under the circumstances—I fail to see why you are still here. Surely for a woman in your profession time is money? Or did you think I might be persuaded to keep you on for tonight as well?’
‘Are you trying to suggest that I’m a prostitute?’ Gwynneth demanded in disbelief.
‘Are you trying to suggest that you aren’t?’ His voice was as derisive as the look in his eyes. ‘Because if so you’re wasting your time. I know what you are, why you were waiting in my bed for me, and who arranged for you to be there.’
‘What? This is crazy!’ Gwynneth protested shakily. ‘Who—? Who—?’
‘Stop right there. I don’t want to hear another word. Pick up your money and go,’ Tariq ordered, then frowned as his mobile—the one he used only for calls from the gang—started to ring.
‘Wait,’ he told Gwynneth contradictorily, striding out of the kitchen and closing the door behind him, leaving her inside.
‘Get yourself down to the marina—pronto. Chad wants to see you—now.’ The familiar voice of one of the gang members rasped in Tariq’s ear.
The call was disconnected before he could make any response. He looked at the closed kitchen door. At this delicate stage in the proceedings he couldn’t afford to antagonise the leader of the gang by refusing to obey him.
What on earth had she got herself into? Gwynneth worried anxiously. Suddenly she was seeing last night’s uncharacteristic and admittedly very dangerous and foolish sexual adventure in a very different and sickeningly seedy and unpleasant light. She had been mistaken for a prostitute and she was about to be evicted from her own apartment. The situation she was in couldn’t have been any worse. Could it? What about the fact that not so very long ago she had virtually caught herself wondering if last night’s events might be repeated?
The kitchen door was opening.
Gwynneth took a deep breath.
‘You’ve got this all wrong. I am not a prostitute.’
She certainly wasn’t done up like one, Tariq acknowledged, unable to stop himself from looking not so much at her as for her, the moment he stepped into the kitchen. She wasn’t wearing make-up, her clothes looked more suited to an office worker, and no man looking at her would feel that she was making any attempt to be alluring. And as for last night…He had been the one pleasuring her, not the other way around.
‘I’d agree that you certainly aren’t a good advertisement for your profession,’ he agreed unkindly.
‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ Gwynneth protested. ‘I am not a prostitute! I’m—’
‘An escort?’ Tariq suggested silkily, and gave a condemnatory shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter what name you give what you do. It doesn’t change the fact that you sell your body to men for their sexual pleasure. Do your family know what you do? Your father?’ he demanded abruptly, without knowing why he should be asking her such a question—the kind of question that might almost suggest that he cared.
‘My father is dead.’
So, like him, she was fatherless. That was no reason for him to feel the sudden surge of fellow feeling towards her, Tariq warned himself angrily.
‘So is mine,’ he told her coldly. ‘That is no excuse. Surely there is some other way you could support yourself? Have you no pride? No self-respect? No—?’
‘I don’t need an excuse. And as for me not having any pride—what about you?’ Gwynneth shot back, and took advantage of the sudden silence her attack had gained her to point out pithily, ‘After all, you didn’t exactly reject me, did you?’
What she was saying was perfectly true, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept, Tariq admitted unwillingly.
He could almost feel her angry defiance burning through the air-conditioned chill of the small kitchen. No woman who lived as this one did had the right to look and behave as she was. She was positively exuding righteous indignation, forcing him to see and react to her as a human being and not a piece of human merchandise. He had to put an end to this dangerous emotional connection she had somehow brought to life between them. Apart from anything else, he was going to be late for his meeting on the yacht.
‘You can stop right there,’ he told Gwynneth, crossing the kitchen and taking hold of her arm before she could evade him.
Had he changed his mind? Was he, despite all he had said, going to drag her back to his bed right now and…? A shocking explicit thrill of female excitement shot through her, weakening her so much that she sagged slightly in his hold, leaning into him, her breasts pressing against the hardness of his arm. Without even having to think about it she leaned closer and harder, closing her eyes the better to relish her own pleasure at the sensual contact between her flesh and his. And in that hot darkness she was immediately transported back to the arousal-drenched hours of the previous night, complete with faithful audio as well as visual record.
Tariq looked down into the face turned up towards his own. Her eyes were closed and her lips were open; even her skin seemed to shimmer with sensual luminosity. He had been wrong, he realised savagely as he felt his own body react to her. She was not just good at her chosen profession. She was exceptional. He couldn’t remember any woman arousing him either so immediately or so intensely—and certainly not both at the same time. His fingers bit into the softness of her arm as he made to shake her off, but still he couldn’t drag his gaze from the temptation of her parted lips. Nor could he stop himself from wanting to reach out and fill his free hand with the weight of one of the soft warm breasts she had pressed so deliberately and enticingly against his arm. Was it because of last night that he was having so much trouble rejecting the images his mind was conjuring up? Because of how she had made him feel then that he wanted her so immediately and fiercely now?
Despite the coolness of the kitchen Tariq could feel sweat dampening his flesh whilst his mind raced with the turmoil of his emotions.
‘Forget it,’ he told her brutally, and pushed her away, keeping only a tight hold on one wrist.
Gwynneth’s eyes snapped open, and she sucked in a distressed breath as reality crashed back down. ‘Forget what?’ she demanded, recouping. ‘Forget that you’ve insulted me—verbally, physically and emotionally?’ The numbing effect of her original shock and his sensual appeal had worn off now, leaving her sick with fury and disbelief.
‘Forget those unsubtle plans you’re hatching for tonight,’ he corrected her. ‘Because I’m telling you now, you won’t be spending it my bed.’
No, she wouldn’t. Because it wasn’t his bed. It was hers, and she had the documents to prove it—or at least she hoped she did. She didn’t have anywhere else to stay, and she certainly wasn’t going to be bullied into moving out of the apartment by a man who had mistaken her for a prostitute!
‘Let go of me!’
For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her, that instead he would pull her close to him again and…
The angry hiss of his breath as he exhaled told her she was wrong.
‘I have to go out now,’ he told her flatly. ‘And you had better not be here when I get back.’ The last thing he wanted was to be seen leaving the apartment with a woman of her type—otherwise he would have physically removed
