A Whisper of Disgrace Read online

‘Yes,’ Rosa managed, even though it was difficult to speak when his earthy scent was overpowering her. Who cared that she was being a little economical with the truth? She was Sicilian through and through, and her family would have erupted with rage if they’d heard her claiming to being Italian! But it was easier this way. And she no longer owed her family anything, she reminded herself fiercely. Not a single thing. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘And do you make a habit of pole dancing in nightclubs, Rosa?’

  She shook her head. ‘Never done it before in my life.’

  ‘Interesting. Why not?’

  Rosa screwed up her face because this was a path she didn’t want to venture down. She shook her head. ‘Tell me about you instead!’

  But Kulal was coming to realise that he didn’t want to have to shout to make himself heard, and he didn’t dare stay on the dance floor with her much longer. Much more of her rubbing her voluptuous body against him and he would be unable to move. So why not cut to the chase and continue this conversation somewhere more private—like the seclusion of his villa complex, with the convenience of a nearby bed?

  ‘Why don’t we go somewhere a little quieter?’ he suggested.

  Rosa swayed. She wished he’d given her some kind of warning before he’d loosened his grip on her like that, because suddenly she felt like a ship which had broken anchor. ‘Like where?’

  Kulal frowned as a flicker of irritation skittered over him. Why did women always do this? Why did they pretend total innocence when they both knew exactly how the night was going to end? Trying to suddenly play the innocent was never going to work for someone as foxy as her. He shrugged. ‘I know a place with an amazing view, where we could sit and watch the stars.’

  ‘Oh, I love the stars,’ said Rosa dreamily.

  ‘I love them too. So why don’t we get out of here and find our own little piece of heaven?’

  He made the words sound so poetic, Rosa thought as a feeling of wooziness shimmered over her again. She tried to remember the last time she’d eaten but it seemed like a long time ago. ‘Okay,’ she agreed carefully.

  And Kulal smiled, for it was as easy as he had expected it to be. What Kulal wanted Kulal got. That’s what they always said about him. He’d never had to fight for anything or anyone—except for the one person he’d really wanted, and it hadn’t been possible to fight for her.

  She was looking up at him now and the expression on her face was so soft and … trusting—and he didn’t want her to look at him that way. He wanted her hard and hot and sexy. ‘Let’s go and find my car,’ he said, his gaze skating over her bare arms and legs. ‘Do you have a jacket, or something?’

  Rosa blinked. Did she? She couldn’t recall. She stared down at the satin minidress which was skimming her thighs. She remembered buying it in that ridiculously expensive boutique in Antibes just a few hours earlier, along with the towering shoes which complemented it. It matched the crimson bag which was hanging from her shoulder on a gilt chain, but she didn’t remember it coming with a jacket.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said vaguely.

  The look that Kulal shot her was tinged with apprehension and, as he steered her through the packed dance floor, he suddenly began to regret his impetuous offer. She might look like every man’s fantasy come to life, but now her gait was distinctly unsteady and he began to wonder just how drunk she was. He liked women who weren’t good, that much was true, but he liked them to be sober.

  His hand resting in the small of her back, he felt her stagger as they stepped outside the club and he caught her and steadied her. Thank God there were no paparazzi around, he thought grimly as he gently levered her into the back of the waiting limousine and she slumped back in the seat with her long legs splayed out in front of her, her eyelids fluttering to a close.

  For the first time in his life, Kulal found himself tugging down the hem of a dress in a vain attempt to introduce a modicum of decency. Now was not the time to make the observation that she was wearing panties. Or that they were lace, by the look of them. ‘Just how much have you had to drink?’ he demanded.

  That deeply accented voice penetrated her woolly thoughts and Rosa’s eyes snapped open. The fresh air had made her feel very peculiar but suddenly she felt safe in this luxurious car. And he was still here, she thought. Her black-eyed rescuer from the nightclub who’d held her so closely on the dance floor. She felt very safe with him. So why wasn’t he still holding her? Holding her so tightly that she could forget everything except the sensation of him touching her.

  ‘Come over here and kiss me,’ she mumbled as his jet-dark eyes swam in and out of focus, before the effort of keeping her eyelids open became too much and she closed them again. ‘Please. Just kiss me.’

  Kulal caught hold of her arms and gave her a little shake as he tried to wake her—but he didn’t bother hiding his feeling of disdain, or his growing anger for having allowed himself to get into a situation like this. Did she really think that he wanted to kiss her when she was in that kind of state?

  ‘Rosa,’ he accused. ‘You are drunk!’

  ‘I know I am.’ Her head lolled back against the soft leather seat as his unfamiliar words washed over her. ‘And it feels fantastic.’

  ‘If you could see yourself you would not think that,’ he raged. ‘For a drunken woman is never a pretty sight.’

  ‘But a drunken man is okay, I suppose?’ she mumbled. Because wasn’t this what she’d grown up with? One rule for men and a different one for women. Oh, why was the world so unfair?

  ‘I don’t approve of anyone losing control of themselves in such a way as this, no,’ he retorted. ‘Which is why I’m taking you home.’

  The word mocked her enough to make her lips curve into an empty smile. ‘Home?’ she questioned, and for the first time a trace of bitterness crept into her voice. ‘You’re going to have a bit of a problem with that one. Because I don’t have a home. Not any more.’

  Kulal leaned over her, only just managing to avoid the arms which were reaching up in an attempt to snake themselves around his neck. He wasn’t interested in this particular alcohol-fuelled sob story. He just needed to get rid of her and he needed to do it quickly. ‘Where are you staying?’ he questioned urgently.

  At this, her eyes snapped open and, blurrily, she looked up at him. She tried to sit up, but somehow the effort of moving was just too much. And he had brought her attention to a much bigger problem. Where was she staying?

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she mumbled, tucking her legs underneath her. It was comfortable here and she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She wanted to stay with this man with the dark face and glittering eyes because he made her feel safe and he made her feel excited. She gave a luxurious yawn as she snuggled down against the soft leather seat. ‘So I guess I’d better stay with you.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  WARM SUNLIGHT FLOODED over Rosa’s face and for a moment she wriggled, reluctant to leave the hypnotic dream which felt curiously realistic.

  ‘I know you’re awake.’

  The hard, accented voice crashed into her dream and shattered it—even though it was the voice of the man who was responsible for the erotic images which had punctured her restless night.

  Her throat feeling as dry as a summer beach, Rosa opened her eyes to find a pair of black eyes trained on her, but there was no lazy speculation or flirtation in them this morning. All she could read was anger and … She cringed. Yes, that was definitely contempt she could see flickering in their ebony depths.

  Woozily, she looked around her in an attempt to get her bearings as she tried to piece together the jigsaw memories of last night. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt dry and claggy and she had the feeling that something was very wrong.

  Something was. She stared down at herself in horror as she realised that she was in a very large bed—and she was completely naked!

  Clutching the fine linen sheet to conceal the jiggle of her breasts, she sat up and stared at the man she knew only as
Kulal, who was standing glaring at her from the end of the bed, looking like some kind of dark and avenging angel.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded.

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘If I remembered, I wouldn’t be asking—would I?’

  The disdainful twist of his mouth deepened. ‘You want to know if we had sex?’

  Rosa felt her cheeks grow hot as she stared at him, appalled by his crude question. But beneath her horror beat the memory of how good it had been to have been held by him on the dance floor and she could feel an unwanted tingling in her breasts. She felt as if she’d left one nightmare and woken up in a different one—and she was going to have to be strong if she wanted to get out of this with any degree of dignity. And she could be strong. She’d proved that, hadn’t she? She had survived her mother screaming vitriol at her as she’d made her vile confession. And she’d faced the unbelievable and heartbreaking truth, that her beloved father—the single rock in her life—was not her father at all.

  She prayed for the right amount of bravado as she stared into Kulal’s furious face. ‘And did we?’

  At this, he smiled, and it was the coldest smile that Rosa had ever seen.

  ‘Believe me, garbuua—if you’d had sex with me, you’d remember it, no matter how drunk you were.’

  Rosa met the mocking expression in his eyes, telling herself that she wasn’t going to be intimidated. She just needed to extricate herself from this regrettable situation—but first of all she must face facts.

  ‘So we didn’t?’ she questioned flatly.

  ‘No.’

  She held the sheet a little tighter. ‘Then how come I’m not wearing any clothes?’

  ‘Because I undressed you.’

  ‘You … undressed me? Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ he snapped. ‘Because I wanted to feast my eyes on your delectable body?’ And yet Kulal felt the sudden fierce beat of his heart as he tried to subdue the memory of her firm flesh as he had stripped her bare. He’d taken her clothes off on autopilot, averting his eyes when he had slithered that wispy little pair of lace panties down over her knees. In her uninhibited state she had grabbed him and pulled him down towards her—and he’d had the tantalising experience of having his head buried in her magnificent breasts before he had forced himself to move his aching body away. ‘If you must know, I removed your clothes because I didn’t think you’d want to leave here this morning wearing last night’s crumpled dress, or underwear.’

  The gap in her memory was making Rosa feel frightened but she wasn’t going to let him know that. ‘Is that so?’ she said.

  Kulal heard the disbelief in her voice and felt a slow anger begin to simmer inside him. Didn’t she realise how lucky she’d been that someone like him had been the man she’d targeted last night? That somebody completely lacking in moral scruples could have taken her home and … His mouth hardened. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened,’ he bit out. ‘You couldn’t remember where you were staying, and just before you passed out on the back seat of my limousine, you announced that you wanted to stay with me.’

  Rosa could do absolutely nothing about the blush which stained her cheeks. ‘I said that?’

  ‘You did,’ he agreed grimly. ‘Leaving me with little choice other than to bring you back here to my hotel. My plan was to get you inside as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible—but unfortunately, that was not on your agenda.’

  She saw the furious accusation which had darkened his face. ‘It wasn’t?’ she questioned as a trace of nerves began to creep into her voice.

  ‘Indeed it wasn’t. You decided that as many of the people in the immediate vicinity and beyond should know exactly what you wanted—and what you wanted was to go down to the beach and look at the sky… .’

  Oh, God. It was all coming back to her now. He’d promised to take her somewhere to look at the stars. He’d said that to her in the nightclub as he’d held her in his arms. And in that moment, she felt as if he’d been offering her a slice of paradise. ‘What … what happened?’ she whispered.

  ‘I decided that an excess of alcohol, a senseless female and close proximity to the Mediterranean were a potentially lethal combination and so I carried you in here, undressed you—and put you to bed.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘So where did you sleep?’ she questioned pointedly.

  He gave a short laugh. ‘When you rent a hotel villa overlooking the Mediterranean, there tends to be more than one bedroom. In fact, there are three—so I slept in the one next door.’

  Rosa’s mind was spinning as she listened to his explanation, but the one thought which was uppermost was that her virtue was still intact—and that surprised her. Because she did remember the heady rush of abandonment she’d felt as he’d held her on the dance floor. She wasn’t experienced, but she didn’t need to be to realise that she’d been putty in his hands last night. That if he hadn’t been so moral, then he would have been lying beside her now. Because she had wanted him. Come to think of it, she still wanted him.

  He had moved away from the bed and now that he was at a distance it gave her a better opportunity to study him. She wondered where he was from—his rich accent certainly didn’t sound Mediterranean and his skin was much too dark.

  ‘Who are you?’ she questioned suddenly.

  Kulal tensed, realising that he had been expecting this question a whole lot sooner and knowing that his answer would bring with it a whole new set of baggage. Should he lie? Adopt some fictitious identity, knowing that their paths would never cross again? But that might add fuel to a possibly combustive situation. She had already humiliated herself through her drunken behaviour—if she then discovered that he was lying to her, then mightn’t she take out her shame on him? He knew women well enough to know that they were impossible when you rejected them. So why not keep her sweet? Why not make her appreciate just how much he had done for her?

  ‘My name is Kulal,’ he said.

  ‘I already know that bit. Where are you from—you’re not Mediterranean, are you?’

  ‘No, I am not. I come from a country called Zahrastan.’ He searched her face for signs of recognition. ‘Any idea where that is?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it. Should I have done?’

  Kulal told himself that he shouldn’t have been surprised. He wouldn’t really expect a pole-dancing socialite to know much about the Arabian principality which produced a vast tranche of the world’s oil supply, would he? She probably thought of little else other than which colour she was going to paint her pretty little toenails each day. ‘I suggest you try acquainting yourself with a map of the world if you want to find out its exact position.’ His voice was dismissive as he slanted her a cool look. ‘Now, have I answered all your questions to your satisfaction?’

  She wanted to say that no, he hadn’t. She wanted to ask him if they couldn’t just forget about the disastrous way the evening had ended. If only it was possible to rewind life and stop at the bit you liked best. When she’d been dancing with him it had all felt so … promising. But the repressive note in his voice and the unwelcoming look on his face made her realise that this was not a conversation he was keen on extending. She lifted her fingertips to her temples as if that might help reduce the pounding inside her skull, but it didn’t.

  ‘My head hurts,’ she said, painfully aware that the first and last hangover of her life should have been conducted in front of such a critical audience.

  Kulal nodded as he saw an acceptable exit sign looming ahead. ‘So why don’t you get showered and dressed?’ he suggested smoothly. ‘Your things are hanging up in the bathroom and I can order you something to eat. You’ll feel much better once you’ve had some breakfast—’

  ‘I don’t want any breakfast,’ she snapped, realising that he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

  ‘You ought to. When did you last eat?’

  She shook
her head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Reluctantly, he found his gaze drawn to her eyes which had been illuminated by the bright sunshine, and for the first time he noticed that their darkness was broken by flecks of green and gold which made him think of the filtered sunlight you sometimes found in a quiet forest glade. But despite their natural beauty, there was no disguising the shadows which lay beneath them—shadows which were not caused simply by her smudged mascara. Her eyes looked empty, he realised—as if she had seen something which had haunted her. And she was pale. Very pale. Beneath that smooth olive skin of hers, she had the pinched look of a woman who had stopped caring—not about her appearance, but about life itself.

  And that was not his business.

  He was a royal prince and he was about to announce his engagement to a royal princess. The last thing he needed was to start worrying about the welfare of some spoiled little rich girl who had got herself plastered. Thank God he’d been strong enough to walk away from the promise of her amazing body—he should start being grateful for the lucky escape he’d had.

  But something was nagging at his conscience and he found himself unable to ignore it.

  ‘You’re not leaving here until you’ve eaten something,’ he said forcefully.

  ‘And you’d be prepared to stop me, would you?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t intend to pick you up for a second time if you pass out and I don’t want the drama of a French ambulance screaming to a halt outside. So why don’t you do something sensible for the first time in your life and eat something?’ he said, turning on his heel and heading for the door.

  Rosa stood watching as the door banged shut behind him and she could have burst into howls of frustration. How dare he judge her and find her wanting—when last night he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her?

  He could do anything he liked, she realised, because she had put herself in a position to be judged. Angrily, she pushed aside the sheet and headed for the bathroom, recoiling as she caught sight of her reflection in the huge mirror. It was a shock on so many levels, because walking around naked wasn’t something she ever did. In Sicily, she always wore a silk nightgown to preserve her modesty because that was how she’d been brought up.