A Whisper of Disgrace Read online

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said suddenly.

  Rosa didn’t react. It had been one of the first lessons she had been taught—never show a stranger what you are thinking. She had broken that rule the other night, under the influence of the unaccustomed champagne, but she would not be repeating such a fundamental mistake tonight.

  ‘And who am I?’ she questioned lightly, thinking that perhaps he could provide a better answer than any she could come up with. Because she didn’t seem to know who she was herself any more.

  He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Your name is Rosa Corretti and you are a member of the prestigious Sicilian family of that name.’

  Rosa nodded. At least he hadn’t come out with the usual accusatory stereotype, as people usually did. They discovered that you came from a powerful family with a sometimes questionable past, and assumed that you were all gangsters. Hadn’t that been one of the reasons why she’d been so protected during her upbringing—to keep her away from the judgement of the outside world, as well as to protect her innocence?

  ‘Bravo, Sheikh Kulal Al-Dimashqi,’ she said softly. ‘And what else have you found out about me?’

  He stared at her. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his words edged with frustration.

  ‘Nothing?’

  He shook his head. He had some of the best intelligence sources in the world, but when it came to finding out more about the daughter of Carlo Corretti, it seemed that they had come up against a brick wall. There was plenty about her two brothers and a whole bunch of colourful cousins, but Rosa might as well not have existed for all the information they’d been able to provide. ‘Absolutely nothing. Oh, I know which schools you went to and that you studied linguistics at the University of Palermo, but other than that, not a thing. No lists of lovers and no recorded misdemeanours. No earlier experimentations with pole dancing. You come from a society which seems expert in keeping secrets,’ he observed caustically.

  Somehow Rosa suppressed a bitter laugh. He didn’t know the half of it. Not just a society which was good at keeping secrets, but a family which was riddled with them. ‘I think I would agree with that,’ she said coolly.

  Kulal was starting to feel confused and it was not a feeling he was used to. Because Rosa Corretti was perplexing him. The other night, her sexuality had shimmered off her half-clothed frame like the bright haloes of light which gleamed around the planet Saturn. But tonight, she seemed proud and untouchable. And why was the daughter of such a wealthy dynasty staying in a humble hotel room like this?

  ‘So what brings you to the French Riviera?’ he questioned.

  Rosa wondered what he would say if she told him. How he would react if she explained that her identity crisis was very real and not the characteristic angst of some spoiled little rich girl. And for a second she was tempted to tell him. To unburden herself to someone who didn’t know the Corretti family, and who didn’t particularly care about them. Wouldn’t it be liberating to share her terrible story with someone else and to free herself from the resulting poison which had flooded through her veins?

  But old habits died hard and Rosa was too well-taught in the art of keeping secrets to dare divulge the darkest one of all to this man who was dominating the small room. She could tell him something, yes—she just could not tell him everything.

  ‘I wanted to get away,’ she said, giving a careless shrug of her shoulders as if to add credence to her statement. ‘To escape from home and see a little of the world. Lots of women my age do that. It’s perfectly normal.’

  But a trip to see the world did not tend to make a person look so haunted, Kulal thought. His eyes narrowed. ‘So it’s a temporary trip?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And when are you planning to go back?’

  His question was unexpected and it made her confront what she had been doing her best not to confront. Rosa shuddered. Back to what? To a home she no longer recognised and a family who had changed beyond recognition as the result of a few spilled and deadly words?

  ‘I’m not,’ she said forcefully. ‘I’m never going back to Sicily!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KULAL WATCHED ROSA closely as she bit out her heartfelt words—more closely than he usually bothered to watch any woman, but by now she was beginning to perplex him. He had seen the play of emotions which had crossed her beautiful face when he’d asked her about her native Sicily. He had seen wariness and fear. Disgust too. Yes, he had definitely seen disgust when she had declared that she was never going back home. Someone more curious might have wondered what had caused such an extreme reaction, but he had never been a man to delve too deeply. He was more interested in the facts than in what lay behind them.

  ‘So you will find employment here?’ he mused. ‘Or perhaps you are wealthy enough to live comfortably without any need to go out to work?’

  If he hadn’t hit on such a raw nerve, then Rosa might have told him to keep his intrusive questions to himself. Because there always had been money whenever she’d wanted it and plenty of it too. A trust fund had been put in place for her from the moment she’d been born and she’d been able to access it any time she liked. Sometimes she’d wondered what life might have been like if she’d had to save up in order to buy the latest expensive pair of shoes she’d coveted, but that was something she’d never experienced. At least, not until now. Because quickly following the text summoning her home had come another, informing her that all access to her funds had been frozen. That there was no more money to be had.

  She knew exactly what her family were trying to do.

  They were trying to force her to go back to Sicily by starving her out!

  She’d known that they could be ruthless. She’d seen them dispose of enemies and workers—even husbands and wives—she just hadn’t realised that the same ruthlessness could be directed at her.

  She stared at Kulal as his question lodged in her mind, suddenly realising that even if she did try to go out to work that her options open to her were very limited. She had a respectable degree in languages, but she wasn’t actually trained in anything, was she?

  ‘Actually, I’m not wealthy,’ she said. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ he persisted.

  Frustration made her turn on him again. Was he getting some kind of kick by watching her squirm? ‘What I do or I don’t do is none of your business.’

  ‘But I could make it my business.’

  His tone had softened and instinctively Rosa stiffened, for she suspected that this was a man who didn’t really do soft. She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I think we could offer each other mutual help in a time of mutual need.’

  She looked at him suspiciously. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  He took a step forward, closing some of the space between them, and he saw from the sudden tension in her body that she was acutely aware of that fact. As was he … ‘I think you’re running from something, Rosa,’ he said as he stared down into her big, dark eyes. ‘Something or someone. I also think that you’re hiding—that you don’t want anyone to know you’re here. And that you’re broke. Or at least, if not broke, then rapidly running out of funds.’

  Rosa swallowed because his proximity was making her feel as unsettled as his perception. And how spooky was that, when pretty much everything he’d guessed had been true? Soon after she’d found out that her funds had been frozen, she had sold a bracelet to a second-hand jeweller in nearby Nice, but had received much less for it than she’d been expecting. And wasn’t it funny how money didn’t seem to go anywhere, especially when you weren’t used to living frugally? Especially when she’d blown most of her budget on a tiny crimson dress which had got her into all this trouble.

  ‘Why are you so interested in me?’ she whispered.

  Kulal’s mouth flattened into an uncompromising line. Time to destroy any emerging fantasies which might destabilise what he was about to say. ‘I’m not interested in
you, habeebi,’ he said softly. ‘But more in what we can offer each other.’

  Beneath the slippery fabric of her gown, Rosa felt the prickling of her skin and she wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear. Was he going to suggest that they continue where they’d left off the other day, when they were so rudely interrupted in the garden of his hotel villa? And if he did say that … if he pulled her in his arms and kissed her with the same kind of hungry passion she’d tasted the other day, would she honestly be able to push him away?

  The words seemed to be having difficulty leaving her mouth, but she knew she had to say them. ‘What kind of offer?’

  Kulal’s lips curved into a smile of satisfaction as he read the unmistakable signs of sexual desire on her face, and knew he was home and dry.

  ‘My offer of marriage,’ he said.

  His words echoed around the room and a feeling of unreality began to wash over Rosa as she stared into his black eyes. She tried to wonder what it would be like if he’d made his suggestion with some degree of affection, rather than with that cruel and calculating expression. But she was a Corretti, wasn’t she? And therefore ideally equipped to deal with his proposal in the same businesslike way as he’d made it.

  ‘Marry you?’ she said drily. ‘Don’t you have someone more suitable you could ask? Perhaps somebody you’ve known longer than five minutes, in a relationship which is founded on more than lust and insults?’

  Briefly, Kulal thought of Ayesha and wondered whether now was the time to reveal his broken engagement. In terms of getting the Corretti girl to agree to his plan, surely it would be better to keep it secret? But he remembered the bitterness on her face as she’d spoken disparagingly about ‘secrets’ and figured that she was bound to find out some time. Far better it came from him than from some mischievous news source.

  ‘Actually, I had a fiancée,’ he said. ‘Until very recently.’

  Rosa’s eyes narrowed. ‘How recently?’

  There was a pause. ‘Until yesterday.’

  The brutal time scale meant that no mental calculations were necessary and she stared at him in disbelief. ‘You mean you … you made love to me when you were engaged to another woman?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t classify kissing someone who has just hurled themselves into my arms as “making love.”‘

  ‘You bastard,’ she said quietly. ‘You complete and utter bastard. You know damned well that if I hadn’t been drunk then, you would have ended up in my bed that night.’

  Kulal only just managed to repress a shudder. It was outrageous that he was going to have to marry a woman like this. A woman who showed no shame about spreading her favours so widely. Yes, he liked his lovers to be liberated—of course he did—but a wife was something completely different. That a royal prince should take such a tramp as his bride was unthinkable! Until he reminded himself that this was intended to be nothing but a temporary marriage and that her virtue was irrelevant. He remembered the way she’d kissed him. The way she’d pressed her delicious body into his so her magnificent breasts had flattened against his chest. At least she would come to the bridal chamber with a satisfying degree of sexual knowledge.

  ‘I was behaving no differently to how men have always behaved,’ he drawled.

  ‘You mean you expected your fiancée to ignore your outrageous behaviour?’

  ‘I expected my fiancée to know nothing about what I was doing,’ he said. ‘But it seems I was wrong. And it also seems she didn’t understand that a man owes it to his future bride to gain as much experience as possible before he takes her innocence on their wedding night.’

  Rosa almost laughed at his insolence. ‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’

  ‘What’s funny about it?’

  ‘You’re making it sound as if you were doing her a favour by sleeping with as many women as possible.’

  ‘That is one way of looking at it,’ he agreed seriously. ‘And it is certainly a valid point. Generations of men from all cultures have taken a comprehensive amount of lovers before tying themselves down to marriage. For no woman wants a man who is a novice in the art of lovemaking.’

  ‘And no woman wants a man who is so arrogant that he doesn’t realise what a jerk he’s being!’

  ‘A jerk?’ he ground out. ‘You dare to call the sheikh of Zahrastan a jerk?’

  ‘I do when it happens to be true.’

  His eyes narrowed, but he could not deny the rush of blood to his groin, because her unprecedented insolence was inexplicably turning him on. ‘And tell me this, Rosa Corretti—are you always so outspoken?’

  In truth, no—she wasn’t. The old Rosa was often button-lipped and uptight. She never voiced the scandalous thoughts which sometimes plagued her because that was the way she’d been brought up. To be serene and calm and ladylike. To hide her feelings behind a polished exterior. But what had been the point of playing her obedient role to perfection when everyone else had been deceiving her?

  This man Kulal had deceived her too. He hadn’t bothered telling her he was engaged to be married when he had practically glued himself to her on the dance floor, so why on earth would she tread carefully to spare his feelings? She doubted whether he had any!

  ‘My outspokenness is irrelevant,’ she snapped. ‘And you haven’t explained why you’ve made this astonishing proposal of marriage.’

  ‘To protect my reputation,’ he said.

  She gave a short laugh. So he was self-serving as well as arrogant. ‘Surprise, surprise.’

  ‘And to protect yours.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  There was a pause while he chose his words, though he was finding it difficult to keep the irritation from his voice. ‘My brother has found out that we spent the night together, so the information is out there. From what I understand, your own family is pretty good at information gathering.’ He glanced at her from beneath the half-shuttered lids of his eyes as he watched her body tense. ‘How do you think they might react if they discover you’ve been sleeping with an Arabian prince?’

  She shuddered to think how they’d react if she’d been sleeping with anyone. ‘But we didn’t sleep together!’ she hissed. ‘You know we didn’t.’

  ‘And you think anyone is likely to believe that?’

  Distractedly, Rosa rubbed the palm of her hand back and forth over her lips as his words hit home. With a shudder, she tried to imagine Alessandro and Santo’s reaction to the news that their baby sister had been behaving like a puttana. The family would still be reeling from her mother’s shocking disclosure—which would probably make their reaction even harsher than normal. She was still a Corretti, wasn’t she? And a female Corretti, to boot. Bottom line was that her innocence would be seen as having been compromised, and all hell would be let loose. She could imagine them sending out a gang of heavies to bring her back again. Even worse—they might come and get her themselves.

  ‘Mannaggia,’ she whispered unthinkingly. ‘What a fool I have been.’

  It occurred to Kulal that not once during the entire conversation had she made any attempt to flirt with him, nor to show any kind of gratitude that he was offering a solution to her predicament. Why, she barely seemed aware of the bed in one corner of the room—a fact which was now beginning to dominate his thoughts. If it had been anyone else, he would have taken her into his arms and started to kiss her, but her face was so full of a simmering rage that he thought it unwise to try. He was beginning to realise that the situation was balanced on a knife edge, and that now he wanted her to agree to a plan which had initially repulsed him.

  Because Kulal was an expert at finding the good in a bad situation. It was what had sustained him during his lonely childhood. He had refused to dwell on the fact that his mother’s love had been brutally torn from him, and to focus instead on the unparalleled freedom which he had enjoyed within the palace walls. He had learnt to be utterly self-sufficient and hit out at anyone who should ever dare to pity him.
/>   Now he looked at Rosa Corretti and thought about the benefits of having her as his wife. He thought about what enjoyment her curvaceous beauty would afford him. A body which he had touched only briefly would become his to play with as he pleased! And once his passion for her had worn off, he could send her on her way.

  ‘A short marriage which can be dissolved once the dust has settled,’ he elaborated. ‘A marriage which could be beneficial to us both.’

  She had lifted her head and was staring at him as if she was seeing him for the first time and didn’t very much like what she saw.

  ‘Beneficial?’ she snorted. ‘I think not. I think that marriage to you would be something of a nightmare.’

  ‘Are you so sure?’ he mocked.

  ‘Absolutely positive!’ she asserted, until she forced herself to confront an alternative which was even worse. She couldn’t go home and yet she couldn’t stay here with rapidly dwindling resources. Even if she ran to somewhere else and found herself a humble job, her family would surely come after her and find her. She forced herself to smile. ‘But I can see that it would have some advantages.’

  ‘You mean you’re now agreeing to my proposition?’

  ‘Only on certain conditions.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ he stated softly. ‘You don’t get to bargain with a sheikh.’

  ‘Oh, but I do!’ she said firmly. ‘Because you need this marriage more than I do!’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know so.’ She shot him a look of pure challenge. ‘You’re afraid of what my brothers might do when they find out about our liaison, aren’t you?’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ His lips curled with derision. ‘Kulal Al-Dimashqi is afraid of no one, Rosa. Not now and not ever. But I love my country and the fallout from our ill-advised night together could bring shame on our royal house.’ There was a pause. ‘You have no need to worry about tying yourself to me for a lifetime if that is what gives you cause for hesitation, for I will happily give you a divorce once a suitable time has elapsed.’