. ‘But I am very sorry you were caught up in it. That was never my intention.’
‘I understand now why you acted the way you did.’ she said abruptly, ‘I didn’t know he planned to marry me. I had no intention of marrying him.’
Soon she’d leave Moraze, and once she got home she’d be able to put this behind her, she thought. How could she blame Rafiq for doing what he could to protect his subjects and his sister’s memory? He wouldn’t be the man she loved if he’d done anything else.
His seduction of her might have been coldly calculated, but set against the misery and degradation that Felipe had already caused, and the prospect of him using Moraze as a staging post for his filthy merchandise, she couldn’t blame Rafiq for using whatever weapons he had.
She looked at him and asked slowly, ‘Did you know he planned to marry me?’
‘I learned of it after you came here,’ Rafiq said curtly.
‘If you knew that, you must have known I wasn’t in any danger from him. Why on earth did you come unarmed to the sugar mill?’ Lexie asked, furious with him all over again for taking such a risk.
‘It wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed. I was almost certain he wouldn’t kill me.’
‘How could you be so sure?’ she demanded, her voice angry. ‘You had no right to put yourself at risk like that!’
He sent her a sardonic glance. ‘To my knowledge he had never actually murdered anyone himself. There was always someone to do it for him, you see. It is much easier to say “get rid of this person” than actually do the act yourself. Besides, after seeing me kiss you the night before, he judged that he could use you as leverage to force me to do what he wanted here on Moraze. I couldn’t allow that to happen.’
He frowned, and she felt her heart bump into overdrive, singing with a painful joy because she loved him. He didn’t love her; it was his overdeveloped sense of responsibility that had brought him to her rescue.
In a hard voice he resumed. ‘The snipers had a fix on him—you didn’t need to recklessly throw yourself in the path of danger by kicking at him.’
‘You were the reckless one,’ she retorted, stung. ‘You had no weapons, and just acting on the hunch that he wouldn’t kill either of us was sheer madness.’
His broad shoulders lifted. ‘It was a desperate situation,’ he said calmly. ‘Besides, Moraze has been my responsibility for more years than I care to count; I owe it much.’
And there, she thought wearily, was her answer in a nutshell: everything he’d done, including seducing her, had been for the honour of his sister and the protection of his country. Everything—their passionate lovemaking, the hours of honey and fire in his arms, the slow discovery of each other—had been an unspoken lie.
For him. Not for her. She was leaving her heart in his keeping—unnoticed, unwanted, but lost to her for ever.
Rafiq’s face hardened even further. In a cold, controlled voice, he said, ‘I will not insult you with excuses for my actions. At first I suspected that you were his lover—’
‘With no proof,’ she flashed.
His eyes didn’t soften. ‘It seemed more likely than not. And I deliberately manipulated circumstances to separate you from him—partly because, although I knew him to be dangerous, I didn’t know how he’d react when he realised that his empire was shattering around him.’
‘And partly to keep his mind off the fact that it was happening,’ she said, engulfed by intense tiredness.
His mouth compressed, but he agreed calmly, ‘That too.’
‘It was a clever move, and it worked. He must have been furious when he realised you were just as capable as he was of separating sex from the things that really matter.’
She’d intended her words to cut, but Rafiq shrugged them off without any visible reaction. ‘I must also apologise to you.’
Pride wasn’t much armour, but it was all she had left, and it drove her to forestall the inevitable. ‘I’m glad you achieved what you wanted. And although it’s a terrible thing to say, I can’t be sorry that Felipe is dead.’
Because she suspected that Rafiq would never have been safe if the other man had lived; the count’s ego and malice would have seen him work to bring down the man who’d bested him.
She hesitated. ‘It gives me the creeps to know I once thought he was fun to be with.’
‘He traded on his charm and his savoir faire.’ He dismissed Gastano with a single movement of his hand and looked at her. ‘Forget about him. My government and I have worked hard to contain the fallout from all this, and succeeded in great part. Now that it is over, there is one thing left for me to do.’
Eyes widening, she watched him come towards her, his eyes hooded and unreadable in his hard face. Her heart began to beat faster, and the hope she’d thought so dead burst into flames inside her. Uncertainly she said, ‘What—what is that?’
He stood for a moment, looking down at her with a hooded gaze. Was he going to suggest they continue their affair?
What would she answer? Part of Lexie wanted nothing more than to lose herself again in the fiery passion summoned by his lightest touch. But any affair with him would eventually end, leaving her bereft.
He said gravely, ‘I have never done this before, so perhaps I am clumsy, but I would like very much for you to marry me, Lexie.’
Sheer untrammelled joy fountained through her, and then—as quickly as it had come—faded. The photograph of his sister, virginal and betrayed, flashed in front of her eyes.
He’d been shocked and startled to discover that Lexie
