‘You are concerned about what others think, perhaps? I cannot believe that, Sienna—for why reveal your body if you are afraid of people finding out about it? Why allow men to feast their eyes on your nakedness if you then act coy about it?’
‘I’m surprised you bother asking me questions to which you obviously have all the answers,’ she said quietly. ‘Or rather, you have decided you know the answers. You think I am a certain kind of woman— so why don’t we just leave it at that?’
‘Because I am…curious.’
Yes, of course he was. He was fascinated in the same way that people couldn’t help themselves looking at a roadside crash—they didn’t want to be part of it, but something compelled them to watch. ‘Why do you think I didn’t pursue it, Hashim?’
He shrugged. ‘Because I suspect you saw that in the end it would work against you. Would spoil your greatest ambition of all.’
‘And what ambition would that be?’ she asked faintly.
The tip of his forefinger rested thoughtfully against the dark shadow of his jaw. ‘I think that you saw the seamy side of the industry, as girls who expose themselves often do. You anticipated that real dangers existed —and so you decided to work in the real world instead. An honest though a much harder living. But I suspect that you found it even harder than you imagined, and so you looked for an escape—an easier way—easier even than taking your clothes off.’
Sienna flinched. ‘Go on,’ she said, in a pinched kind of voice.
‘You realised that you had an extraordinary gift which few are given. The gift of beauty.’ His voice became cold as he recalled how he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. ‘Sirens had it, and lured sailors to their death. Men are driven mad by beauty. And you decided to use it as women have used their youth and their looks since the beginning of time. As a bargaining tool.’
Sienna swallowed, willing herself to float out from her body—to hover suspended in the air above them, looking down at this horrible little scene to hear the words of vitriol which were spitting from his lips.
‘With you, presumably?’
He shrugged. ‘With me, yes—or with anyone else who happened to fit the bill at the time. I do not flatter myself that I would not have been moved aside if somebody even richer than I had stepped into the frame. You wanted a wealthy benefactor and for that you decided to play the Cinderella role. You chose a humble job as a receptionist, where your beauty stood out like…’ He frowned, as if he was trying to remember something, the ebony brows knitting together, and then his face cleared. ‘Ah, yes! Like a diamond in the rough,’ he said softly. ‘Hoping and praying and plotting that someone would sweep in and take you away from all that.
‘And I must say that you were very good,’ he continued, eyeing her thoughtfully. ‘Even I was taken in by your deceit. You really did come over as an innocent and unspoilt girl. In a way, I suppose I should commend you for your acting ability!’
‘Your English is quite perfect, Hashim,’ she said unsteadily.
‘I know it is,’ he agreed arrogantly. ‘I had an English tutor as a young child, and I am as fluent in your language as I am in my own. But why do you change the subject, Sienna?’
‘Why do you think?’ She felt as she imagined battered wives might feel. That after a while the punches no longer seemed to hurt. Insult someone enough and eventually the slurs would simply run off their skin like water. Let him rant and have his poisonous say, and then it would be over.
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘And still you do not contradict me?’
‘What’s the point? You are the worst kind of bigot—for you do not open your mind to the possibility that you might be wrong. You have made your mind up that something is so—and therefore it must be. I’m a topless model without any morals, and now it seems I’m an old-fashioned gold-digger to boot! Nothing will change the way you view me—so why should I even bother trying?’
‘Because you have no defence against what I say!’ he accused.
‘We aren’t in a court of law!’
‘No, but that is where you might have ended up!’ he declared hotly. ‘In the end you did make the right choice—even though you have had to work hard for a living. But the women who continue along that path so often end up compromised. Next time—or the time after that—the photos that you agreed to do would not have been so tasteful. You would have got older, and as your youth faded you would have become more desperate. Soon you would have accepted less and less for more and more. And one day you might have ended up fully naked on some garage mechanic’s wall in one of those explicit shots—’
‘You bastard!’ she hissed.
‘But that is where you are wrong, Sienna. Your barb does not offend me because it is untrue—my birth was completely legitimate. Whereas what I say to you is true. The facts are indisputable.’
Sienna lifted a hand to the waiter who had begun to hover anxiously on the periphery of her vision. ‘A glass of red wine, please.’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘You did not storm off,’ he observed. ‘As I suspected you might.’
Sienna shook her head. Her legs would not have carried her anywhere. She took the wine from the waiter and drank a large mouthful. Gradually its warmth and vitality began to seep through veins which felt as though they had been injected with ice.
‘Why does it bother you so?’ she questioned. ‘Haven’t you had girlfriends with questionable pasts before?’
‘Of course I have. But they did not pretend to be something they weren’t.’
There had been women who had made no secret of their hunger for his body and his money. And there had been actresses, too—of course there had—including one who had starred in a film which had broken the mould at the time. Some of the critics had called it soft porn. But none of that had mattered—they had just been cheap flings. What he’d seen had been what he’d got, and he had accepted that.
With Sienna it had been different—or at least he’d thought it had. They had been much more serious about each other. And when the sordid truth had been revealed to him he had felt outraged. It had made him question himself—he who had never had to question anything.
To a man impervious to self-doubt it had been a hard lesson to learn—that his judgement was not infallible —but ultimately it had made him stronger. And if there had still been one small fragment of his character which had believed in the fantasy of the perfect woman, then she had banished it for ever. He would never make that mistake again.
‘What if…?’ Sienna hesitated, feeling as if she was fighting for more than just her self-respect. She couldn’t bear it when he looked at her that way— with such cold condemnation written in his eyes. ‘What if you could understand my reasons for having done the photos?’
‘Greed is never difficult to understand!’
‘You have to understand that it wasn’t like that— it really wasn’t! I needed the money urgently.’ She sucked in a breath and it felt like hot fire scorching down her throat. Would he believe her? ‘To pay for an operation for my mother.’
